Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut

I always imagined Mark Twain to be a southern gentleman in a white suit, relaxing on a porch with a view of the Mississippi River in a bucolic community.



While he did live by a river during his most productive years as a writer, it was not the mighty Mississippi but more of a stream, one which has since been replaced by a walking path. And instead of the rural south, Twain built his dream house in one of the most modern cities in the late 19th century, Hartford, Connecticut.

The brick multi-story mansion wasn't the biggest in the world, or even in Hartford, but it was one of the most modern when completed in 1874. Mr. Twain (or should I say Samuel Clemens, which was his birth name that he used throughout his life except as a byline?) was a man who fully embraced the most cutting edge technologies in his personal life while he wrote stories based loosely on his idyllic childhood in Hannibal, Missouri. Yes, this is where he wrote about the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

How did he come to live in Connecticut?

Halley's Comet streaked through the sky on November 30, 1835, the day Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in the small town of Florida, Missouri, where he "increased the population by one per cent."

Four years later, his family moved to Hannibal, a small town on the Mississippi where he met people who would later be the basis of fictional characters who populated some of his popular novels. There was a local man named Injun Joe who got lost in some caverns near his house for days and was rumored to have survived by eating bats. There was a kind slave that Sam and other local boys called Uncle Daniel who regaled the boys with ghost stories told at night in his old shack. And of course, there were pre-adolescent boys, including himself, who would fish at a little island near their homes and dream up silly pranks to play on the townspeople. As Twain would later reflect, there was no more idyllic place to be a boy than Hannibal.

On a personal note, I felt the same about my home town of Westminster, California, for the era about 120 years later. It's Mark Twain's ability to convey that love of life that made his best works so special to all of us.

At age twelve, Samuel's formal education ended with the death of his father. He became a printer's apprentice, later joining his older brother Orion's newspaper where he got his first taste of writing. One headline on an apparently slow news day announced a tragic accident in which 500 people died, followed by the story which briefly said he had set up the headline but unfortunately the event had not yet occurred, so the story would be continued later.

At age seventeen, he heard the call of the big city, St. Louis, where he became a printer. For some reason, the Elton John song Honky Cat comes to mind. Watching the riverboats gliding down the Mississippi enticed Sam to leave his printer's career in 1858 to become a licensed river pilot. The next four years he cruised up and down the MIssissippi, meeting more great characters to fill his books. This is where he picked up the pen name Mark Twain, which meant 12 feet of water depth necessary for safe navigation of the river.

If you remember your history, it was in that time frame that the Civil War broke out, and the riverboat trade ground to a halt, so Sam, a southern boy who couldn't abide with defending slavery, headed to California to mine for gold and silver. He wasn't a very good miner, so he returned to writing, becoming a reporter. One of his stories about a Jumping Frog Jubilee in Calavaras County, California, became syndicated around the country, and Twain's renown as a humorist began.

Mark Twain became a famous travel writer, being sent on the newspaper's dime to Hawaii and then Europe and the Holy Lands, which he chronicled in a series of articles that later were compiled into his first book, Innocents Abroad.

By the time he was 33, Mark Twain was a well-known journalist with three books under his belt, and he faced the dilemma of wanting a wife too good to marry a man like him. He married Olivia Langdon, the daughter of a prominent New York family, to whom he remained happily wed for the rest of her life. Her father bought the young couple a mansion complete with butlers in New York, but after a year, they moved to Hartford where they commissioned the whimsical house next door to the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe ("Uncle Tom's Cabin").

It was a very modern house. The coal burning stove in the basement where servants prepared lavish dinner parties required for prominent members of society in Hartford, had pipes running to the bathrooms, so not only did they have indoor running water, which is something my grandparents didn't have in their home, but had running hot water. When I visited my grandparents house in the 1960s, taking a bath meant heating pots of water on the woodburning stove in the kitchen and pouring them into a wash tub on the porch. While my family didn't do this, the tradition on many farms in the 1800s was for the father to take the hottest bath, followed by the mother, and then through the kids until finally the baby was washed in water so cloudy with soap and grime that the old saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water," was born.

Twain also had flushing toilets, although the historical society hasn't been able to ascertain exactly what type for the restoration. At my grandparent's house, they didn't add a flushing toilet until the 1960s. I remember hating that stinky outhouse, although I did kind of like the novelty of peeing in a pot at night when we didn't want to walk outdoors to relieve ourselves. Incidentally, that type of arrangement led to the saying about "being so poor we didn't have a pot to pee in."

Nobody had electricity in homes of 1874, but Samuel and Olivia had a house illuminated by natural gas, something made possible by being in thoroughly modern Hartford. Because there was no thermal paned glass, the windows were small to conserve heat in winter and cool in summer, and it was really the color of the walls that was used to create atmosphere. The parlor was a bright gold, making it relatively light, while the dining room walls were dark maroon to create a sort of candle lit atmosphere of a fine restaurant. The family room had a beautiful conservatory at one end, with a view to the creek and rolling countryside below.

The oldest daughter had her own room, and the two younger daughters shared a room. While two girls sharing a room with separate twin beds may not sound like cutting edge luxury today, consider that at the time it was a luxury to have a bed to share back in those days. It is also a nod to high childhood mortality rates of the era which did cost them a baby boy.

Sam had a billiard room perched at the top of the house, and that's also where he wrote his books. Friends who visited him while he worked said he had open books on the desk and discarded papers surrounding him on the floor. At night, his friends would come over to play pool and smoke cigars. Sam was said to have smoked 20 to 25 cigars per day. On two of the windows in the billiard room are opague marble panes carved by Tiffany depicting pool cues and balls on one and cocktail glasses on the other, giving me the image of Mark Twain as a Tommy Bahama of his era.

The seventeen years in this house were the happiest of his life. Of course, most of us can relate to the age of raising children being the happiest days. With no television or radios in the 1800s, Sam would entertain his daughters by telling them stories using a handful of objects on the fireplace mantle as props. He would make up a history for each item and, using them in the same order, spin a completely different yarn each evening for his children before they went to bed.

Being a thoroughly modern man with experience in the printing trade, Sam became enamored by a modern typesetting machine, the Paige Compositor, that could set type at six times as fast as any man. Unfortunately, it wasn't extremely reliable, and a slightly slower but more reliable competitor took most of the market while the Paige Compositor wound its way through the patent process. Only two prototypes were ever built, and Sam's gamble busted with the financial panic of that era. He went bankrupt.

Because the house was in his wife's name, as were his publishing rights for his books, he didn't lose them, but he couldn't stand the public humiliation and moved to Europe where he lived in what he called exile for nine years, eventually earning enough money giving speeches to pay off his creditors and return home. It had been cheaper for him to live in hotels in Europe than to maintain his household staff and social schedule in Hartford.

Unfortunately, one of his daughters had returned home alone and died of meningitus in the Mark Twain House, so he could never bring himself to return there. His beloved wife and one of his other daughters also died, and a bitterness became more apparent in his writings. He was a brilliant, well-read man, and he became more of a serious writer, attacking the problems of social ills directly rather than with the subtle prods of fictional situations like Huck's friendship with Slave Jim.

"I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year (1910), and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: "Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together."--- Mark Twain

Mark Twain died on April 21, 1910, as Halley's Comet streaked across the sky.

Mark Twain and Luxury Cruises

If you doubt the ability of the human mind to attract exactly the information you need from highly unlikely and seemingly unrelated sources, try doing a daily crossword puzzle in your newspaper.  You’ll be amazed.  For example, a couple of days ago I read about Mark Twain visiting Genoa, Italy, and seeing where Christopher Columbus was born, and in today’s crossword puzzle, the clue for 49 down was “Hometown of Columbus.” 

