Travel

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Two Weeks in Tokyo, Part 2: Sumo, Great Waves, and Harajuku Culture

C faces off against a sumo wrestler in the ring

My daughter C and I were up around 5 AM on our second full day in Tokyo. Early, yes, but still far better than I expected so early in a trip half way around the world. I made sure C had some breakfast goodies from a nearby convenience store and I took an early morning of walk over to Tokyo Tower. I returned in good time and we met CZ and Little CZ at the Roppongi metro station where we hopped on a train to the Sumida district.

One of the several sumo wrestler statues on the street near the famous Kokugikan stadium in Sumida

We were heading there to take part in a lunch with sumo wrestlers at the Yokozuna Tonkatsu restaurant. The Sumida district is famous for sumo wrestling. Japan’s first sumo tournament was held here in 1768 and the stadium there continues to host three of the six Grand Sumo tournaments held each year. Many professional sumo wrestlers live and train in the area as well.

We had a little over an hour to kill before our lunch and wrestling show began at 11:00, so we walked up to the Kokugikan stadium, where the grand sumo tournaments take place. I was on the hunt for the sumo wrestler statues I had heard dotted the area. I wish I could say the walk was pleasant, but the temperature was quite warm and Sumida district exuded an almost-deserted feel on a Saturday morning, a sharp contrast from the hustle and bustle of Roppongi. The biggest bit of excitement was when I finally found the statues and when two young, but of course very large, sumo wrestlers came into a convenience store where we were buying drinks. Their presence caused a bit of a stir, not only with us but also the Japanese patrons, but they were not particularly friendly.

We arrived just in time for our sumo lunch. The food, a traditional tonkatsu or breaded fried pork cutlet, rice, and miso soup, was not particularly to our liking, but the fact that it is often served to sumo wrestlers and at this restaurant the meal is cooked by retired sumo wrestlers made it more special. However, it was the after lunch entertainment we were here for. During lunch, the restaurant showed a short film on sumo and then brought out two of their retired professional wrestlers to explain the key rules and procedures of the sport and give live demonstrations. Then, we the lunch-goers, had the opportunity to don hilarious suits and step into the ring. My hand shot up first, much to the amusement of my daughter and Little CZ. Following my triumphant (and silly) attempt, they also agreed to get into the ring. All in all, it was great fun.

The Sumida Hokusai Museum

We stopped next at the museum dedicated to Sumida Hokusai, the Edo-era ukiyo-e or woodblock print artist whose work “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” is one of the most recognizable paintings in the world. Hokusai was born in and lived the majority of his 90 years in the district that now takes his name. We spent about an hour here. Though both C and Little CZ were familiar with the famous Great Wave painting and found some interest in the comic-like woodblock prints of Hokusai and a few of the interactive displays, the museum involved far more reading and staring in wonder at art works than a 10 and 12 year old were prepared to give, especially with so much more to see in do in Tokyo awaiting them. Truth be told, the museum exhibits use up only two floors of the building and CZ and I were also ready to move on to more sightseeing.

The original plan had been for C and I to return to our hotel after the museum; I had been quite sure that by that time we would either be succumbing to jet lag or dangerously close to doing so. Yet again, surprisingly, we were not. With the Sunday weather forecast including rain, we decided to join CZ and Little CZ on a jaunt to preview some of Harajuku’s culture ahead of our planned visit the next day.

Left: Rainbow grilled cheese; Center: Entrance to Takeshita Street; Right: Plastic models of scrumptious crepes

We made a beeline to the most famous part of Harajuku, Takeshita Street, where we would find many of the wild, wonderful, and wacky parts of Japanese youth culture. C desperately wanted to check out the fashion stores and quickly disappeared into one, but we dragged her out soon enough to have some snacks. First up were some of Harajuku’s famous crepes that have been filling up customers on Takeshita Street since the 1970s. Unlike French crepes, the Japanese crepes are thinner, crispier, stuffed full of goodies like fresh fruit, whipped cream, syrup, and ice cream, and wrapped up like cones so they can be eaten on the go. Oh my were they good. We followed up the sweet with the savory, chowing down on some breaded rainbow cheese, which was just okay.

C in front of the Torii gate to Meiji Shrine and a selection of the sake barrels donated to Meiji

We then spent a good hour in one of the ubiquitous toy capsule stores spending coins like there was no tomorrow. CZ and I found it nearly as addictive as the kids! Then we meandered over to Meiji Jingu, one of the most important Shinto shrines in Tokyo. It is an oasis of green forest in the middle of the world’s most populous city; there are over 100,000 trees of some 230 varieties planted over 170 acres. I wanted some space, tranquility, and more muted colors after the crowded, color explosion of Harajuku. We spent maybe 20 minutes there, but after so many hours of walking, we opted to call it a day. I thought we might get back to Meiji again the following day, but alas, we did not.

It was rainy on Sunday morning. I had forgotten that June was Japan’s wettest month and in all the travel planning had failed to check this key bit of information. Having already covered some of Harajuku the day before though, we had the flexibility for a later start. Off we all went to Shibuya on the bus. We were already getting a good handle on Tokyo’s massive public transportation network and felt, rightly I think, pretty proud of it.

Great view of the Shibuya Scramble from the Starbucks

We first stopped at the famous statue of Hachiko, a real dog who waited faithfully each day outside of Shibuya Station even many years after his owner died. It is a beautiful story of loyalty and unconditional love that has made Hachiko one of the most famous dogs in the world, nearly 90 years after he passed away. We then made our way across to the Shibuya Scramble, the famous spot where seven roads converge and traffic lights signal for all pedestrians to cross at the same time. Though there are several vantage points to watch the crossing, we chose the Starbucks. The price of admission to the viewing windows was a green tea latte for myself and a cookie for C.

We leisurely made our way on foot back to Harajuku by way of another lost hour in a toy capsule store and a lovely ramen and tea lunch at a small mom and pop shop. Once again on Takeshita Street, we had a little time for window shopping and people gawking, before arriving at Harry’s Harajuku Terrace for our 2 PM appointment with the hedgehogs, chinchillas, and otters of this animal cafe.

There are many, many, MANY animal cafes to choose from in Tokyo. Initially, C had really wanted to visit a dog cafe with Shiba Inus, but we realized that was far too vanilla a choice from the options available. Should we see owls? Snakes? Fennec Foxes? As we were planning, I sent CZ a message of this particular cafe in Harajuku and within minutes of sending it she called. She didn’t even say hello, only “OTTERS!” And thus our decision was made. Though the hedgehogs were very cute, C and I had had our fair of experience with wild hedgehogs in Malawi, so they were not all that new for us. The chinchillas were adorable, but Harry’s limited the interaction with them. The otters were indeed the stars of the day. In our special interaction period with them (for an extra fee) they could not have given a fig about us; they just wanted their treats and we were merely in the way. But it was still a great experience.

Today’s purikura turned my daughter into an anime-like character

After Harry’s, CZ and Little CZ broke off for their own fun while I took my daughter C to the Purikura booths. “Purikura” is short for purinto kurabu (or “print club”), which are very popular photo booths where one can make all sorts of stylized photos. This is *not* the US version of the four poses, four printed photos booths. This is so, SO much more. Purikura had been a big activity when I lived in Japan in the late 1990s. Then though, you or you and a friend or a group of friends would have your photo printed on a variety of backgrounds to make mini stickers to share. Now, I found the photos and editing options are incredibly advanced. We struggled to figure out the process with the Japanese instructions, but C still had a fun time with it.

Dinner is served! My delicious hamburger steak with grilled miso cream cheese

Then we were off to meet my friend Koki, who had been my big’s big in my college’s co-ed service fraternity. Since college, Koki and I had met only one other time, around 1998, when I spent two weeks in Tokyo attempting to learn Japanese. Yet, I recognized him immediately. The three of us had dinner at Niku no Mori, a very small traditional counter service restaurant specializing in the very popular Japanese hamburger steak. It is more like an American meatloaf, usually cooked with onion, egg, and panko crumbs, and served over rice. Niku no Mori offered it also with a grilled miso coated slab of cream cheese.

I really enjoyed catching up with Koki over dinner and then he walked with us along Takeshita Street while C did a little Japan-style thrifting. We said goodnight to Koki at the train station and C and I returned to the hotel.

Day 3 in the books and still no real jet lag to speak of…

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Two Weeks in Tokyo, Part 1: Preparation & First Days

My view of Tokyo Tower on a glorious summer morning

A trip long time in the works

Right now travel to Japan is hot. Everyone and their brother and their third cousin twice removed has been making their way to the Land of the Rising Sun. The government closed the country to tourists for over two years during the COVID-19 pandemic, with individual travelers only being able to enter after 2 1/2 years. Thus a weak yen and people no longer wanting to put off their trip of a lifetime, Japan is now seeing record-breaking numbers of visitors.

Our trip though had been long in the making. I have wanted to take my daughter for many years. When she was in the first grade she did a presentation on Japan as the place she wanted to visit the most because, she said, the people there cared deeply about nature (this is the same kid who broke out in sobs during the class viewing of the great floating garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean). That same year C told her teacher she was part-Japanese so that could march in the school’s international parade with the small contingent of Japanese students.

