You know it’s going to be a good day when your mailman delivers a big fat CD right to your front door. And it’s extra special when it comes from the reigning Queen of Boogie, Sue Palmer. Sue has put together a collection of 20 songs that she says are “particular favorites” from an immense archive that dates back almost 40 years.

My friend and I really love hot food. It was 1987 and we were on assignment in Southern India with a group called The Bible League. We had visited remote villages in the interior and had returned to Andhra Pradesh and needed a rest. This particular region of India has the reputation of having the spiciest and most deadly cuisine on the continent.

Whether it is by trains, planes or automobiles, traveling with young kids always requires extra effort for smooth sailing. However, the more you prepare, the easier everything is when en route. Finding the best Travel Toys is the way to go, they need to be great while traveling and while at the destination too.

It was such a serendipitous meeting. While strolling the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar's most sacred Buddhist shrine, we stopped to talk to a monk. A very chatty fellow of 51, and a monk for over 25 years, he was very eager to show us the photos from his recent trip to Japan – yup, on his Smartphone. When he actually invited us to lunch at his monastery two days hence, things got even more interesting. And it was only one of the many surprising and unexpected happenings on Myths and Mountains’ Myanmar Odyssey tour.

Anyone who’s had the pleasure of knowing Tom Dunkel knows he’s an adept and fair observer of unique Americana who readily turns phrases that do his subjects justice. His book "Color Blind: The Forgotten Team that Broke Baseball’s Color Line," about a Depression-era integrated semi-pro baseball team out of North Dakota, is regarded as a top-tier sports book deftly matching cultural insight with entertainment.

OK, you saw it on TV, and you saw Prince Harry and Meghan - sorry, now the Duke and Duchess of Sussex" - and their wedding as only the Brits can do it. But think about this for a minute, can you imagine what it will be like for Meghan to now be able to actually go into and be inside Buckingham Palace - not as a tourist, but a "Royal?"

Life can get hectic with work, school, traffic or kids. When this happens one must remember the importance of keeping the mind, body and soul in good form. To help keep my Zen in the right place, I love to visit Glen Ivy Hot Springs, a soothing sanctuary located in the majestic rolling hills of Corona, about 50 miles southeast of Pasadena.

Ten of us sat around a kitchen table in a tidy home in eastern Croatia. Over cake and coffee, our hostess answered questions about life in villages still reeling from the effects of a war that ended on paper more than two decades ago.

And then the rains came down, blessing this magical and sacred city of 21,321,000 million inhabitants and giving them a gentle reprieve from their bustling and productive lives. It has been said that Mexico City has a perfect annual spring temperature, making it an abundant produce belt for Mexico and the rest of the world.

There is very little that can entice me to get up at 4 a.m. but how often do you get a chance to bathe a Buddha? And not just any Buddha but one that the actual real Buddha is said to have embraced himself. The statue at Maha Muni Pagoda in Mandalay, Myanmar is believed to be one of only five likenesses of Buddha created during his lifetime. And the daily cleansing ritual for the hundreds of pilgrims who attend is both literal and spiritual.

If I told you one of the most romantic ways to get to one of Britain’s most spectacular resorts is by cruise ship, you might think I’d gone – as the British might say – a little batty. Then again consider it serves up a typically Upper Crust, very High Society drink called Pimms Number One. Believe me, it’s the most refreshing drink this side of London.

The 22nd annual COLCOA French Film Festival, the largest festival of its kind dedicated to French cinema and television series, recently wrapped up after eight days of screenings at the Directors Guild of America where a smorgasbord of 86 films, television and digital series, and VR programs were offered.

His seven older siblings thought he was crazy. Heirs to one of America’s biggest fortunes in the 19th century, they lived in mansions in Manhattan and on lavish estates in Newport, Rhode Island. But little Georgie Vanderbilt, a bachelor devoted to his mother, spent his money buying up land in the wilds of western North Carolina and set out building a home where he and mama could breathe clean mountain air. Family members scoffed.

The island of Rügen, Germany's largest, just off the Pomeranian coast in the Baltic, was an occasional summer retreat for, among the many, a troika of Teutonic heavy-weights — Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, and Otto von Bismarck. So, I figured it was good enough for me to take a three-day respite there, after an activity-filled few days in hectic and exciting Berlin.

I don’t want to genuflect to Robert Mueller as if his sainthood is imminent. Plenty of others are already busy at that task. Separating him from his legal environment is a challenge, as it’s difficult to ignore a stench floating above many aspects of the US Dept. of Justice.

Are several lumps of sugar worth putting in an historic museum? That may sound like a funny question, but the fact is that yes they are – especially if they’re part of the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms (CWR) in London.

The line “Made in China” was synonymous with cheap, poorly made, disposable junk for many years. Today, as the world’s largest economy, the country produces and exports a vast range of goods, from Apple computers to Trump neckties. Follow this journey from a superstore in Beijing to the Terra Cotta Warriors of Xian to the priceless gems of Hong Kong and discover the riches of China along the way.

Berlin has been on my mind. I just finished reading Scottish writer, Philip Kerr’s Berlin Noir Trilogy: an addictive, hard boiled historical fiction series about private eye Bernie Günter, as he descends into the dark underworld of Berlin in the 1920s and ‘30s. The trilogy reminded me about my own past journeys to Berlin.

When one invokes images of English King Henry VIII they’re generally of a grossly obese and egoistical king, who was no stranger to the royal casting couch, despite his marrying a number of his conquests. But this is not the Henry of early years; an avid hunter and sportsman, a helpless romantic, sublime dancer, and highly educated man who actually composed his own songs and played numerous musical instruments.