I’ve been slowly perusing “Innocents Abroad,” a book Twain compiled from articles he wrote for a newspaper that sent him on a world cruise as a correspondent.  At the outset, Twain placed his ten percent deposit on the $1250 cruise and “rejoiced to know that a few vacant staterooms were left.”  I hope all my clients feel exactly this way upon booking a cruise through me.

Just paying the fare, however, was not enough on this forerunner to modern cruising, as passengers needed to be approval by the “Committee on Applications” to join the august company of excursionists, which according to the circular would include many celebrities and dignitaries.

“I did avoid a critical personal examination into my character by that bowelless committee, but I referred to all the people of high standing I could think of in the community who would be least likely to know anything about me.”

In the 21^st century, every American citizen in good standing is welcome on every cruise ship, as long as we have the price of admission, and while $1250 was a princely sum in the 1800s, and young Mark Twain could only afford it because his newspaper paid for him, today there are cruise affordable to virtually any American.  I love these mainstream cruises, but for some, the crowds attracted by this egalitarian approach are a bit too much, and for those who can afford it, there are luxury cruises.

The luxury cruises include all of the perks we all enjoy, like packing and unpacking only once while seeing a panorama of amazing cities, as well as fantastic meals and entertainment, but luxury buyers demand more.  They want more inclusions like gratuities, fine wines, alternative dining, selected excursions and even pre-cruise hotels and air travel in a seamless package, with service that not simply meets our needs on request but anticipates them without asking.  Of course, we all would ideally like that, but luxury travelers can afford luxurious things others dream about.

What is not so obvious is that luxury travel is not the exclusive purview of some privileged elite class with “old money.”  A secretary who brown bags it daily may save to splurge once a year on a lavish holiday.  Someone celebrating a honeymoon, retirement or monumental anniversary might make the occasion extra special with a luxury cruise.  Someone who survived a tragedy and now realizes how precious each moment of life actually is may also take a luxury vacation, as might an explorer who wants to go to the small ports that only a smaller ship can visit. 

You may be surprised to learn that the average age of the luxury cruiser is actually 49, reflecting many entrepreneurs and fast rising executives who consider travel the ultimate reward for a job well done.  In the final analysis, what these people have in common is recognition of value over price and the means to pay for their trips.  Like the well-healed of Twain’s day, they enjoy collecting experiences, recognizing that the ultimate luxury is knowledge.

Do you deserve to experience a truly luxurious cruise experience accompanied by seekers of excellence?

Meramec Caverns: July, 1976 with Flashback to Wild West:August, 1964

Fortunately, finding someone by Meramec Caverns is not nearly as arduous a task as finding someone at Disneyland or Knott's Berry Farm. After feeling very alone the previous night in that coffee shop, I was elated to find Pat and Gloria. I think the feeling was mutual. Gloria was certainly very happy to see her TR.

I imagine Cowboy Pat selected this stop because Jesse James and his gang used these caves for a hideout. The last time I saw him, he said he takes the same vacation every year to visit the Old West town of Tombstone, Arizona.



I've always liked cowboys, too. I remember when my Dad bought the first RCA color television on our block that "Bonanza" was about the only show broadcast "in living color." My family loved watching it every Sunday night. My first guitar had cowboys painted on the dark brown face, and the lamp in my bedroom had a cowboy scene on the shade and ceramic cowboy boots base. I played cowboys and Indians (sorry for not being politically correct, but that's what we called the game) regularly as a kid, both with "little men" and Lincoln Log forts I built as well as running outside around with cap guns. I wish I could find the album of my favorite song as a child, which told the story of a little boy who saved his family and their ranch house from an attack. From John Wayne movies to the TV shows "Maverick," "Cheyenne," "Bat Masterson," "The Rifleman," "Sugar Foot" and Steve McQueen's "Wanted: Dead or Alive," I loved them all. My mom and dad did too, which gave me something to share with them.


In August of 1964, my family went on what I guess you could call a Wild West vacation. We went to Yosemite National Park, Calico Ghost Town, Virginia City (famous to me from "Bonanza"), the Grand Canyon and, in New Mexico, Carlsbad Caverns. We all thought the Carlsbad Caverns was better than the Grand Canyon. As a souvenir, I bought a little spiral bound book of photos, and from what I can tell, we didn't take any photos. I don't know what happened to that souvenir book. Instead, we have photos of Darlene and I at a swimming pool in Fresno, and of course for kids, spending time at a motel swimming pool is always a treat. Still, I know that I was more impressed by the Carlsbad Caverns than by Meramec Caverns.





Having grown up in Southern California, I visited Knott's Berry Farm frequently growing up, and one of our favorit rides was the Calico Mine Train, which was patterned after places like Carlsbad and Meramec Caverns. These fake caverns paled in comparison to the real thing, and perhaps my memory of Carlsbad Caverns became inflated by years of saying that. I need to go back to the Carlsbad Caverns to find out.


Another connection to these caves, especially for someone traveling during the bi-centennial summer, was Injun Joe's cave in Mark Twain's classic "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." Mark Twain may be the greatest American author, capturing the changing times of the 1800s with humor and insight that helped move society forward, but to be perfectly honest, I watched the movie on "The Wonderful World of Disney" long before I read the book, and that is what I still envision. Missouri is known as "The Cave State," and there's an official Mark Twain Cave near Hannibal as well as lots of other caves, but you get the idea.



I just realized that I have not given a physical description of Meramec Caverns. I guess I assumed that everyone had at least been on the Calico Mine Train has seen the eerie looking columns falling from the ceiling and rising from the floors. Stalagmites and stalactites naturally occur in limestone caves when drips from the ceiling. The slightly acidic water dissolves some of the limestone and pulls it down toward the floor like an ice cycle, forming stalactites when the water evaporates. Some of the water doesn't evaporate, instead dripping down where it reacts with the limestone on the floor of the cave, building slowly over time into stalagmites. They give an otherworldy appearance to the caves. Unfortunately, I either ran out of film or lost this roll, because I didn't take any photos, but the video below gives a better look than a still photo anyway.



After leaving Meramec Caverns, we picked up the pace considerably. Having stayed up two of the three previous nights, I probably slept through a lot of the drive. The next thing I can remember is driving into New York City.

Kindling and the Holiday Hearth

Giving Julie a Kindle Fire for Christmas proved to be a good excuse to download Mark Twain's first book, "Innocent's Abroad," which long ago entered the public domain and is a free download.

Published in 1867, this travel book by the renowned humorist appeals to me on several levels, not the least of which is because he writes about a world cruise.  Just as visiting his house in Connecticut revealed how remarkably the technology, utensils and built environment of our homes have changed in a little over a century, this book reveals how cruising and travel have advanced, and as such, I strongly recommend it to anyone who enjoys cruising.


Because he is Mr. Twain, there are lots of insightful observations that bring a smile of recognition despite the wide chasm of time between the time he wrote them and now.   In a funny section about an excursion, Twain describes zigzagging through a village in the Azores on donkeys, coming to this timeless conclusion:


"It was fun, scurrying around the breezy hills and through the beautiful canyons.  There was that rare thing, novelty, about it; it was a fresh, new, exhilerating sensation, this donkey riding, and worth a hundred worn and threadbare home pleasures."


