For many people I know, missing the sunset on Santa Monica pier would have been a sad start to a vacation. I know people who are so attached to their plans, that a missed event throws their moods into a tail spin. I am NOT one of those people.
I find it easy to spot the silver lining in almost every situation. Yep, I’m an optimist.
Before we headed out on our Route 66 Adventure, I had spent months researching the route, choosing the perfect book with the best directions, deciding what sites were essential and which we could bypass if we ran out of time, and many more details. 
I had lists sorted by states and further sorted by our schedule. The EZ 66 Guide was safely packed in my suitcase before I even loaded my clothes. A folder I had created with day-by-day guides was also packed in a safe place.
We arrived in California, got everything done we needed to do to set off on our adventure and, horror of horrors – NO lists of sites to see. NO day-by-day tips! OH NO! I had taken out some of the information to add some last-minute updates and forgot to repack them.
I discovered this on the morning we were due to set out on our cross-country odyssey. The night before I had missed the sunset and now I was missing a whole slew of pages of stuff I had spent months researching. It’s enough to throw everything off kilter – or not. We still had the EZ 66 Guide. We still had additional maps.
We decided to make the most of it and make the whole trip more spontaneous. In fact, we could turn it around. We created a new plan as we drove east. We would try to catch some sunsets along the way to make up for missing the one off the California coast. We would ask people we encountered along the way for their favorite spots. We would be even more adventurous!
In the end, we spent two weeks having a blast. We stopped when we saw anything that caught our eye. We managed to take in sunsets in the rear view in Arizona, from our hotel room in New Mexico, across fields in Texas and Kansas. We met loads of new “friends” from the road.
Adventure demands flexibility and adaptation. There’s a whole world out there waiting to be explored … join us as we share this little piece of it.
As we finalized our plans for our Route 66 trip, we added a sunset stop at the Santa Monica pier to grab some shots of that end of the road. It’s the traditional “end” of the road since Route 66 was created to help people get from Chicago to the California coast. We wanted to take the time to sit and enjoy the sunset, so we made our way to the Saturday-evening-crowd-packed pier. We intended to hit the road early Sunday morning so we could take advantage of quiet time on the roads to get out of the busy Los Angeles area.
We actually had three things on the agenda for our visit to the pier:
A break in the action at the kiosk gave us an opening and we met Ian, the on-duty salesperson and friend of the kiosk’s owner. For a moment, I was saddened to learn the owner was not there, then, as we chatted with Ian, we learned he is a fixture on the Mother Road. In fact, there is a bit of a community of those who travel it regularly. They know each other, stay in contact, and are friends.
The best part of having your own plan to see the world is being able to make it fit your personal wishes. That was especially true of the “O” trip. Greg and I wanted to go somewhere romantic, European and hopefully Italian. Neither of us had ever been to Venice (well, to be fair, I spent a few hours there on a day trip once about 25 years ago), so we were looking to head to the “City of Bridges.”
It turns out one of the doges credited with founding the city was 
Exhausted and full, we climbed the three flights of stairs to the Gianduja room and slept under a soft, fluffy comforter awaking to the forecast for another gray, rainy Venetian day. It was, indeed, gray, but the rain was holding off so we jumped onto a vaporetto (Venetian buses are boats!) and headed for the island of Murano to see how the famous glass is made and wander through the shops in search of a real Murano glass souvenir.
The glass museum posted notices that pictures are not permitted, but it’s worth a visit before you hit the shops. You learn about the island’s history and techniques used to produce the myriad of pieces you’ll see – everything from lamps and chandeliers to earrings and cufflinks. One shop sported an incredible selection of insects made of glass; another was brightly lit with ornate chandeliers. Snapping a few shots of the scenes and shopping left us craving lunch, so we stopped into a little restaurant and grabbed something to warm up after spending the morning walking around in the cool dampness of the day.
