Alcatraz Island ~ San Francisco, California – San Francisco is one of our favorite towns, but it was only during our last trip that we finally made the trip across the channel to Alcatraz Island.
Alcatraz Island is now part of the National Park Service, and you get to the island via Alcatraz Cruises, a private ferry company under contract with the National Park Service. You should also know that space is limited and reservations are a must as they are frequently sold out weeks in advance.
When visiting Alcatraz Island, you should plan for at least a half-day. During our visit we enjoyed an informative introductory video, and then opted for a well produced audio-guided tour.
The tour explained that Alcatraz was at first a military fort, and then a federal penitentiary. Further, after the penitentiary closed, the island was taken over and occupied by American Indians before finally becoming a part of the National Park Service in the 1970s.
Disclosure: our Alcatraz Island experience was provided by the cool folks at Alcatraz Cruises. Thank you! We had a great time.
Paso Robles Wine Country – As members of a new breed of press, we find ourselves invited to a lot of fun events. Yesterday, we attended the Paso Robles Wine Country 2011 Grand Tasting Tour.
We are lovers of wine, and have been on a number of wine tasting excursions. But never before have we been able to sample over 30 wineries from one region in one room!
That’s right, over 30 different Paso Robles Wine Country wineries flew to Scottsdale to showcase their wines at this event.
Paso Robles Wine Country is centrally located between San Francisco and Los Angeles along California’s Central Coast. As California’s fastest growing wine region and largest geographic appellation, the territory encompasses more than 26,000 vineyard acres and more than 180 wineries. With a greater day-to-night temperature swing than any other appellation in California, distinct microclimates, diverse soils and a long growing season, Paso Robles is a unique wine region blessed with optimal growing conditions for producing premium and ultra premium wines. More than 40 wine grape varieties are grown in Paso Robles, ranging from Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, to Syrah, Viognier and Roussanne, to Zinfandel, the area’s heritage wine varietal.
Carol and I love big red wines, and we had a few Zins that knocked our socks off.
Paso Robles, with its surrounding 180 wineries, sounds like a wonderful weekend trip for a wine loving baby boomer.
In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see The Roaming Boomers® stomping grapes at their upcoming wine harvest.
Cafe Trieste - Jack Hirschman - Poet Laureate. Photograph by Christopher Michel Photography
Cafe Trieste ~ San Francisco, California – Over a half a century ago, Giovanni Giotta brought his family to America, and in 1956 “Pappa Gianni” brought his “old world” techniques and gave the west coast its first cup of espresso at his Cafe Trieste.
Cafe Trieste immediately became popular with the Italian residents of San Francisco’s North Beach. However, it also became a very popular hangout for 1950s beatniks like Lawrence Ferlinghetti , Alan Watts, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Richard Brautigan, Bob Kaufman, Gregory Corso, Michael McClure, Kenneth Rexroth and Neeli Cherkovski.
Jack Hirschman (pictured above), Poet Laureate of San Francisco, is still reported to be a regular patron of Cafe Trieste.
Further, it is told that Francis Ford Coppola wrote much of the screenplay for The Godfather while sitting in the Cafe Trieste.
I can’t report that we had any famous beatnik sightings, but I can tell you that we enjoyed a marvelous cup of espresso, and the massive wall of photographs showing famous patrons over the years was a real walk down memory lane.
If you happen to be in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, you really should come sample the espresso and bath in the history of Cafe Trieste.
I am a 54 year-old luxury baby boomer traveler. When I get out of bed in the morning, I have three things that demand my immediate attention:
I thank God for another day of life, and the opportunity to travel and see his beautiful creation.
I head for the bathroom, and #1 is generally accomplished on the way.
After #1 and #2 are accomplished, I want a cup of coffee.
It never ceases to amaze me that a group of intelligent people will spend untold millions building a hotel in some of the most beautiful places in the world, further spending countless hours designing a world-class travel experience for their guests, and then force them to seemingly walk across the planet to get a cup of coffee in the morning.
You see, when I get out of bed in the morning, I have sleep in my eyes, my hair is a ghastly, oily looking mess. I’m unshaven, I’m in need of a shower, and I just don’t feel like traipsing across your hotel lobby in this condition to get my morning java.
When I get out of bed in the morning, I have sleep in my eyes, my hair is a ghastly, oily looking mess. I’m unshaven, I’m in need of a shower, and I just don’t feel like traipsing across your hotel lobby in this condition to get my morning java.