Beginning with the promises of the advertising circular, Twain revealed that onboard the steamer passengers would enjoy wonderful entertainment, which meant a small library, church services and musical instruments, including  "a disreputable accordion that had a leak somewhere and breathed louder than it squawked - a more elegant term does not occur to me just now.  However, the dancing was infinitely worse than the music.  When the ship rolled to starboard the whole platoon of dancers came charging down to starboard with it, and brought up in mass at the rail; and when it rolled to port they went floundering down to port with the same unanimity of sentiment.  Waltzers spun around precariously for a matter of fifteen seconds and then went scurrying down to the rail as if they meant to go overboard.  The Virginia reel, as performed on board the Quaker City, had more genuine reel about it than any reel I ever saw before, and was as full of interest to the spectator as it was full of desperate chances and hairbreadth escapes to the participant.  We gave up dancing, finally."

Twain also wrote about passengers who began the trip writing page after page in their journals, but who eventually gave it up.  "If you wish to inflict a heartless and malignant punishment upon a young person, pledge him to keep a journal for a year."

This blog is something of a journal, but no one forces me to write it, and for whatever reason, I find the act of writing pleasurable.  It is a way to pass on information to anyone who happens to read it, which apparently includes you on occasion, but primarily, I would have to say it is a way of reliving the experiences, passing time while waiting for the phone to ring, and so when I am busy with visiting family or my actual travels, I don't generally write much. 


Anyway, that is my long-winded way of saying that I haven't posted much to this blog lately because I've been busy.  My oldest daughter Gina came into town just before Thanksgiving to work with USC, and she brought my granddaughter Emma along to have time to get to know her California grandparents, which of course was a terrific treat.  While I love to travel, it proved just as entertaining to see where I live through the fresh eyes of a child. 


A few weeks later, my youngest daughter Amy arrived for Winter Break, and my son Jay started spending more time away from his home in the Valley to be with us in Manhattan Beach.  For Christmas, we drove to Montana for an amazing ski vacation with my sister, brother-in-law and nephew.  Following that, we returned home to a family reunion of Julie's side of the family, with her older sister Cheryl and our nephew Jered staying on a few days, so this is the first time I've sat down to blog since dashing out our Christmas letter.


I've included a couple of videos to show what we were up to while I played hookie from writing my blog.

American Cruise Lines

You don't have to fly across the ocean to enjoy a premium small ship cruise.

American Cruise Lines offers some interesting alternatives for people who want a boutique cruise experience close to home.

Choose between five wonderful, unique regions, where history will come alive.



The mighty Mississippi naturally brings to mind the deep south, with jazz and blues from New Orleans alongside Elvis's rockabilly and gospel from Memphis providing the soundtrack.

However, there's also the Upper Mississippi, with cruises that reach all the way to St. Paul, Minnesota.  In fact, between St. Paul and St. Louis is the route for theme cruises honoring America's greatest novelist and early travel writer, Mark Twain, who grew up in Hannibal, MO, on the banks of the Mississippi before working as a riverboat captain on that very same river.

Branching the the Cumberland River and Ohio River bring even more offerings to American Cruise Line's Mississippi River region.



American's two paddle wheel ships on the Mississippi, America and Queen of the Mississippi, aren't old tubs recycled for the umpteenth time.  While Mark Twain would feel aesthetically at home, these are new, comfortable ships with modern amenities, including free internet and satellite TV in the spacious, 300-plus square foot staterooms, as on their other ships in different regions.

The Mississippi River, however, is just the beginning of the American Cruise Lines story.

You can cruise the coast of both the Southeast or Northeast USA where America won her independence, the Columbia and Snake Rivers along the route of Lewis and Clark as they mapped our expanding nation and even further west to Puget Sound and Alaska.

The seasonal deployments of the non-paddle wheeled small ships American Star, Independence and American Glory allow you to visit different areas for their prime seasons, like cruising the Hudson River through New York during the fall for the gorgeous changing of the leaves, the Historic Southeast for Christmas, Chesapeake Bay for the Crabfests in lake spring and New England Islands for lobster in summer, while their sister American Spirit takes you to Puget Sound for spring events honoring food and wine or tulips and to Alaska for up-close whale watching and glacier experiences in the summer.  All of these ships carry only 100 guests, except American Glory which holds only 50, so you won't get lost in the crowds.

There are numerous theme cruises based around music, wine or history, but on any of these voyages, expect to be enveloped in them all.

Like river cruises in Europe and Asia, you can expect more included enhancements on your American Cruise Lines trip, with free shore excursions, local wines and beer with dinner, plus a daily pre-dinner happy hour in the lounge.


Lots of terrific regional entertainers come on board, and the educational programs on board enhance your understanding of the region being visited, including the history of America.

The intimate ships are comfortable and have better decor than most competitors.

To be clear, these cruises aren't for everybody.

The price will keep many from considering American Cruise Lines seriously, but it doesn't stop satisfied travelers from re-booking at an impressive rate, ready to open another chapter in the history of the wonderful country we've been blessed to inherit.

If you want specifics, email Wes@CruisePlanners1.com. And if you love the itineraries of American Cruise Lines but it turns out you can't stretch your budget for your next great vacation, I will be happy to show you more wallet-friendly options for visiting the same regions.

Always remember there's a big difference between driving through an area and true regional immersion. Better service leads to better trips!

The Innocents Abroad

I finally finished my leisurely read of "The Innocents Abroad" by Mark Twain. It's available for free on Kindle and other e-readers, and in fact you can read it on your computer, if you like.

What I find most amazing is not the sentiments about travel, but the fact that 150 years later, so many of his sentiments reflect my own.

"It was worth a kingdom to be at sea again. It was a relief to drop all anxiety whatsoever—all questions as to where we should go; how long we should stay; whether it were worth while to go or not; all anxieties about the condition of the horses; all such questions as "Shall we ever get to water?" "Shall we ever lunch?" "Ferguson, how many more million miles have we got to creep under this awful sun before we camp?" It was a relief to cast all these torturing little anxieties far away—ropes of steel they were, and every one with a separate and distinct strain on it—and feel the temporary contentment that is born of the banishment of all care and responsibility. We did not look at the compass: we did not care, now, where the ship went to, so that she went out of sight of land as quickly as possible. When I travel again, I wish to go in a pleasure ship. No amount of money could have purchased for us, in a strange vessel and among unfamiliar faces, the perfect satisfaction and the sense of being at home again which we experienced when we stepped on board the "Quaker City,"—our own ship—after this wearisome pilgrimage. It is a something we have felt always when we returned to her, and a something we had no desire to sell."

As someone who sells cruises, I guess you could say I do have a desire to sell, but certainly not to sell my personal experiences any more than Mr. Twain. Of course, being Mark Twain, he includes lots of tongue-in-cheek humor, often lampooning the citizens of foreign lands and his fellow passengers.

In one such passage, his humor makes a good point about being on the right ship for you, as opposed to what might be right for someone else. He prefaced a newspaper article written immediately upon their return by saying he was surprised that some of his fellow passengers found it insulting, but he could not understand why.

Keep in mind that this is not the white haired man in a white suit you probably envision, but a man in his mid-twenties who in many ways was sort of the Tommy Bahama or Jimmy Buffett of his age, a man who enjoyed good cigars, adult beverages and pretty young ladies. I hope you enjoy his humor as much as I do. 

