Last week, the blues hit me with a vengeance. There was no mystery about my mood; wanderlust was having its way with me and I knew it was once again time to travel. I threw a few things in a bag, grabbed my camera, and pointed the car north, intending to check out some of Florida’s smaller inland towns along the Nature Coast, where I’d heard “Old Florida” still exists. Exiting I-75 at US Rt. 98, I traveled west through Brooksville (cute enough, but it just didn’t have the energy I sought) and then turned north on US Rt. 41. Because this used to be the main north-south route in western Florida, it passes through scores of small towns – Inverness, Hernando, Holder, and Citrus Springs – but none piqued my interest enough to make me stop.

Blues Brothers sculpture stands at the entrance of the Two Rivers Inn

A few minutes later, as I crossed over the Withlacoochee River into Dunnellon, my “interest radar” perked up. A sign proclaiming “Dunnellon Boomtown Historic District” directed me onto Pennsylvania Avenue. I drove past dozens of lovely old restored homes and commercial buildings to the end of the street, where I found the Two Rivers Inn. Mounted in front of this otherwise unassuming row of concrete block cottages was a full-size statue of the Blues Brothers.

“It’s a sign,” I thought. “Maybe the Blues Brothers can chase my blues away.” I found the office and paid for a night’s stay, delighted with the $59 per night rate that came complete with wireless internet. Since my room wouldn’t be ready for another couple of hours, I wandered back down the main drag in search of something to eat. At The Levee Cafe, they were literally standing on the front porch, dragging folks inside on this slow Sunday afternoon. Lured in by the promise of a great Caesar salad, I slid into a booth just as BJ and Bruce began singing the blues during the cafe’s afternoon jam session. “Did I pick the right town, or what!”

Bruce and BJ sing the blues at the Levee Cafe

After a delicious lunch, I headed back to the motel to deposit my suitcase. I must digress for a moment. My criteria for motels and hotels is simple – I seek budget prices, a modicum of cleanliness, and safety. As you might imagine, I have stayed in some real dumps, and with a nightly rate of $59, I was prepared for Two Rivers Inn to be another dump. Hoping for the best but expecting the worst, I opened the front door. Read the rest of this entry »

Mixed in amongst the rock, R&B, blues, and folk songs that comprise my music collection is a CD that contains a 20-minute recording made at a lake at the Khlong Saeng Wildlife Sanctuary. In 2004 I visited this Sanctuary, which is located in a remote area on the southern peninsula of Thailand. There are no generators at Khlong Saeng. No planes fly overhead. And cell phones get no reception, thus the ‘music’ of the CD is the mating calls of wild gibbon, the whoosh of giant hornbills soaring overhead, and the sounds of waterfalls cascading off the limestone towers that surround the pristine lake.

There is a resort of sorts at Klong Saeng. The only family living at the lake has constructed a series of thatched-roof bungalows that float on giant bamboo logs along the shore, tied together like boxcars on a railroad siding. Read the rest of this entry »

Hidden at the end of narrow Freeschool Lane is the last remaining acre of undeveloped land in Key West’s historic Old Town. How this priceless parcel escaped development is nothing less than a miracle, but even more miraculous is the tropical rainforest that today grows upon the site. This is Nancy Forrester’s Secret Garden, a virtual oasis where, for a $10 entrance fee, visitors can walk among orchids, Bromeliads, ferns and more than 150 species of palms, including several rare, near-extinct species of palm. Scattered amongst the trees and plants are Mana’s rescue birds: colorful parrots, macaws, and cockatoos that squawk from perches in their cages, competing for attention.

For 40 years, Nancy Forrester has been tending this garden and inviting the public to share in her love of the plants and animals. Unfortunately, this may soon change. Realizing she could no longer afford to personally shoulder the expense of the garden, she recently Read the rest of this entry »

Day two of meandering around the northern Gulf Coast area of Florida left me with a much better impression than the previous day. Venturing further south, I began the day at Manatee Springs State Park. Located a few miles inland from the coast, the park encompasses the entire length of Manatee Springs, terminating where the spring waters empty into the Suwannee River. The 50 to 150 million gallons of water emitted by Manatee Springs each day bubble up in a circular pool surrounded by giant oak draped in moss. At this springhead, the waters range from the purest turquoise blue to emerald green to the deepest azure blue, and are so clear that you can see every detail of the rocks 25 feet below the surface. Hundreds of manatee winter at these springs, deserting the colder waters of the Suwannee for the year-round 72 degree temperature of the spring waters.

