Beach House in the Burbs

... in 37 minutes or less! This has been the summer of colossal, all-encompassing museum experiences. First up, was the ENTIRE HISTORY of mankind (not WOMANKIND, NO, NO, NO) in 45 minutes or less. Now, I've seen ALL the marvels of architecture -- from the Great Wall of China to St. Peter's Cathedral -- without leaving Cullman, Alabama. Ave Maria Rock Grotto at St. Bernard Abbey , "the only Benedictine monastery of men in Alabama" (If you'd have asked me, I'd have said there were NO Benedictine monasteries in Alabama, of men or women or even armadillos. How did they get past the Baptists?) "consists of 125 small stone and cement structures, the handiwork of creative genius (or obsessive fruitcake) Brother Joseph Zoetl, a monk at the abbey for almost 70 years." The quote is from the flyer you get when you visit the Grotto--expect for the parenthetical comments. Those are mine. And it pretty much sums up the works, but it does nothing to captur...

The littlest nephew (who is now 6'2") and I went to the Atlanta Botanical Garden this past weekend to see the Imaginary Worlds exhibit--and all the other pretty stuff too. What a cool exhibit! Enormous, fantastical plant-covered creatures scattered throughout the garden. The Unicorn was one of my favorites. I loved the way the plants that make up her mane and tail waved in the wind. The Ogre was good too. You can't tell from this picture, but he had a tunnel through his side, like he was a bridge or a hidey-hole or a playhouse. But those two were only my favorites until I saw the Earth Goddess. At 29 tons, she is quite a woman! More ordinary critters such as butterflies, bunnies and cobras also were fun to see, but I loved the fantasy creatures best. They weren't the only bits of beauty, however. I longed to take home orchids from the filled-to-overwhelming orchid room, but settled for lots of pictures instead. And what would a day in the garden ...

Everybody talks about the beautiful beaches, the ancient ruins, the spectacle that is Knossos if they go to Crete, the southernmost Greek island. But, honest to the Greek gods, the most fabulous museum on that island, hands down, is the Homo Sapiens Village . This museum covers the entirety of the human (or at least male) experience in one place that you can experience from start to finish in about 45 minutes. This will leave you plenty of time of sit on a lovely Cretan beach or eat more delicious food or drink Retsina or Raki, because you’ll never need to visit another museum again. Take a look at what you can learn at Homo Sapiens Village: My sister, the anthropologist, says this progression is all wrong. Maybe it's the blood splashed all over it. Shouldn't this should read “From the caves TO the moon”? Unless we evolved from caves on the moon—and I don’t think so. Where’s the guitar or better yet, the alto sax (that’s what I play)? From the cave on the fa...

ZeeDonk. Go ahead, say it. It sounds vaguely like the noise my computer makes when I mash the wrong button. But that's not what it is. A ZeeDonk is a cross between a zebra and a donkey--duh. It looks like a donkey wearing striped socks. Like this- The friendly, caring people at Noah's Ark Animal Sanctuary take in abandoned, injured and abused wild animals. They build nice BIG enclosures for them. And even let them live with their friends. This is actually Baloo and Leo (not Shere Khan the tiger, like I put on the picture). Leo's a male lion who got neutered too young, we learned, and so doesn't have a mane. Poor Leo. But Baloo still loves him. Baloo, Leo and Shere Khan, who's still friends with the others, he just didn't make the picture, have lessons to teach us. Now, if you want to break into a chorus of Kumbaya, I'll understand. But when you're finished, check out Noah's Ark, in bustling (ok, not really) Locust Grove, Georgia. You...

We decided at what was maybe not the very last minute, but at least the last hour, that we wanted to go somewhere for the weekend after the 4th of July when everyone else in America also wants to go somewhere. Fortunately, someone at a party had just told me about airbnb.com , where you can rent homes/cabins/rooms/apartments from total strangers, who you have to hope aren't axe murderers, but, since they're hoping the same thing about you, you gotta figure it's safe. And it was! Our place and the people who owned it in the North Carolina mountains were lovely! It was easy and inexpensive and seemed like our very own mountain cabin for two whole days. Here are some pictures. We stayed in the basement apartment. It was great! Cozy, cool and very comfortable. It had this fabulous whirlpool tub built for two! And these practically furry sheets that I can't imagine using at the beach house in July, but were purrfectly cozy in the mountains in July. Our first ...