RETURN OF THE HOLY LAND EXCURSIONISTS—THE STORY OF THE CRUISE. TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD:

The steamer Quaker City has accomplished at last her extraordinary voyage and returned to her old pier at the foot of Wall street. The expedition was a success in some respects, in some it was not. Originally it was advertised as a "pleasure excursion." Well, perhaps, it was a pleasure excursion, but certainly it did not look like one; certainly it did not act like one. Any body's and every body's notion of a pleasure excursion is that the parties to it will of a necessity be young and giddy and somewhat boisterous. They will dance a good deal, sing a good deal, make love, but sermonize very little. Any body's and every body's notion of a well conducted funeral is that there must be a hearse and a corpse, and chief mourners and mourners by courtesy, many old people, much solemnity, no levity, and a prayer and a sermon withal. Three-fourths of the Quaker City's passengers were between forty and seventy years of age! There was a picnic crowd for you! It may be supposed that the other fourth was composed of young girls. But it was not. It was chiefly composed of rusty old bachelors and a child of six years. Let us average the ages of the Quaker City's pilgrims and set the figure down as fifty years. Is any man insane enough to imagine that this picnic of patriarchs sang, made love, danced, laughed, told anecdotes, dealt in ungodly levity? In my experience they sinned little in these matters. No doubt it was presumed here at home that these frolicsome veterans laughed and sang and romped all day, and day after day, and kept up a noisy excitement from one end of the ship to the other; and that they played blind-man's buff or danced quadrilles and waltzes on moonlight evenings on the quarter-deck; and that at odd moments of unoccupied time they jotted a laconic item or two in the journals they opened on such an elaborate plan when they left home, and then skurried off to their whist and euchre labors under the cabin lamps. If these things were presumed, the presumption was at fault. The venerable excursionists were not gay and frisky. They played no blind-man's buff; they dealt not in whist; they shirked not the irksome journal, for alas! most of them were even writing books. They never romped, they talked but little, they never sang, save in the nightly prayer-meeting. The pleasure ship was a synagogue, and the pleasure trip was a funeral excursion without a corpse. (There is nothing exhilarating about a funeral excursion without a corpse.) A free, hearty laugh was a sound that was not heard oftener than once in seven days about those decks or in those cabins, and when it was heard it met with precious little sympathy. The excursionists danced, on three separate evenings, long, long ago, (it seems an age.) quadrilles, of a single set, made up of three ladies and five gentlemen, (the latter with handkerchiefs around their arms to signify their sex.) who timed their feet to the solemn wheezing of a melodeon; but even this melancholy orgie was voted to be sinful, and dancing was discontinued.

The pilgrims played dominoes when too much Josephus or Robinson's Holy Land Researches, or book-writing, made recreation necessary—for dominoes is about as mild and sinless a game as any in the world, perhaps, excepting always the ineffably insipid diversion they call croquet, which is a game where you don't pocket any balls and don't carom on any thing of any consequence, and when you are done nobody has to pay, and there are no refreshments to saw off, and, consequently, there isn't any satisfaction whatever about it—they played dominoes till they were rested, and then they blackguarded each other privately till prayer-time. When they were not seasick they were uncommonly prompt when the dinner-gong sounded. Such was our daily life on board the ship—solemnity, decorum, dinner, dominoes, devotions, slander. It was not lively enough for a pleasure trip; but if we had only had a corpse it would have made a noble funeral excursion. It is all over now; but when I look back, the idea of these venerable fossils skipping forth on a six months' picnic, seems exquisitely refreshing. The advertised title of the expedition—"The Grand Holy Land Pleasure Excursion"—was a misnomer. "The Grand Holy Land Funeral Procession" would have been better—much better.

Wherever we went, in Europe, Asia, or Africa, we made a sensation, and, I suppose I may add, created a famine. None of us had ever been any where before; we all hailed from the interior; travel was a wild novelty to us, and we conducted ourselves in accordance with the natural instincts that were in us, and trammeled ourselves with no ceremonies, no conventionalities. We always took care to make it understood that we were Americans—Americans! When we found that a good many foreigners had hardly ever heard of America, and that a good many more knew it only as a barbarous province away off somewhere, that had lately been at war with somebody, we pitied the ignorance of the Old World, but abated no jot of our importance. Many and many a simple community in the Eastern hemisphere will remember for years the incursion of the strange horde in the year of our Lord 1867, that called themselves Americans, and seemed to imagine in some unaccountable way that they had a right to be proud of it. We generally created a famine, partly because the coffee on the Quaker City was unendurable, and sometimes the more substantial fare was not strictly first class; and partly because one naturally tires of sitting long at the same board and eating from the same dishes.

The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They looked curiously at the costumes we had brought from the wilds of America. They observed that we talked loudly at table sometimes. They noticed that we looked out for expenses, and got what we conveniently could out of a franc, and wondered where in the mischief we came from. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language. One of our passengers said to a shopkeeper, in reference to a proposed return to buy a pair of gloves, "Allong restay trankeel—may be ve coom Moonday;" and would you believe it, that shopkeeper, a born Frenchman, had to ask what it was that had been said. Sometimes it seems to me, somehow, that there must be a difference between Parisian French and Quaker City French.

The people stared at us every where, and we stared at them. We generally made them feel rather small, too, before we got done with them, because we bore down on them with America's greatness until we crushed them. And yet we took kindly to the manners and customs, and especially to the fashions of the various people we visited. When we left the Azores, we wore awful capotes and used fine tooth combs—successfully. When we came back from Tangier, in Africa, we were topped with fezzes of the bloodiest hue, hung with tassels like an Indian's scalp-lock. In France and Spain we attracted some attention in these costumes. In Italy they naturally took us for distempered Garibaldians, and set a gunboat to look for any thing significant in our changes of uniform. We made Rome howl. We could have made any place howl when we had all our clothes on. We got no fresh raiment in Greece—they had but little there of any kind. But at Constantinople, how we turned out! Turbans, scimetars, fezzes, horse-pistols, tunics, sashes, baggy trowsers, yellow slippers—Oh, we were gorgeous! The illustrious dogs of Constantinople barked their under jaws off, and even then failed to do us justice. They are all dead by this time. They could not go through such a run of business as we gave them and survive.

And then we went to see the Emperor of Russia. We just called on him as comfortably as if we had known him a century or so, and when we had finished our visit we variegated ourselves with selections from Russian costumes and sailed away again more picturesque than ever. In Smyrna we picked up camel's hair shawls and other dressy things from Persia; but in Palestine—ah, in Palestine—our splendid career ended. They didn't wear any clothes there to speak of. We were satisfied, and stopped. We made no experiments. We did not try their costume. But we astonished the natives of that country. We astonished them with such eccentricities of dress as we could muster. We prowled through the Holy Land, from Cesarea Philippi to Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, a weird procession of pilgrims, gotten up regardless of expense, solemn, gorgeous, green-spectacled, drowsing under blue umbrellas, and astride of a sorrier lot of horses, camels and asses than those that came out of Noah's ark, after eleven months of seasickness and short rations. If ever those children of Israel in Palestine forget when Gideon's Band went through there from America, they ought to be cursed once more and finished. It was the rarest spectacle that ever astounded mortal eyes, perhaps.

Well, we were at home in Palestine. It was easy to see that that was the grand feature of the expedition. We had cared nothing much about Europe. We galloped through the Louvre, the Pitti, the Ufizzi, the Vatican—all the galleries—and through the pictured and frescoed churches of Venice, Naples, and the cathedrals of Spain; some of us said that certain of the great works of the old masters were glorious creations of genius, (we found it out in the guide-book, though we got hold of the wrong picture sometimes,) and the others said they were disgraceful old daubs. We examined modern and ancient statuary with a critical eye in Florence, Rome, or any where we found it, and praised it if we saw fit, and if we didn't we said we preferred the wooden Indians in front of the cigar stores of America. But the Holy Land brought out all our enthusiasm. We fell into raptures by the barren shores of Galilee; we pondered at Tabor and at Nazareth; we exploded into poetry over the questionable loveliness of Esdraelon; we meditated at Jezreel and Samaria over the missionary zeal of Jehu; we rioted—fairly rioted among the holy places of Jerusalem; we bathed in Jordan and the Dead Sea, reckless whether our accident-insurance policies were extra-hazardous or not, and brought away so many jugs of precious water from both places that all the country from Jericho to the mountains of Moab will suffer from drouth this year, I think. Yet, the pilgrimage part of the excursion was its pet feature—there is no question about that. After dismal, smileless Palestine, beautiful Egypt had few charms for us. We merely glanced at it and were ready for home.

