Getaways Posts

    Duck, North Carolina, is a quiet, northern Outer Banks seaside town bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and the Currituck Sound.  It does not make the top spring-break hot spots, but it is a wonderful family vacation spot with fantastic dining.  The beaches are less crowded because there is no public beach access.  At dusk, one can enjoy the beautiful, dreamy-like vistas ...

      It’s time to shake the sand from our shoes, out of the hammocks and begin the homeward trek.  There was nothing quite as pleasant as the Floridian spring temperatures during our visit…..refreshing and positively invigorating the soul, quite in contrast to what we left behind.  It's somewhat difficult now to leave behind the Spanish moss, cypress knees, grove...

        Winter Park is a quaint town famous for its Spanish-Mediterranean architecture. Charming, balcony shops dot the main street.  Boat tours are offered here and we enjoyed peering at those grandiose estates on the Chain of Lakes presented in our previous post.     Situated also on Lake Virginia is a lush 70-acre campus, the oldest recogni...

Tying in with school’s spring break for the grandkids, we contemplated a family-time together in the Sunshine state.  What better timing to ‘escape’ the end of winter doldrums and usher in spring a little faster?    Arriving in Florida the third week in March, we were in awe upon seeing the resort and spectacular grounds.  Grand Beach Resort, Orlando, is definitely on...

  Known as one of the ‘seven wonders of Illinois’, Rend Lake Reservoir in Wayne Fitzgerrell State Park in southern Illinois is a 19,000-acre gateway to a vast outdoor playground.   The park encompasses 3,300 acres of former farmland leased to the Department of Natural Resources by the US Army Corps of Engineers.  The area contains many fence rows, abandoned crop fields, and cl...

Let’s use a diversionary tactic to ‘escape’ from this cold and snow and set off to some wistful vistas in America’s countryside.  Perhaps for you they’ll be humdrum, but for us, they invoke only pleasant memories.  There’s something about the ‘good’ old days and pastoral scenes that charm and captivate the soul.  May this brief journey touch something in your heart, too! (...

Not many people have opportunity or even consider visiting Williamsburg in January.  We ourselves were here for only a one-day/overnight visit.  The quaint ‘Merchant’s Square’ shops were as silent as the snow that fell.  This phase of winter is so dream-like, tiny light snowflakes sprinkling the scenery like powdered sugar.        Many places ...

This region of the Shenandoah Valley, situated between two mountain ranges, can be very bitter because of the wind.   Mother Nature also uses those freezing temperatures to create some ice paintings, brushing the landscape with crystals and trees with cloaks of ice.      Winter is the season we try to condition our minds to en.....dure.  All a...

In Washington, D.C. the National Cathedral is a magnificent structure of 14th century Gothic architecture, sitting on 57 acres of beautiful garden and landscaped grounds.  Although Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant initially conceived the idea of one church “equally opened to all”, it was roughly a century later, in 1893, that Congress granted a charter to the...

St. Nicholas, otherwise known as Santa Claus, must certainly stop by here to do some ‘last-minute’ shopping.        Thinking of the jolly old man with his sack of presents in ‘The Night before Christmas’, I surprisingly learned that Clement Moore who is credited with the poem’s authorship was an Episcopalian minister.  Strangely enough, this poem probably has h...