Guinness is GREAT! Never liked it here in America. But, oh, I am a convert now! The rocky landscape. Somehow I pictured the Emerald Isle as a rolling, green, golf-course landscape. Not so. It is one big, beautiful rock.

For the past few years when we've been to the beach, we've hit uncrowded, uncommercialized, less developed places like Jekyll Island, Ga., and St. George Island, Fla. But this year we went back if not to the heart of kitschy Florida, which is probably Weeki Wachee and the mermaids, then at least to its liver. We traveled to Ft. Walton Beach, the home of sugar-sand beaches, emerald-green water, Big Kahuna's water park, the Gulfarium and a main street called the Miracle Strip. I've loved our low-key beach vacations, but driving past Cash's Liquors and Fudpucker's restaurant on the way to our beachside condo, I found myself getting caught up in the Fun, Fun, Fun that pounds you from all sides before you even see the Gulf. A high point--two meals in three days at the Back Porch , an open-air beachfront place where shirts and shoes are optional, but the seafood is fresh and fabulous. Their grilled amberjack (a white fish caught off the coast there) sandwiches in...

My husband, the dog and I are off for sunny South Florida for Thanksgiving with his (husband's not dog's) family. I hope you all have a lovely holiday with plenty of good food and good company. I'll be back next week.

At the edge of the caldera, in the tiny town of Fira, on Santorini, my sister, Susan, and I peered out at the Agean Sea, marveling at a blue they created just for Greece. Our eyes traveled to donkeys ferrying people and things up from the boats docked at the old port below. I don’t remember which of us thought it would be fun to hike the zigzagged path to the port, then ride a donkey back up, but it was a terrible, scary, asinine, stupid idea. It was still fairly early in the morning when we started down the thousands of wide, uneven, cobblestone, horror-movie steps. But the sun that beat on the island in August didn't have a clock. We'd finished our water and worked up a sweat before we hit the half-way point. At the port we poked into gift shops, bought a couple of trinkets and drank more water before seeking out our animal transport. We climbed a few steps, handed over our money and sat down on the next donkey that waited beside the top step. A mother and her two...

I've been too busy to blog lately, but this week I'm going to try to make up for it. Tomorrow I'm part of a blogapalooza put together by Angela Nickerson at her travel blog Just Go . Participating blogs will all have stories about a harrowing journey, just in time for Halloween. She's also got goodie bags to give away to several lucky comment-leaving Trick or Treaters. My post is about a ride on a "Donkey with a Death Wish." Check back tomorrow for that and hit Just Go for more on the goodie bags and to see who else has had a harrowing journey. On Friday, in honor of the spooky day, I'll post a true ghost story about my grandmother, called, appropriately enough, "Grandma's Ghosts."

Okay, it’s a stretch to tie a lovely wedding to the mess that’s all over my car, but since they both involved love and I have pictures, I thought I’d give it a shot. Sometimes you need a challenge. So, in chronological order: Attack of the love bugs, Part I I drove from my house north of Atlanta to south-central Georgia a couple of weeks ago. I write about economic development (an elusive concept these days) in various Georgia counties for Georgia Trend magazine and was headed off to learn all there was to know about Coffee County. The first thing I learned is that to get there in late September you have to drive through the mating love bugs . Not only do they swarm so disgustingly that you can hardly see to drive through them, but they dry on the car in an instant. Then it takes dynamite and a crowbar to get the nasty bits off. I fretted a little about not making a professional impression, what with my car looking like a giant had upchucked on it. But at least two out of three cars i...

These are not words you want to read in the same sentence with “beach,” especially when it’s the beach you are spending a week at, and the words are followed by the advisory , “don’t swim.” But it’s what we ran into on , an island off of Apalachicola, in the northern Gulf of Mexico. According to the nice man at the St. George Island State Park , this happens every year—YIKES! We managed to have a good time anyway. Here’s a picture of my dad, on the eve of his 71st birthday, wearing his beach booties (he’s the only man I know who can call size 13 shoes “booties” with a straight face!) while walking his dog, Leroy. This was the day before the advisory went out. We didn’t get Dad or his booties back on the beach after this. When the beach outside our door became unavailable, we headed to St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, about 45 minutes from St. George. It was a beautiful park. (Chris says all beaches look the same, water + sand, but I disagree. Some are cleaner--even without the “waste”...