They wouldn't let us land at Malta—quarantine; they would not let us land in Sardinia; nor at Algiers, Africa; nor at Malaga, Spain, nor Cadiz, nor at the Madeira islands. So we got offended at all foreigners and turned our backs upon them and came home. I suppose we only stopped at the Bermudas because they were in the programme. We did not care any thing about any place at all. We wanted to go home. Homesickness was abroad in the ship—it was epidemic. If the authorities of New York had known how badly we had it, they would have quarantined us here.

The grand pilgrimage is over. Good-bye to it, and a pleasant memory to it, I am able to say in all kindness. I bear no malice, no ill-will toward any individual that was connected with it, either as passenger or officer. Things I did not like at all yesterday I like very well to-day, now that I am at home, and always hereafter I shall be able to poke fun at the whole gang if the spirit so moves me to do, without ever saying a malicious word. The expedition accomplished all that its programme promised that it should accomplish, and we ought all to be satisfied with the management of the matter, certainly. Bye-bye!

MARK TWAIN.

Small World

Most of us probably rarely think about what a small world this has become.  Not only do we fly across the country in a few hours, we can arrive in the distant continents of Australia, Asia, Europe, South America and Africa in well under a day.  We went from horses to trains to cars to jet planes.

We blasted through the age of Pony Express and telegraphs to telephones and television. We now Skype video calls around the world without leaving home.   We become friends with people on the other side of the world over the internet.  Our progress over the last 150 years dwarfs that which Mark Twain wrote about in “Innocents Abroad” with such amazement as having progressed from the beginning of recorded history to his "present" in the 1860s.   

“Dan was the northern and Beersheba the southern limit of Palestine—hence the expression ‘from Dan to Beersheba.’  It is equivalent to our phrases ‘from Maine to Texas’—‘from Baltimore to San Francisco.’  Our expression and that of the Israelites both mean the same—great distance. 

With their slow camels and asses, it was about seven days’ journey from Dan to Beersheba—say a hundred and fifty or sixty miles—it was the entire length of a country, and was not to be undertaken without great preparation and much ceremony.-- When the Prodicgal traveled to 'a far country,' it is not likely that he went more than eighty or ninety miles.  Palestine is only from forty to sixty miles wide.  The State of Missouri could be split into three Palestines, and there would then be enough material left for part of another--possibly a whole one.  From Baltimore to San Francisco is several thousand miles, but it wil be only a seven days' journey in the cars when I am two or three years older.--(The railroad has been completed since the above was written.)—If I live I shall necessarily have to go across the continent every now and then in those cars, but one journey from Dan to Beersheba will be sufficient, no doubt.  It must be the most trying of the two.” 

Twain's mode of transportation for his overland Holy Land excursion of several days in blistering heat was on the back of old, lame horses over rocky roads.

It’s good to reflect upon how fortunate we are, and what amazing opportunities we have in the 21^st Century.  Not everyone in the world enjoys our privileged perch, and in fact some still live pre-agricultural lives, like the nomadic Bedouins in the Middle East to this day, but I assume if you are reading this blog, you aren’t living in a cave illuminated and warmed by burning dung.

At this time and place, we live with greater dining and entertainment choices than royalty throughout most of history.  And as far as travel goes, the vast majority of ancient peoples never journeyed as far as that Prodigal Son referenced by Mr. Twain.  The question has ceased being "if" it is possible to go somewhere but rather "when?"

Where in the world would you like to go?  Once you decide, it’s just a matter of saving enough to do so in an acceptable style.  Once you have your goal, you’ll be surprised how quickly your focused subconscious mind will find ways to make it happen, and probably sooner than you would have imagined.  Take the first step today by setting a goal.  Better service leads to better trips!

It's the Light and Hotel Zoso Palm Springs

Once you’ve reached a certain age, you’ve probably had this experience. 

You look in your friendly bathroom mirror, and while you acknowledge the careful application of makeup or hair color if you’re a woman or maybe quickly applied Grecian Formula (to control your dandruff only, of course) if you’re not, you say to yourself, “I still look pretty much the same as I have for decades.” 

Later that same day, however, someone pulls out her iPhone or camera, and when you see your picture you are surprised to discover how you look to the world.  A recently circulated email about two friends sitting at a bar hits the nail on the head.  “See those two drunks sitting at the end of the bar.  In ten years, that could be us.”

His friend replies, “You idiot.  That’s a mirror.”

No wonder they call that bathroom sink area a vanity.  While it may have something to do with how comfortable we are with the “home court advantage,” I think the lighting has a lot to do with it.

Properly lit, our faces are shadowed under the cheeks, whereas the unforgiving camera flattens the image.  An unfriendly mirror in Fantastic Sam’s does the same.  Bags under what formerly appeared to be bright eyes seem to pick up plenty of shadow in either of these situations.  What’s the solution?

Find better light.

Ever since Bob Hope essentially invented Palm Springs by purchasing a bunch of real estate and making it a chic weekend escape from Hollywood for golf and nightclubbing, Southern Californians and snowbirds from all over have been going to Palm Springs for that amazing light.

It’s no surprise to find lots of art galleries in the area, because artists love to paint with that light.

The sky is bright blue, and the desert sun beams down glorious light seemingly unrefracted by whatever grabs it in ordinary city streets and turns us into relics in public.  Sure, you can get similarly great light in the South Pacific, Mediterranean or Caribbean, but they aren’t a two hour drive from Los Angeles.

And the fact that the sun tan that comes with the exposure gives us a healthy-looking glow doesn’t hurt either.

I know what you’re thinking.  "Stay out of the sun, because it’s bad for you."  My wife certainly tells me that, even as we are resting between snorkel dives on the beach in Moorea, sipping ouzo at a Cliffside bodega in Santorini or lounging by the pool bathed in that glorious Palm Springs sun.

But I ask you this: when you see someone your age who avoids the sun, do they really seem younger to you? 

In contrast, Palm Springs attracts lots of retirees who seem to think they are twenty or thirty years younger than they are.  I see them out walking in their jogging suits at sunrise when I head out to find a Starbucks or McDonalds, and at lunch I see women dressed to the casual nines including carefully selected jewelry and shoes along with men wearing what George Castanza’s father called “cabana wear,”sipping margaritas or coffee and munching chips or bagels at sidewalk cafés.  Apparently, none of them got the health guidelines and live to ripe old ages in ignorance.

When I glanced at the obituaries over coffee, expecting to see a long list of octogenarians, I found mostly people with Hispanic names born in the 1950s.  I’m not sure exactly what that means, other than perhaps they’re the product of more recent immigrations, working themselves to death doing the jobs Americans won’t do.  Then again, maybe it just means the families place the obits in the home town papers where the old folks lived before retiring, but these sunshine aficionados seem to be at least delaying the reaper.

In any case, Julie and I have been going to Palm Springs for years, sometimes with the kids and sometimes as an extended date night.  We stayed at Doral Desert Princess in Cathedral City so often that we called it our desert house.  For our 26^th Anniversary, we decided to go to Palm Springs once more, partly because our youngest daughter Amy, who is on winter break from UConn, said it would be fun to go again.

