Travel

We’re a family-vacation-loving bunch. My husband and I take multiple trips during the summer with our two sons, as I did with my family when I was growing up. We just spent ten days doing the camping thing in mid-July and are preparing for our annual multi-generational family vacation to Emerald Isle, North Carolina at the end of August. We look forward to these trips all year, so when I heard that summer vacation won’t make you happier, I tried my hardest not to laugh out loud. But I failed.  Read more

Did you ever find yourself looking around, wondering what you were doing and how you got here? Did you then go on to wonder if "here" was where you really wanted to be? That's what happened to Jennifer Baggett, Holly Corbett and Amanda Pressner, aka the Lost Girls. When they didn't know the answers to those questions, they decided to find out by taking a year to travel around the world. I spent my recent vacation reading about their trip in their book The Lost Girls: Three friends, four continents, one unconventional detour around the world.  Read more

It all started almost a year ago: "You know," my father remarked one day while we were on the phone, "I'm going to be turning 70 next year. We've been thinking maybe we should try to get everyone together." Inwardly, I groaned. Dad's birthday is mid-January, just when everyone is finally settling back into school and work routines after the craziness of the holidays. Could we really work in a 1,000-mile trip home at that point without major disruption? Still, turning 70 is kind of a big deal.  Read more

We're standing in line to check bags at the San Diego airport, surrounded by large families hoisting enough luggage to sustain the Northwest Passage. And once again, I am thankful we are a party of three.  Read more

My neighbor Anita, who works as a nurse in a Minneapolis hospital, was on strike for one day last week. She, along with every other nurse who works in a Twin Cities hospital, held a one-day work stoppage. Anita didn't want to go on strike, but she did. She is part of the union. In talking about the media coverage, however, Anita said something that I've heard from everyone that I've ever talked with who has been involved in a strike negotiation. The issues are complex and nuanced; they are rarely as simple as, "The pilots wanted a 40 percent increase; the airline offered 30 percent."  Read more