France French Life French Provinces Hotels & Lodging Paris Restaurants Shopping Travel Trip Planning Writing & Books: France French Life French Provinces Hotels & Lodging Paris Restaurants Shopping Travel Trip Planning Writing & Books
by maribeth
Comments Off on The Riches of Paris and The Riches of France Now eBooks
The Riches of Paris and The Riches of France Now eBooks
The Riches of Paris: A Shopping and Touring Guide
If you’re headed to Paris soon or are just an armchair traveler that enjoys curling up with your eBook, may I recommend my books, The Riches of Paris: A Shopping and Touring Guide and The Riches of France: A Shopping and Touring Guide to the French Provinces. They’re perfect for Francophiles interested in knowing more about the places they’re discovering.
The eBook versions of my classic guidebooks come just in time for spring/summer travels to the French capital and the provinces of France. How handy it is to pull them up on your mobile device or eBook reader to find out about the most interesting places and products to savor.
Art & Culture Hotels & Lodging New Mexico Restaurants Shopping The Southwest Travel: Art & Culture Hotels & Lodging New Mexico Restaurants Shopping The Southwest Travel
by maribeth
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For Off-Season and Year-Round Enchantment: Taos, New Mexico
Contemplating Nature’s Beauty at Hacienda del Sol in Taos, New Mexico
Ahhh-hhh, off-season. Anyone that has lived in a resort town knows the true meaning of off-season. Whether it occurs in the winter or summer, spring or fall, this lull in peak travel times provides a much-needed respite from the busy-ness of high season. In Telluride, Colorado it means tons of available parking spaces, no lines at the Post Office or grocery store and a certain quietude akin to a ghost town, something that delights some and bores the heck out of others.
Most don’t mind this downturn of activity, since many take advantage of our seasonal slowdown (during the spring and fall) to go off and seek fun for themselves elsewhere. Since the mountain closed two weeks ago, we’re in the throws of off-season now, also referred to as shoulder season and in the case of the spring off-season, mud season.
Many people take off for exotic locales for as many as six weeks travel; others find their bliss within a two- to six-hour drive from our southwestern Colorado mountain town. Indeed, we’re located just a few hours away from some of the best recreation around in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, all sunny and warm destinations this time of year where spring arrives with the intensity of the desert sun.
Hotels & Lodging New England Restaurants Travel: Hotels & Lodging New England Restaurants Travel
by maribeth
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Thanksgiving Reflections on a Connecticut Coastal Town Vacation
Mom and I at One of the Favorite Culinary Discoveries of Our Trip
Mom Enjoying Chowder in Mystic, Connecticut
Thanksgiving. A time to be grateful. I practice gratitude all year long—it’s what gets me through some of the toughest times. But around Thanksgiving, it’s nice to serve up a few extra helpings.
I’m grateful for my parents still being a part of my life right now. And I’m particularly thinking about my mother who just two days ago underwent a double knee replacement at the age of eighty. The pain must have been really bad for her to have opted for such surgery. I pray that she heals well and that her two brand new knees make a difference in her life.
I’m thinking back to a trip we took together last June, the first travels we’d done together—just the two of us—in a few years. We were like two girls on the run—Thelma and Louise wannabes looking to cut loose. Mom, as my Dad’s constant companion, hadn’t been out on a fun getaway with me, her “best-est” travel buddy in years. (Plus, most of her friends have passed away, so her vacationing days are few and far between.) We’ve always traveled tons together and getting back on track to long car rides filled with constant chatter, leisurely meals showcasing regional specialities, hotel stays where we’d talk into the wee hours of the morning and shopping forays where we’d experience the best of female bonding was all long overdue. Mom and I have always shared similar tastes: I am my mother’s daughter par excellence. So there’s little dissension about what to do and where to go; we view the world and its surroundings through a similar lens, especially when it comes to travel.
Food & Wine France French Life Paris Podcasts Travel Writing & Books: Cooking Schools Food & Wine France French Life Paris Podcasts Travel Writing & Books
by maribeth
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Susan Herrmann Loomis: On Rue Tatin in Normandy
Susan Herrmann Loomis with a Tarte Tatin, Her Signature Dessert
L’Heure de l’Apéritif at Susan’s Cooking School
“Apples are a huge part of the cooking here in Normandy,” says cookbook author Susan Herrmann Loomis on the phone from France during a Travel Fun interview with me.
And to most of us they’re such a big part of fall and Thanksgiving, so tune into the our chat below if you’d like to add a French twist to your holiday feasting. I met Susan briefly some twenty-five years (yes—a quarter of a century) in Paris at an American women’s function when I first moved to the French capital. At that time she was working as an assistant to Patricia Wells on The Food Lover’s Guide to Paris, one of my all-time favorite books.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Colorado Colorado Springs Music & Dance Outdoor Adventures The Rockies Travel: Colorado Colorado Springs Music & Dance Outdoor Adventures The Rockies Travel
by maribeth
Comments Off on America the Beautiful and Pikes Peak Cog Railway
America the Beautiful and Pikes Peak Cog Railway
Pikes Peak Cog Railway
In honor of Election Day, I thought I’d write about what’s really great about America—aside from our great democratic process. I could list a lot, but here I’d like to report on our breathtaking scenery, our magnificent vistas. There’s so much of it from sea to shining sea and most definitely here in the Rocky Mountain West. It was indeed from atop Pikes Peak, the 14,115-foot mountain in Colorado’s Front Range, just ten miles from Colorado Springs, that thirty-six-year-old English professor Katherine Lee Bates found inspiration for the poem “Pikes Peak” in 1893. This work would eventually be modified a few times over to become “America the Beautiful,” our National Hymn.