Since I was here in the middle of the summer, there were no manatee around, but the park offers a wealth of other wildlife spotting opportunities, both along the boardwalk that runs the entire length of the springs to the Suwanee River, as well as on the eight miles of marked trails Read the rest of this entry »

When most people think of the Outer Banks of North Carolina, what comes to mind are the lighthouses, the first flight of the Wright Brothers in Kitty Hawk, and the miles of beaches. These popular tourist attractions are worth a visit, but there is so much more to the Outer Banks that the average person does not see. Having lived here for more than ten years, I have been privileged to capture in photos the hidden jewels than most tourists don’t even know exist, much less bother to visit.

The Outer Banks is comprised of three ecozones: the beach, where very little vegetation grows in the salt-saturated air; the dunes, which are vegetated by salt-tolerant plants; and the area behind the dunes, which form a natural barrier from the salt-laden ocean winds, allowing a lush maritime forest to grow. Much of this maritime forest has been preserved by the Nature Conservancy, which has been quietly buying up tracts in what residents refer to as Nags Head Woods. A short walk along the trails of the Nature Conservancy gives a spectacular glimpse of the great diversity of this barrier island maritime forest. Nags Head Woods is home to more than 300 species of plants, more than 100 species of birds, six species of freshwater fish, and 65 species of land vertebrates (amphibians, reptiles, and mammals). Among the more notable are this friendly red-bellied water snake: Read the rest of this entry »

I am an avid map reader. I can spend hours poring over a map of a destination I plan to visit. Give me a map and I can find my way to anywhere – I’m like a homing pigeon where directions are concerned. So when I consulted maps of Interlaken and its surrounding Bernese Oberland, I was surprised to discover that they seriously confused me. I finally figured out why – they were all upside down. Unlike in the United States, where all our maps are oriented with north at the top of the sheet, in Switzerland the maps all seem to use the Alps as their orientation. Thus all the maps of the Interlaken area show the Alps at the top with Interlaken at the bottom, even though the Alps are to the south of Interlaken. This is the case even in the train, where the route map is printed on a small table beneath each window – if you are following the station stops as the train travels along the route, you have to follow from the bottom to the top, even though you are traveling north to south. That also means that the two lakes between which Interlaken lies are reversed on the map, with Lake Brienz (which s actually to the east of Interlaken) shown on the left-hand side of the map, and Lake Thun (which is to the west of Interlaken) shown on the right-hand side of the map. It took me a while to get oriented.

Interlaken Ost railroad station

Interlaken Ost railroad station

For the past five days I’ve been staying at the Sunset Bungalows on the northern tip of the island of Zanzibar, near the village of Nungwi. Initially, things did not go smoothly. On my first day I had lunch at the resort’s restaurant on the beach and tried to charge the meal to my room, intending to pay the entire bill when I checked out. For some reason they did not want me to do this, but the waiter was unable to explain why. I eventually had to hunt down the general manager Read the rest of this entry »

I have been back from my Maasai home stay for two days now and I am still struggling to write about it. I could variously describe the experience as appalling, fascinating, stimulating, exhausting, rewarding, frustrating, mind-expanding, enraging, or gratifying, and each one of those adjectives would be appropriate. But, let me start at the beginning.

Home of Morani and Sara Poyoni

Poyoni living room

My host, Morani Poyoni, picked me up in his older model Land Rover and drove me the nine kilometers to his house, located high in the hills above the town of Monduli. Morani and his wife, Sara, are among the few Maasai who have adopted western ways and left the traditional village. Both pursued educations and became teachers. Sara still teaches at the local primary school but these days Morani concentrates on his home stay program, which can include anything from allowing two dozen British teenagers to camp in his backyard while preparing for a climb of Mount Kilimanjaro to planning intensive multi-day programs for people like me who want to learn more about the Maasai culture.

I scheduled this cultural home stay with some romantic notion that I could discover the true Maasai way of life, meet with Maasai elders, and learn from the village healers. I accomplished all those goals, but I was totally unprepared for much of what I learned. Maasai is a patriarchal and hierarchical society. The women do Read the rest of this entry »

The Balinese don’t celebrate wedding anniversaries. They don’t celebrate birthdays much, either. What they do celebrate is their religion. Hinduism is the center of their everyday lives, which are steeped in religious ceremony and tradition. Towns prepare for temple festivals by weaving intricate designs of young palm fronds onto long bamboo poles, which are then displayed all up and down the streets. Each morning the Balinese weave palm leaves into small baskets, filling them with flowers, fruit, and various other food.

Spirit offerings ares set out on the sidewalks each morning

Spirit offerings ares set out on the sidewalks each morning

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