travel

Montana skiing, take two

Better snow, warmer air, more fleece clothing – we had a good day of skiing at Bridger Bowl yesterday (even though it didn’t end with anything fried on a stick).

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Montana

I’ve learned there’s a key difference between skiing in the Swiss Alps and skiing in Montana: ambient temperature. I had no idea how good we had it in Switzerland, where we could ski on perfect snow in little more than an unzipped ski jacket for most of the season. Not the case in Red Lodge, … Read more

Bozeman, Montana: me likey

Still in Montana, having a fabulous time. We spent a day in Bozeman, which I found to be an absolutely charming little town. Not to outdo the NYT guy, but we covered quite a lot of ground during our short visit: Lunch at Pickle Barrel, a famous Montana chain of sandwich shops. I kind of … Read more

Greetings from Yellowstone

Where in the world am I today? It’s getting hard to keep track… I’m several blog posts behind, but I figured I’d share a couple photos from the last couple days in Yellowstone National Park (that’s in Montana and Wyoming, just in case you were wondering). It has been crazy freaky cold, but we’re having … Read more

What Europe needs more of: microbrews

Sure, plenty of good beers come from Europe. But my favorites tend to be ales, and the continent just doesn’t make many of those (this is one of the reasons I’m sad we won’t be moving to Ireland). But here in the northwest United States, microbrews are everywhere. The variety is staggering. And delightful. Bars … Read more

Storm chasing on the Oregon coast

Greetings from Oregon. We spent the last couple days on the very stormy Oregon coast. We had a blast playing on the beach in the wind, rain, and foam showers (which looked like big chunks of snow). The wind was so strong and constant you could lean back into it and take a nap. I … Read more

Trapped in Munich

Maybe my memory is failing me, but I don’t recall the German train workers ever going on strike when I lived in this country in the 90s. These days the German trains are going the way of the French and Italian, with multiple strikes in the same month. A 48-hour one started this morning, conveniently … Read more

Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Looking for a good time? Try booking a 4-country, 10-flight, 15-city trip using 500 different airlines and a million different travel websites. Around the holidays. I need a personal assistant. Update #1: OMG! For the first time in about 10 years of trying, American Airlines frequent flier miles have proven useful. Direct flights and everything! … Read more

Sion song

We spent the day before the cow fights in Sion, a lovely little Valais city not far from Martigny. The main attractions (beyond the charming downtown walking district) are multiple picturesque hilltop castles which overlook the city. Gluttons for punishment that we are, we hiked up to two castles (one of which is technically a … Read more