eagletravels

Vacations are either about doing or seeing. On seeing vacations, you see things -- museums, famous sites, family. There are variations to this rule, of course. Foodies go on vacations to eat, wine tasters to taste, music lovers to listen. Or so I hear. I like doing vacations. Go somewhere cool and do cool things. There may be seeing involved (mountain peaks, white beaches, rushing rivers) but the seeing (and eating, tasting, and listening) is in service to the doing. To quote Yoda: "Do or do not. There is no try." I bet he's a cool guy to vacation with, easily the best of the Jedi. Today we are wrapping up 10 days of a doing vacation in the great Northwest. I think, in fact, in a career of doing vacations this may just be my masterpiece. Our down moments have been few and far between, and we will return to California tired and relaxed. The best vacations, you go home (and even to work) to rest. It started a week ago Friday, when we flew to Seattle and m...

Hello, blog. Yes, I know, I haven't written in a long time. I'm sorry. It's not you, it's me. I could make up some excuse about only writing about travels that involve airplanes, but you'd see that for what it is: a shallow cover-up of my generally lazy tendencies. No, there's no one else. Really, check my Facebook and Twitter accounts. Even Buzz. They are equally bereft of my quality sardonic wit. Since we're being all honest with each other, I have a few things to tell you. This may be hard for you to hear, but here goes. We have done many interesting things since you and I last got together, and several of them even involved travel. In other words, they belonged in a blog called Eagletravels. Are you OK? Should I go on? There was Pinecrest over Labor Day weekend, our 20 th anniversary trip to Debbie's house. The fall was full of football games (Stanford and flag) and birthday parties and the holidays a whirlwind of parties and fun....

This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle The parks. The beautiful trees, the sound they make in the wind and when it rains, the shade they provide. The farmers' market across the street every Sunday. Meat pies. This Earth of majesty, this seat of Mars English ice cream: Scoop. The Cow and Bean. The British Museum. Very big, didn't see everything in six visits, the Greek and Egyptian relics. The Tower. Nothing to fear, just a man in a mask with an axe. La Fromagerie: our shop of sacred cheese. This other Eden, demi-paradise Walking to work through our neighborhood, across Oxford Street, down the finest shopping sreet, through a park and past a palace. Books, Will on #19, Andie on #9. Our local library, big with great books and nice librarians who asked us questions about the books, which kept us from spending too much money at ... Daunt Books. This fortress built by Nature for herself, against infection and the hand of war Castles. The many and varied birds of St. ...

Wear sunscreen, my children As you leave the M6 and start to make your way into the Lake District, on narrow roads through rolling hills dotted with sheep and criss-crossed by meandering stone fences, you pass through charming villages with one thing in common: they have lots of gear shops. I notice these things because I love gear shops, and in the Lake District they are all over the place. Windemere, Ambleside, Grasmere, Keswick - four villages no more than about 20 miles apart, each charming and touristy in a Carmel sort of way - each featuring about a dozen (more in Keswick) cool gear shops. The place is awash in fleece, gore-tex, and hiking and climbing shoes. There are enough tents and sleeping bags to outfit the entire English nation. The walking sticks, placed end to end, would probably reach the moon. Or at least the top of Everest. We wonder, how can all these places survive? When some adventurous businessman walked into Keswick and saw a dozen gear stores, why did he ...

When kings go on building binges, it can be tough on the masses. More taxes, backbreaking labor. But those of us in later generations certainly benefit. Because castles are really cool. Caernarfon, built in the 13th century by Edward I (and never completed due to financial reasons, and, we suspect, problems with the contractor) is spacious and empty if you get there shortly after opening. Last night was violently stormy outside and equally restless inside our little room, with its charmingly uncomfortable beds and zippy trains passing right outside the window, which made it easy to get up and out early in the morning and be among the first to enter the big castle. See, there are benefits to bad hotels! We may be short, but we're a lot taller than you. We explored its towers and tunnels for an hour and marveled at the 3-way arrow slits (so three archers can lay down a path of death at once). I'm not sure what it is, but it is just really cool to clamber around an ancient c...

"Daddy, what's a condom?" "I don't know, Andie, it must be Welsh." No need for a wake-up call. The 5:10am commuter train passing right outside your window does the trick just fine! My new mantra: 3 stars or above!

At home When we arrived at Linda and Philip's lovely home in Chadlington, a small town in the region known as the Cotswolds, Will and Andie immediately raced for the garden. We have a playground just out the front door of the flat in London, and have spent many hours in the parks, but there is nothing like your own garden, like running through a lawn and picking raspberries and running in and dropping them in a bowl and running back outside. That feels like home. The kids played outside, Ava picked peas from pods, and Philip and I walked through the town, past the playground, along the brook, and back again. Just like the last time we had visited their England home, in September, 2001, Linda and Philip provided the comfort of home at a time when it was keenly needed. Apples in the shed Saturday was a perfect day. Breakfast in the sun room, a visit to the Mill Dean garden, and then to the much anticipated Cotwold Falconry Centre. This was a truly superb experience which comple...