Villa La Estancia in Nuevo Vallarta

I made it.

My plane touched down in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Then I gathered my bags, met my driver and arrived at a hotel north of the city.

I'm staying in the municipality of Nuevo Vallarta at a place called Villa La Estancia.

The hotel is beyond belief. It is absolutely gorgeous. Even though it is nearly almost brand new, it has this old world charm about it. The wood work is a deep, dark hue. The lobby furniture is solid and heavy.

And the service is divine. As soon as I climbed out of the car, a bell hop met me with a cool, scented cloth. Next, I was given a mango smoothie to sip while I signed all the check in paperwork. A fruit plate was delivered to my room while I was still checking out all the closets.

But the best, by far, was that when I came back to my room after dinner, not only was a chocolate tartlette waiting by my pillow, but a secret fairy had slipped into my room and filled up the bathtub with hot bubbles, topped the bubbles with flowers, lit several candles and a relaxing stick of incense!

Bound for Mexico and San Blas

I'm bound for Mexico.

I'm headed there on a press trip for GoNomad. After my journey, I'll be writing a story about what I experienced for the site.

My trip will take me into Puerto Vallarta, but that's not where I'll be staying. After getting my bearings and finding my group, the trip will take me north into the state of Nayarit.

I'm going to be traveling along the coast of that state, in an area called the Riviera Nayarit, and checking out the small beach towns there.

The one I'm most excited about visiting is the city of San Blas.

I'm a fan of the Mexican rock band, Mana. One of my favorite songs by them is called En El Muelle de San Blas.

It's about a woman who says a tearful goodbye to her sailor boyfriend and vows to wait for his return on the pier of San Blas. She waits and waits and waits but he never comes back.

Once, years ago, I remember Googling "San Blas" and discovering that it was a real town on Mexico's Pacific coast. And now I'm off to see it for myself.

To help you get inspired about my trip, you can listen to Mana's San Blas song...

Rudo y Cursi

I went to see Rudo y Cursi. It's a Mexican film about two brothers, soccer, fortune and tragic flaws.

It stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna.

Both did a good job and I enjoyed the movie much more than the recent Hollywood productions I've seen.

If you can find it playing somewhere around you, and you don't mind subtitles, I'd recommend it.

Japanese Kit Kats

A friend of mine recently returned from a trip to Asia. In a layover in a Japanese airport, she picked up a bag of fruity Kit Kats.

The bag included peach, berry and green tea Kit Kats.

Hmmmm. Not too sure these will catch on here in the U.S.

Inclusive Junk Mail, Part 8 & 9

Again with the inclusive junk mail. And not just once. Twice.

These two letters arrived one day apart.

And again, from Direct TV. And again from US Bank Visa. And once again, in Korean.

If you're new to my inclusive junk mail saga, you can catch yourself up to speed here.

Haunting Tunes of Nirmala Rajasekar

A few months back, I had the pleasure of interviewing Nirmala Rajasekar. She's an internationally touring musician, who happens to live in the Twin Cities area.

She plays the veena, which is a classical Indian instrument. In our interview, she told me the veena is as old as India.

My article about her was recently published. You can check it out here:

Venerable Veena

If you've never seen or heard a veena before, take a gander at this YouTube video of Nirmala playing her instrument.

French Milk, A Graphic Travel Memoir

Graphic novels are hot right now. The trend is something I've never much understood. I was never a comic book reader and my attention even wanes over daily cartoons. I prefer a good old-fashioned read with pages full of words.

However, the other day I decided to give a graphic novel a try.

The book I picked up was called French Milk and was written and illustrated by Lucy Knisley.

I initially picked up the book because it looks like a regular book. It is the shape and size of a normal paperback. I was surprised to flip through the pages and see that it was a graphic novel.

Well...graphic "novel" isn't really the right genre title. The book isn't fiction. It's memoir. Travel memoir, to be exact.

The book is an illustrated travel journal of a five-week trip to Paris that the author took with her mom.

It didn't take me very long to read, and it didn't convince me to abandon the traditional, text-laden travel memoir.

