I’m not quite sure who Murphy was of the infamous Murphy’s Law, but I’m not particularly fond of this character right now. As witnessed by the lack of posts on this travel blog (as it has so evolved), I have not been doing much of that activity. In fact, the only time I’ve left Boulder since our East Coast trip of August, was to Moab for a wedding in October and one night in the mountains a month ago. To say that I am antsy to get out of town would be an understatement ...<< MORE >>

After such an ambitious tour the day prior, I was a bit slow going and not quite as motivated to cover as much ground. We sauntered down Canal Street, browsing all the cheap knock-offs and walked through SoHo and back to the Village ...<< MORE >>

After some much-needed sleep, we appropriately fueled up on bagels before strolling through Central Park towards the Metropolitan Museum of Art, thus fulfilling Ira’s goal to have visited the National Gallery, the Louvre, and the Met within the same year. Somehow I never managed to go to the Met despite its proximity to my childhood home, which is shameful to admit. We spent several hours there and seemed to cover only a fraction of the possibilities, including the voluminous collection of impressionists ...<< MORE >>

Riding along Route 36 in the waning hours of the day, I realized that winter and spring had given way to the dog-days of summer. While I focused on memorizing inane legal rules for the bar exam, the foothills had bleached from the hopeful pale green of spring to the burnt ochre of August. It was now just over seven months since returning from London, but in many ways I still felt as though I had just gotten back. Those seven months were filled with stress and very little of the exploration, travel or self-reflection that ...<< MORE >>

Nine of us headed for the desert for our annual spring break weekend mountain biking retreat. For several years prior, we have camped and ridden the White Rim trail in Canyonlands National Park near Moab, Utah. This year, for a change we traded tents for the Super 8 Motel and the isolation of the desert for the small town of Fruita, Colorado. Now, for those readers who are non-Coloradoans, you need to know that Moab and Fruita have a bit of a rivalry over which is the grander mountain biking hotspot ...

Since first falling in love with my East End neighborhood, I have been meaning to post a bunch of the "everyday sights" I enjoyed during this fall. So, here they are - a smattering of the things I was fortunate to walk by on a daily basis...

After a last meal at Pellicci’s and one last walk around the neighborhood, I met Shane at the flat for a very generous and helpful escort to Heathrow. The trip from London to Boulder felt like some kind of traveller’s purgatory -- no sleep, yet too tired to do anything useful with the painfully-slow-passing time and many mixed emotions. The fluorescent-lit plastic patriotic poster that greeted me as a returned to US soil was simply ...

After bringing Willa to airport, I took the tube back to City for a bit of aimless walking punctuated by a few final errands. I strolled through Seven Dials one last time in the cold, stopping for a quick bite at Neal’s Yard, and then on to National Gallery. I couldn’t help myself and took a quick tour through Impressionist gallery and perused the Dutch landscape painters. Back at the flat, packing up proved to be a challenging jigsaw puzzle that lasted far too long and led to a late night dinner at my favorite double-decker bus, including a slice of good-bye chocolate cake...

This was it. My last Sunday for my most favorite Sunday activity; perusing the East End markets. Willa and I hit the Columbia Flower Market first, then on to stroll the vendors on Cheshire Street, Brick Lane, stopping into the Laden Showroom for a spell, and onto Spitalfields Market. With Christmas around the corner, the markets were especially packed and we exhibited excellent shopping endurance. Willa headed back to the Tate Modern in the afternoon, while I started packing at the flat. We regrouped later, and headed over to the newly opened Beach Blanket Babylon ...

Despite walking by the infamous Tower of London many times during my stay, I somehow managed to completely underestimate its size and significance. Once inside the intimidating walls, a small village unfolds complete with rows of flats, guarded jewels, towered lookouts, historical landmarks, and raven lodgings. All the usual accoutrements of any medieval village...<< MORE >>