The Flying Nun
So I’m sitting at the gate at Reagan National, minding my own business and trying not to care that the storm on the other side of that window has shut down the airport. (All good stories start with this “minding my own business” gig.) The lady next to me sees me take a break in my book, and starts a conversation.

She turned out to be a very nice person – polished make-up, nicely styled hair, dressed rather decently for an afternoon at the airport. She’s going to Bentonville, Arka… Continue

Worst part about a vacation, hands down: bringing back gifts. I don’t mean Christmas or birthday gifts (I stock up on those, too). I’m talking about remembrances for the folks who are grabbing the mail for you every day and feeding the dog.

The first few trips it was easy, because you had the endless stock of souvenir shop items to choose from. Unfortunately, I realized in Costa Rica that I’ve exhausted infinity when it comes to teen-age boys. I found a hardwood bracelet for his sister. Serving… Continue

When you read the tourist brochures on Costa Rica, they’re telling the truth about the wildlife. My husband got to hold a baby sloth crawling along the ground. We were close enough to monkeys to take up the entire frame in the photo without a zoom lens. I watched leaf-cutter ants straight from the Discovery Channel, I dodged lizards falling from the tree next to the pool. I declined to hold a poison dart tree frog, although a toxic red frog landed on Ron’s rubber boots in the rainforest. I rode… Continue

I’m a sucker for private transport in a country. I’d much rather deal mano a mano with a local driver as he proudly shows me what is important in his world. We can have a customized conversation in a car, as opposed to a crackling microphone that interrupts my little snooze in the back of the bus.

Ah, but then there was Arthur, the gentleman who drove us three hours from Tortuguero to Arenal. Ron used the excuse he couldn’t understand his English, grabbed the back seat and promptly fell… Continue

I just returned from what had to be the hottest place I’ve visited on the planet. Not that I can’t take the heat – when they wrote the line “some like it hot,” they were referring to Julie Sturgeon.

What I didn’t like about Costa Rica was my packing choices for this humid, tropical climate. I'll cheerfully pass along my new insights so you can avoid lying naked on a bed, dripping wet, waiting for the fan to speed up:

• Don’t take tight-fitting jean shorts. Tortuguero is a rainforest, fo… Continue