But I did find it interesting, if more from a composition standpoint than from a reader's standpoint. I liked seeing how she really pared down her text and used pictures to get across details that a traditional writer would have described with words.

Nonetheless, I think the next travel memoir I pick up will probably be full of words, words, words.

My Very First Lady Slipper

Even though I was born and raised in Minnesota, I'd never ever seen the state flower, a lady slipper, in person.

I'd only seen pictures or sketches of it in text books or on postcards.

Well, after my road trip to northern Minnesota, to the Walker-Leech Lake area, I can now say I've seen not one, not two, not three, but many many lady slippers growing in the wild.

Northern Minnesota Eagle Count

During our time in northern Minnesota around the Leech Lake area, we've spied four bald eagles:

Two sitting in tree tops.

One flying over the lake. We watched it swoop down and carry off a fish without even getting its feathers wet.

And this one, which was chillin' on the side of a road dining on some road kill.

Paul Bunyan in Akeley, Minnesota

Self portraits don't always line up exactly as they should. This one is no exception.

I didn't erase it, though, as I find it quite funny. And yes, the Paul Bunyan statue looming above us really is that big.

And that scary. Boy is he ugly!

Paul Bunyan, if you're not familiar with the character, is a legendary (and mythological) lumberjack.

We found this Paul Bunyan in Akeley, Minnesota, which is just down the road from Walker, where we've been staying during our north woods vacation.

According to the local signs, Akeley is where Paul Bunyan was born. There's even a Paul Bunyan museum here. Sadly, it was closed on our trek through town. Darn it!

This is just one of several Paul Bunyan statues in this neck of the woods.

It never would have occurred to me to write a story about Paul Bunyan, but now that I'm up here, surrounded by the man, I'm trying to figure out the perfect angle.

Walking Across the Mississippi River

The scenery in Minnesota's Itasca State Park is amazing.

Even though it's June, the air temp was chilly up here in northern Minnesota. That didn't keep the crowds (including us) from coming to visit this famous state park, though.

There are 150 lakes inside its borders, not to mention the headwaters of the Mississippi River.

That's right. In case you forgot, or just never knew, the Mighty Mississippi starts in Minnesota and that me walking across it's very very beginning!

Rising Moon Over Leech Lake

We road tripped it up to Walker, Minnesota, about a three-and-a-half hour drive from the Twin Cities.

We settled into our room in the main lodge at Haiwatha Beach Resort.

Our second story room looks directly over Steamboat Bay on Leech Lake and after dinner, Hubby and I were completely happy to relax with some books and the view.

Multi-Cultural Cinderlla Story

Glass Slipper Gold Sandal: A Worldwide Cinderella
By Paul Fleischman
Illustrated by Julie Paschkis

This isn’t just any old fairy tale. This is Cinderella with a global twist.

Glass Slipper Gold Sandal, by Paul Fleischman, weaves 17 different countries together in this story.

Each lends the words and images of their own Cinderella stories to the retelling of this classic tale.

In France, Cinderella wears glass slippers, but in India she wears diamond anklets and in Iraq she wears sandals of gold.

The various traditions and cultures weave together to create a story that is familiar but new.

Readers come to realize that while the details of our daily lives might differ on the surface, in the end, “happily ever after” means the same thing everywhere.

Easter Island in Picture Book Form

Children's author T.A. Barron was inspired to write this picture book, The Day the Stones Walked, after taking a trip to Easter Island.

A few years back, while traveling in Chile, Hubby and I contemplated a trip to Easter Island. The airfare, however, was a deterrent. Looking back, I wish we'd make the investment. I still think about going there.

In a way, this picture book allowed me to visit the island.

The illustrations (by William Low) are haunting, yet they perfectly fit with the story of Easter Island, which is one of the most remote places on Earth.

The story asks the question: How did those massive, stone faces -- the moai -- come to be and what is their purpose?

Pico, an island boy, doubts the power of the moai and even resents the faces as his father is a stone carver who spends all his time creating new heads.

