farlands | traveling near and far

Road tripping is fun, and vacation food is a component of a trip that makes it 'sticky' and memorable for me. I can tell you about the majority of my trips and vacations based on a particular local restaurant experience:  Cochon Restaurant in New Orleans,  LaBinnah Bistro in Hannibal MO and Cotogna  in San Francisco come to mind. One way we are trying to make a long drive more fun for our family is to enjoy local restaurants along the way. Last year on our 16+ hour drive to Florida, we stopped in downtown Nashville for some Hattie B.'s Hot Chicken. The upside: it was a cool restaurant with truly amazing spicy chicken as well as good sides. The downside is that there was a lot of waiting involved. So although we had some fun conversations with those around us waiting in line, I was getting a bit hangry, so that is never fun - for anyone We've also begun to incorporate going to Waffle House for our breakfasts. There is a sense of good will and camaraderie th...

Toward the end of our time on safari in the Maasai Mara area, we experienced a real treat. In addition to several safari excursions by Land Rover, we also had signed up for a balloon safari. We woke up before the dawn and our guides drove us out to a field about 25 minutes away from our camp. I had a sense of the landscape we were going to see based on our past two days of land safari.  Everyone was quiet, sleepy, and the many small groups taking the flight enjoyed watching the hot air balloons slowly filled and tilting upward. Fill 'er up! In the basket of our balloon, the captain of the balloon had the middle spot with all the levers and controls, and then four groups of us were partitioned off into the corners of the basket, so while we were in close quarters, we had our own space. The sunrise over the land of the Maasai Mara was spectacular and we shared the view with several other balloons across the landscape. I tried to get photos that captured it - none did the...

In addition to writing about travel, I am finding that I also enjoy exploring the day-to-day of home life. The practice of having a word that defines your goals for a year is one that I have casually adopted; all I can remember is one from a few years ago that was 'Joy'. I don't think that one was particularly successful and I am sure I didn't have a plan to make more joy happen. This was before the concept of 'spark joy' by Marie Kondo , by the way. Now  that's  a plan! The word for me for 2018 is 'Habits'. I picked it partially because I was reading Gretchen Rubin's  'Better Than Before'   for a third time, even though I typically don't re-read books. Every time I read it, I learn something new, and this time it finally sunk in how I might spend more time on the activities that are meaningful to me. Plus, I  love  watching TV and didn't plan to give that up, although perhaps I could watch less of it. Then I dove a littl...