Doral Desert Princess seems to have been discovered finally, after years of serving up amazing views of the golf course and mountains from a lovely pool at bargain rates, so we looked for an adequate replacement.  Using the B.E.A.C.H. (booking engine for air, cars and hotels) at CruisePlanners1.com, we found Hotel Zoso, a four star property in an excellent central location with an astonishing low price. 

Julie read the reviews and found them to her liking, and I looked at the pictures and figured that even if they were taken in perfect lighting immediately after a remodel, the place still must be livable, and we booked it.

Stylishly decorated in a modern motif harmoniously combining glass, shiny metal, natural materials and vibrant red, Hotel Zoso exudes panache in the public spaces and comfortably appointed rooms.  Does that sound like me?

Perhaps another element of Palm Springs influenced my description.  Hotel Zoso apparently attracts a significant number of gay and lesbian guests, or at least there were quite a few same-sex couples in town for the film festival who were enjoying the pool area.  If you’re homophobic, then Palms Springs may not be a good choice.  Amy and I walked past a clothing store called Gay Mart on our way to the Circle K to buy Diet Pepsi, which turned out to have an expired date code (check date codes on sodas, as the taste definitely fades in the can).

Despite the odd tasting Diet Pepsi, which we drank in a poolside cabana, flaunting a sign that prohibited outside beverages from entering the pool area, we enjoyed reading as we lounged under that glorious desert sky.

Acknowledging my turtle-like reading progress, I am still making my way through Mark Twain’s first book, “Innocents Abroad” on Julie’s Kindle Fire.  I’ve found, by the way, that Fire may not be as good as the traditional Kindle for reading in the sun.  I say “may not,” because I am only going with the reputation of the original Kindle.  The Kindle Fire, in order to have the full color images apparently, has a more reflective screen which makes colors pop from the internet but also obscures the black and white book pages.  I adjusted the size of the font and carried on, and as I read Twain’s descriptions of Napoleon III, I was happy to be able to toggle over to the internet to read more about this fascinating historical figure, who for me had been a footnote in history as the nephew of “the great” Napoleon Bonaparte but I have recently learned was obviously much more.  Being so easily sidetracked contributes to making book reading a longer term proposition for me than Julie, but she also reads faster and more regularly.

You may be asking yourself if Wes has become an untracked train at this point, since this article on Palm Springs (or is it about self-image or lighting?) seems to be twisting this way and that, like the Kuranda Railway, but in fact this is the way I used to write before I became more focused in my approach.  In reading Mr. Twain’s first book, I find that he writes in this manner, and I rather enjoy reading it, so I thought, “Why not regress to my natural inclinations, at least for this one post?”

Whether it is embarrassing or simply factual, this is how my brain often works, bringing tangentially related subjects together to find some synchronistic, holistic truth.  As a travel consultant, this type of thinking allows me to help my clients find what they really want, moving beyond "interchangeable commodity" thinking where price and simplistic notions of category and slogans that otherwise result in less than optimal choices for specific individuals.

Anyway (how’s that for an awkward transition back to the topic of Palm Springs?), strolling out to the pool, you can see the craggy peaks that, along with the natural desert topography, resembles a Martian landscape in some low budget scify movie (and perhaps was used as such before the little metropolis of Palm Spings grew up).  Neither pool nor hot tub are unusually large, but they don’t need to be based on what I saw.  Like others, we took a couple of turns in the hot tub, but the pool was more for a quick cool down rather than a swim.  In fact, I never saw anyone swim a single lap in the pool. Most were content to while away their time chatting or reading in the padded lounge chairs, which were also more than adequately numbered.


We took advantage of the complimentary cabanas, which allowed me to both see the Kindle Fire screen that almost disappeared in the bright sun and allay Julie’s fear of me getting too much sun exposure.  Plus, they were cool, literally and figuratively.  I would surmise that one day there probably will be a charge, but for now cabanas are presumably covered by the $15 per day (actually, that is an understated amount, because HZ assesses a tax on it in the final bill) resort fee.

The resort fee would also cover the spa, which will probably conform with the rest of the property but was closed while under construction.  More significantly, the resort fee does cover free internet, which is how I could access the web on my Kindle by the pool.  In the room, we at first thought the wireless would not work, but Amy eventually figured out that she needed to simply point her Mac and iPhone at the “Conference” network rather than the one Hotel Zoso provided in other parts of the property.

While this resort fee is mentioned in the small print while booking, whether on my website or at the hotel itself (which actually cost more than my site), you would be wrong to assume this includes parking.  Valet parking is another $15 for overnight, or $6 for day use.  We found we could park on the public street behind our hotel for free and actually be closer to our room.  During the day, however, we parked in the free parking garage about a block away so that the black Jeep stayed cool.

If it feels like you will get nickel and dimed at this place based on those two fees, relax.  Beyond those, you won’t, and keep in mind that the hotel is quite affordable, at least currently.  Plus, there are a couple of perks designed to get you to spend more money there.  The indoor/outdoor restaurant gives overnight guests 50% off breakfast, whether that is the $19.95 buffet or $10.95 eggs bennedict or some other choice.  We chose our usual non-cruise vacation gourmet fare, McDonald’s, for breakfast instead, but this deal in a lovely setting would beat most of the restaurants in town. 

There’s also a chic bar which features a daily happy hour from 5 to 8 PM (did I really need to point out that it wasn’t AM?), with $3.50 well drinks and $3.25 draft Stellas.  There were other special prices as well, but those were the deals.  For what it is worth, I asked if ouzo and ice water would be considered a well drink, and it would not.  We had happy hour drinks in the lobby both nights.  On the second night, about five minutes before nine, a formally dressed lady told us we would need to leave, as there was a scheduled function for the Palm Springs Film Festival.  We were about to exit anyway, but I have to say it looked like they could have used us as seat fillers until the stars arrived.  From what I heard, George Clooney and company had split by the time we arrived on Sunday morning to learn the Film Festival was in full swing, and I presume the stars were big donors like the one or two early arrivals.

We didn’t see any of the movies in PS, by the way, but Julie and I did go to see Mission Impossible 4, Ghost Protocol, on Saturday back home, and I doubt any of the these art house movies would have been as impressive to us.  Two thumbs way up!  I should offer the caveat that unlike the old TV show, this movie used considerable exposition and other spoon feeding to make it easy to follow the plot.  Personally, I liked that spoon fed story to go along with my popcorn and soda in this case.  Jump on a couch, Tom Cruise, you deserve the exuberant celebration.

The location of Hotel Zoso is terrific.  One downside of Doral Desert Princess or even the improbably designed J. W. Marriott Desert Springs is their isolation from downtown Palm Springs. 

We enjoy wandering up and down the streets, checking out cowboy clothing at Pony Express or surprisingly good selection of women's clothes at some S16 and under store.  Okay, I don’t really like the shopping that much, but I like walking around with a sense of purpose before grabbing a frozen yogurt. 

And of course, downtown Palm Springs has lots of great restaurants.  Our favorite, Las Casuelas Terraza, is a short walk from Hotel Zoso.  We often eat there immediately upon arriving in Palm Springs, and after checking into our hotel, we did so on this occasion.  Julie’s half order of beef quesadilla ($7.50) and Amy’s sweet corn tamale special ($8.95) satisfied them, but I won the award for best value (and flavor as far as I’m concerned) with the two item combo, which for me was a chicken taco and chili relleno served with beans and rice for $8.95.  We like sitting in the outdoor patio by the palapa bar, but on Sunday an excellent band attracted a crowd that filled that section, so we sat on the other side at a table by the sidewalk, which was just as good.  Because they were busy, service was on the slow side, but the assistant waiter kept bringing chips and salsa to replace our empty bowls.  When we were first dating, Julie and I used to go to El Paso Cantina on the Long Beach Marina to play backgammon and have a glass of sangria before dinner, and we inevitably ate so many free chips that we begged off on dinner.  Things haven’t changed too much, except that at Las Casuelas Terraza we ordered our meals as soon as we sat, and we dutifully finished them, too.  Only Amy had any left over.