We’d scheduled a food tour for Monday mid-day and met Francesca at one of the dozens of churches in the center of Venice along with the other three people who would be taking the tour with us. We met a pair of sisters from England and a single mom from Berkeley, California and headed out to learn about Venice, Italian wines and something called ciccheti (the Italian word for tapas). What fun! The sun flirted with us and the rain held off as we weaved our way through passageways to four different bars to try the flavors of Venice. 
We wandered past the fruit and vegetable market and marveled at the huge purple artichokes and pink cabbage. The tour was over too soon. We decided to continue on our own, discovering more hidden treasures in a city known for its challenging layout.
We snapped a shot of a father and his daughter walking near a church. We found the scene depicted in a painting we have in our home and tried to recreate it in a photograph.
Of course, our home is where we live MOST of the time. It’s where we spend the work weeks and every weekend we can’t get away to somewhere. So it really is a permanent home, not a temporary second residence. That said, walking around it, we hope our visitors get a sense of our desire to see the world. We decorated it with maps and globes and compass roses that evoke travel.
The walls are canvases where we showcase images we have captured on our vacations. The food we serve to our guests gives an insight into the flavors we’ve discovered in hidden corners of cities and towns across the globe.
Not only is our town walkable, there is so much to see and do. It’s full of interesting architecture, museums, restaurants, bars, shops and more. Not only that, but our little neighborhood is like the neighborhoods of my youth. Young couples hang out and chat while their children play on the cul-de-sacs. Slightly older kids ride their bikes and scooters along the paths that encircle the neighborhood, winding their way to a huge city park nearby. Friends and strangers smile and exchange hellos as they wander those same pathways, some with dogs happily trotting along.
When we first arrived at our hotel, the clerks provided a list of tours offered by licensed, local guides. So we jumped at the chance to take a tour of the castle with a personal guide and booked a three-hour walking tour (“a three-hour tour” … you’ll thank us later for that ear worm) for the following day.
You could even see the differences in the stones through the ages. We continued down the hill through Prague’s oldest vineyard, bidding Eva goodbye right where – and exactly three hours after – we started. All-in-all, it was a great introduction to Prague history and architecture from someone who really knew her stuff and was incredibly charming. Starved, we had a late lunch at a riverside restaurant Eva had recommended just as it started to rain.
Then, we were led to inner sanctum of the spa for our 90-minute couples’ massage. Judy and I are huge fans of massage therapy, having learned the value of a good, relaxing time at the hands of a professional muscle manipulator, but this was something completely different. For one, the room’s décor was in the manner of old Bali, with ancient looking teak massage tables, tropical flowers and heady aromas. Our massages were traditional Balinese deep tissue rub downs; at one point, the therapists even climbed up on the tables to ensure they applied appropriate pressure on our backs! Too soon, however, the massages were done, and we had about 30 minutes before our dinner reservation that was part of the “Fairytale Afternoon” package. We returned to our rooms to shower and dress, and then headed downstairs.
The next day, Thursday, we were up early to get some pictures and make our way to another kind of spa experience. Thursday was the coldest day of our visit, but also the clearest, so we walked down to the river and got some excellent shots in a park and along the waterfront.
The receptionist told us the beer bath is very good for the skin and metabolism. I cannot vouch for that, but I can tell you that the experience is nothing like we’ve ever experienced before and completely worth the price of admission (which was still quite affordable). We paid for the deluxe package that included the larger of the rooms…big enough for a small party with its three hot tubs and spacious straw bed for relaxing. I’ll let your mind wander from there…
He let me know our bags were delayed, would arrive the next day and be delivered to our home. This was GREAT customer service in my view…we didn’t have to wait until all the bags came down the carousel before realizing that ours didn’t make it.
A recent trip is proof that good advertising works. A series of attractive and funny poster-sized ads promoting 
First stop – a nice, icy, tropical adult beverage.
Our only full day included a must-see exhibit at a local art gallery, 
Tummies rumbling, we came upon a hidden gem of an Italian place we had been before. Wood-fired pizzas are a specialty at 