C in heaven in the Japanese snack aisle

C has loved Pokémon, anime, Nintendo, and Japanese snacks for several years, and now as a teenager is very keen on the fashion. She has wanted to go to Japan soooo bad. Also, we love Disney amusement parks and Tokyo was the final park for us to visit (after four times each to Florida and Shanghai, two times to Paris, two times to California, and one time to Hong Kong).  And over 20 years ago I was an English teacher in Western Japan, and though we would not make it to my Japanese hometown, I still wanted to introduce my daughter to this country where I made so many memories.

I initially planned for us to visit while we were in Malawi, though the long distance and the complicated route were making me rethink it. Then the plan, for April 2020, was made impossible by the global pandemic.

Planning in advance, but not too far in advance

C and I would be traveling to Tokyo with our good friends CZ and her son Little CZ, with whom we have traveled together with in China, Paris, Finland, and on our London and Norway trip. After some discussion, we made the decision to only visit Tokyo as the mega-city offered ample cultural activities and sights to keep us plenty busy.

CZ and I are big travel planners; we really love it. For example, we have known we would go to Japan together in the summer of 2024 since sometime in 2022. We bought our plane tickets in the summer of 2023, as soon as the dates became available. We had our hotel in central Tokyo for the first part of the trip booked nine months out. And, we began to build our shared spreadsheet on places of interest about seven months out.

And then we were stymied because so much to see in Tokyo must be booked in advance, but not too far in advance. And it seemed every place has its own advance reservation rules. So many times we knew what we wanted to do, but we had to wait until the window of opportunity opened. This was a whole other level of planning detail that we had not been quite prepared for.

We were soooo lucky to score these unique film strip tickets to the Ghibli Museum!
  • Tokyo Disney hotels can be booked from 11 AM of the day four months before.
  • Tokyo Disney park tickets can be booked starting from 2 PM of the day two months ahead of your visit (and you cannot book multi day tickets or park hopper).
  • Imperial palace gardens tour can be booked from the first of the month preceding the month you want to visit.
  • Pokémon cafe – reservations are accepted from 6 PM 31 days out from desired visit date, but you need to be on the website at the moment reservations open and have a tremendous amount of luck.
  • Cup of Noodles Museum Yokohama – reservations can be made starting at 10 AM three months and one day prior to the day you wish to visit. 
  • Toyusu Market Tuna Auction tour – is offered through an advance lottery system: to visit one has to apply for lottery the first seven days of the month preceding the month of your visit and only 100 people selected per day. (We got it!) 
  • Ghibli museum – Visitors must have advance reservations, but one can only do so at 10 AM on the 10th of the month preceding the month of your visit. This was the most difficult of them all as there are only 200 tickets available in 4 entry times per day. CZ and I logged on to the website in advance.; at 15 minutes till the appointed hour, a countdown started on the website. At exactly 10 AM Tokyo time, we were brought into the virtual queue – CZ had about 2500 people in front of her and I had about 17,000!! It took about 15 minutes and CZ got in; she was booted out of her first attempt – probably sold out – but on her second attempt she got in and scored us our tickets!! It felt amazing! It felt like we had just one the lottery and I suppose in a way we did.  (I waited and I got in at 10:58 and nearly all days were completely sold out, just an hour after tickets sales for the month went live!!) 

Is your head about to explode? We thought ours might! Yet, against the odds, we lucked out time and again. Sadly, it did not work out for the notoriously difficult-to-get Pokémon Cafe. I set my alarm for 4:50 AM so I would be on at 6 PM 31 days in advance. I logged in and could see the tickets for my day were not yet available. I refreshed at 5 AM, and the site was immediately unavailable due to heavy usage. At 5:03 it cleared and every single entry for the day was already sold out! In three minutes.

The jet-lag busting plan and the first full day

Jet-lagged and faced with this shower!

It had been a long time since we had made a flight as long as that to Japan, 14 hours from Dulles Airport to Haneda Airport. To combat jet lag, I had us in bed at a decent time the night before our flight and then we slept in as long as we could. As our flight took off around noon, the plan was to stay awake as long as possible, falling asleep only the last few hours. We would disembark bleary eyed and shuffle our way through immigration at 3:30 PM Tokyo-time, but the equivalent of 2:30 AM Eastern Standard Time. I hoped we would get to our hotel room around 5 PM where we could collapse and sleep as much as we could.

The first part worked out well, but the second part a bit too well. I did not sleep on the plane at all and C only slept for 1.5 hours. I worried we would be extra grumpy in the immigration line, but managed to get through the surprisingly poorly-designed immigration line. It seemed the airport was not quite prepared for the tsunami of visitors; it took us at least an hour. But we remained awake and in good spirits.

We did not fall asleep in the taxi ride to the hotel. Nor did we do so immediately in the hotel room. We had showers and went out to get some food from the closest convenience store. It was nearly 8 PM when I finally just turned out the light after 23 hours straight without any shut-eye.

I knew we would wake up in the early morning hours, but I thought it would be even earlier than it was; we made it to 3:50 AM. Luckily, our hotel was smack dab in the bustling area of Roppongi in the world’s largest city. There were, at a minimum, eight 24-hour convenience stores within a 6-minute walk from our hotel. We visited at least one each of 7-Eleven, Daily Yamazaki, Lawson, and Family Mart, checking out all the Japanese goodies, and buying snacks along the way. Once we had been out at least three hours we took our haul back to the hotel room for an eclectic breakfast.

C’s digitally enhanced tea and matcha ice cream in the tea room of teamLab Borderless

Knowing we would have jet lag and expecting an early afternoon crash, we had only one thing planned for our first day. We met CZ and Little CZ at the teamLab Borderless digital art museum about 15 minutes from our hotel on foot. They had arrived in Tokyo a few days before us after a multi-stop journey to Dubai, Singapore, and Borneo, and thus were already adjusted to the time difference.

I find it hard to describe the teamLab installation; it really is something that must be experienced. A series of rooms with digital art projected on to the walls and spilling from room to room? The overflow from one room to another is why it is called “borderless.” Yet, this does not even begin to adequately describe the sensations of rooms large and small that defied my expectations. My favorite installations were: the Bubble Universe room filled with thousands of silver crystal orbs hanging from the ceiling that would light up at our proximity and the En Tea House which is so dimly lit that the colorful digital flowers that bloom from the tea or coconut matcha ice cream are even more vibrant as they spread out across the darkened liquid or black table top. We stayed in the museum for three hours.

You can indulge your hankering for Japanese KitKat flavors at Don Quixote

We grabbed lunch at the nearby Hard Rock Cafe Tokyo (C and I have a tradition of visiting Hard Rocks around the world). I was sure that after lunch C and I would drag our jet-lag-fogged selves back to the hotel. But we were still awake! The magnificent 7-story, 24-hour operated Don Quixote store across the street called to us and we all heeded. We spent at least an hour, and a good chunk of change, exploring every floor.

C and I then parted ways from our friends. I figured we were going to give in to the jet-lag at any minute and would be best off at our hotel when it happened. I don’t know how we did it, but we made it to 7:30 PM! Surely, this could not last, right? We would find out on day two…






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2024 Camp Pick-Up Weekend: Cumberland, National Memorials, and a Groundhog Town

When I picked up my daughter from her overnight summer camp in Pennsylvania last year, I had driven through or near some sights that called to me to visit. This year I decided to make a weekend trip out of it.

I drove a little over two hours northwest of Washington, DC to the historic town of Cumberland, Maryland. Established in 1787 at the confluence of the Potomac River and Wills Creek and at the base of the Appalachian Mountains, the town has been at the heart of American history. Here, in the late 1750’s young army colonel George Washington led General Braddock’s operations in the French and Indian War and he returned in 1794 to review troops preparing to quell the Whisky Rebellion. Cumberland also gained fame in the 1800s as a transportation hub with the National Road (now US 40) began construction there in 1811 and in 1850 the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal between Cumberland and Washington, D.C. opened.

History like that is my jam.

I picked the centrally-located (and historic!) Cumberland Inn and Spa as my base. I wanted to just park the car and then walk all over the historic district. I headed first a few streets up to the Gordon-Roberts House, once home to a prominent lawyer, statesman, and President of the C&O Canal. Unfortunately, the door was locked and I saw no one about. I tried knocking and called their phone number and left a message, but it seemed I had already struck out in the Queen City.

George Washington’s headquarters in Cumberland, MD

No worries, it was lunch time. So, I made my way down the street, passing the tiny building that served as Washington’s headquarters, and headed across the river. Baltimore Street is the main artery here and is flanked by beautiful buildings from Cumberland’s heyday. And the street completely torn up for a major renovation project that will turn it pedestrian only. It will be wonderful when it is completed, but wished my timing had been better. Still, I found a nice place for lunch and made the most of it. I did have wonderful weather!

After lunch, I visited Cumberland Station, built in 1913, from where still operates scenic steam and diesel train rides. I walked over to Mile 0, the terminus, of the 184.5 mile C&O canal; its towpath a popular multi-day ride for cycling enthusiasts. I will be honest here: the canal waters were a bit stagnant, some rubbish was floating in it; across the way some unhoused individuals crouched beneath a bridge, likely welcome shade from the strong, hot sun, and a festival featuring a death-metal band was in full swing (though the music was pretty good, it was not quite the soundtrack I expected). Yet, the sky was a blazing blue generously sprinkled with cumulus clouds and with just the right angle, the scene was perfect.

