Khaki is the vanilla bean of pant flavors. It’s an un-color, and a guy wearing khaki pants is really wearing non-pants. But to underestimate khaki would be a mistake. Like the top domestique on a cycling squad, they can be counted on to do a lot of the hard work, leaving your shirts and shoes to bask in glory atop the podium. In khakis, you can be a yes man at the office and spend your lunch break playing pickup hoops. Your pants won’t mind. Some misguided people try to jazz up their khakis with cuffs and pleats. This won’t help you; it will sink you. Let them be beige. Think of them as that “glue” friend who holds all your scattered posse together. Thank you, khaki pants.

1. Allagash Twill Pants by L.L. Bean ($45; ); Boaris Limited shoes by Patagonia ($120; )

2. Field Jean by Eddie Bauer ($50; ); Hydroplex shoes by Rockport ($90; )

3. Soft Khaki pants by Dockers ($52; ); Zoom Court shoes by Cole Haan ($80; )

4. Men’s Canvas Khaki Relaxed Fit Pant by Carhartt ($40; ); Whino Lace shoes by Patagonia ($95; )

The post Style: Khakis appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

PRICE TAG $484
THERE’S A FLY SHOP next to our offices that I visit during work emergencies. Recently, while pacing there, I mentioned that I was traveling to Oregon in hopes of subduing my first steelhead, the anadromous rainbow trout native to the Pacific coast. “Careful,” said a friend who works in the shop. “You can’t party with heroin.”

The warning was typical of the jargon-slinging endemic to this store and, for that matter, every other fly shop in the world: bravado that’s so painfully awkward it makes you smile and leave. So that’s what I did.

I arrived in Portland on a cold Thursday with my friends Ben and Anja and steered our rental to the town of Sisters, 20 miles north of Bend. Ben and I rose in the dark (Anja slept in, then scouted the local brewery) and met our guide, who was chugging coffee, vacuuming a cigarette, and hosing off his driftboat near the town’s fly shop. It was then that I grasped the wisdom of my friend back home.

Our guide, Steelhead Joe—his moniker, not mine—was in the midst of a severe bender. He had slept a combined six hours in three days, during which he’d rowed 60 miles in pursuit of steelhead. He was a father of two and a former golf pro in California who’d moved to Oregon four years earlier, caught a steelhead, and fallen hard. He now spends more than half the year fishing the Deschutes, where, between July and November, some 50,000 trout commute. They swim up the Columbia River, bypassing two dams before hanging a right at the Deschutes en route to their spawning grounds in forking mountain streams. Hoping to meet the fish halfway, we loaded up, cranked Alan Jackson, and drove 100 miles to our put-in. It was 4 A.M.

Steelheading is not like other fly-fishing, which is about as athletic as throwing darts. The fish hold in deep, rocky water, and you raise them by swinging flies in front of their faces, often using a 13-foot spey rod, which requires a technique entirely different from trout fishing. Wading is a hazard, casting difficult. Then there’s the strike. The first tug of a steelhead feels slight, as if a child were pulling your finger. There is a pause. Then a jackhammer pulls your arms downward and a silver log shivers along the river surface.

I know this because on the 24 miles of green water we covered that day, we hooked ten steelhead. Ben landed four, including his first, a 12-pound fish. I lost my first four, with predictable effect on my nerves. In the evening we dodged jet boats burning past us from the mouth of the Columbia and approached our final hole. There, the fish were in riot, and the laws of probability evened out. I felt a tug, then the anvil. The fish, a wild, four-pound male, tail-walked, then was kind enough to allow me to pull it in.

Sunday we picked up some friends and headed to the Metolius River, a gurgly spring creek, where we splashed amid spawning kokanee and occasionally cast for small trout. Meanwhile, Steelhead Joe was back on the river, partying with heroin.

EXPENSE REPORT
Steelheading trip for two from the Fly Fisher’s Place (): $225 per person. Tip: $50. Fishing license: $31.50. Sandwich fixings: $16.50. Two nights’ worth of burgers and beer from Three Creeks Brewing, in Sisters (): $55. One night at the Sisters Motor Lodge (): $90. One night at Camp Sherman, on the Metolius River (877-444-6777): $16. Total: $484

Back in the Day

My parents used to take us ten kids tramping along the Texas coast on a shoestring. They were on to something.

1979 in South Padre

1979 in South Padre

2010 in South Padre

2010 in South Padre

IN THE WINTER OF 1979, my parents, grad students at the University of North Dakota, possessed a rusted Chevy, $6,000 in combined salary, four children under the age of six, and a serious need for a vacation. So they drove 1,400 miles south, to Texas’s Padre Island National Seashore, which they had discovered in a travel brochure. We landed a dune’s hop from the ocean and spent two weeks doing anything that was free: playing football, reading, taking the Port Aransas Ferry back and forth across the Corpus Christi Channel five times. High railings let us roam the deck. As a four-year-old, I might as well have been sprinting across a spaceship.

It was the first of many such jaunts. When the expenses worried my mom, my dad would quote Dostoyevsky: “Some beautiful, sacred memory, preserved since childhood, is perhaps the best education of all.” Travel trumped everything, including school pictures.

