Over the Deerfield River on I-91, A Peek at the New Highway between the Bridges
A few times a week I drive on Rte 91 and look down to where the new bridges are being built over the Deerfield river. The project, costing about $40 million, is set to be completed by 2016. Today I finally got to see what the bridge that is being […]
A Three Generation Vacation in the Endless Mountains
I’m back from a week’s vacation with 20 or so members of my extended family and what a time we had! I had worried a bit about the old sophomore jinx…could this trip be as fun as last year, when we first came to this gigantic house on a lake […]
Off to Magic-land, for a Week of Family and no Connections
I’ve been stalling because I’ve got a five-and-a-half hour drive ahead of me. I’ll be taking a course through New York State and then …well I am sworn to secrecy about my destination, so I will not provide those details. I am meeting the entire family down there, it’s a […]
After Solid Sound, I Advance to the Solid State
I am zipping along here, having made a major improvement to my four-year-old Macbook laptop. Have you ever seen how fast a solid state drive is, compared to the spinning hard drives we find in most computers and laptops? It’s incredible. It’s as fast as an iPad, and nothing needs […]
Notes on the Solid Sound Festival at Mass MOCA on Sunday
WILCO’s Solid Sound Festival at Mass MOCA in North Adams was a great day of music, arts and comedy. It was also so popular it felt like all of New York City had jumped on a bus and headed north. It was bumper to bumper people, lines snaking out far […]
Bank of America to Close South Deerfield Branch August 16. Bummer!
I moved to my small Massachusetts town in 2000, and brought with me an account at BayBank. I had my Baybank Card…some of you may remember that quaint jingle. The BayBank branch in South Deerfield was a busy place, every Friday afternoon migrant workers from Mexico would line up 12 […]
Solid Sound Festival this Weekend Brings Arts, Comedy and WILCO to MassMOCA
Solid Sound is back! Two years ago we enjoyed a whole day of arts and music in the expansive Mass MOCA complex. There was endless art, from artists making art during the fest, to a comedy show with John Hodgman and other Daily Show cast members, and it all capped […]
The Taste of Amherst Brings People Together Under the Tents
Last night everyone who was out and about was in a good mood because it wasn’t raining over the Taste of Amherst. Mary recalled how in its earliest days, Amherst’s food festival took place outside each restaurant’s store front….people stopped by for small tastes of each place, with tables set […]
Taiwans’s Giving Free Wifi to Anyone Who Visits
Taiwan became one of the first countries in the world to offer free wifi on a mass scale to its citizens, and now it is extending that to any foreign tourist, also for free, in a move that will gain it a lot of goodwill. As someone who is constantly […]
France Random Notes: It’s not free, it’s Free
Here are some of the things I have noticed in France: Random observations from my ten-day trip in Burgundy, Champagne and Nord-Pas-de-Calais in June 2013. I only saw one old man in a beret. Benoit, the 34-year-old guide from Pas-de-Calais, laughed when he said, ‘There, a Frenchman in a beret!” […]
Champagne Comes from an Ancient Abbey at Taittinger in Reims
No visit to Champagne would be complete without spending some time in a cave, and there are hundreds to choose from in Reims, the region’s largest city. After touring the spectacular Palace next to the Cathedral, where we saw the original life-size statues created in the 1500s of kings, popes […]
Louvre Lens Brings Attention, Prestige and Hope to a Depressed Part of France
The first thing we saw when we arrived in Lens, France were two huge mountains that look like pyramids with grass growing on them. They were coal heaps, giant piles of tailings left over from some of the many coal mines in this part of northern France that all closed […]
My Heart Swelled with Joy as the Train Pulled out of Reims, Bound for Amiens
I could feel my heart swell with joy as the train got underway, slowly gaining speed out of Reims bound for Amiens. I had tried to reserve on the TGV, France’s famous 265 mph train, but on a Friday, alas, it was sold out. It must be people like the […]
Camille Roberrini is Going Places in Reims
I met an ambitious, smart and bold young woman tonight who took me to dinner in Reims. She owns her own house in a small village, she’s the assistant to the director of the city’s important tourism board, and she’s traveled by herself to far flung places like Bulgaria, Egypt, […]
Champagne Drappier Is a Seven-Generation House with New Blood Coming In
In front of a crackling fireplace sat an 87-year-old Champagne maker and his son. We were at Champagne Drappier, in the country village of Urville, where this family has been making fine champagne and other wines since 1808, seven generations of family business. They’re one of the biggest family-owned producers […]
Making Mustard in Dijon
Mustard is a big deal here in Dijon. I met a women today who makes mustard every day, showing tourists and locals how to combine the seeds, some salt, and verjus, the juice of green grapes to make the perfect blend. At La Cuisine de Madeleine, Valerie Grandet showed […]
Dinner on a Barge in Dijon Sheds Light on France in 2013
There is no better way to get to know a country than to spend half a day with a group of tourism officials, especially if it involves sitting at a table with plenty of wine. Today among the things I learned about tourists and France is that there is a […]