Cancelled trips, Winter robins

Such things, I am told, happen to travel writers once in awhile, but this had never happened to me: bad weather, exceptionally bad weather and a canceled trip as a consequence.

I was looking forward to going to Palm Springs, to a fascinating Moroccan style boutique resort called Korakia. I was looking forward to milder weather, seeing flowers in bloom, smelling the sweet, dry desert air. BUT NOOO! All weekend we had been watching a violent winter storm scrape and douse its way across California. Whenever I looked on www.weather.com, the same flashing red SEVERE SNOW WARNING sign came on the screen. Last night a wind warning was added also. I looked at the weather for Palm Springs, and surprisingly, there was a FLASH FLOOD warning for the Coachella Valley. With such a triple whammy -- snow, wind, flood, I decided, sorrowfully, to reschedule the trip. This was last night. I walked out in the 25 degree, clear black night last night, and saw the star spangled scarf of the Milky Way above me. Clear as a bell. How could all this WEATHER be coming our way?

I went in, went to bed and awoke at about 5:00AM with hail, snow, and moaning wind beating at my bedroom window. I went to the window, opened the blinds and could see only white -- a classic white-out. Oh, to be among the Hibiscus and Jasmine at Korakia!! Not much later, I saw on the news that the Salt Lake City Airport was closed,as were many of the mountain passes and roads leading into and out of Salt Lake. What a MESS!

I grouchily went out to the kitchen, when I looked outside at our snow covered decorative Crab Apple trees. The fruits were small, well-frozen, but still held their bright red color. On the branches were six winter Robins. One was looking right at me -- a fat bird with a bright orange-yellow breast, contrasted on the branch with the bright red berries. My camera was close by, so I took some pictures of the single bird, then others.

Had I gone to Palm Springs, I would have missed this -- I like to think, when I am disappointed, that the small things in life -- like the Robins on the branch -- come into such great clarity. i walk out in the foot-plus deep snow -- and am glad, in an odd kind of way, that I stayed, again knowing the bright peace and solace a fresh Winter snow can provide.

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06 January 2008

Comings and Goings: Life in Winter

For the first and maybe last time, I am living in a place where there is a lot of SNOW. For the past 21 years, I have lived in Tucson, Arizona, where snow falls about once in twenty years. Here in Utah, snow falls almost every other day. Differences in attitudes, due probably to the fact there ARE seasons, come into greater focus daily. A neighbor said, " Well, now we asked for the snow, we have it and now we are forced to enjoy it!" Being forced to enjoy something is a novel concept!!

All the Christmas and New Year's festivities have come and gone: and nowhere does the temporal reveal itself more than in a cold clime. Right across the street were our neighbors, people we barely knew -- but they had a grand light show each night -- I was never able to quite appreciate or accept all the brightly colored lights on the trees, the huge Christmas Star on the lawn, kleig-light strength, blinking on and off all night, with the words Merry Christmas also in bright red and green, also blinking on and off. It was a spectacular display of electric religion! As we are renters on a block full of homeowners, ours was the only home that did not have bright lights. My witty husband suggested we put a mirror on our front door.

But then, on December 26th, we noticed the across the street bright light neighbors packing away their lights, and putting everything in a U-Haul. When I asked them if they were moving, they said yes, one had gotten a job in Greeley, Colorado. the house would be put in the market, and by the day's end, the house was dark, no lights anywhere, and off they went, the U-Haul disappearing in the softly falling snow.

On the bright side, i learned to toboggan. I have not broken anything yet, but then again, it is only January.

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25 December 2007

My new website, courtesy of KIMEDIA ...and beyond!

This is not one of those late Chritsmas letters, defining many personal successes achieved in the past year! But there has been news since I last blogged: Travel Connoisseur ceased publication on October 31st -- such a fitting date!! It took me some time to gather my wits about me and move on, but I have done that. Many new PR/New media projects are on the horizon, and many new journeys await. Part of my re-adjustment comes from something I have always believed -- that when one door closes, another opens.