Mile 0 of the C&O Canal begins (or ends) in Cumberland

In the National Park visitor’s center I chatted with a young AmeriCorps volunteer eager to learn about how to parlay his education and experience into a career at the State Department. I was grateful my daughter was not with me; she is not a fan when I get too friendly and chatty with strangers. She would also have disliked my talking with the lovely volunteer docent at the Allegany Museum. Housed in two floors of a former 1930s courthouse and post office, it is packed full with interesting information, mostly on the architecture, industry, and transportation history of the region.

I left just before the 5 PM closing and planned only to walkabout the area looking at the architecture when my phone rang. A young woman asked if I had called earlier that day to visit the Gordon-Roberts House and told me that unfortunately they have few tours and it would be closed for a special event on Saturday. Well, I figured, that’s that. But then she said, “Well, I am here now doing preparations for the event…If you are nearby, I can give you a quick 15 minute spiel and then let you self-tour.”

The impressive Second Empire style Gordon-Roberts House

And that is how I ended up with an after hours tour at the house. I really could hardly believe my luck and the woman’s generosity. She gave me more than 15 minutes of her time and really did let me wander around on my own through the ground floor, second floor, and basement (the third floor is closed to the public – but I still took a peek). I found the house interesting – six bedrooms on the second floor alone! And a dumbwaiter! And a pre-electric single person elevator! – but by far the best part of the experience was that I got to tour it in the manner I did. I spent another hour or so of the long summer evening wandering past the churches, the Masonic Temple, and other architectural gems before calling it a night.

The LaVale Toll Gate house dating from 1835

On Saturday morning I set off for Somerset County, Pennsylvania along US40. At the Allegany Museum, I had learned that Maryland’s first (and last) toll house still stands just a few miles outside of Cumberland. It was on the way—just a slower, more picturesque way—so how could I resist?

The LaVale Toll Gate stands forlorn on the side of US40. Next door there was a Goodyear tire shop and across the street a gas station, both of which seemed rather fitting to me for a place where travelers have had to stop their journey for nearly 200 years. It was not open, there were no other cars in the parking lot and no other visitors while I was there, yet, I am glad it is still there for the odd traveler and history enthusiast.

The Barronvale Covered Bridge, built 1830

An hour later, I had a teary-eyed C and her belongings in the car. She had had a wonderful two weeks at camp and was thrilled to see me (imagine it!) but also sad to leave her new friends. I knew immediately what would cheer her up! A visit to an old covered bridge! Somerset County is full of them (ten in total) and I had pre-programmed directions to one of them as we headed to our next destination. I should have known better though (and really I did) because once at the bridge C opted to stay in the car (“I can see it from here.”). My free-wheeling, teenager-free part of the trip was over.

I drove east about 30 minutes to a field just outside Shanksville, PA, where on September 11, 2001, the brave passengers and crew of United Flight 93, learning their plane was part of a terrorist act, forced the hijackers to crash the plane, killing them all but saving hundreds, if not thousands, more.

Flight 93 National Memorial: view of the flight path from the Visitor’s Center (left), the Tower of Voices (center), and memorial wreaths at the far end of the Memorial Plaza

We started off with a walk down from the visitor’s center that passes the flight path, impact site, and wall of names. The weather was nice, warm, with clouds that threatened rain but held off; the field dotted with wild flowers. It felt both fitting and incongruous as a final resting place of such an act of terror. C was far more focused on a school issue than the site and I tried to refocus her attention on the importance of the location. We moved on to the Visitor’s Center and it was here, with the television footage of the planes flying into the towers, the photographs of the passengers and crew, and recordings of some of their final goodbyes that left us both weeping. We completed our visit at the Tower of Voices, a ninety-three foot tall structure of wind chimes that plays 40 tones representing the voices of the 40 passengers at their final resting place.

Our next stop, after a quick lunch stop: the Johnstown Flood National Memorial. Along the way, I thought, though certainly educational, perhaps two national disaster memorials in one day might not have been my brightest idea?

The valley that once was Lake Conemaugh

The Visitor’s Center sits on a hill overlooking a valley, what what was once the two mile long, one mile wide, and 60-feet deep Lake Conemaugh, before on May 31, 1889, the earthen dam holding it burst releasing 20 million tons of water downriver at 40 miles per hour, wiping out the town of Johnstown and killing over 2200 people within an hour. Reading that sentence is sobering enough. Looking at the photographs and reading or listening to first hand accounts of survivors was more so. But the 35-minute movie “Black Friday” shown at the Visitor’s Center? Wow. It is seriously a downer. It so vividly describes the horror and the fatalities that it comes with a PG rating with a recommendation that small children do not attend. I began to worry a bit about C. When she was six, she sobbed through her school viewing of a movie on the Pacific garbage patch, and when she was seven she cried out loudly “No! Stop!” when colonists attacked Native Americans at the production of “The Lost Colony” at Roanoke Island, NC and then bawling yelled “Mom! Why would you bring me here?” But thankfully at 12 1/2 she could handle this particular film though I found myself cringing several times.

To round out our day and bring the mood up, I turned north to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, “the weather capital of the world,” and home to the famous spring forecaster Punxsutawney Phil. Although the movie “Groundhog Day” (one of my personal favorites), was actually filmed in Illinois (yeah, really), I did find us a lovely B&B just on the main town square that was close enough for me. We were just a hop, skip, and a jump from Phil’s Burrow, the home of Punxsutawney Phil, his spouse Phyllis, and their kit. After visiting Phil, whom C declared as adorable before asking if she could have a pet groundhog, we went for a nice evening walk in search of the Phantastic Phils, the six foot tall fiberglass groundhog statues placed around town.

One of the 40-something Phantastic Phils and C hamming it up at Gobbler’s Knob

On Sunday morning, C and I made the pilgrimage to Gobbler’s Knob where each on Groundhog’s Day since 1887, Punxsutawney Phil, “Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators and Weather Prophet Extraordinary,” is coaxed from a tree stump and held up before the eager crowds then makes his prediction of the coming Spring. I doubt we will ever make it for an actual Groundhog’s Day (accommodation books out years in advance and one has to wake up in the dead of night in the middle of winter; me I am not a fan of the cold or middle of the night galivanting), so this would have to do. We chased down the locations of a few more Phantastic Phils and then it was time to go. C’s dad picked her up for a week in New York and I headed home.

I don’t know why it continues to amaze me how restorative even a few days away can be, but throw in beautiful weather, lovely drives, and historical, natural, and cultural sites, and it can truly be perfect.

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Escape and Escapades: Spring Break in Roatan

Late last September, with the summer firmly over and our Christmas train trip arranged, I turned my eyes to planning our spring break getaway.

I knew I wanted to be somewhere warm, but also someplace not too taxing or far from home, so I zeroed in on the Caribbean. We would have only a week for the Spring Break / Easter week and early on the airfares and mile redemptions for the week were a disappointment to say the least. (Perhaps prices will never return to pre-COVID levels? It sure feels like it.) Honduras looked to be a good choice and initially, I had planned on time in both the Bay Islands and on the mainland, but quickly realized that to secure a lower airfare and a less stressful holiday, it would be best to shorten the holiday and just stay in one place.

I am glad I kept it simple. Early in 2024, my mom ended up in the hospital and I became the primary point of contact for calls with various medical staff, case managers, and more. With the daily medical discussions and issues that could take from one to six hours, I began to contemplate canceling our trip altogether. In the end, I got her treatment to a certain point where I felt I could split the difference such that I would still have some much-needed rest and relaxation and mother-daughter time, while also making daily check-ins related to my mom’s care. It was far from ideal, but I believe it was a good compromise.

Roatan from the air–demonstrating some of the reef system surrounding the island

Roatan is a fascinating place. It’s history, which includes a visit by Christopher Columbus, serving as a hangout for infamous pirates like Blackbeard, and once being a British colony, has shaped Roatan differently than the Honduran mainland. Although the British ceded the Bay Islands, including Roatan, to Honduras in 1861, it took nearly a hundred years before Spanish was taught on the islands’ schools. Today, English is still the first language of the islanders.

Roatan is a popular tourist destination for nature and adventure activities. It’s location along the world’s second largest barrier reef, the Mesoamerican, makes it an extremely popular scuba diving site. Roatan also boasts two cruise ship terminals, the first opening in 2008 and the second two years later. For an island only 40 miles long and 5 miles wide and a population somewhere between 50,000-100,000 people, two cruise ship terminals disgorging some 3,000 to 10,000 passengers a day in high season is astonishing. All these North American travelers have made the U.S. dollar the currency of choice on Roatan, vice the Honduran lempira.

The pineapple seller heads home

I knew none of this. I usually research the heck out of where I am going. I like to know the history and current situation; I like to know the language, currency, and exchange rate. But this time, with all the stuff going on with my mom, I left much up to chance. I booked our flights, reserved our hotel, and looked up, but did not schedule, a thing for us to do.

On Sunday morning, C and I celebrated Easter a week early and then that night flew to Houston. We stayed the night then flew on to Roatan early Monday morning, arriving at our hotel, the Bananarama Dive and Beach Resort in West Bay, in time for a hectic lunch rush during a steamy tropical beach day. Ahhhhh…it felt amazing to be warm.

I struggle with stepping back and doing little. I like to keep engaged. But here it was our first day on the island and I had nothing at all planned. I had not even booked transport from the airport to West Bay. It only occurred to me as we boarded our plane in Houston that it could be a problem. Luckily I quickly checked the interwebs, reserved and paid for a taxi, and hoped for the best. I really thought it was 50-50 anyone would actually come and figured I might have just thrown $25 away. I was pleasantly surprised to find a driver with a cute handwritten sign with my name waiting for us in arrivals!

