Loose Leaf Notes

  Jockey’s Ridge State Park in the Outer Banks, North Carolina, has the largest natural sand dunes on the east coast.  Watch a video HERE.

My daughter-in-law left me a Facebook message on Monday saying that our two-year old grandson Bryce woke up in the morning and asked, “Opa come see me?”   That was hard to resist, so Opa (my husband Joe) and I set up a play date to take Bryce out for some fun.   Once down the mountain, […]

Between the gusting wind, the sudsy surf balls scattering like tumbleweed, the drop-off dune incline down to the shore on one side, and the in-and-out of crashing of surf on the other, Joe and I were nearly bowled over at the beach on Assateague Island National Seashore. Landing from the 6 hour drive from the […]

The following are Facebook messages that many of us in Floyd are following. They are the direct comments of our friend Asa, who arrived in Haiti last Tuesday to volunteer with Ananda Marga Universal Relief Team (AMURT), an organization that works around the world providing support in the form of education, health care, and shelter […]

The island was known as Noepe, “land amid the streams,” by the Wampanoag Indians who inhabited it (still do). “Martha’s Vineyard” is said to have been named in 1602 by English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold for his daughter and the island’s wild grapes. It was called Martin’s Vineyard (most likely after Gosnold ship’s captain, John Martin) […]

A tour of the gingerbread cottages in Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard is like walking into a storybook. The perfectly preserved and elaborately decorated cottages were built in the mid 1800’s as part of a Methodist summer campground. Tucked away in the middle of town and entered through a downtown alleyway, many of the more than […]

Our trip up to Hull, Massachusetts, for a family cookout and to take my mother to Martha’s Vineyard was planned as a mix of vacation and networking for the meditation retreats that my husband Joe runs. It became a tour of carousels when, after an exquisite Irish dinner of “bangers and mash” and Guinness, we […]

Flying above a white wonderland with a crook in my neck from dreaming too far to the left, I’m trying to discern between the snow-peaked mountainous terrain and the clouds. This fairy tale is set above Lapland. The sound of the plane engine is like an ogre snoring. Looking out at the red tipped wing […]

I found my poetry on Siesta Key, on the pastel petite shell shore where the tourmaline gulf water turns confectionary white sand to mocha gray. The gulls are greedy. The scent of salty breeze is of kelp. Sifting through the finely ground out-of-this-world white powder, I look but cannot find the slightest pebble. Occasionally I […]

Riding bikes in the neighborhood, Joe calls out, “Here’s another fountain. Do you want to stop and get a picture?” Pulling my bike up on the sidewalk to gawk, I answer,” No, I just want to see what that guy has between his legs!” “Stand here; it matches your beret,” Joe says, snapping a picture. […]

1. In the land of ‘Fireworks for Sale’ and palm trees I say to Joe: Now this is why we go on vacation so I can read Eckhart Tolle in Denny’s, sleep in a treehouse, and pull over on the side of the road and pick an orange from a tree. 2. Under an Orlando […]

In 1982, a troupe of young street performers mixed with the crowd of tourists, artists and collectors in Baie-Saint-Paul, the Mecca of Quebec painters … Walking on stilts, the entertainers juggled and breathed fire. Inspired by the vacationers’ obvious delight, the performers organized the Baie-Saint-Paul entertainer’s festival, where the public witnessed the beginning of what […]