Who says you can’t go home again? I just did and am here to testify that though it was a bit strange, it was more than wonderful to return to the place I lived in 41 years ago. Planning my recent trip back east where I would be staying with family and two of my oldest and dearest girlfriends, I decided to start off my trip by staying in a hotel for a few nights. After checking the rates in our two favorite New York hotels, The Regency and The Surrey and catching my breath I decided to look at a few other options.
My husband and I have become huge fans of VRBO and through it we’ve rented great vacation houses in Hawaii, London and San Francisco to name a few. The house in Kauai we rented several summers ago was spectacular. Seriously we lucked out big time. But getting back to NYC, I combed the VRBO listings and didn’t find anyplace I felt like staying in. Those that looked good were either too big or in neighborhoods I didn’t know, or just looked like what it was: someone else’s nice apt but not mine! Then I remembered that a friend had once mentioned that she’d stayed in a lovely Bed and Breakfast in NYC. What the heck, with nothing to lose, and possibly hundreds to save, I googled B and B’s in Manhattan. Quell Surprise! Welcome to a whole new way to go! I had plenty of options to scroll through and scroll I did!
With renewed enthusiasm, scrolling, smiling, practically drooling, something caught my eye. Wait! I know that room! I know those windows! Backing up for a closer inspection, my enthusiasm turned into awe. I stopped and enlarged the picture of the room. That was my apartment! Decades ago, four to be exact! I read the name of The B and B, the 1871 House. The name confused me, but knowing those windows, I clicked onto the 1871 website.
Generally, the time to avoid is the hurricane season that officially runs between 1 June and 30 November. However...
Living in a city with 6,000+ restaurants, why would you ever drive 150
miles to eat in a city with a population of 1,500? For me, it’s a kind
of a Hillary Clinton type thing. She was right, it does take a village
to raise a child. Unfortunately for my wife and I, parents of a 16
month old boy who believes soil is a basic food group, we left the
village back in our home state of Michigan when we moved to Chicago. So
when we need a break from the exhaustive process of keeping our son’s
mouth free of dirt and other things you find on the average floor, we
gotta go to the village.
Like my ancestors before me and their great ancestors before them, I like love food. The members of the Santiago clan aren’t known for being particularly picky about their cuisine. Eat first, ask later (or ask while eating). But eating anything in China is like a blindfolded taste test. The labels are written in Chinese, so I sit and I poke and I prod.
A couple of weekends ago, Martin and I headed out to Joshua Tree for a quick camp-out. Fall in the National park is spectacular. We enjoyed bouldering, dominoes, wine and beans by the campfire, a starry slumber, early morning coffee in our enamel-ware mugs and a wonderful hike to an Oasis.