C holds Charlie the Sloth

Therefore on our first day, all C and I did was make reservations for some activities on following days, walk on the beach, checked out the nearby shopping plazas, and lie about in the hammock or chairs on our bungalow porch.

On our second day, we headed to Jungle Top Adventures for an exciting few hours of ziplining and animal interactions. There seem an abnormally high ratio of zipline locations per population on Roatan, due to all those cruises. When we booked the zipline, we were not told which we were heading to, and I was a tad disappointed to find ours was located in Coxen Hole, the island’s main town, directly across from one of ports where two massive cruise ships were docked.

As I had read it is best to visit the animal park first because the sloths — the main attraction — can only be held by a limited number of persons before they are too tired, that was our first stop. While we did enjoy seeing to coati and the Yucatan white-tailed deer (Honduras’ national mammal) and meeting the monkeys and macaws, the sloths were the star of the show and one of the top reasons we chose to visit Roatan. C and I were both able to hold a sloth for about five minutes. With their arms around our necks and their legs around our waist, it was almost like holding a baby. The experience did not disappoint.

Next we headed to the zipline. We had to wait about 10 minutes before we could join the truck taking participants to the first of 16 zipline platforms. While the guides kitted us up, two more truckloads of adventurers arrived. All in all we had to wait 30 minutes before all our zipline guides arrived and zipped off to man the various platforms. However, once everyone had their gear and the guides were in place, we were zipped across the lines rapidly, like an assembly line. I had hoped to get a photo or video of my daughter, but she was hooked up and then off with such speed I hardly had time to react before it was my turn. When I arrived at the platform, C was already zipping on to the next. At the midway point though we all crowded together again. This time I was able to video C taking a running leap off the platform and then flipping upside down — of all the ziplines I have done in various places this was the first and only place I had heard of that being allowed.

C and I and our group prepare for our submersible scooter experience

On Wednesday, we did the most extraordinary activity! We glided through the water in a Breathing Observation Submersible Scooter (BOSS). I had initially booked for Friday, but the company emailed me on Tuesday afternoon to inform me that Thursday and Friday were predicted to be poor weather, but they could accommodate us earlier.

I have to admit, I was a wee bit scared to do this. I enjoy being warm and near the water; to feel sand between my toes, but I am not comfortable in the ocean. I get sea sick on boats. I am not comfortable in the ocean. I once tried to learn to scuba dive in the Philippines and kept freaking out during the basic water practice. I am just much more a landlubber and I get most of my fish experiences at aquariums (which I LOVE to visit). But C was excited to give it a try and so I thought I should be brave and give it a go.

The scooters work on the principle of an air pocket forming in a glass underwater. To get in, the scooters are held just below the water’s surface with the air pocket already formed in the large diving bell-like helmet. Then compressed air, just like the tanks used for diving, is pumped into the helmet. One has to hold one’s breath for just a few seconds to duck under and bring their head into the helmet. Well, it sounds simple. C did it in one go. I freaked out. It took me five times to get up the courage to get in. Thankfully, C went first and did not see that. Once everyone is in, the scooters are lowered to their maximum depth of ten feet. Then one can controls the scooter just like a scooter on land — with a toggle switch for speed and moving the handle bars to the sides to turn.

We visited the Roatan Chocolate Factory in West End after our underwater scooter experience

I wear glasses and unlike in snorkeling, where I have to accept blurred vision because I am not going to spring for a prescription mask, I could wear my glasses while operating the underwater scooter! I also have a lot of ear and sinus issues and that (along with a fear of sharks and running out of air and drowning) is what keeps keep from scuba diving. At the depth of the scooters, I could feel the pressure on my ears and I struggled to pop them, having to do so repeatedly, but I could manage. I have never been able to see a reef and fish underwater like I could on the scooter and I found myself laughing with delight. Also, because the giant helmets made everyone’s heads look really tiny on top of their bodies.

Thursday and the first part of Friday did turn out to have poor weather. Though it did not rain during the day, the winds picked up substantially, up to 25 mph, making the seas very choppy. Nearly all activity stopped along the beach. Though West Bay is a nice beach, it is not very wide, and on sunny days the beach chairs take up a good third to half of the sandy real estate and the crowds of beachgoers take up most of the rest. So though it was very breezy, it was still nice and warm, and I took strolls along the shore, while C chilled out in our hammock. I welcomed the respite. If the weather had been perfect, I would have felt compelled to be doing something, but as it wasn’t, I was off the hook. I did have to make several phone calls and emails related to my mom and I had time to do them, while also feeling sand between my toes and a deliciously warm wind all around.

The wind kicks up the waves around the water taxi pier in West Bay

The sun returned on Saturday, our last day, so C and I headed out to parasail. This would be C’s first time ever and my second, but my first time parasail in tandem. During my first time, in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, the boat motor stopped when the woman after me was up, and her parachute slowly sunk back down to the ocean. She had to unfasten herself and swim back to the boat. I had thanked my lucky stars it had not been me, but admit that I had been a little scared to parasail since. I am happy to report that C and I did it without a single incident.

That afternoon C wanted to stand-up paddleboard (SUP). It had been on our list for the trip in a large part because our hotel had advertised it as being readily available. And yet throughout the week we had not seen anyone paddleboarding. When I went to ask at our activity kiosk I was told they didn’t have any paddleboards, and then the guy corrected it to, um, no paddleboards that work well. I really wondered about their secret defective paddleboards. At the next kiosk they told me they could get me paddleboards, but could they have ten minutes to “find” them? Turned out they could only locate one, so I left it to C to show me how it is done.

C looks pretty cool doing SUP at sunset

Unfortunately, C had only done SUP once before – at the lake during last summer’s camp. Doing it in the ocean on a busy beach turned out to be a whole new level. Still she managed pretty well. She took a little break after 15 minutes and let me give it a try. I only made it to a crouching position before falling off and struggled to maneuver around the crowds of bobbing heads. It became clear pretty quickly why SUP seems to have fallen by the wayside in Roatan, at least during the busy season.

Then just like that our six days in Roatan was over. Afterwards, once we returned home, it felt short, but during the trip it felt just right. It gave me just the right amount of time to rest, deal with issues at home, and spend mother-daughter time with C while doing amazing activities or just chilling out together.

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2023 Winter Vacay: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 6, Death Valley to Disney

On the road in Death Valley heading toward Panamint Springs

On our second morning in Death Valley, we woke early in preparation for our departure from the park. I knew I would want more time in the park, so I reserved a hotel halfway back to Los Angeles instead of making the full drive that day. We would backtrack first, heading toward Death Valley Junction to visit Dante’s View.

Dante’s View, considered one of the best views in Death Valley, sits atop Coffin Peak and 5,575 feet above Badwater Basin, and provides an amazing panoramic view of the southwest part of the park. It allows one to see both the lowest area of the park (Badwater) and the highest; the 11,049-foot Telescope Peak sits on the opposite mountain ridge. Apparently, the early visitors to the area from the borax companies found the view evoked visions of Dante’s nine circles of hell. I cannot imagine what they were thinking given the spectacular beauty of the scene laid before us. From the height we could really see the size of the temporary lake in the basin below. The view is somewhat famous as it appears briefly in the first Star Wars movie as Luke, Obi-Wan Kenobi, C3P0, and R2-D2 get their first view of Mos Eisley. There was certainly no water visible at that time.

Our view from Dante’s Peak

From Dante’s View we would drive about two hours over the majority of Route 190, past Panamint Springs, to the Father Crowley Overlook. It felt further and longer. Though the park was busy, there were times when we saw few other cars. The height of the mountains towering over the valley, the sheer expanse of the seemingly barren wilderness emphasized how very small we are. Maybe it was in part due to these feelings that when we at last arrived at the Overlook, we found it rather disappointing. The steep and narrow Rainbow Canyon, where fighter jets from the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station or Edwards Airforce Base once practiced tricky maneuvers, is impressive, but I found the windy road, with its hairpin turns, far more interesting. If you find white-knuckle driving interesting. (I sort of do and don’t)

We turned around, and retook the twisty-turvy road, passing Panamint Springs again, before taking Panamint Valley Road out of the park. Suddenly, there was a valley full of golden flowers. It had been days since we had seen many natural colors other than the piercing blue sky and the varied tans and browns and muted reds of Death Valley. Although there is wildlife in the park, we had not seen any. Not a bighorn sheep or a lizard or a hare. We could not recall seeing living insects, just some dead in the salt flats of Badwater Basin. I do not remember any other flowers.

Wildflowers gone very wild near the Panamint Springs entrance to Death Valley

Before driving on to the big city lights in the direction of Los Angeles, I wanted to visit a ghost town. We had driven through several, but I had read about one in the area I thought we could stop at Baharat (or Ballarat)

Founded in 1897, Baharat was a thriving borax mining supply town. At one point there were reportedly as many as 500 people in the town and a swinging lifestyle with a saloon and several hotels. By 1920, the town was abandoned. Stories abound online that Charles Manson and his gang visited in the 1960s, leaving behind some graffiti and an old truck.

