From the monthly archives:

March 2010

Blues Travelers: Memphis’ American Dream Safaris Offers A Chance To Really FEEL The Blues

by Alan Rider

If you’re more than just a casual fan of the blues—someone who can trace the connection* between blues legends like Lead Belly and Muddy Waters, for example—sooner or later you have to make the pilgrimage to the land where this distinctly American art form was born.

While you could certainly explore the area on your own, I’ve discovered an alternative that will help you get a lot more out of your visit.  Namely a plugged-in local guide by the name of Tad Pierson, a one-man college of musical knowledge whose decades of experience can help you develop a much greater appreciation for the music and the landscape [...]

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WFO Weekend: Texas Mile Gives Lead-Footed Drivers A Chance To Feed Their Need For Speed

by Alan Rider

Read through some of the extraordinary experiences featured here over the years and it’s pretty clear that I like fast cars and motorcycles as much as the next guy.  That said, I think anyone who’s dumb enough to do triple-digit speeds on public roads deserves to have their license yanked right out from under them.
Especially when you consider how many places there are where you can safely run your high-performance machine wide f@#!ing open without putting innocent lives at risk.  Like the Texas Mile, for instance.
This relatively low-key event rolls onto a deserted airport runway located two hours north of Corpus Christi March 26-28 for three days of tire-smoking [...]

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Hot Lead & Lipstick: Becoming An Outdoors-Woman Weekends

by Alan Rider

While I’m open to all kinds of once-in-a-lifetime adventures, there are some I’m just not physically cut out for.  Like these Becoming An Outdoors-Woman weekends, for example.  Fortunately we were able to persuade special correspondent Christina Newton to attend a recent two-day B.O.W. program and bring us this report:
Looking down the barrel of my 20-gauge shotgun, I track the fluorescent-orange disc streaking across the blue California sky.  Without hesitation I pull the trigger and—BLAMO!—the four-inch clay target is blown to smithereens.  As my classmates erupt in a spontaneous round of applause, all I can think is  “Dang, this is fun!”
You might wonder what an ordinary minivan-driving mother is doing [...]

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Sailing Through Airport Security: 2 Great Sources For Travel-Size Products

by Alan Rider

Going through the TSA security checkpoint in San Diego a couple of weeks ago, I ended up in line behind a tres chic young woman who began giving the screeners a heaping helping of attitude after they politely pointed out that she couldn’t carry-on the four full-size containers of shampoo, hair gel, and whatnot they’d extracted from her over-stuffed roll-aboard suitcase.
If this were an isolated incident, it probably wouldn’t even be worth mentioning.  But, as someone who flies 100,000-plus a year, I can tell you it’s something I see all the time.  Honestly, it’s a mystery to me that there could still be folks out there who haven’t gotten the [...]

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Bungee Jumping Bonus: What One Young Woman’s Leap Of Faith Can Teach Us About Living Life To The Fullest

by Alan Rider

While this website is filled to overflowing with stories of  way-cool once-in-a-lifetime adventures, read between the lines and you’ll discover everything here is really intended to promote the larger idea that life was meant to be lived to the fullest.  Which is why I wanted to introduce you to Mary Thompson and let her tell you the tale of her first bungee jump.
In many ways her experience might not seem that unusual.  But what really impressed me is the way this plucky young woman didn’t let her fears stand in the way of having an extraordinary experience she’d always dreamed of.  Let me know in the Comments section below if [...]

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Fashion Designer Dreams: 4 Fab Ways To Make Your Fashionista Fantasies Come True

by Alan Rider

Not sure how to put this delicately, so I’ll just come right out and say it: I don’t do fashion.  Unless, of course, you consider cargo shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops to be valid fashion statements.
That said, I have a niece who reads every issue of Vogue cover-to-cover and has even started sketching out and stitching up some of her own creations.  Add the success of long-running television series like Project Runway and What Not To Wear and I’ve come to realize that there are an awful lot of people out there who share her passion for fashion.
Which got me to wondering if there was a way all these style-savvy folks [...]

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Sailing Away: 2 Extraordinary Cruise Ship Alternatives

by Alan Rider

As a general rule, I’m not a big fan of cruises.  The idea of watching the world pass by from atop a floating high-rise hotel, visiting over-commercialized ports-of-call with thousands of fellow passengers in what feels like an invading tourist army, and sitting through sequin-encrusted musical revues just isn’t my idea of a good time.
Which makes it all the more surprising that I find myself drawn to these two remarkable “cruising” adventures.  Though they differ in scale, both offer a chance to have true extraordinary experiences that go way beyond simply oohing-and-ahhing at the elaborate ice sculpture anchoring a traditional cruise ship’s midnight buffet:
Tall Ships
While the region you’re traveling through [...]

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