But one day, Pico is unexpectedly caught in a tsunami and the moai come to his rescue.

Earthshake, Geology Poems for Kids

Sometimes I wonder which came first -- my love of travel or my love of geography?

It's a chicken-and-egg puzzle for me. As far as I'm concerned, the two are intricately linked.

I can spend hours planning a trip and pouring over maps.

At some point, my love of maps and geography spilled over into an interest in geology.

After all, a trip to Patagonia spent marveling at glaciers and steep mountain peeks will eventually cause one to ask how those glaciers and mountains were formed.

Recently, I came across a poetry book for kids called Earthshake: Poems from the Ground Up.

It was written by Lisa Westberg Peters.

Each poem in this illustrated picture book is about geology.

There is a poem about drifting continents, another about the layers of the Earth, another about the softness of sandstone, and more.

I found them to be quite clever. If you've got a budding map lover or scientist on your hands, this might be a good title to pick up.

City I Love: Travel Poems for Kids

I love big cities. I love the rush, the crowds, the lights, the noise, the pulsing life.

My love of cities is what caused me to pick up this book: City I Love.

It's an illustrated children's book written by Lee Bennett Hopkins.

Every poem in it celebrates the energy and excitement of cities.

Most of the poems are about cities in general, only a few seem to speak about one city in particular.

The illustrations, however, do depict recognizable city-scapes.

I particularly liked the poem "Subways Are People" and its accompanying illustration, which shows people riding the subway in Mexico City.

Travel Guides for Kids by M. Sasek

It's that time of year. School is letting out and parents are starting to wonder how to channel their kids' energy into something productive.

With that in mind, I thought I'd share some picture book titles this week that involve travel in some way. I strongly believe that travel is a great teacher. Even if you can't actually get out there and put your feet in another country, you can still travel through books.

First off, I'd recommend a series of books by author/illustrator M. Sasek. His books have been around for years so you should easily be able to find them in a library.

They are easy to recognize as they are all titled the same: This is Paris, This is London, This is Madrid, This is Rome, This is New York, etc.

Each one highlights common sights and daily activities you might see if you were to take a walking tour of that city. The text is sparse, allowing the illustrations to shine through.

Kids won't gain any sort of deep historical understanding about the world's greatest cities by reading M. Sasek's books.

Instead, by reading the illustrations, they will start to recognized some iconic structures like Big Ben and the Colosseum.

And they will also start to see that no matter where you go, people like to go to parks, play on swing sets, feed the squirrels and watch street artists.

Collection of Urban Tree Photos

Emma Livingston is a British photographer who is living in Buenos Aires.

One of the photography collections on her web site features urban trees of Buenos Aires.

The "tree portraits" feature solitary trees amidst their concrete, brick and asphalt environments.

Some of them just seem so sad, but at the same time the pictures make you want to root (pun intended) for these trees. Grow, tree, grow!

Set Me Free

Last week I wrote a story about a creative writing group that meets in a corrections facility.

The members are all women serving time. Writing, for them, is a productive outlet for the many emotions and life experiences they often have a hard time giving voice to.

Just this spring, a book of their poems was published in a collection called Set Me Free.

It can be checked out at any of the Hennepin County Libraries.

To read the article, go here:

Women Set Free by Words

Photo by Hennepin County Library

Travelers' Tales Best Of 2009

I relish airplane rides. It's completely acceptable to unplug, ignore the people around you and loose yourself in a book, and that's exactly what I did on my recent trip to Las Vegas.

I read The Best Travel Writing 2009 by Travelers' Tales.

It's an anthology of collected travel essays. This edition has 29 different essays by different writers, including Rolf Potts, Stephanie Elizondo Griest and Pico Iyer.

The stories take places all around the globe, and I was surprised to discover an essay in the book that takes place in Minnesota.

That story was called "A Vast Difference." It was written by Deborah Fryer. By the end of it, she's made my eyes go all watery.

If you like reading travel essays, this is a great collection to pick up.

And if you like writing travel essays, check out Travelers' Tales submission guidelines.