I turned off the highway down a dirt track toward the mountains and Baharat. Ahead I noticed a lot of dust rising, and it took me about half a minute to realize what it was – because I could not quite believe it. A single-engine plane was taxiing straight for us! It was still maybe 200 feet ahead when it was up and away and flew over the car. What kind of ghost town has private planes stopping by? That turned out to be the most interesting bit of our short visit to the ghost town of Baharat. I had hoped for more atmospheric photos of old buildings, but instead, there was a group of young men on noisy ATVs returning from an outing, a dude in an old truck yakking on with a visitor while his old dog lay just by the tires of his idling truck, and in front of the old fashioned trading post advertising “Shooting Range, Guns N Bombs! 200 yards” the proprietress was regaling a couple with some stories. Baharat or Ballarat did not seem like our kind of place. I got back in the car and we left.

The Baharat (not Ballarat!) sign post and supposedly Manson’s old truck

From Baharat, we had only an hour’s drive to our stop for the day in Ridgecrest, California. The road rose first into the Argus mountain range and then slipped into the Searles Valley. I thought the drive from Baharat into the mountains was nice, but once into the valley, the scenery was less so. We drove through a few dusty towns like Trona, that are functioning, populated towns with a gas station, schools, and a library, but still had the air of a ghost town. The area was dominated by a large mineral lake operation. As we approached Ridgecrest, much of the area to the right of the road was fenced off as it was part of the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, the navy’s largest installation that covers an area larger than the state of Rhode Island. We stayed just the one night in Ridgecrest. We ate Little Caesar’s pizza and chilled out in the room.

The next day we drove to Disneyland in Anaheim. Although the return to increasingly larger towns and cities was gradual over several hours, the arrival back in the U.S.’ second largest city after spending days in desolate wilderness areas was a little shock to the system. C and I checked into the same hotel within walking distance of Disneyland that we stayed at in 2016. Then I left 4-year-old C in the room for just 5 minutes while I went to the first floor to get something. I told her to stay in the room and to only leave if it were an emergency. Unfortunately for us, while I was downstairs the Disneyland fireworks show occurred and C thought they were the signal of an emergency; I returned to find her running up and down the hall screaming… I made her recreate her hallway escapade for a video.

The Disney California Adventure Park opened in 2001

Disneyland was a big part of our 1984 family trip to California. What I remember is waiting in really long lines while sweating in the heat, being really scared on Space Mountain, and loving every minute of the Haunted Mansion. For my 9th birthday, I had a slumber party and as we settled down in sleeping bags in the living room we listened to my 45 RPM record of the Disney Haunted Mansion story.

The Disneyland of today is far more like the Disneyland of 1984 than Universal Studios. Many of the rides you can enjoy today are not only the same ones we waited in long lines for in 1984, but they were also part of the original 1955 park like Autopia, the Jungle Cruise, the Mad Tea Party, and Dumbo.

Creepy Christmas decor at the Haunted Mansion – one of my favorite Disney rides

C and I spent the first day at Disneyland and the second at California Adventure. It was our first time at the latter park. We loved California Adventure! The Incredicoaster was our absolute favorite ride – we got on it three times! – and it might have knocked the Loch Ness Monster in Busch Gardens Williamsburg off the top of my favorite coasters list. It was a great way to top off our amazing winter vacation.

Our trip was not all a recreation of the 1984 family trip. I remember parts of the trip, but so much is forgotten. My siblings, who are younger than I, remember even less. My sister C remembered playing cards on the train, barren landscape through which the train journeyed, and feeling like royalty eating in the train dining car. My sister A most remembered the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, visiting Sea World in California (which I completely forgot about!), and the jolting of the automatic transmission rental car when our mom slammed on what she kept thinking was the clutch. My Aunt L passed away over ten years ago. My mom is currently in the hospital and unable to tell me what she remembers.

Of course, one cannot ever truly recreate the past and that was not my intention. Yet here I am, all these years later, and that 1984 travel adventure had made such an impression on me. This trip sure did shake loose some old memories and gave my daughter and me some new ones.

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2023 Winter Vacay: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 5, Mojave and Death Valley

When I planned out our trip, I had a strong desire to drive through the Mojave National Preserve. It would be quicker to drive using larger roads such as CA-247 to Barstow and then Interstate-15, but I was not necessarily looking for the fastest route. That way would not take me through the Preserve. Then again, I did not wish to be long delayed and there was a risk that driving through the Preserve we could be held up for as long as an hour by railway siding operations at the Kelso Depot. I opted to take the chance.

Road through the wilderness on Amboy Road

We left Yucca Valley early as there was a long drive ahead to Death Valley National Park. Soon after leaving Twentynine Palms, it was as if civilization disappeared (well, except we were on a nicely paved road). There was desert, scrubs, hills, and sky. There was little else until we hit the junction of Amboy Road and I-40, and the teeny, tiny town of Amboy.

Amboy historic sign with a view of the post office building and Roy’s

A historic 1850 railway station settlement and later popular stopover on the historic Route 66 highway, Amboy is now just a shadow of its former self. It still boasts the old post office building, though services appear permanently closed, and Roy’s Motel and Cafe (and service station) dating back to 1936. Online information says these businesses are run by the four people who still call Amboy home, though when I asked the guy behind the counter if he lived in town, he gave me a good long suspicious look, asked me if I were a journalist or something, then told me, no, he does not live there but he drives in from about an hour away. I liked the nostalgic symbols of the 1950s travel heyday–the diner, the roadside motel signage, and the Route 66 sign–but I did not wish to linger; the place felt trapped in time. Most of the other towns that once existed in the area have been long deserted.

We drove on taking Kelbaker Road through another wilderness area and into the Mojave National Preserve. For a long while the preserve looked little different from the other stark landscapes thus far that day. I know there was much more diversity in the terrain off the main road, but as our time was limited, I had to make do with the drive-through. Once we crossed over the railroad tracks at Kelso, then safe from the potential cargo train delays, I took the opportunity to make a quick stop.

The southern entrance to the Mojave National Preserve and a stop at the historic Kelso Depot

The Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad built the Mission/Spanish Colonial Revival Kelso Depot in 1924, replacing the earlier building from 1905. The once thriving railroad worker town had long ago fallen into disrepair although there are still some workers living on the other side of the tracks and the National Park Service is preparing the building to house a visitor center. That day I met a National Park ranger and an intern with brochures, pins, and stickers on a table in front of the building; they were happy to answer questions. Again, I could not linger because I still had a long way to drive and also C refused to get out of the car to even read one information plaque. So, I got back in the car and continued north.

C stands in the desert alongside CA-127 as we await the green light to move past the road construction

It was another 40 minutes through the desolate Mojave desert to the town of Baker and then north again on CA Road 127. About 30 minutes north of Baker we were stopped by road construction. There was already a line of several cars and motorhomes. I wandered up to the lone construction worker holding the stop sign and asked how long the wait would be. He said we needed to wait for the “escort car” and it could be about an hour. Big sigh. There was nothing to be done about it though. There was no telling how long it would be for that “escort car” to arrive as looking ahead I could see no road construction at all. I used the port-a-potty (thank goodness they had one as I had been swigging down the water) and moseyed back to the car. Other travelers were wandering off into the desert alongside the road. Some were already quite far from the road. No one expected this to be a short stop. I alternated small talk with the guy on the motorcycle behind us and hanging with C in the car or on the roadside. It was about 45 minutes in total before the escort vehicle leading the group of cars from the far side of the construction came through.

The Ranch at Death Valley seemed an almost impossible oasis surrounded by an unforgiving otherworld.

We were now quite far behind schedule. C fell asleep in the car. My eyes glazed over the scenery as we drove on, and I took little in. Despite the occasional breathtaking view, the pretty oasis town of Shoshone, and the rather bizarre Death Valley Junction, reported to have a population of “less than four people” and a boarded-up building with an “opera house” sign, the view was mostly the same bland tan sand stretching for miles. From Death Valley Junction we turned west toward Death Valley and within 30 minutes we were pulling into the oasis that surrounds the resort complex of the Ranch at Death Valley, our accommodation for the next two nights. With a park the size of Death Valley, the largest in the contiguous United States, I knew we would want to stay inside rather than outside.

The stunning sunset at Zabriskie Point

As the drive had taken longer than expected, we had only so much daylight left. We checked into the hotel quickly and then drove back to Zabriskie Point. We arrived just around 3:45 PM, luckily scored a parking spot immediately, and sped-walked up the paved walkway to the viewing area. Spread out ahead of us lay the undulating convolutions of sentiment carved after millions of years. Breathtaking.

We had an hour to wait for sunset so we walked down to a dusty plain below. Perhaps the flattened area and dust left after years of borax mining in the area? We goofed off a bit and then climbed back up to watch an absolutely stupendous sunset.

In the morning, we made our way to Badwater Basin – the driest place in the U.S. and at 282 feet below sea level, also the lowest point in North America. At the time though, Badwater Basin was actually not dry as a small lake had formed after heavy rains the previous summer and some of that water yet remained. I had looked forward to photographs of the geometric salt polygons, but instead, we found piles of salt sticking up out of a glassy, shallow lake, like lumps of sugar in a giant cup of tea.

