Well Traveled, Well Read

Austin, Texas is one of my favorite cities. I spent four years in college there and another three years for graduate school, and my husband and I have frequently taken weekend trips there over the years to attend Austin City Limits, visit family, enjoy the lake views, and pretend we are young enough for the night life scene. More recently I have enjoyed experiencing Austin with my daughter, and I have to say Austin is a perfect destination for the tween set. So here are my top suggestions for Austin with tweens. What to Do: We loved renting boats at Zilker Park Boat Rentals (bonus that it’s right next to a playground if younger kids are with you and the Barton Springs Pool for a dip) and paddling around. It’s so fun to be out on the water, and it’s a nice way to get some exercise in. This was also a great opportunity for people and dog watching – people jumping into the water, people playing music, dogs in life vests, people paddle boarding, etc. Bonus points that it was a super e...

Sometimes just staying in a nice hotel can be a vacation in and of itself – no cooking, no cleaning, no household projects hanging over your head. My husband and I recently took a few nights at a hotel and read books by the pool, ate food cooked by someone else, drank champagne, and played board games and Gin Rummy. We also like to go as a family and with family friends to Hyatt Lost Pines Resort (outside of Austin) where they have a lazy river, a nice pool, tons of children’s activities, and wide-open spaces to lounge or run and play. This post is dedicated to those lazy vacations where you don’t see much beyond the hotel. If you are in the market for something light and beachy, something you can fall asleep reading by the pool and maybe even lose your place in without it mattering too terribly much, I suggest these three breezy novels: Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter begins in a postage stamp sized coastal village in Italy where a young hotel proprietor dreams of attracting glamo...

Last summer we dropped our daughter off at camp for a week right in the heart of the Texas hill country. Deciding that we could best capitalize on this time together by not spending it with more time in the car, we rented a house in Fredericksburg, Texas and spent the week there.  I confess, we were tired, and this was our first kid-free trip since before COVID, so we spent a lot of time napping, reading (me), playing the guitar (my husband), and napping some more. I went out to breakfast one morning, polished off four cups of coffee then went back to our rental, crawled back in bed and went right back to sleep. That said, we were there for a week and got out every day to explore, stretching out what would otherwise be a fun and relatively busy weekend trip into a slow-paced week. If you are planning a visit, I have you covered on what to do, where to eat, and of course, what to read. What to Do… There are lots of vineyards and tasting rooms in the Fredericksburg area, so this...

I have spent a lot of time in New York City – two years living there after college, lots of mother daughter trips (first with my mom and now with my daughter), family vacations as a teen and in my early 20s, and visits to see old friends. Today I’m on a flight to NYC for a work trip with hopes to get some free moments for exploring. There are so many ways to experience the City and so many fantastic books set in the City, so I am planning a multi-part series on NYC. If you ever need tips, feel free to write a comment or drop me a line! So here goes, part one of my three-part top 30 New York City reads, in no particular order … with some other more specific posts coming later. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is one of my all-time favorite memoirs. The story focuses on Walls’ childhood with her alcoholic but charismatic father and her free-spirited mother who wasn’t interested in the constraints of family life and childrearing. Walls and her siblings learn to take care of themselves...

In December 2021 my daughter announced to her younger, adoring cousin, her aunt, and I that her New Year’s Resolution was to visit all 50 states. Her cousin (who would follow her off a cliff and apparently also to Arkansas) agreed, and since her aunt and I were already pretty far along on checking off all the states, we also agreed it was a good project (though maybe one that would take more than a year). That’s how the four of us found ourselves hitting the road for Hot Springs, Arkansas last summer. Hot Springs was first preserved as a recreational site by Congress on April 20, 1832, before the national parks system was established, so this National Park is not our oldest National Park, but it was designated for federal protection for recreational use before any of our other National Parks. As my husband would say, that’s your fun fact for the day. This is a part of the country filled with mountains, dense woods, and large lakes, and there are lovely historic buildings dating back ...

On our quest to visit all 50 states, my daughter and I (often along with my sister-in-law and niece) are taking some off the beaten path vacations. Over Memorial Day, the four of us took our annual Mamas & Daughters trip and visited St. Louis. The girls both got to check two new states off their lists – Missouri and Illinois, and we all got to collect our National Park stamps at the Gateway Arch National Park and the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site. What can I say, I’m a nerd who loves a good list. For those who aren’t into these bizarre destinations, don’t worry, I have some more traditional destinations (e.g., New York City, Montana, Lake Tahoe) coming this summer.   When people heard we were visiting St. Louis, almost everyone assumed it was to visit family (nope). Only after explaining our 50-state project did people seem to understand (a bit), but St. Louis was once the nation’s fourth largest city and the cite of the 1904 World’s Fair and Summer Olympics. It was...

For many, summer is all about the road trip – loading up the car and driving to another state to stay for a while, zipping in the car to a nearby lake or seashore, or making the journey the vacation itself and exploring America along the way by camper or van. Whatever your plans, I suggest an audiobook or two to break up the drive. I am organizing my top 10 picks in order by length, so you can plan your trip. Readers will see from my list that I am a big fan of the memoir in the audio format, but I did try to include some fun fiction as well. Happy travels! Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote is iconic, and you can’t read or listen to the book without seeing Audrey Hepburn in her black dress, pearls, and big sunglasses. I had read this years ago and seen the movie a few times, but when I came across this recording by the talented Michael C. Hall of Dexter and Six Feet Under Fame, I knew I needed to give it a listen. He’s a perfect narrator for this book, and I felt like I was me...