On Monday, we decided to return to Las Casuelas, and again I won the award for best value when I repeated my order, while Julie went for a beef tostada ($10.95), which for all intents and purposes is a giant salad served in a big fried tortilla, and Amy a chicken salad ($10.95), with a major difference being a large leaf of purple lettuce as a bowl instead of a tortilla.  However, Amy did snag some of Julie’s tortilla bowl.  Apparently, word of these bottomless chip-eating gringos from the day before had spread through the kitchen, so they made sure to get our food out pronto on this day.

You’ll notice I skipped dinner on Sunday.  I will sheepishly admit that we drove to Panda Express and split a three piece combo three ways, which we found quite amusing.  I’m happy as long as I get to have Kung Pao Chicken as the third item in one of those little to-go boxes and shovel it in my face with chopsticks.

Monday night was our anniversary, so we actually went out for a nice dinner at Zin American Bistro, where we sat at a candlelit outdoor table.  Julie’s fillet mignon ($31) was thick and juicy, definitely not some top sirloin masquerading as the real thing.  Amy’s chicken schnitzel ($23) was fried to perfection, and though she at first wanted to substitute for the pickled vegetable side dish, she loved the reality it proved to be.  I once again won the prize for best value and flavor with the fish special of the evening, a macadamia-crusted Mahi Mahi served with mashed potatoes and spinach at $25.  This restaurants gets three thumbs up, or whatever the designation for good food and atmosphere happens to be.  As we patted ourselves on the back for splurging for such a nice anniversary dinner, Amy schooled us on an alternative reality where a college friend of her boyfriend spent $120 for his own share of a birthday dinner.  How do kids have so much money to spend?

When Amy went to Paris, she said she planned to get a haircut there.  I’m not sure if I dissuaded her or she just ran out of time, but in Palm Springs, she insisted to accomplish the task.  We gave her $25 that we would have paid for The Haircutters in Manhattan Beach (assuming she wouldn’t follow my Fantastic Sam’s lead), and she chose Raphael’s, which prides itself on the perfect haircut, according to their ads.  On our way there, we passed another salon that would have been $18 less, but Amy had made up her mind.

And the $46 plus tip she paid made her quite happy.  It included a massage as well as a 20 minute shampoo leading to a haircut that took over an hour to complete.  When she came back to our hotel, her long locks were gone.  While a haircut may not seem like that significant an occasion to those of us who go in every few weeks to maintain equilibrium, Amy’s hair previously stretched to the middle of her back, and when properly brushed it elicited compliments wherever she went.  Eliminating such a crowd-pleasing feature would be tantamount to cutting off a nose for most people, but Amy is fashion fearless, and it turned out great.   With the eight inches cut from the bottom, the hair that remained sprang back into angelic curls, and I think she looks even prettier than before.  I told her to send a photo from her iPhone to her Aunt Darlene, who as a former hairdresser would appreciate the beautiful transformation, but Amy said the last time she saw my sister that Darlene had specifically complimented her on growing out her hair.  Amy didn’t want to say, “See, I did the opposite,” although I know Darlene understands. 

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and after reading this long, long post, you now fully understand that statement, so here is a photo of Amy après haircut.

As these things seem to work, while Amy indulged in her Palm Springs salon session, I came to a section in "Innocents Abroad" where Mark Twain wrote of his less satisfactory experience getting a shave in Paris, where no fit barber could be found and the "wigmaker" nearly skinned him alive.

Symmetry between introduction and conclusion is a key to a well-crafted story, although at this point you probably have come to the conclusion that brevity is vastly underrated.  Can you imagine if I took this blogging approach to an entire cruise?  I dare say you would be able to psychoanalyze me better than Sigmund Freud or Carl Jung if you slogged through it all.

Anyway, somehow I have returned to contemplating image, in this case my youngest daughter cutting her hair.  Despite changing what many thought needed no change, Amy emerged more beautiful than before.  Certainly she has that unfair advantage of youth, when she can look at herself in pictures and see the same face that was in the friendly vanity mirror, but it is more than that.  It is that she enjoyed a nice vacation, an escape to a land of beautiful light and sumptuous dinning, where strangers discuss interesting concepts we haven’t recently pondered and familiar habits are forgotten, at least to some extent. 

While driving home yesterday, I glanced at the driver of a new BMW convertible next to me.  She was a middle-aged blonde, and with the top down in her new car I would have thought she’d look relaxed and happy.  Instead, I saw stress in her taut facial muscles as she glanced worriedly at her Blackberry.  As to what she thought she saw there I don’t know, but what I saw was someone who thought happiness would come with shinier possessions, when in fact happiness and perhaps youth come from embracing the present moment.

In looking back at photos of our Australia and South Pacific trip from a year and a half ago, I couldn’t help noticing how Julie and I changed over the course of the trip, actually getting younger if I didn’t know better.  One of the best ways to remember that happy person is to escape on a vacation, and with that rediscovery of your inner self, you may find the mirror image begins appearing with your public persona. 

O Little Town of Bethlehem

Door to Church of St. Catherine
in Bethlehem

In a humble shack built to shelter a few barnyard animals, a frightened but exhilerated teen named Mary gave birth to a sweet baby boy she named Jesus, as she'd been instructed.  Her young husband Joseph lay the babe in a trough lined with straw that served as a makeshift crib.

An unusually bright star shined above, attracting three wise Magi from the east who saw this as the final sign to guide their quest for a newborn king.  They stood outside the small manger, amid peaceful livestock in this tiny oasis in the desert.

I suppose I should have rationally imagined a barn, but I can't honestly say that I thought there was a wall to keep the elements out.  I simply imagined a life-sized version of that manger scene my sweet mom set out every Christmas, a tradition carried out by Julie in our home.  I'm sure you've seen similar displays, including life-sized civic recreations that used to be more prevalent before a handful of intolerant atheists began suing communities that re-created them in order to protect their freedom to be killjoys.

Wes in Bethlehem

However, as this linked Los Angeles Times article from twenty years ago attests: "It is widely agreed that Jesus was born in a cave used for housing animals."

It makes perfect sense in an age before energy-smart homeowners could self-install R30 insulation that in the desert, where temperatures fluctuate dramatically, livestock would have been sheltered in caves. In the 1970s I read many Mother Earth News articles advocating earth-sheltered dwellings that have naturally high R-values in order to save heating and cooling costs.

Grotto's Eastern Orthodox adornments unfortunately
appear garish to Westerners.

After repeat warnings in everything from the online excursion description to the port presentation on board to guide speeches that the manger would be crowded and quite possibly too crammed for us to enter, we received a pleasant surprise.

Nobody was there when our group of 32 arrived, so we had the manger to ourselves. No, it was not a private tour like the Pope or President Obama would receive, but it was definitely possible to see everything and experience the ambiance.  And yes, it is a cave.

Our group sings "O Little Town of Bethlehem" in the Grotto. 

Our Palestinian guide seemed quite knowledgeable about Islam, but his smiling persona and enthusiastic presentation of the Christmas story hinted that he's probably Christian.  He suggested singing an appropriate Christmas carol. Someone called out, "Jingle Bells," which elicited laughter, given 95 degree sunshine outside.