As we drove back from Badwater towards the Ranch, we stopped at the Devil’s Golf Course, an expansive plain of jagged salt crystals, and the Artist’s Palette. At the latter, we parked far from the site and walked over a few hills to get to the view of the swath of colored volcanic deposits on a hillside. Honestly? The palette was smaller than expected and lacking in variety; it was mostly a chalky mint color with a small spray of pale pink against the predominantly golden dirt. Still, it was fun to get there – especially after climbing up and over a few hills to then see a parking lot just below the palette…

The ruins of the Harmony Borax Works at Furnace Creek, Death Valley

Following lunch back at the Ranch, we drove only a short way to the site of the Harmony Borax Works, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The 1880s to the early 1900s marked the heyday of borax mining in Death Valley. Harmony was the mining operation that opened the valley to large-scale borax mining and was famous for its use of 20-mule teams that hauled the borax across the valley to the railroad 170 miles away in Mojave, California, though it operated only five years from 1883-1888.

I then drove us 30 minutes to the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. As we had for the whole trip, we were racing the early winter sunset. Arriving at 3:30 PM, we would have an hour to crawl around the dunes before we would lose the light. Though large areas of sand dunes are not plentiful in Death Valley and the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes are not the only ones, they are both lovely and very accessible, sitting just off the park’s main road.

The sun sets on the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes

C and I climbed up and down the dunes, our feet sinking deep into the soft sand. We were having fun running hand and hand down the dunes until C smacked me in the face with the shoes she held in her hand and swung wildly as she ran. I opted to lope down the dunes beyond arm’s reach from her after that and to video her cinematic rolls and crawls on hands and feet. We watched an foolish driver in the distance with their car hopelessly stuck in the sand (an alerted ranger had to call in a team to get them out) and another foolish guy flying his drone above the dunes, expressly against park rules. But mostly there seemed a lot of happy people sitting or strolling on the dunes. Here we all were, experiencing the stark beauty of one of the most inhospitable places on Earth.

After the sun slipped below the horizon we headed back to the car and drove back to the Ranch. Though we had reservations in the fancy dining room there, we canceled them. After a day of exploring and hiking, we were up for a quiet night before we would depart the park the next day.

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2023 Winter Vacay: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 4, Joshua Tree

On Christmas morning, C and I woke not to stuffed stockings or piles of presents beneath a tree (we had done that the Sunday before we started our trip), but to a travel day. Today, we would completely depart from the itinerary of my 1984 family trip to Los Angeles. We were driving to Joshua Tree National Park.

C prepares to dance atop the rocks

Among C and my favorite things to do (besides seeing Broadway musicals, visiting aquariums, enjoying amusement parks, and eating at Hard Rock Cafes) is visiting National Parks. A big part of deciding on southern California for our winter holiday was the chance to visit some of the parks I have long wanted to. I wondered why my mother and Aunt L had not made Joshua Tree, just a 2.5-hour drive from Los Angeles, part of our 1984 vacation. Though they were not particularly outdoorsy, the bigger issue was that Joshua Tree did not exist as a national park in the 80s. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established Joshua Tree as a National Monument in 1936, but it did not become a National Park until 1994.

Sign at the West Entrance station to the park

C and I packed up, had breakfast, and called an Uber to take us to Los Angeles International Airport, where I had a rental car waiting. As it was Christmas, I fully expected another Chinese-American Uber driver, but instead we had an Algerian American transplant from the mid-west with a love for Italian pop music. As we cruised easily through the largely empty streets, I recognized the songs but could not place them. When I asked the driver, he told me it was Eros Ramazzotti, and I was transported back to the summer of 2000 when I backpacked through Europe and first heard these songs. This trip was giving me more travel flashbacks than I had anticipated.

Getting to the airport went quickly enough, but there was a long line at the car rental office. It took an hour to get through it, so we were on the road later than I had hoped. Still, the traffic, even on Los Angeles’ notorious freeways, remained light and soon enough we were beyond the city limits and heading into the desert.

We arrived in Yucca Valley, California, population 22,000, one of the small cities that lie along the northern borders of the National Park. We checked into our motel and grabbed a bite to eat at the nearby Denny’s so that we might get at least a little time in the park. I was reminded again that travel in the winter restricted our sightseeing with the sun setting so early, around 4:45 PM. Yet, summertime visits to the desert mean scorching temperatures.

Some of the vibrant flora of Joshua Tree

The drive to the West Station entrance of Joshua Tree National Park is 25 miles from our hotel in Yucca Valley. The winding road took longer than expected and the line to enter the park was also unexpected. But the park is popular for night sky viewing and camping, and it would seem the Christmas holiday is an excellent time to do it. So, once I purchased our annual America the Beautiful park pass from the ranger, we only time for a 30-minute drive in and a few photos of the eponymous trees set against rock formations and a pinkening sky before it was time to turn around. It was a great introduction to the stark beauty of Joshua Tree. C very much wanted to get out and run around and made me promise to let her scamper over the rocks on our return.

Bright sunshine over the grasses and palms of the Oasis of Mara

On our full day in Joshua Tree, we drove down the highway to Twentynine Palms to begin with the Oasis of Mara, north of the park’s north entrance. Unlike much of Joshua Tree, where the flora are primarily succulents, like the Joshua tree, the oasis has palms and grasses that survive with the underground springs. The indigenous Serrano people named the area “Mara” meaning “the place of little springs and much grass.” C and I enjoyed a little stroll around the oasis area.

Then we entered the park at the North Entrance. We turned off from the Park Boulevard and onto Pinto Basin Road. Soon after the turn off we came to our first grouping of large rocks at the Belle campground; C insisted we stop. She needed to climb! After a good long stop for rock scampering and photography, we drove on to the next stop at White Tank. The rock formations are impressive. These are actually not mere rocks, but massive granite boulders piled atop one another. Some more scampering on rocks occurred – with me joining in! – before driving on to the next site.

A cholla cactus stands out from the crowd

The Cholla Cactus Garden is an area just off the main road blanketed with some 10 acres of the cactus known as Teddybear cholla. These cacti certainly look cute and fuzzy but are anything but with extremely sharp barbs with a reputation to painfully latch on to passersby. There is a pedestrian trail, partially boarded, through these plants but one can get as close as one dares. That surprised me. Given the silly things that some people get up to in our national parks, visitors are still given quite a bit of leeway. After about a half hour there, C and I departed unscathed. We had already been in the park several hours and it was time for lunch. I had opted to drive out of the park into Twentynine Palms for lunch rather than to pack one. We grabbed lunch at a Tex-Mex place in town and then returned to the park.

Our first stop was Jumbo Rocks. It is an apt description as the size of the rock formations and boulders were easily the biggest we had seen that day and spread out over a larger area. This campground also seemed more popular and the crowds of visitors were larger than we had run into in the boulder areas off Pinto Basin Road. We parked where we could and followed the parking lot to a trailhead into the boulders. I think we got off the Jumbo Rocks trail on to the Heart Rock and Arch Rock trails. Then C just wanted to climb over whatever she could in whatever direction took her fancy. There were points – like around Heart Rock – where we saw many other people, and others where we might see no one else for a five minutes or so. We completely lost track of time. The weather was beautiful, the temperatures warm but very comfortable, and the sky sapphire blue. It was just us climbing up and down and between rocks.

Heart Rock and Skull Rock in the Jumbo Rock boulder area

But I knew we had only such much time given the early winter sunset. We made our way back to the car and drove on a little ways to the Skull Rock area. There we did more climbing amongst the rocks, but we did not have time for the same carefree wanderings. I wanted us to get to Keys View for the sunset with a stop at Hidden Valley along the way.

Unfortunately, at Hidden Valley the parking lot was completely full. I drove through four times very slowly – and we were not alone in doing this – but a spot never opened. I gave up and drove towards Keys View but there too we ran into an issue, the road was closed off with a sign “Road opens just before sunset” and a ranger standing sentinel to make sure visitors obeyed. But it was not long til sunset. As I turned around and left the turn off, rangers were closing off more of the road, not opening it. We would not get to visit one of the park’s primary sunset locations. I turned back toward Hidden Valley hoping we might still have a chance to visit and lucked out with a parking space on my third time through the lot.

Sunset at Hidden Valley

I planned to find the Hall of Horrors, a slim chasm between two high rock walls. I had read about it before the trip and wanted photos of C standing with legs and arms spread touching both sides of the Hall. I failed though to note the coordinates of the Hall and we wandered about aimlessly for 20 minutes without finding it or even a clue as to where it might be. C was chomping at the bit to get some more boulder climbing in and begged me to give up our search. Disappointed, I did.

Yet as the sun set across the boulders, desert, scrubs, and Joshua trees at Hidden Valley, we were treated to a magnificent burst of orange as the blue deepened in twilight. Perhaps sundown at Keys View was great that day, I do not know, but it was definitely perfect at Hidden Valley.

We ate a simple dinner from the supermarket in the motel room that night as we relaxed from our day of climbing adventures. I would have liked another day at least in Joshua Tree, but the following day would be a travel day on to our next destination.

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2023 Winter Vacay: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 3, La-la-land

Los Angeles’ beautiful Union Station: where I arrived in the city in 1984 and 2023

In 1984, when my family traveled to Los Angeles by cross-country train, we stayed with my mother’s cousin in Dana Point, about an hour south of the city center. This was not a part of the trip I wanted to recreate. Though C and I did visit that cousin when we went to California in 2016, she had moved to Carlsbad. That house from 1984 later slid off the cliffside. 

