"Sometimes I take baths because it's hard to drink wine in the shower."

This maxim hangs on the wall near the cedar tub in my room at Among the Vineyards, a bed and breakfast where the shoutouts to grown-up grape juice are as plentiful as misplaced beverage containers on the set of "Game of Thrones." (The B&B's Wi-Fi password? "Drinkwine.")

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SANTA CRUZ ISLAND, Calif.--Before I tell you about my glorious solitude on Santa Cruz Island, let's be clear that there is some congestion among the coastal cliffs and grassy hills.

For instance, if there's a sea caves tour, you might see half a dozen folks dragging yellow plastic vessels into the shallows, all at once. Kayak traffic.

If ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Wali's blue tongue rapidly flickers in and out. She swivels her head toward the visitors, reptilian eyes bright.

Wally is a northern blue-tongued skink. These Australian lizards display their azure intakes appendage to ward off predators. Bright colors often mean danger, such as with the highly venomous blue-ringed octopus.

But no...Read more

BOISE, Idaho -- "Boise is a badass," declared Jake Logue Salutregui, who, when he's onstage at the downtown Balcony Club, goes by the drag name Denimm Cain. "We have an underground culture that is underappreciated. We have great food, healthy and athletic people, educated people, people who are dreamers. It's a shame the nation doesn't know what...Read more

ABILENE, Kan. -- They still like Ike in Abilene.

And why not? He executed the military plan that turned the tide of World War II in Europe, stopped Hitler and ultimately brought the war in that theater to an end. He did it by getting big-ego military leaders to work together by subjugating his own, by believing in his troops, by being willing ...Read more

Disneyland has long had games in its parks, from a shooting range in Frontierland to what is essentially a collection of mini video games in Disney California Adventure's Toy Story Midway Mania. But never before has a Disneyland attraction been the sort of large-scale, walk-in and user-malleable arcade game that is Millennium Falcon: Smugglers ...Read more

Here's a familiar and effective design trick often used at theme parks: Corral guests under or through a passageway that forces the crowd to narrow before a grand reveal.

Think of Disneyland's Main Street, U.S.A., where parkgoers are shunted through a passage under a train tunnel that gives way to a romantic, turn-of-the-20th-century town and a...Read more

Here's a familiar and effective design trick often used at theme parks: Corral guests under or through a passageway that forces the crowd to narrow before a grand reveal.

Think of Disneyland's Main Street, U.S.A., where parkgoers are shunted through a passage under a train tunnel that gives way to a romantic, turn-of-the-20th-century town and a...Read more

This guitar-shaped hotel soars 450 feet into the sky, an extravagant glass structure that no one can miss.

The Seminole Hard Rock & Casino's audacious $1.5 billion expansion is commanding the attention of commuters on highways, passengers aboard planes and residents near and far who've watched it rise the past two years.

The Hard Rock for the ...Read more

Don't call it ice cream.

Not if you're in Milwaukee. Not if you don't want to be ridiculed as rude, clueless, a rube.

Folks in Wisconsin's largest city take their signature dish seriously -- no offense, cheese curds -- and consider it an insult to confuse their rich dairy dessert with ordinary supermarket ice cream.

You'll find frozen custard...Read more

Florida's theme parks saw a big jump in attendance in 2018, a fact that will come as a surprise to no one who stood in line for a roller coaster, the train to Hogwarts or a character meet-and-greet.

In Florida, which gets more theme park visitors than any country in the world or any state in the U.S., 87.5 million people visited its eight ...Read more

GOLDFIELD, Nev. -- We were taking a smarty-pants car through honky-tonky country -- Reno to Las Vegas. Our route: U.S. 95, Nevada's Electric Highway, a mostly two-lane road that has been peppered with charging stations to meet the growing demand of electric vehicles, or EVs.

Although still a fraction of the market, EV sales are surging, ...Read more

Edward Abbey (1927-1989) was a desert rat, a chronic contrarian, a serial government employee with a penchant for anarchy.

He made his reputation by exploring Arches in the nonfiction "Desert Solitaire" (1968), then doubled his fame in 1975 with "The Monkey Wrench Gang," a novel that follows four misfits as they lament lost wild places, burn ...Read more