The door opening in this case, has to do with my further adjustment of moving from print to emerging media, though I still have articles to write in high end resort print publications. However, I have become more and more convinced that more visitors read blogs, online articles, and watch vidcasts than do longer print articles in magazines. To that end, I am putting an article of mine online as a White Paper. It deals with my forecasting of Fractional Trends for 2008. The article will be live very soon.

In the coming year, I will be more involved in vidcasting, internet articles, site visit reports, and other areas involved in new media. I will keep you apprised!

In the meantime, just to show you I am alive and well and living in snowy Utah, here is a picture taken today, Christmas. I think I look OK, given the fact that it was 3 above zero and I did not have a hat! We Californians are such a hardy lot!

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27 October 2007

Positive Positives

In my last blog entry I mentioned the false positives, but did not mention the many POSITIVE positives from this event experience! Not only were the people interesting, I also had the chance to speak to the crowd about the lifestyle dimensions of the fractional purchase.

I write about the shared residence industry in Travel Connoisseur, Shared Ownership News and The Helium Report, but I rarely meet potential buyers WITH those who have conceived the fractional dimension of the yachts, helicopters, cars, jets, and jewelry collections. This time, I met BOTH: the buyers and the sellers. It was a great co-mingling of front and back office, vision and operation, theory and practice.

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21 October 2007

A Dog of California

Even though it has been a month since I last blogged, I have not been sitting around! I went to and spoke at the First Fractional Fusion event in Newport Beach, California, where fractional yacht, jet and destination club sponsors came and networked. I have left SoCal long ago, so, returning to a neighboring city is always an interesting exercise in understanding my ambivalence about the region. Yes, there's a lot of plastic surgery results walking around, and yes, many of the women are so perfect looking they do NOT look real at all, but then again, so what? I have grown old enough to accept perfection as well as idiosyncracy. I still could look out to sea, drink (only in California) Pomegranate Mojitos, and talk to people who were very interested in spending a few hundred thousand on fractional interests -- all without feeling superior or angst-ridden about anything. This is how they live their lives; I have grown older and do not want to change them.

There was a a woman at the event -- she had just had work done, and was talking about it. I looked at her, she was impossibly slim, had a youthful figure, shiny blonde hair but had a kind of lattice work of facial wrinkles; thus, a kind of anachronism: a youthful figure, an elderly face. I overheard her telling her friend, " As far as the surgery goes, my doctor is working his way UP!" She also had a growly little white poodle in her arms. I was listening to her, and began to pet the dog. She turned to me, and in a very kind voice said, " You know how old he is? He's 18: deaf, blind but he still keeps going!" I found this to be symbolic, funny, ironic, witty, everything rolled into one. The dog should have been called California, but he was called Puffy.

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Fall in Northern Utah

For the past 21 years, 21 Falls, I knew it was Fall in Tucson only for a day or two. The Cactus did not change color, nor did the Mesquite, Greasewood or Palo Verde. We natives knew only because the calendar told us; yet fall has always been my favorites season. Unlike a character on Prairie Home Companion, who always considered Fall depressing -- it reminded him of rotting pumpkins and nursing homes -- I had always welcomed Fall as a cool, colorful time.

When we came to Logan, Utah this year, neither of us expected the daily show that Autumn had in store. We are grateful to live among the leaves. each time we look down --on the sidewalk, or on the grass, or look up, to the trees and the mountains another vibrancy emerges.

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30 August 2007

Hassel Island

Here is something new! A collaborative video made my son Haddon about the private residence renovation and restoration project we saw on Hassel Island, an island very close to Charlotte Amalie Harbor in St. Thomas. It was a substantial experience for us, as we saw the land being preserved and the land being enhanced at the same time.

For more information on the project described in this video please CONTACT SUSAN.

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24 August 2007

New Helium Report Article: The Hideout Club

Susan is pleased to present a new entry in her ongoing column series for the luxury travel authority THE HELIUM REPORT.



Please CLICK HERE for Susan's article entry on The Hideout Club!

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