Instead, I had booked a hotel very close to the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Chinese Theater, two sights I do remember us visiting in 1984. I did not want to drive around Los Angeles if I could avoid it. In 1984, mother and aunt rented an automatic transmission car that neither could drive very well (they were used to manual cars and my mom kept hitting the brake thinking it was the clutch), which made city driving even more….challenging. C and I could get to the sights we wanted to see on foot or by Uber.

Arriving three hours late following a 43.5-hour train ride, C and I were very eager to get off the train, get to the hotel for showers, and then for a walk to really stretch our legs. The sun was shining, the palm trees were swaying, and the temperature was in the mid-60s. 

Grauman’s Chinese Theater – it looks much the same as in 1984, only with some added digital screens and some shorter and more efficient cars driving past

Our luggage arrived quickly and I called an Uber. Our driver had his GPS set to Mandarin Chinese so I thought I would speak a little and this delighted both myself and the driver. At the hotel, we were lucky to be able to check in early, something we probably would not have been able to do had we arrived on time, so we also freshened up before hitting Hollywood Boulevard. 

Most of the walk to the Chinese Theater was quiet, that is until we turned onto the Boulevard itself. It was packed full of tourists, vendors, and folks in cosplay working the crowd for paid photo-ops. We saw people dressed as Freddy Krueger, The Mask (the Jim Carrey movie), Michael Jordan, the Joker, Spiderman, Mickey Mouse, a Transformer, and many more I just do not recall. There were a lot and it was hard to get past some of them. We popped into the Chinese Theater courtyard – mostly so I could tell C it was the same place I had visited when I was 11. And that was it. That was all we did in 1984, too! 

We got lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. It has become a bit of a tradition for C and I, with us having dined in at least six Hard Rock establishments in the past three years. We were rather desperate to sit down at a table and eat in a restaurant, i.e. not fruit and granola bars from a bag at our coach seats. And there was the sensation still of rocking back and forth as if we were still on the train. The food and drink restored us and we were then able to get out and about.

I focused on seeking out the Hollywood stars that would have been on the Walk of Fame in 1984

We spent the rest of the day checking out various shops, especially Japanese and Korean fashion and goodies shops, and looking at the various celebrity names on the stars of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. At the time of my visit in 1984, there were around 1,770 Walk of Fame stars; but in December 2023 there were 1,000 more. We walked down to Thai Town, the only such ethnic Thai neighborhood officially recognized in the U.S., as C had a specific store she wanted to visit. On our walk back, we passed lines of vintage cars along the Boulevard. It was Saturday night and the classic and lowrider vehicles were out cruising.

Hollywood Boulevard lighting up as the sun goes down

On our second day in Los Angeles, C and I went to Universal Studios Hollywood. During my 1984 visit with my family, a visit to the theme park had been one of the highlights. This would be C’s first visit to a Universal Studios amusement park and we were eager to get on as many of the rides as we could. I especially wanted to take C on the famous Tram Tour, one of the few parts of the visit I remembered. The part of the tour with the mechanical great white shark from JAWS was seared into my memory.

Once in the park, I realized almost none of the current attractions would have been part of my 1984 visit. C and I were really looking forward to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but think about it, the first Harry Potter book was published in 1997, 13 years after my trip to Los Angeles. The Revenge of the Mummy ride, the one C and I made a beeline for as soon as we got into the park, is based on the popular Mummy movie franchise; the first of those movies was released in 1999. The Kung Fu Panda Adventure? Based on a movie released in 2008. C and I were able to get on nearly all the rides at the park. Because the temperatures were in the 60s, we opted to skip the water-based ride as we did not want to get wet. I remembered teasing my younger brother about the Jurassic Park movies way back when, but then with the first one released in 1993, it did not go back quite as far as our 1984 trip. Even the Simpsons ride, though based on television’s longest-running American primetime show, would not have been around back then. The show first aired in December 1989. Oh my, I was starting to feel old.

This building facade is based on the Despicable Me movie, which came out in 2010

The Universal Studios Park of 1984 (there was no need to designate it as the park in Hollywood as it was the only one of its kind: the park in Florida opened in 1990) was largely just stage shows. Animal shows, stunt shows, shows based on specific TV shows, and the tram tour. I remember seeing an Indiana Jones show. The first movie opened in 1981 and I had seen it probably 20 times. It was my favorite movie!

At least the tram tour through the Universal Studios backlot still has a few stops from 1984 – JAWS, the flash flood, and the Bates Motel. The icy tunnel, the collapsing bridge, and the terrible Battlestar Galactica sets were no longer there. It was kind of a shock to me to pass by the courthouse square that was such a huge part of the Back to the Future movies (my second favorite after Indiana Jones) and realize it would not have been there in 1984, as the first of the movies was not released until the following year. And yet my almost 12-year-old kiddo stared blankly at the set, as she was unfamiliar with the movies.

We spent all day at the park. It was Christmas Eve, and though the weather had been lovely all day with the sun up, as the sun set, it grew chilly. It was time to head back to the hotel to get some shut-eye before the next phase of our trip.

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2023 Winter Vacay: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 2, All Aboard!

A quick peek at Mendoza, Illinois as we sped past

Boarding at Chicago’s Union Station was a straightforward affair. An announcement asked all Southwest Chief passengers to move toward our gate. Tickets were checked and Amtrak officials lined us up according to our class and destination. We shuffled forward, then onto the train. It was slow moving as passengers plodded up the narrow stairs to the second floor seating. But soon enough we were ensconced in our seats; our belongings safely nestled in the overhead storage. And then there was the whistle and the call of “All Aboard!” followed by the train pulling out of the station. 

I love train travel. I enjoy gazing out the windows and watching the passing scenery – from urban to rural, plains to mountains, through cities, towns, and villages – and the freedom to move around or read or snooze all while we glide, lightly rocking, along the rails. Over my many years of traveling, I have taken many a long train trip. When I backpacked around Europe in the early 2000s, I often took the train between cities and countries. But I have also ridden trains in places like India, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Sri Lanka, My overnight train journey locations have included from Malaysia, China, Thailand, Australia, Europe, Egypt, and Finland. Yet, I believe the only multi-night train trip I had taken was the 1984 trip cross country trip I took with my mother, sisters, aunt, and cousin, upon which I was basing this new trip. 

C at our first fresh air stop

I booked C’s and my seats in the interest of authenticity and cost. Though I had looked at the roomettes and sleeping cars, the price tag was much more than I was willing to part with. And in 1984, we had all made the journey in coach. Whenever I thought about this upcoming trip, I felt both a shiver of excitement and trepidation. I had been 11 in 1984; my current, much older self, did not have quite the ability or agility to sleep in all manner of places and positions. A few years ago, I pulled something in my back just reaching down to pick up a paperback book! I wondered what two nights curled up in a chair might do to me.

Coach seats on trains are far more comfortable and spacious than those on planes. C and I had two seats together. There are no middle seats on the train. We had ample space between our seats and those in front of us. The seats recline – and though they are not flat, they do go further back than on a plane. There is also a leg rest, which extends parallel to the seat. And, if your legs are long enough, there is a footrest that may be raised from the seat in front of you. I had packed a fleece blanket, travel pillow (well, for C a large squishmallow), eye masks, and ear plugs for each of us. Before we left our hotel in Chicago, I moved those to our carry on and packed away our coats and colder weather gear into our one large bag, which we then checked with Amtrak in Chicago. 

I had not expected Colorado to look like this

The first few hours passed quickly. We dined on apples, granola bars, Goldfish crackers, and string cheese we had bought in Chicago. With it being the winter solstice, the sun set around 4:30 PM, only a little over an hour and a half after we left Chicago. Thus when we crossed the Mississippi River around 7:30 PM, it was long dark. I was disappointed. One of the things I remember from the 1984 train trip was the excitement us kids had in crossing the great river. Unfortunately, I realized, by taking this trip in winter we would have far less time to gaze upon the scenery. But the darkness and the gentle rocking of the train did make it easier to become drowsy. We made up our little coach chair beds and went to sleep.

I woke the next morning just after 6 AM with a jolt of the train. I was a bit surprised to find us in Garden City, Kansas because I recalled a stop in Kansas the night before. The train must slow down greatly as it makes it way through the state. 

Entering New Mexico

We were soon to cross into Colorado, but just outside of small town of La Junta, our train stopped for at least 30 minutes. It turned out it was to let a freight train pass by. The first of many (that I was aware of) that would delay our journey. La Junta was a destinated crew rest stop and thus the first of our “fresh air” breaks when passengers could get off to stretch their legs. C got off only so she could then say she had visited Colorado. I just kept walking up and down the platform for a good 45 minutes as I had no idea how many fresh air opportunities we might have. 

From the train window we saw a coyote run by. I decided to go to the observation car to better see the scenery. C did not want to join. She wanted to take selfies, play games, listen to music, and message her friends on her new phone (an early Christmas gift from her dad). I asked her many times to join me in the observation car and yet she always said no. This too was something different from my 1984 trip. I had my sisters and my cousin — and we had no electronic devices. 

Snow on New Mexican plains

The train trains climbed in elevation. La Junta is located at just above 4,000 feet above sea level. We began to see snow blanketing the ground as we climbed into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains. Then we went through the Raton Tunnel and entered New Mexico. At 7,588 feet, its the highest pass of the Santa Fe Trail and a National Historic Landmark. This was a particularly exciting part for me as I remember my sisters, cousin, and I moving quickly to the end of the train so that we could watch us exit the tunnel. And we must have been a bit rowdy in doing so as we were shushed by a few passengers and then the conductor made an announcement. Something like children having to remain in their designated cars unless accompanied by an adult. That did put a damper on our fun. 

