As we planned our cross-country drive, I put Meredith in charge of finding kid-friendly hotels.  I’ve already mentioned how adept she is at finding restaurants and excursions.  She knows what her boys like, and a swimming pool at the end of a long day of driving is high on the...

At last, we came to Mt. Rushmore, a monument of such proportion that it doesn’t seem quite real, even as you stand before it.  On this crystalline June afternoon, we arrived in time to hear the house band tuning up for their patriotic program, presented nightly at 9 PM all summer until...

On day four of our cross-country trip, we were headed toward one of our main destinations, Mt. Rushmore.  But something that I love about traveling with my daughter is her aptitude for discovering interesting restaurants and unexpected attractions.  At this point of our journey, she...

On day two of our cross-country trip, we left Las Vegas and drove through the Virgin River gorge in a small corner of Arizona before heading into Utah.  Beyond the red rock formations there lay an unexpected attraction:  Mormon crickets.

We stopped in Meadow, Utah for a pitstop where...

June 10, early morning:  we had started driving cross-country, and our first night was spent in Las Vegas at a hotel the size of a small city.  New York is celebrated in song as the city that never sleeps.  But Vegas could just as easily be described that way.  Passing through...

Last week I began the story of how we found ourselves with a bonus vacation in Windsor at the end of a harrowing travel day.  And I mentioned The Long Walk, which is a straight paved path that stretches from the doors of Windsor Castle for over two and a half miles.  No bicycles or cars...

Our trip was almost over.  We rose early and had a taxi take us to Amsterdam’s airport, which rivals any airport I’ve ever seen for size and confusion.  It isn’t the Dutch language of the signage that is a problem…English is almost a first language for most of...

One of my “bucket list” items for our stay in Amsterdam was to visit the Anne Frank Museum, but I missed the window of opportunity to get my tickets.  Every Tuesday tickets go on sale for six weeks hence, and you can only buy them on line.  You mustn’t dally if you...

As the sun rose on our last full day aboard our cruise ship, I peeked out of the window to find that we had crossed into the Netherlands during the night.  Here the landscape was once again flat, but it didn’t feel like the river of the first few days.  The scenery along this...

When I booked our Rhine River cruise, I think I expected scenic vistas of snow-topped mountains and Sleeping Beauty Castles.  What we got for the first few days was flat countryside resembling the American Midwest, and industrial ports-of-call surrounded by warehouses and factories. ...