The Gadabouts

Chicago has a great skyscape. It's just fun to walk through downtown and see the different vistas: along the river, along the boulevards, across the plazas. And the thing that absolutely makes it is the different eras of architecture jumbled together. Most of the old buildings have been torn down, but enough remain to seed the skyline with a fertile counterpoint. The new skylines of Asia, where every high-rise has been built in the last twenty years, show the sterility of an all-new city. One of the greatest Chicago buildings of any era is the Reliant Building. Unfortunately, at street level it was always disfigured by a discount wig shop with a gaudy sign, which drew attention away from the elegant architecture of the upper stories. But now the Hotel Burnham has taken over the ground ... read more

Seeing Seattle from the air, your first thought is, what a cool place to build a city. It looks like someplace where a flying boat would drop you off for a week's fishing, only there's a city attached. It's not on the sea, but everywhere there are lakes and bays and channels. And hills, where blocks of houses crouch under towering evergreens. If a city sprawls widely enough, you can forget that nature was ever there, but in Seattle you're always aware of the water, the hills, and the outsized firs. Not to mention the snow-clad mountains which appeared on Wednesday when the clouds took a day off. Seattle is blessed in that it has an ample reservoir of vintage architecture, but it didn't really boom until after the 1970's, so it isn't saddled with too ... read more

We arrived at the Four Seasons Miami on Brickell Avenue, and quickly learned that Brickell rhymes not with Cornell but with pickle. This is one of the many satisfactions of travel, the chance to learn little things that you probably would never have learned any other way. It's the same way I learned that in New Hampshire, Berlin rhymes with Merlin, and that in South Dakota, Pierre rhymes with cheer. The Four Seasons lies in the business district, which is decidedly un-busy during the weekend. But that suited us fine. It made the weekend more like a getaway for just the two of us. And it made it easier to park. One thing you have to give due consideration to in South Florida is whether your parking space is at risk from falling coconuts. We were ... read more

On a clear day in Brewster County, you can see for seventy miles, but you'll never see a cell phone tower or a three-signal stoplight. And that suited us just fine. We wanted only to get away from civilization altogether and it looked like we succeeded. But our devil-may-care attitude proved to be our undoing. When we asked the old lady running the motel-slash-diner if she sold any beer, she looked at us like we'd lost our minds. "BEER? You mean to tell me you didn't bring any BEER?" There was a long ride to the next town and back, and then we were set. After dinner, we wanted to keep the extra brews cold and asked if she had a cooler. "You mean you didn't bring a COOLER?" Well now we know. But there was ... read more

It's sad, but our vacation's drawing to a close. And it's hard to believe that we haven't been away for 6 months or a year. Has it really been a mere 5 weeks? We've travelled to the other side of the Earth, absorbed new customs and a new language and took 243 pictures. One thing that eventually hits you is how much you've adapted to your newly-learned culture. It hit me first when we arrived in Japan. Japan's wonderful, things were very orderly and efficient but the people weren't as laid-back somehow. Even the Japanese language reflects a certain formality. On the plane from Bangkok to Tokyo, instructions were repeated in 3 languages and by far Thai is the most lilting and melodic. I'm really going to miss greeting people with a musical "Sawat dee kaa", ... read more