If you are going to Dallas this April there are tons of events not to miss for both adults and children.

For families looking for something to do as a unit you shouldn’t miss Discovery Days 2010 it will be hosted on Saturday, Apr 10 from 10 A.M. to 5P.M. at the Museum of Nature and Science; there’s sure to be fun and hands on activities for the whole family at this festival. The first ever World Balloon Convention happening April 15-18 featuring a showcase of giant balloon sculptures, classes on making your own and an opening night costume party; even thought this is mostly geared at individuals in the business of party decor I could see this becoming an annual fun for the whole family event. Richland College ‘s Carnival of Steel will be held April 17th featuring steel bands and percussion ensembles from around the United States performing all styles of music from Caribbean and Latin to classical and rock, best of all it’s free and an all ages show.

Now that I’ve covered the family friendly events, here is something for the rest of us. If you’re into body art and rock music, Apr. 9 – 11 is the Musink Tattoo convention and music festival’s first year in Dallas, perfect for supporting up an coming artists of all stripes. Thursday, April 15 is the Single Malt & Scotch Whiskey Extravaganza with malts and whiskeys from around the globe to sample. The evening event will feature a sampling of over 100 of Scotland’s most prestigious single malt & Scotch whiskeys along side award winners from Ireland and Japan.

There is so much going on that I’d have to stay the whole month to see it all and I’ve heard Plano, Garland, and Allendale hotels are affordable and not far from all the points of interest. I may just have to stop in.

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This was the moment we were waiting for, the one that was threatening to pass us by before we had the chance to take it. Sometimes there are things that we have to make up as we go along, and sometimes we recognize that things are falling to pieces and so we just grab whatever we can hold. There will be time later on to decipher whether or not these were the important things or not. It’s a short time between this patch of ground and the next, and if you happen to love adventure, so be it, and if you happen to love dogs, well, then there might be something more interesting to talk about.

These are the given circumstances, all the necessary preconditions that had to be put into place before we could wake up in our own New York City hotel room where time was ours for just a little while longer. It wasn’t that there were a handful of pre-determined things ahead of us, just one large one, a race that might last for a century in the memory of the locals if we planned it right. It could make history for the whole dog racing community , both in New York and the rest of the world.

We had things tied up and tied together and our timing was more right than ever, and this was the golden opportunity of a lifetime. We had the plan for the racing dogs , never really understanding the depth of their sacrifice. Our dog had been specially trained to run on hind legs, and also liked to ding the bell on the bicycle all by itself. This was going to be the best triathlon in history, and all we had to do was hold our breath. It was going to be a long night.

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We left Spring Training in Mesa, Arizona after watching several San Diego Padres ballgames. We were only planning to stay for 2 nights, but my husbands dad had to have emergency surgery (every thing is fine now), so we instead stayed 4 days. But, has we are retired, our schedule is very flexible. While we were in Mesa, we decided to pick up our daughter and our 2 granddaughters; one age 4 and the other is 5 years old. They’ll be traveling with us for a month or less depending how it goes.

We headed north to San Francisco with a stopover in Palmdale. We made reservations at the hotel Palmdale and had lunch at a restaurant located on a golf course called Cascades . Our granddaughters really enjoyed themselves when we let them chase the ducks around the pond. We had dinner served in our hotel room, where the kids got enjoyed a hot dog.

The next morning, we headed out and made a quick stop at Morgan Hill, which is about 60 miles south of San Francisco, because it was so beautiful with rolling green hills. We let our granddaughters get out of the car and run off some energy by running up and down the hills. They had so much fun rolling down these small hills, they giggled all the way down. It was so wonderful to travel with our daughter and granddaughters. Our daughter is a very loving, compassionate woman, our granddaughters are so fortunate to have her as a mother, too bad their dad wants nothing to do with them.

We made it to San Francisco and we were all stunned with it’s beauty. Before we parted ways with our daughter and granddaughters, we took a drive down the most crookedest street in the world, Lombard Street. Our daughter had made arrangements to stay with her ex-in laws so that they too can enjoy there grandchildren.

We said our goodbyes, it was so hard for me to do that, I wish they could be with us on our journey across America, but at least I think our granddaughters will have found memories of us.

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Last summer Carl suggested that we take the boys on a historic discovery tour and vacation. Generally we make our summer plans based on theme park and adventure journey contexts and to be honest most of our vacations are based on those kind of thrilling experiences that are pure commercial spectacle and entertainment. Of course we’ve also done things that are more educational or outlook enhancing such as going to Sea World in San Diego. It’s not all just outdoor sports thrill and adventure, though our boys do have a lot of energy and it’s always nice for them to get to spend it in this way. That would generally guarantee that Carl and I could have a little quiet time in the evening, which was also an important part of our own vacation. So, after a bit of deliberation we decided that the boys were definitely old enough to appreciate some of American history and we decided that booking a room in one of the Philadelphia hotels would be a great place to start.

