Our Work

Robyn Norwood on the sublime beauty of snowshoeing

Our Robyn Norwood has this nice travel piece for SignonSanDiego on snowshoeing at Mammoth Lakes, in the Sierra Nevada. From her story:

The moon, two nights shy of full, rose overhead. The snow beneath our feet was packed firm. But the woods were not silent that night, filled instead with the crunching of our snowshoes and the occasional low growl of a tractor grooming a ski run, its lonely light creeping along a distant hill.

The voices of my 20 companions — 18 other snowshoers and our two leaders — were a comfort in the woods, along with repeated assurances that bears were in hibernation.

[...]

We paused to regroup and catch our breath, and an astronomer who happened to be in our midst told us about the formation of the moon, then pointed out Jupiter, and later the bright star Sirius. A shooting star streaked across the sky, the sort of did-I-just-see-that moment you might dismiss as your imagination if you were alone. But we saw it, a blink-of-an-eye confirmed by the quick gasps of others.

Scott Martelle on Bill Barich and revisitng Steinbeck's America

Our Scott Martelle wrote this interview piece for the LA Times on writer Bill Barich's new book "Long Way Home: On the Trail of Steinbeck's America," in which Barich loosely follows in John Steinbeck's footsteps in "Travels With Charley" to take the measure of the United States during the 2008 presidential campaign. From Martelle's story:

It was a dream project for a nonfiction writer — a few weeks on the open road with a loose itinerary and a license to indulge personal curiosity. And the project fit in neatly with some of Barich's previous works, including his 1980 debut "Laughing in the Hills," in which he immersed himself in the Bay Area's Golden Gate Fields horse track, and his 2009 book, "A Pint of Plain," about his search for the quintessential Irish pub.

For "Long Way Home," Barich spent six weeks on the road and then another nine months back in Ireland writing. The book is part travelogue, naturally, but it's also a series of ruminations by a writer with liberal inclinations trying to fathom the conservative heart of his home nation — and also to understand the occasional mood of passivity among people who were often easily riled by political manipulations.

Robyn Norwood on the new members of the Pac 10 family

Our Robyn Norwood has a piece in the Los Angeles Times about the new schools added to the Pac 10 collegiate sports conference. As she writes, the new teams mean some nice  places to visit for road trips. From her story:

Colorado won a national championship in football in 1990. But NCAA violations and off-field woes have set the program back, and the Buffaloes haven't played in a bowl game since 2007.

Yet Boulder, with 100,000 people and 300 miles of bike lanes, is the new gem of the Pac-12 — a sophisticated, environmentally conscious, walkable town with far more in common with Palo Alto or Eugene, Ore., than it had with some of the Midwestern burgs of the Big 12 Conference, which Colorado was leaving.

It's also an ideal place to leave the car at the hotel and walk to Folsom Field, Colorado's 53,613-seat stadium. The Millennium Harvest House hotel is a five-minute walk along the Boulder Creek Path, the biking, walking and jogging trail that winds through the city.

Paul Tullis on Frank Sinatra and his desert house

Recent member Paul Tullis has this nice piece in Fraser magazine on singing legend Frank Sinatra's desert house in Palm Springs, now renovated and available for getaway rentals. From his story:

Twin Palms is a wonder to behold. It was one of the era’s architectural gems, immortalised by the photographer Julius Shulman. Juxtaposing his pictures against the house as it currently exists shows how well the restoration remained faithful to the original – while not sparing contemporary standards of luxury, such as a flat-screen TV in every room and an all-Viking appliances chef’s kitchen – and how well the new interior design evokes the style of the era.

The most prominent change is the restoration’s reorientation of the house. Its most impressive features, including a dramatic covered breezeway that casts shadows on the ‘keyboard’ of the piano-shaped pool, are now the first that a visitor beholds. This grandentrance leads to double glass doors to the great room, which features sliding glass doors (tinted, for comfort) opening to the pool area. These doors are emblematic of the indoor-outdoor seamlessness that would become a hallmark of the midcentury modern style. The living area features plush carpeting that would make a cashmere goat jealous, grand piano and recording equipment (no longer functional) that Sinatra himself used.

Rosemary McClure: Turns out it IS your grandfather's Club Med ...

Our Rosemary McClure has this fun look in the Los Angeles Times at Club Med, the resorts that made hedonism a vacation theme, and their appeal to older tourists. From her story:

The last thing I expected to see when I arrived at Club Med's Turkoise resort in the British West Indies was a gray-haired guy balancing on a walker. Before I had a chance to blink twice, another gray-haired guy rolled by in a wheelchair.

Was this the hedonistic singles resort I remembered from the '80s? Or had I taken a wrong turn and ended up at an assisted-living facility?

Neither. Club Med, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, has matured along with its members.

