As I mentioned yesterday, it has been so fun reconnecting with Sheila Silver, and husband John Feldman. They invited us to stay at their home for 2 nights. I know virtually no true artists and/or (non-poker) celebrities, let alone folks who are dedicated to making the world a better place. Sheila is a world class […]
This morning, we visited Lake Minnewaska, which is located on the Shawangunk Ridge, about two hours north of NYC. Interesting factoid – Minnewaska, meaning good water, comes from the language of the Dakota (Sioux) nation, which was not local to the Hudson Valley region. In 1875 it was named by Alfred H. Smiley (obviously not […]
Hi folks. Yesterday Allyn and I started a four-week trip to the far Northeast corner of the US. We are driving for the first two weeks and then will be taking a coastal cruise for the second two weeks. We flew to Newark’s new 1MM sq ft Terminal A which cost $2.3 billion. It’s the […]
Until this trip I thought madeira was a Portuguese dessert wine. It is indeed. It turns out Madeira is an (Portuguese) island that lies off the northwest coast of Africa, north of The Canary Islands. Funchal is its largest city (106,000) and capital. The city is ultra clean and immaculate. The black and white mosaic […]
Geographically, Canary Islands are part of Africa although politically they are 100% Spain. There is some controversy over the why they are named Canary Islands, but one thing is for certain; they are not named after the bird. Las Palmas, the joint capital and largest city, pop. 400,000, in the Canary Islands, is part of […]
Cape Verde is a country of islands off the coast of Africa. It received its independence from Portugal in 1975. Today we visited Praia, its main port, capital, and largest city. Allyn asked a gentleman on the street for help. He became our guide which added tremendous value to our day. The street scenes were […]
Goree Island, located about a mile off the coast of Dakar is a small island (45 acres) that was the largest slave-trading center on the African coast. It was ruled by the Portuguese, Dutch, English and French. Now it serves mostly as a memorial to the slave trade and the atrocities slaves faced waiting to […]
Namibe was the first of two stops in Angola. I’m not sure why we stopped here. We took the ship’s shuttle to the waterfront area. I’m quite certain the dancing in traditional garb was for our benefit. We were advised to stay together and not wander off due to safety reasons. Many folks (men) were […]
Check another item off my bucket list. We left the ship at 4:50 AM to head out to the desert, excited for our first hot air balloon ride. Just watching the setup was quite interesting. It’s hard to imagine how giant the balloons are until you see them stretched flat on the desert floor. They […]
Allyn took a one day, all day safari to Kariega Private Game Reserve just a bit over an hour from Port Elizabeth where we were docked. She had a great time and was amazed as to how near she got to the animals. Zebras hug as a way of relaxing and looking out for predators […]