Check Out These Suite Hotel Tips

TIMe for another episodic episode of TIM’s Travel Tips, which are a lot like sirloin tips except they don’t go nearly as well with a port demiglaze.  Today’s topic is hotels.  I know there are a lot of questions out there regarding hotels like, How come desk clerks in foreign countries don’t speak better English? and, Do they replace those little shampoos every time or do they just fill them up for the next guy?

Unfortunately, I don’t know the answers to these questions, but having spent the night in everything from a third-world 5-star resort where one square of lobby marble is more expensive than all the surrounding residences combined, to a roadside mom & pop motel where mom won’t use a vacuum because it upsets all the cats and pop left her months ago for the chick who lives in the dumpster behind the local Roquefort shop, I think I am qualified to attest as to what makes a decent place to stay and what places you should avoid like a Haitian prostitute. Continue reading

I Would Have Driven Boston’s Freedom Trail, but I Lost My Khakis

Boston CommonIf you are familiar with Boston, you know that it is famous for its garden, its baked beans, and its 2013 baseball team resembling the cast of Duck Dynasty.  It is also arguably the educational capitol of the U.S. with such respected universities as BU, MIT and Harvard, where you can get a prestigious degree in Ancient Greek or Women’s Studies that is sure to jumpstart your career as a barista.

I had a day off there this week and I was going to follow the typical American crowd and go to Cheers, but nobody there knows my name.  So instead I ventured down Boston’s famous Freedom Trail and its many sites dedicated to the distortion of America’s founding.  And of course, I took copious notes so that upon my return I could save my readers from spending upwards of $3 on an official infomap and offer up this,

The Official conTIMplating Guide to The Freedom Trail for Those too Cheap to Shell Out $3 for the Official Infomap Continue reading

We Are GAMEY

Supercool photo taken by Thing 1.

Supercool photo taken by Thing 1.

The Red Bike Gang rides again.  You will recall from a previously posted post you probably haven’t read that the males in our family all own red motorcycles and have a nasty habit of annually riding them about the countryside within a 4-day travel radius of the greater Southwestern Michigan area.  This year is no exception as the five of us spent last weekend astride our semi-hoglike two-wheeled vehicles hell-bent for scenic overlooks and home-style diner food.  This is our story.

As the title indicates, during this trip we were GAMEY: Great Apostle Motorcycle Expedition Yahoos.  Our stated goal was the Apostle Islands in northern Wisconsin, where there are 22 islands named for the twelve apostles of Jesus to evidently include some of his lesser-known followers like Stockton and Basswood and Raspberry. Continue reading

Hoosier Daddy

Last week was a rite of passage for me.  No, it was not breeching, smarty pants.  Nor was it completing my Rumspringa, something you are sure to Google and to which there is no end in sight.  What I did last week was take part in the compulsory and sometimes traumatic Western middle-age ceremony known as “Dropping Off Your Firstborn at College.”

Wow, does the time go fast.  It seems like just yesterday I was cleaning up the pasty Vaseline and baby powder concoction Thing 1 spread liberally about herself and her childhood bedroom.  Now here I am launching her three states away with the freedom and independence to do the same in an Indiana dorm full of strangers. Continue reading

Cruising the Fair Banks of the Chena

This is the Chena River (pronounced “Chee-na”).  It is NOT the Chia River.  I know this because the woman in front of me kept yelling this at the person behind her because he kept singing “Ch-ch-ch-chena.”

This is the Chena River (pronounced “Chee-na”). It is NOT the Chia River. I know this because the woman in front of me kept yelling this at the person behind her who wouldn’t stop singing “Ch-ch-ch-chena.”

Through no fault of my own, I had some free time in Fairbanks this week.  If you’ve ever been to Fairbanks, you know there are exactly five things to do there: 1) Kayak down the Chena River, 2) Canoe down the Chena River, 3) Bike along the Chena River, 4) Take the Riverboat Discovery Tour along the Chena River, or 5) See a movie.  Having already done 1, 2, 3 and 5 on past visits, I elected to try out 4 even though I would likely be the only patron who hadn’t consumed a Geritol-laced Ensure for breakfast.  So, I set my commemorative Al Roker alarm clock and, after missing the morning sailing, embarked on the afternoon option.

Like all nature tours focused on education and conservation, this one starts and ends in a giant gift shop. Continue reading