She stood at the side of the road by the bus stop, tapping her foot. Her dark eyes darted back and forth without stopping to rest, as though if they did, she would be caught off guard.

“Where is she? I hope I haven’t missed her,” she asked to whomever would hear, or no one.

There were five of us at the bus stop, five of us females who had been deposited by Trailways at a parking lot that posed as a bus depot in the day, and I suspected a hangout for teenagers at night. A diner was situated in the front of the building, frequented by people who didn’t give us any attention.   Read more….. »

We are in the forest, navigating the elements. Blame it on the sun, it lured us here. Its brilliance convinced us to enter nature’s forest, away from the citadels of mankind. So this is where we find ourselves now. Deeper into wild arenas we venture, further and further away from civilizations, cars, cares, and worries.   Read more….. »

The stock market goes up, the stock market goes down. Gas prices go up, gas prices go down. So does food, and everything else. It’s hard to know how to plan your family vacation on a budget when everything financial seems to be built on sand. Fortunately, the staycation can help save both family fun and the family dollar. Learning how to have fun at home can not only help save money, but perhaps even be a little gentler on the environment with less transportation.   Read more….. »

It’s all the rage to get yourself noticed in Manhattan. You make it here, you make it-well, you know how the song goes. Cliches are the enemy of the writer, but everything about a literary gathering in New York is drenched with cliches. It would be more of a surprise if it were in Omaha, unless you were Omaha resenting the hick stereotype of your not so little town.   Read more….. »

The whole concept of a “bucket list” has become popular since the movie with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. Ironically, I first encountered the movie on a plan en route to the Kona Coast in Hawaii. This had been a place I had wanted to go for years. Without realizing it, I’d created a bucket list and had just crossed off something. But that doesn’t mean my bucket list of destinations was now empty. Costa Rica sounded nice. So did the Galapagos Islands.   Read more….. »

I sat in the passenger seat of the Chevy van, a place which had sat on and off for the last fourteen and a half years. Humidity was building up in this early hot summer morning. In that steam, a drop of water crawled down the windshield, like a teardrop. In the state of mind that I was in, it seemed as though the van was crying, knowing that it fate was sealed.   Read more….. »

One of the nicest airports I have dealt with is the Albany International Airport. Located just outside the city proper, it is a medium-sized airport that provides many connections to major hubs like O’Hare International in Chicago, as well as Toronto and Philadelphia. My flight to Chicago was on a United flight, and I found getting to the airport easy, and the staff helpful. I’ve heard people say that they have had a terrible time flying, but my experience with the airport was very pleasant.   Read more….. »

To tell you the truth, when I first talked about going to Hawaii with my husband, we weren’t talking much about beaches. I have never been one to hang out in the sand and catch some rays. Ironically, I have spent a great deal of my life hanging out at sandy shores. Mostly, the beaches were background scenery for what I really came to the place for: the water. Oceans, lakes, sounds, bays: I would either swim in them or walk beside them, the water being the star, the beach being nothing more than an understudy.   Read more….. »