"We have a lot of repeat guests here, as many as 70%," said Turkoise hotel manager Chokri Ferchichi. "They grow in age, and they still like it, so they keep coming back."

Nancy Wride went to the beach and found some fish

Our Nancy Wride has this nice travel story for the Dallas Morning News on the annual grunion run in Southern California. From her story:

CABRILLO BEACH, Calif. – Lit by the moon, our camp chairs planted in the darkened waves, we wait for the best late-night show on the Southern California coast: the mating of the grunion.

Nowhere else on earth do fish ride the high tide to spawn out of water, and watching the animal kingdom procreate in a silvery wet spectacle is a wondrous sight. For travelers, as for Californians, the annual grunion runs are a free and novel adventure.

[...]

Peak spawning is late March to early June, but thousands of grunion flop ashore through summer's end. They arrive only about eight nights each month: four consecutive nights with the new moon, and another four with the first full moon. On those nights, the grunion ride ashore on the highest tides.

Rosemary McClure travels Scotland, and lives to tell the tale

What better way to see Scotland than through the prism of several glasses of scotch? Our Rosemary McClure in this weekend's Los Angeles Times Travel section:

In Perthshire, about an hour's drive north of the Edinburgh airport, I tried to shake off my jet lag at the Gleneagles Hotel. Gleneagles is the kind of place where croquet wickets are a permanent lawn fixture and the valet wears a kilt. I skipped golf, tennis and the indoor pool to try my hand at falconry, a popular resort activity.

"Don't worry about his beak," instructor William Duncan told me. "Worry about his talons." Easier said than done when a Harris hawk's beady brown eyes are staring at you, its beak a mere 5 inches from your eyes. He was perched on my forearm, which was covered with a heavy leather glove. I leaned away from the hawk. "You don't look real comfortable," one of the other students said.

The hawk ignored me; he was well trained even if I wasn't. When I moved my arm in a sweeping motion, he flew away. When I put my arm back out, he returned to perch on it. "OK," I squeaked at the instructor, "you can take him now. He's a nice hawk, but I think I'll go play croquet."

If I needed a little liquid courage, I didn't have to look far. The countryside is laced with distilleries, and the next day, I visited my first, Cardhu, home of Johnnie Walker (www.discoveringdistilleries.com), said to be the world's largest-selling blended Scotch. Cardhu, set in a scenic rural area and surrounded by rolling green hills, was established in 1824 and is known for its sweet, smooth, mellow malt. I joined a tour, saw the pot stills where Scotch is created, tasted a bit, and then took a stroll outside. On a hillside nearby was a famous local resident, a highland cow, which looked up at me through its fringed bangs.

Rosemary McClure on a room with an amazing view

Our Rosemary McClure gets the best gigs. She reports here for the Los Angeles Times on a hotel in Tanzania   with a rare view -- the wildlife of the Serengeti in Tanzania. From her story:

As I left my hotel room, I spotted first one, then three, then more than a dozen elephants milling around. They had come for a drink and a mud bath in a watering hole just beyond the lodge's swimming pool.

Who needs a game drive when the game comes to you?

Bilila Lodge Kempinski, where I stayed, qualifies. Not only did I see 28 elephants taking baths while I took a swim, but I also ran into two zebras when I left the hotel spa. "Here for a massage?" I asked as the pair galloped away.

Nancy Wride on a special reunion aboard the USS Midway

Our Nancy Wride has a piece in the Sacramento Bee today on special reunion aboard the USS Midway, now berthed in San Diego. From her piece:

 SAN DIEGO – When the long and costly Vietnam War ended with the fall of Saigon 35 years ago, 7,000 South Vietnamese and Americans were airlifted to U.S. aircraft carriers – the largest helicopter rescue in histor

More than 3,000 survivors were ferried to the USS Midway. 

On Friday, thousands of Vietnamese refugees and others boarded the San Diego-berthed USS Midway Museum for an emotional 35th anniversary reunion of the rescue known as Operation Frequent Wind.

The two-hour event offered the gritty hero tale of 4,500 sailors who flew helicopters and guided frantic South Vietnamese pilots with only hand signals during a 30-hour mission.

Rosemary McClure on cheap Hawaii eats - and depression

Our Rosemary McClure anchored a collection of recommendations of cheap food spots -- less than $20 -- on   Hawaii's Big Island for the Los Angeles Times. From her item on Quinn's Almost By The Sea:Under the spreading banyan tree sits Quinn's Almost by the Sea.

A local favorite, Quinn's bar and fish house has a nondescript façade, a '70s-era bar and a garden patio shaded by a lush banyan with a 40-foot circumference. Quinn's is a family business; three siblings on staff make sure things run right.

Point of personal preference: The big Island is the true Hawaii. But we're happy to hear counter-arguments.

On a more poignant note, McClure also wrote this recent column on dealing with depression among the elderly.