One of our first destinations was the Academy of Natural Sciences. We decided to begin with the dinosaur exhibit because we felt like this would be a good introduction to the appreciation of history. The boys love dinosaurs and the life size Tyrannosaurus Rex was almost as thrilling for us as it was for them. We wandered through the dinosaur hall and the boys were completely intrigued the entire trip. After we finished with the dinosaurs we walked over to the live animal center which also seemed like it would hold some intriguing creatures, though of course these were live. And sure enough we and the boys had a great time there too. We compared some of the reptiles to the various dinosaur we had just scene and felt like we were getting a bit of evolutionary understanding out of it. The boys, however, seemed to be more thrilled with the idea that these were actual living dinosaurs than with noticing similarities and differences from the past. At any rate the next stop was the George Washington Carver temporary exhibit. This also turned out to be interesting to the boys and they were particularly attracted to the life size reproduction of the Jesup Wagon. Ultimately we knew our stop at the Academy of Natural Sciences was going to pave the way for a great rest of our trip.

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New York gets more interesting when you are chasing something.  It’s possible to chase someone, looking for an elusive love that keeps slipping out of your grasp, but it’s better that the someone remain nameless, because people often get away, or they can be caught and you might end up finding yourself married to the mysterious entity.  Worse things happen here, and worse things can befall a person than falling in love.  But it seems as though the city is really just built for the chase, and part of the challenge here is to know what you’re looking for.

Lots of young artists come here every year, checking into a cool hotel to have a look at the city while deciding whether or not to move here.  It’s a good idea to make several trips first, because it can be difficult to gauge with just a couple visits.  The city can behave rather flirtatiously with anyone that’s considering getting close, and there are moments when it feels like this is the place where everything is possible and everything can happen.  But just like a relationship that seems so nice on the dance floor, it becomes a very different thing when it’s in the kitchen and there are dishes to be done.

Part of the allure of the city is that it does have an ability to be flexible in providing the answers to dreams for so many different kinds of dreams.  But it also rewards those who have an idea of what they are looking for, and the ones who wander are often the first to be lost.  Unlike other places, where there is some degree of aimlessness that’s appropriate and encouraged, New York embraces the sharp wits who are looking in one direction, and with great focus.  These are the ones who push the rest of the human race into changing their way of thinking about things, so that other worlds are possible.

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This is where she came in, a storm dancing on the edge of a knife, and a night balanced on the edge of a song.  She said she did not come to stay, and no one stays here for very long, because the sweetest places are also the most precarious places, and for that night I had convinced myself that I could live in her heart for just a moment.  She rains on me like a storm, she comes on like thunder, she focuses in a thousand directions at once, and complains that she cannot focus.  This is the spirit of a buffalo, and this is the way things fold in half, and then another hundred thousand times, raining like madness and desire over all the marketplaces in the world, able to make sense of wars, and sometimes even joy.

Oya-Yansan, the Yoruba deity of the wind, among other things, has made appearances in Tampa whenever she wants to be seen.  It’s very difficult to stop the wind for more than a moment, and it always turns out to be a bad idea to try and stop her.  Someone more savvy about gravity and falling might be able to hang adventure on tenuous chords, lit by the summer’s flight of imagination, but I did not imagine her at a summer hotel.  She always comes in the fall, or that’s when I first noticed her, running on the beaches in my mind’s eye, and I wanted to know her.  But the roots and the bones speak to the hardness of ourselves, and our own inabilities to know who we are while we are living in these bodies.

I was infatuated with Oya when I was just a boy, since I was a boy, and my first ghost was connected to the wind.  She flew by my window, a white sheet passing in a storm, and my mother said it was just paper and cloth blowing, and I didn’t believe her because I didn’t think these things were shaped like human heads, hearts, and hands, even in the strangest of winds.  I would fall in love with the wind later, much later, chasing it to the edges of the cemetery.  This is where I would come to understand Oya’s roughness, tasting it for the first time, and becoming enamored with the sweetness that is on the tip of the tongue when death is always so very close.

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There are places high in the mountains, low along the coast of the Atlantic and plenty of green in between to explore in the state of Georgia. The history is rich with stories of winning and loosing battles and rebuilding communities. The state is also shining with pride in these modern times as it has created such metropolises like the city of Atlanta. So let us help you find fantastic hotels of luxury in Georgia so you can plan a few stops in the state without a hitch.

In the northern part of the state, you will find some fresh mountain air at the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains. These mountains will eventually work there way up through South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The part of the mountain range that spans into Georgia had some bloody battles between the Creek Indian and the Cherokee Indian tribes and they are named Blood Mountain. There are many waterfalls and wild life to experience while hiking in this forest.