Beauty Colorado Colorado Springs Hotels & Lodging Restaurants Travel: Beauty Colorado Colorado Springs Hotels & Lodging Restaurants Travel
by maribeth
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A Happy Ending to My Own Horror Story
A Small Section of My Face: A Gruesome Reality
Happy Halloween everyone! I hope it’s a fun one for you and your loved ones.
I’ve been out of touch the past couple of weeks, since I’ve been dealing with my own ghoulish happenings. Truly ghastly and yes, I felt like I was wearing a mask of sorts for a whole week. I looked like a monster and it seemed like I was living a nightmare.
Unlike most Halloween doings, this wasn’t fun at all. The whole dreadful experience did, however, force me to step back and be even more thankful for what I have in my life—my own good health and the people that love and support me every day. It also reinforced my feelings of compassion. I’ve always considered myself a caring and compassionate person yet now I’m even more so because I had a good taste of what it’s like to look like a freak.
By now you might be wondering what happened to me. Well, I had a terrible reaction to some medication that literally fried my face off from the inside out. My whole visage burned and swelled and itched and cracked and peeled like a moist riverbed dried up beneath the mid-day Mojave Desert sun. It hurt like hell; only large and regular doses of self medicating could make me somewhat comfortable. It was so unsightly that it made a child gape at me wide-eyed at the Medical Center and my dermatologist exclaim, “Wow, I’ve never seen such a reaction.” I did, however, feel an overflowing of compassion from folks at the pharmacy and other doctors’ offices which I frequented a lot that week because there was no easy fix. I truly sensed that people poured there heart out to me whether they said anything or not. My attempts at hiding behind the disguise of a pink fleece hoodie proved futile and after my third visit to the pharmacy, I just let it all hang out like a terribly over ripe peach dangling from the limb of a tree. At one point, I had to pop into a market for cat food and perhaps in an effort to reach out to me, the cashier kindly complimented me on my scarf.
I just wanted to lie on my couch and retreat into my own world, generously applying cold compresses and oil to my face every half hour while listening to Mozart and sipping wine.
Aspen Beaver Creek Breckenridge Colorado Durango Hotels & Lodging Mountain Living Skiing & Snowboarding Telluride The Rockies Travel Trip Planning: Aspen Beaver Creek Breckenridge Colorado Durango Hotels & Lodging Mountain Living Skiing & Snowboarding Telluride The Rockies Trip Planning
by maribeth
Comments Off on Fall in Colorado: A Beautiful Time for Sightseeing and Winter Travel Planning
Fall in Colorado: A Beautiful Time for Sightseeing and Winter Travel Planning
Fall in Telluride
Fall in Aspen
As you can see from the photos featured in this post, we are in full fall splendor here in Colorado. The foliage is peaking now, yet there’s still a lot of green on the trees. So it should remain beautiful in the mountains for another few weeks. Now we’ve entered the autumnal phase of white beginning to replace the gold, russet, burnt umber and bronze that currently punctuate our alpine panoramas. Yes, as the snow fills in, this harvest of fall colors fades into the landscape and we’re left increasingly hopeful about the opening of our ski resorts and the promise of the winter season in the Rockies.
Hotels & Lodging Mountain Living The Adirondacks Travel: Hotels & Lodging Lake George Mountain Living The Adirondacks Travel
by maribeth
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Visiting My Beautiful Adirondack Lake with the Lake George Steamboat Company
Fall: A Stunning Time to Take a Boat Ride on Lake George, New York
Golden Vistas
I’m back in Colorado after my three-week trip to the Adirondacks in upstate New York. It’s gorgeous here in the Rockies and it looks like the fall foliage will peak this weekend in most areas. All next week should be spectacular as well, especially since it snowed last night and with the sun shining again the vistas resemble sugarcoated autumnal Candy Lands resplendent with red, orange, yellow, green and blue (the sky, of course).
Part of my heart, however, remains at Lake George, dubbed “The Queen of American Lakes” by Thomas Jefferson. I spent my time in the Adirondacks with my parents where they’ve had a second home on Lake George for over forty years. While I was there, I was busy doing my writer thing and helping them out, however, I seized every opportunity to embrace the beauty, wonder and comforting spirit of the lake, a crystalline body of water whose heavenly scent and silky feel I can still conjure in my senses. After having spent a dozen fat summers there while growing up and having returned for both brief and extended visits ever since, to me, Lake George feels like an old friend, a dear companion that always welcomes me home with heaps of love and reassurance. Even after eleven years in Paris and almost twelve in Colorado, I never tire of this lake and its shores; its beauty, grace, resilience and sometimes turbulent force continue to amaze me.
