During the Great Depression era of the 1930s, people in a compact region of Pennsylvania managed to avoid the worst of the hard times. They occupied a canyon that separates the Appalachian Plateau from the ridge of the Appalachian Mountains. It's an area of rugged foothills, limestone valleys and dense forests.

Many people are surprised to learn that wine is made in all 50 states.  Some of them seem unlikely locations for growing grapes.

What’s to see in the Met? Art! – lots of it from all over the world and from different eras of history. There is an Asian wing and a European wing. Ancient Egyptian, African, Asian artifacts found their way to the hallow halls of modern man. Hard to believe that some of these statues adorned tribal muddy huts and foreboding temples of old.

The first thing we did after boarding the Disney Magic was sit down to lunch, after which we toured the ship, as mentioned above. That evening we saw a show, the first of several we would see. All the shows were quite good, a mixture of film and live characters, and were based on familiar Disney movies.

The new Icon Class ship launched seven-day eastern and western Caribbean sailings from the Port. The arrival of Icon-class Star of the Seas to Port Canaveral represents the latest chapter in a partnership between Royal Caribbean and the Port dating back nearly 30 years.

Having received a misguided shout-out from the president during Black History Month - Frederick Douglass has done an amazing job… - it seems a good time to revisit the cultural icon's legitimate place in history. And a visit to his home in Washington, DC - surely a place the current president might want to consider visiting himself - would be a good place to start.

First, for many manatee mavens, is the droll appearance of the mammals. They are most often called sea cows, and their languid pace lends merit to that comparison. When my wife Fyllis and I were swimming among a small group of the cute creatures in Crystal River, Florida, she likened them to huge baked potatoes with small squinched-in faces.

I’m not a newcomer of NYC and I’ve been to the usual – the Empire State building, the Statue of Liberty, the National September 11 memorial, Times Square, Broadway, Central Park and MOMA (Museum of Modern Art). I came here to visit family so any extra tourist site is just icing on the cake. But I did go around some and I was pleasantly surprised.

Dining on unfamiliar dishes, celebrating traditional Indian holidays and other unusual activities might not be in your regular to-do list. However, those and other experiences are available to those seeking to immerse themselves in customs of other countries and people around the world without traveling far from home.

I love it when a new hotel enters the Southern California hospitality scene --- especially when it comes to an emerging destination city like Rancho Cucamonga. Such is the case with Sanctity Hotel and Durango Cocina & Rooftop Bar (https://www.sanctityhotel.com/), which opened this past April.