Along the coast of Georgia there are many little towns with a lot of rich history. Brunswick was named in honor of the original home of King George II. The streets still hold there original revolution  names like Albany Street for the brother of King George III and Amherst Street for a commander of the British troops, Jeffrey Amherst, during the Revolutionary War. There are some interesting museums in town that can tell you more about the area like the Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation Historic Site. There is also an experience to be had at Jekyll Island National Historic Landmark district and the Liberty Ship Memorial. Oh, there is so much to see and so little room to write about it so get out you guide and enjoy the state of Georgia.

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The Eastern U.S. city of Philadelphia is similar to many Eastern cities of the country, in that there is an appreciation not only of the arts and music, but of the history of those arts and that music that is shared willing and enthusiastically with all those who come to visit the city for the first time.  The hotels in Philadelphia are artistic and historical, as are the gardens, the pubs, the various art galleries and music venues.

The visual arts and the performing arts are celebrated and supported in the city, and so it is no wonder that the oldest museum of art in the country is located in the heart of the downtown Center District.  This is the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art.  Their vast and varied collection spans more than a decade and holds the original treasures of such masters as the Wyeths, Thomas Eakins, Charles Wilson Peale, John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, and Edward Hopper.  And that does not begin to scratch the surface of the works in which they house in their collection.  The building itself is a 1876 work of art, the creation of architects George Hewitt and Frank Furness.

No other building could be such a backdrop for the work that is found within its walls and hallways.  There are bronze ornamental fixtures, gold leaf trimmings and intricate and delicate carvings within the wood work.  The school and the museum was founded in 1805 and is and always has been, the epitome of style and the illustration of the finest American artists of all time.  Modern painters are represented as well such as Diebenkorn, Lichtenstein and O’Keefe.  This is not only a museum for the adults but one which offers classes on the weekends to the children of the city and to those who happen to be traveling through with their parents.  This is truly one of the gems of the country, and for those looking for a bit of history mixed with art, this is the place to attend on any trip to Philadelphia.

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We were going to Los Angeles first, to visit Allen, a long time friend and his wife Carey, when we got a call from Allen and he told us to pull up this hotel website http://www.hotelsburbank.com: on our Iphone, because he found us a place for the night at a Burbank hotel and this site will give us the directions. What was really great was Allen had paid for our accommodation and even the valet parking! We thought we would be staying with them, but he proceeded to tell us that since he never gave us a wedding gift, that this is his very belated present. Plus, he told us, he has no time to visit with us, so this was another way to make it up to us. After we got off the phone with him, we couldn’t help but be thrilled about staying at a great hotel for the night.

We saw our first sign for Los Angeles and the mountains in the distance, which surround the city were all telling. The highway into the city was wide, about 7 lanes and every lane was packed with cars, we were lucky to be against traffic, because the cars going the other way were almost at a standstill.

Our Iphone gave us great directions to Burbank and to our hotel. It was really nice. Our room was awesome and the beds were very comfortable. It was so close to Universal Studios, to North Hollywood, and Griffith Park. When we got to our room, Allen had them prepare a nice dinner for us in our room and a nice bottle of champagne. We really are going to have to thank him! Wow.

The next morning, we got some breakfast at the hotels restaurant, which was really very good and then we took a tour of LA and then went for lunch at a restaurant in Melrose which had some very awesome organic options on their menus. Unfortunately, our day had to end, because we had more traveling to do, our next stop is San Diego. We really hated to leave our wonderful accommodations, but the ocean was calling us.

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I grew up just outside of Atlanta, Georgia and as a child I can remember my grandparents taking me into the city to see a movie at the Fox Theater. They always made such a big deal about it and I always had a great time but didn’t realize what a major landmark the theater was. It dates back the early 1920s and is one of the grand movie palaces that was built during that time. Now the theater hosts the Atlanta Ballet and a number of touring shows, such as the Broadway series. I hadn’t thought about that theater in years until yesterday when I was walking up Peachtree and passed by it. In fact, I haven’t even been near Atlanta in years and happen to be back because I got a gig at the Masquerade and will play there tomorrow night.

I arrived in town a day early because I wanted to get in contact with some old friends and just kind of kick around old neighborhoods I used to hang out in. While I didn’t actually grow up in Atlanta, I was close enough that I could regularly visit my cousins who lived in the city and it was my second home. I love the Atlanta Hawks and would go to games at Philips Arena whenever I could. I was never much of a baseball fan though I did like the Braves and would follow their season. The same thing is pretty much true for the Falcons, so while I was an overall city fan basketball is my favorite sport and I have always been a passionate Hawks fan.

The Atlanta hotel that I’m staying in was around back in the day and I chose it specifically because I remember passing it so many times as a kid. I always had dreams of becoming a famous rock musician and those have sort of given way to being happy that I can make my living playing music. I wouldn’t call it having given up on my dream, it’s really more of a reality perspective. I really love the life I’m living and superstardom just isn’t what I’m looking for anymore. It’s ironic to think back now of all the things I dreamed about now that I return to the hotel that was destined to be my point of glory I realize I’m happier with the life I have than the one I dreamed about made me at the time of the dreaming.

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