We ate lunch in the cafe. I alternated my time reading at my seat or in the observation car, sometimes striking up conversations with other passengers. This too is something special about train travel. On an airplane, one can only really talk with one’s seatmate or perhaps very briefly with someone while in line for the toilet or in the galley on longer haul flights. But on a train? One can really meet people. 

Bison in New Mexico. We saw bison, elk, pronghorn, and a coyote from the train.

There was Jimmy, the guy who single-handedly ran the cafe the whole journey. It opens at 6 AM and closes at 11 PM. He took breaks here and there. One time when C and I were down there and he needed to leave the car he pointed at me and said, “Mom, you are in charge until I get back.” He had a great personality. He has been working for Amtrak for 17 years. Though he has done many of the routes, he has spent the last decade on the Southwest Chief. 

Sandy was taking Amtrak for the first time and she decided go big or go home and booked herself a sleeper car. She wanted to arrive in L.A. rested so she could watch her beloved Michigan team play in the Rose Bowl. 

A guy from Gallup, NM was heading to L.A. just to catch his friend, Chicano rapper Mr. Criminal, in concert. Then turn around the next day and head home. 

When I told an Amish couple from Michigan that my daughter and I had recently visited Lancaster, PA, they asked where we had stayed. When I told them we stayed at the Red Caboose Motel, the husband nodded knowingly and told me his uncle owns it. 

Barstow, CA train station in the early morning fog

For our second evening dinner, we opted to eat fancy in the dining car. As it was just C and I, we were seated with young 20-something brother and sister from Kansas who both worked at their dad’s truck mechanic shop. According to them, Garden City was a bit boring, but they had plans. They were heading to L.A. with their parents to celebrate with their grandma before she moved back to Mexico, and maybe get matching tattoos with their mom, if they could convince her. 

We were supposed to arrive in Albuquerque around 3:30 PM on our second night. I was looking forward to this stop as it had been a highlight of the 1984 trip. I remember the light was bright and golden. While the station crew washed the train, I bought a pair of turquoise earrings from one of the Native American women selling on the platform. Unfortunately, this time we pulled into the Albuquerque station three hours behind schedule, long after sundown. C and I got off to stretch our legs during the 50-minute stop. And wouldn’t you know it, there on the platform was a sole vendor selling handmade jewelry! I happily bought C a bracelet. 

I did not sleep as well the second night. I kept waking to the loud whoosh and rocking reverberation of other trains speeding past ours. A nightmare caught hold of my brain and I awoke, feeling afraid of the train! But C, my world traveling buddy, slept on. 

The Southwest Chief slides through the San Gabriel Mountains on its approach to Los Angeles

Arrival in L.A. was scheduled for 8 AM, so we were up by 6:30 to finish up the last of our food for breakfast and pack up. Unfortunately, we had made up no time in the night and would arrive in L.A. several hours late. Though the changing scenery from the deserts to scrub then the San Gabriel mountains to the densely populated urban areas of California’s southwest were lovely, it did begin to feel as though I might have been on this train longer than two days. 

Finally, 43.5 hours after our departure from Chicago, the train pulled into Los Angeles’ Union Station. Though grateful to be off the train, I was very glad to revisit this journey from my youth. Though C only proclaimed the trip “okay,” I hope that she will remember this journey with her mom for years to come as I did. I might have begun plotting other long distance train trips. 

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2023 Winter Vacay: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 1, Chicago

A view from the Southwest Chief as we traversed New Mexico

Early last summer, with our summer vacation plans settled, I turned my mind to where we might go during the winter holidays. Though I wanted to finally have our southern Africa jaunt, which had been canceled multiple times due to COVID and our curtailment from Guinea, it still did not seem the time. International airfares remained quite high and C’s school district had decided on only a week and a half winter holiday break. Given my tendency to flee cold weather if I can, I wanted very much to find a warm, or at least warmer, place to spend the holidays. I looked at international destinations closer to home, like the Caribbean, but those airfares also seemed ridiculously (at least to me) costly. So, it seemed a domestic trip would be the way to go. Yet, I did not want just any old vacation…

In the summer of 1984, my mother, my two sisters, my aunt, and my cousin set out on a cross-country train journey to California. My aunt, L, worked for Amtrak in Pittsburgh and could purchase discounted tickets. My mother drove with my sisters and I to Pittsburgh to meet L and my 12-year old cousin Dan. I was eleven; my sisters 9 and 7. We boarded the train in Pittsburgh and traveled to California via Chicago over the next two days. We then visited L’s daughter and some major sights in the area before flying home. I had fond memories of this trip, my first great adventure. 

Downtown Chicago on a cold, clear winter’s day

I was hooked on this idea, but there were a few more details to work out. First, I looked into Amtrak prices and discovered that while C is under the age of 13 her ticket would be 50% the cost of mine. This then seemed the ideal time to go; she would also be the same age I was when I made that train trip with my mom. I researched starting our trip from Washington, DC, but I did not relish the idea of an additional 20 hours of travel, so opted to fly to Chicago and start from there. Finally, though I worried about undertaking this journey in winter, I learned that trains are far less affected by weather than planes. My plans fell into place. 

We flew out on a Tuesday evening for Chicago. In 1984, we had only a five-hour stopover in the Windy City between the arrival of the train from Pittsburgh and our next departure, during which we made a speedy visit to the Museum of Science and Industry. I have zero memories of the museum, only a sense of rushing about. For C’s first visit to Chicago, I wanted more than a few hours. 

A dolphin caught mid-jump in the Shedd Aquarium with a view of the tip of Northerly Island and Lake Michigan

Chicago would be the coldest stop on our itinerary. It could have been really, really chilly, but we had a beautiful crisp winter day. In the morning, C and I went to the Shedd Aquarium. I have long loved visiting aquariums and have instilled this same feeling in my daughter. Together we have visited amazing aquariums all over the world. The Shedd is one of the best for many reasons, but it is also one of the few where one can see beluga whales. They also had, to our delight, an exhibit on Lake Malawi. 

We spent nearly four hours at the Aquarium. C wanted to go back to the hotel room and vegetate, but I wanted to force march her downtown. I won. It was too lovely of a day and, starting the next afternoon we would be largely confined to a train for 40 hours, so I wanted to stretch my legs while I could. We had a nice, long walk alongside Lake Michigan to Millennium Park. We stopped to see the 45-foot tall Christmas tree and to watch ice skaters just below the famous Cloud Gate sculpture known as “The Bean.” Unfortunately, the Bean was inaccessible during the renovation of the Plaza. From there we took a long walk back to our hotel through the downtown streets of Chicago. 

Nederlander theater marquee before our show

Besides my five-hour visit to the city in 1984, I had only visited Chicago twice before. Once around 1995, I spent a few days visiting a friend of mine doing her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, and then again for a long weekend around 2006 when I ran the Chicago Half Marathon. Visiting made me first think it odd that I have spent so little time in one of my country’s greatest cities; there is so much to see and do. But also I realized how much had changed since my visits. When my sisters and I visited the Museum of Science and Industry in 1984, it was free of charge. Today it would cost $122.70 for our entourage. There was no Cloud Gate sculpture in Chicago until 2009 and the city’s tallest building, the Willis Tower, was called the Sears Tower during my previous visits having only been renamed in 2009. I am now officially one of those people who waxes lyrical or gushes annoying, depending on your perspective, about “the way things used to be.” 

That evening, C and I headed to the Nederlander Theater to see a Chicago performance of the musical Hamilton. C and I have become enthusiasts of musical theater. Hamilton would be our fifth of the year after Aladdin in New York, We Will Rock You on our Norwegian fjord cruise ship, Wicked in London, and Evita in Washington, D.C., though it is the only musical C really asked to see. I am not sure when or where she first learned about it, but during the year she spent the 4th grade in the U.S. she became quite into it. She watched the play on Disney+ with our Malawian nanny, she sang the songs in the shower and with friends, and she dressed as Hamilton for Halloween in 2022. Tickets in New York were more than my wallet could spare, but they were more affordable in Chicago. It was a treat to surprise her with the show and the performance was spectacular. 

Christmas in Chicago’s Union Station

Our second day in Chicago was not even a full day as our train would depart at 14:50. I looked into us trying to squeeze some activity in during the morning but though my 1984-self certainly could cram in a quick visit to a museum (no doubt encouraged by my mother) and I am sure my 1995- and 2006-selves would surely have given it a go, my 2024-self did not want to be rushed. C was keen on a visit to the Field Museum, but the recommended visit time of four hours meant there was not enough time. I checked if we might visit the top of the Willis Tower, only a 10-minute walk from our hotel, but the morning times were all sold out. So we slept in. I thought that a good move given I did not know how well we might sleep on the train the next two nights. And I walked over to a nearby supermarket to get us lunch and some provisions for the train.

Then after lunch in the comfort of our hotel room, we packed up our belongings and made the short walk over to Chicago’s Union Station. Among throngs of harried commuters, excited families in matching pajama sets awaiting their trip on Chicago’s version of the Polar Express, and other travelers off on all sorts of travel near and far across the nation, we awaited the boarding call for our own train, the Southwest Chief, bound for Los Angeles and stops in-between. Our short stopover in Chicago had already come to an end.