A magazine for animal-lovers is honoring New York, Continental Airlines, a hotel in Austin, Texas, and a resort in Arizona with pet travel awards.
''Just watch out for kangaroos,'' the car-hire agent at Kangaroo Island's one-room airport kept saying. ''They can really do some damage. They'll hop right at you in the road.'' Whoopee, I thought. Exactly what I'd wanted.
The Rio Bravo makes a big, lazy turn through the cornfields, half its channel in Mexico, half in the United States. At the bend, the wind picks up speed and whips through the ebony trees, trees so hard and strong that their wood resembles polished stone.
Drivers have long known that slowing down on the highway means getting more miles to the gallon. Now airlines are trying it, too -- adding a few minutes to flights to save millions on fuel.
Those plump little cherubs smiling rapturously from the depths of dark Baroque paintings have reason to be happy, I thought as I listened to tour guide Niall Stewart expound on 'the angels' share,'' a term used to describe the amount of Irish whiskey that evaporates daily while aging in casks.
Bustling textile and furniture factories that used to churn out blankets and beds have moved out of southwest Virginia, taking jobs overseas.
MUIR WOODS NATIONAL MONUMENT, Calif. -- It takes a moment for the realization to sink in: We are 12 miles from San Francisco -- one of the busiest, most bustling, loudest cities -- yet I can't hear a sound.
Question: In Spain, tourists get to savor delicious Serrano ham practically anywhere but are cautioned that our Department of Agriculture minions will seize the product if we attempt to bring it into this country. Is this true? Why?
If you have a driver's license, you probably have a story or two about nightmare traffic. Michael Knies does. A reference librarian from Scranton, Pa., Knies and his girlfriend planned to drive to Newark, N.J., to catch a flight to Prague a few years ago. That is, until their airline abruptly switched its schedule, detouring them to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport. ''Knowing New York traffic,'' he says, ``we added about an hour to our trip.''
Move over, Florida and Hawaii. Your beaches are no longer the best.
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