New Orleans: Sightseeing Between Courses

My love affair with New Orleans began when I was a student at Tulane University. Peel and eat shrimp, oysters on the half-shell, gumbo, beignets and muffaletta became standard fare. Al Hirt, Pete Fountain, Louis Prima and Fats Domino appeared nightly in French Quarter clubs. Food and music are the foundation of the Big Easy.[…]

In the Wake of Lewis and Clark

When I was growing up in St. Louis, the Gateway to the West, our school had yearly outings to the Jefferson Memorial (now called the Missouri History Museum). There we learned about the opening of the west and key events in the development of the frontier with an emphasis, of course, on St. Louis roots.[…]

Teriffic Tampa and Carnival’s Caribbean: A-Z

Travel tip: schedule your arrival in port a few days before embarkation. It allows you to relax and adjust to time zone changes, stop over in interesting cities, as well as build in time to work around possible travel delays. Our choice for this trip was to visit Tampa and sail on Carnival’s Legend. A[…]

Gunkholing with CruiseWest

Gunkhole is a nautical term loosely defined as “to wander, discovering whatever is around the next bend or just over the horizon.” My wife and I enjoyed a splendid week of gunkholing aboard CruiseWest’s Spirit of Endeavor on their Pacific Northwest Coastal Escape departing from Seattle. The ship carries only 102 passengers and its small[…]