When a luxury traveler is likely spending $350+/night to experience your resort, are you not thinking of the many small ways in which you can “wow” your guests?
You do understand that experience is what the luxury traveler is looking for, right?
And just what type of experience are you creating for your guests when your force them to walk like countless zombies looking for their morning cup of coffee?
We were recently in a luxury hotel where there was no coffee available in the room. There was complimentary coffee available in the lobby from 5:00 a.m. – 7:00 a.m.. If you miss that, then you were forced to use room service or walk a half-mile to a local coffee shop.
Trust me. When I awoke to find no coffee in my room, realized that I hit the lobby at 7:10 a.m., and the hotel staff unsympathetically told me of the hike I was now going to have to make to find morning coffee for my bride — I was not a happy camper.
Come on hotel industry!
When a luxury traveler hits your property, they expect that your accommodations and the accompanying experience is going to exceed what they can find in their own homes.
I have a beloved Keurig Coffee System on my kitchen counter. When I awake, it gives me a wonderful cup of coffee in less than 15 seconds.
Now, please understand, you don’t have to provide me with a Keurig. Although, I will be impressed if you do.
But, for heavens sake, please, at least give me a $5 Mr. Coffee brewer so that I can enjoy a cup of coffee in the morning as I enjoy the beautiful room you have prepared for me.
Nikon School ~ Phoenix, Arizona – I just spent the last two days at Nikon’s traveling Nikon School here in Phoenix, Arizona.
Although I have been shooting photographs since my college days, I saw this as a wonderful opportunity to strengthen my skills, to understand the inner-workings of my Nikon D80, and to sit at the feet of very seasoned professional photographers.
I highly recommend that you click these photographer’s links to fully appreciate the quality of the instruction given. Both men were seasoned pros at the top of their game.
As our first session began, our instructors gave us the following instructions:
Don’t try to take notes on everything we will share.
Please don’t interrupt our sessions with questions or we’ll never get finished.
I was a little taken back by these instructions, but as we got into the sessions I clearly understood why — these two guys opened up a fire hose of information and trying to drink from it would have been an ugly mess.
Besides, we were provided with .pdf files which gave us wonderful session notes, and there were structured question and answer sessions throughout the series.
Day 1 – Introduction to Digital SLR Photography
The first day is an excellent class for the person who desires to better understand their camera, would like to learn to take better photographs, and perhaps even get beyond the “automatic” functions of their camera.
The class was designed to help the student come away with three things:
An understanding of how exposure works and the different ways to control exposure with the camera.
An appreciation for what it is that makes a photo special – subject, composition, background and light.
The knowledge that good organization, from where you store your images to how you manipulate them in software, is key to a successful digital photography experience.
Day 2 – Color, Light, Technology
The second day was a more advanced class and built upon the skills of the previous day. The four topics covered on this day were:
Color – Gaining a better understanding of file formats and when and how to use them as well as delving into the more involved menu choices.
Understanding Light – Light has many qualities that are important to photographers. We’ll go into those qualities and how we can play to the strengths of each kind. Our goal is to understand light so that we can take better control of our photography. Light, after all, is what photography is all about.
Flash – Once we understand light, then we can start creating our own light. Learning how to use strobes opens up an entirely new way to approach photography, as you’re no longer limited by the available light.
Edit and Output – If you ever worked in a darkroom, then you know that the capture of the image with the camera is just the first step in the creative process of photography. One of the greatest gifts of digital photography is that the ability to take that original capture further is available to anyone with a computer and some software.
Have you ever heard the saying, “I don’t know what I don’t know”?
Well, here is the great benefit from two days of classes at Nikon School: I now know what I don’t know.
Furthermore, I have over 60 pages of detailed notes provided by the Nikon School, two professional photographers willing to answer an e-mail from me if I get stuck, the Nikon website which if full of instructional materials, and a completely broadened horizon of where I would like the next steps of my photographic journey to go.
I found the Nikon School to be a wonderful investment, and would highly recommend it to anyone serious about learning to shoot beautiful photographs with their Nikon DSLR.
The Roaming Boomers
Alcatraz Island ~ San Francisco, California – San Francisco is one of our favorite towns, but it was only during our last trip that we finally made the trip across the channel to Alcatraz Island.