Our guide suggested "O Little Town of Bethlehem," which is a song of special significance to our family because my sister's husband Brooks is a descendant of the lyricist, Phillips Brooks, the Episcopal priest who wrote the poem following his visit to Bethlehem in 1865.  For those keeping score, that was two years ahead of Mark Twain's visit to the Holy Lands.

View of kibbutz buffer area in distance from Bethlehem

Before coming to Bethlehem, we had stopped for lunch at a modern restaurant operated by a kibbutz.

A kibbutz is a communally-owned farming community set just inside Israel's borders, in this case abutting the Palestinian-controlled West Bank.  The Israeli farm land doubles as military buffer against ground attack.

Shrine at the star venerated as the exact spot of Jesus's birth,
as indicated by the star in the marble floor.

All of the food in the buffet had been grown on these collective farmlands.

This particular kibbutz had apparently been quite successful at creating bountiful harvests that created surpluses, funding construction of that large complex serving tourists.  The hotel/restaurant is also communally owned and operated.

 

I don't personally understand how anyone other than Mary and
Joseph could possibly know the exact spot of birth,
and I doubt they marked it before heading  home to Galilee.

The kosher food served was diversified, plentiful and quite palatable.


To actually reach Bethlehem, we had to pass through an armed gate into the Palestinian-controlled West Bank, which is essentially a separate nation within Israel.

Our Israeli guide had to be replaced by a Palestinian guide, although Miki didn't have to leave the bus at the border, as we had expected.

John the Baptist Souvenir Shop in Bethlehem

The general appearance of Bethlehem is somewhat drab and outdated, often making a mockery of names revered by Christians, but the streets are clean.

There's a great deal of controversy about whether Palestinians have been deliberately mistreated by Israel or they have simply squandered aid intended for schools and other civic projects by diverting the funds to buy weapons and build tunnels under the wall in order to conduct terrorist activity against greater Israel.

KFC apparently appeals to Palestinian palates.

We visited Bethlehem on Friday, which is the Islamic day of rest and worship, like Sundays for Christians and football fans in the USA.

The Muslims seem to take an approach more like orthodox Jews (who basically stay at home or walk to temple on their Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday), because there seemed to be almost no locals out on the streets in cars and few on foot.

I couldn't help thinking some sacred shrines in the Church of
the Nativity looked more like gypsy fortune-telling booths.

Back to history, why were Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem in the first place?

You may have read Shakespeare's play about Julius Caesar in high school and know he was assassinated by Roman Senators.  "Et tu Brute?"

Shortly before the murder of Julius Caesar by politicians, he unexpectedly adopted his great-nephew Gaius Octavius and made Gaius Octavius his heir.

After the assasination of his new father Julius, Gaius Octavius formed the Second Triumverate with fellow generals Mark Antony and Marcus Lepidus in order to rule the vast Roman Empire together, assuming none could fill Julius Caesar's sandals alone.

Our good-natured guide.

The Second Triumverate immediately began avenging the death of Julius Caesar by hunting down the perpetrators.

There had been a First Triumverate, made up of Julius Caesar, Marcus Crassus and Pompey the Great, who captured Jersualem when he was still only a Roman General.

Just as Uncle-Father Julius Caesar became Emperor as the last man standing from the First Triumverate, the man born Gaius Octavius became Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus after eliminating the other two contenders.

The Church of St. Catherine in Bethlehem.

Facing certain defeat at the hands of Julius's adopted son, Marc Antony commtted suicide.

Marc Antony is the same guy you may remember from a movie featuring his hot romance with Egypt's sultry Queen Cleopatra.

Before Cleo went with Marc, however, she had previously had a stormy affair with Julius Caesar that resulted in a son, Ceasarian.

Tying up loose ends, Octavius (soon to be Emperor Caesar Augustus) ordered his step-brother Caesarian killed, too, even though he was just a child.

The new Senate apparently took a considerably better view of Julius Caesar than the assassins, because they named him a god, post-mortem.

As such, coins minted under Caesar Augustus included many bearing the new Emperor's profile with a caption, "Son of God."

Yes, Julius Caesar (JC, just like Jesus Christ) was called "god," and his successor Augustus was called "son of god," in the closing decades Before Christ, a rather dramatic bit of foreshadowing by God the author.

Stained glass at Church of St. Catherine

Anyway, back to how Mary and Joseph ended up in Bethelehem, according to the Gospel of Luke, Caesar Augustus ordered a census.  In that primitive time, this required everyone to return to their ancestral homes.

Bethlehem had been the childhood hometown of Joseph's forefather David and the place where the prophet Samuel anointed David King of Israel.  Hence Bethlehem was the City of David to which Joseph returned for tax assessment reasons.

I find it a bit confusing that Bethlehem was called the City of David for those reasons, but Jerusalem was also called City of David, because it was the capital from which King David ruled.

Another door at Church of St. Catherine

In any case, it played out that finding no room at the inn, Joseph and Mary took shelter for the night in a manger exactly where three wise men from the east found them beneath an amazingly bright light and delivered their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrhh to honor the newborn King.

The Church of the Nativity houses the cave in where Jesus arrived on earth.  The Church was built between 327 and 339 AD on the site designated by Christian Roman Emperor Constantine's mother, Helena.

The original basilica was destroyed by the Samaritan Revolt (not exactly being Good Samaritans) and rebuilt by Byzantine Emperor Justinian in the sixth century.  Please note that all this occurred before the birth of Mohammed, who founded the religion of Islam.

In 135 AD, Emperor Hadrian (whose statue we had recently seen at the Athens Agora) had built a temple to Adonis, the Greek god of desire.  It happened to be directly above the Grotto, according to Helena.  Make of that what you will.  Perhaps Hadrian intended to stomp out the legend of Jesus before it could grow, beginning with His birthplace, or alternatively maybe Helena was misled by opportunists seeking royal coin.

Monument to Christian Crusaders
in Church of St. Catherine

The Church of the Nativity certainly deserves its UNESCO World Heritage designation, but aesthetically, nearby Church of St. Catherine is far more beautiful, primarily because it was re-built in the late 19th Century using more Western standards.

The Church of St. Catherine has a great deal of historic significance it its own right, built on the site of a Crusader church and monastery.

That monastery had been built on the site of an even older 4th Century monastery.

In 1347, a small chapel within a Franciscan Convent on the site was dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria, the martyred daughter of a governor of Alexandrian Egypt, which was part of the Roman Empire.

Upon seeing a supernatural vision of the Madonna and Child, Catherine had converted to Christianity.

An outspoken scholar despite being only a teenager, Catherine went before Roman Emperor Maxentius and protested the persecution of Christians.

The emperor brought in fifty top pagan scholars to debate Catherine, but she defeated their arguments, eventually resulting in 200 conversions to Christianity among attendees, including the Emperor's wife.

Church of St. Catherine

Maxentius tried to force her to recant her faith with torture, but Catherine stood by her religion.

The emperor changed tack, proposing that he would marry this beautiful and wise virgin, but she refused like a nun, saying she was married to Jesus Christ.  As a result, Catherine was sentenced to be killed on a spiked wheel, but it broke.

Jerusalem Cross, or Crusader's Cross, on doors to church

One legend says the straps holding her down miraculously snapped, with spikes spinning off to kill many accusers who were onlookers at the torture.

Shortly thereafter, she was beheaded anyway, and the 200 Christians converted by her were also martyred, so it wasn't exactly a happy ending, but she did have this beautiful church named after her.




Overshadowing the rest of history of Bethlehem, however, remains the fact that it was the birthplace of Jesus Christ, who would be tortured and crucified for claims of divinity.