The family changed. We grew to ten kids: Francis, Joseph, Margaret, Mary, Matthew, Arthur, Rose, Joan, Paul, and Thomas. The mantra stayed the same. We drove to Massachusetts in a converted ambulance painted purple. We sputtered to Lake Louise in a Volkswagen Vanagon that became a makeshift clinic after we all contracted something like giardia. Mechanics in four different states rebuilt the carburetor of our converted airport shuttle van on a trip to South Carolina.

The family changed again. Francis moved to Montana. Matt flew to China with the Peace Corps. Rose jumped to Peru. I traveled to small tropical islands to chase turtles. Then, two years ago, all ten of us convened again, standing around my dad in a Minnesota hospital room. He lay unconscious before nurses pulled the plug. It’s the only time I can picture him still. Even when he read, he rocked back and forth.

So, this year, given the opportunity to take $500 for a weekend, I knew where I was going: Padre Island. What I didn’t know was who to bring. My siblings and I can’t go to Denny’s for under $500. I picked the three younger brothers who’d never been there before—Thomas, Paul, and Matt—and Matt’s wife, Julie. They were poor, in school, and in serious need of a vacation. On Friday we landed a dune’s hop from the ocean. Saturday we played football on the beach. Sunday we headed to Worldwinds outfitters, on the Laguna Madre.

Flatwater and wind blasting in from the Gulf make it the perfect place to learn how to windsurf. Matt and I signed up for lessons. Paul and Thomas took off in kayaks. Julie said she’d watch. Parlaying the wind into speed never happened, except when occasional gusts catapulted us forward.

We piled into Julie’s Pontiac and headed 20 miles out of the way to the Port Aransas Ferry. On the drive I pictured dolphins riding the bow, pelicans eclipsing the low afternoon sun. Then we arrived, rolled onto the deck, opened our doors, and saw the opposing blacktop landing—three minutes away. Thomas asked, “We drove 20 miles out of the way for that?” We laughed and drove home.

EXPENSE REPORT Groceries: $100. Four fishing licenses: $64. Pier access: $8. Four rented fishing poles: $20. Shrimp, for bait: $5. Two nights’ camping at Padre Island (): $16. Two kayak rentals from Worldwinds (worldwinds.net): $40. Two windsurfing lessons: $120. Total: $373

Magical Thinking

The secret to surviving a road trip gone awry? Just pretend.

Truchas, New Mexico

Truchas, New Mexico

Taos Pueblo

Taos Pueblo

PRICE TAG $480
MY HUSBAND, Stephen, and I, in a rare moment of spontaneity, had decided to skip town with our one-year-old son, Wyatt, and our dog, Biscuit. Stephen and I aren’t exactly experts on traveling with a little guy, but we did our best to avoid all potential booby traps in the war zone that is family travel by setting up some basic guidelines. Number one: The destination had to be easy to reach and could not involve large public spaces, such as an airport. Two: It had to welcome not only little kids but also hairy four-leggeds—even in the nonsmoking, non-360-views-of-the-dumpster rooms. Three: We needed a balcony to help pass the hours of inevitable stuck-in-the-room time. Four (important): A kiddie pool, which would serve as our base camp during 85 percent of Wyatt’s awake-but-not-eating hours.

That’s a lot of rules. But we found a destination that satisfied all four: Taos, New Mexico’s luxe El Monte Sagrado resort, which, serendipitously, offered a screaming online deal. Soon we were zooming north with a little naive optimism and a lot of baggage.

I’m learning there’s a lot of fantasizing involved in parenting, and not just the running-off-to-Paris-with–Javier Bardem type. I’ve become so adept in my imagining that some of the details of our weekend are hazy. I have some vague memory of driving the High Road to Taos, passing through alpine meadows with the snowcapped Truchas peaks in the background and the new Mumford & Sons CD turned up. But I also hear a small child screaming his nuts off in the backseat. I can see us eating blue corn pancakes in the hotel’s restaurant, but that image is conflated with a recollection of projectile vomit. I can see myself mountain-biking the South Boundary Trail, between Taos and Angel Fire, with the wind whistling through my helmet, but that’s tangled up with visions of me running back to the room with a writhing kid at arm’s length in pants looking as if they’ve been dipped in chocolate. There’s me and my son in a snuggly embrace by the pool, but the vision morphs into me being repeatedly slapped in the face by my own sunglasses. Did I slip away for a hot-stone massage at the spa, or did we throw rocks into a used Starbucks cup for an hour? Was there a reservation at Joseph’s Table, the most coveted eatery in Taos? Or was Saturday night spent holed up in the room, eating peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and wrestling with our nap-deprived, lunatic son to put him down for bed? Does it matter? No. What matters is that we tried to travel as a family, and we made it home alive.

EXPENSE REPORT
Two nights at El Monte Sagrado: $350. Nonrefundable dog surcharge: $75. Lunch at Antonio’s, in Taos (): $20. Peanut butter, jelly, bread: $11. Breakfast burritos at El Taoseño (): $13.50. Tip to the chambermaids (double, due to lingering diaper smell): $10. Total: $479.50

Mr. Softee

Nothing could derail the ultimate southeastern paddling trip—except a dandy travel partner.

Jimmy, the Iron Man

Jimmy, the Iron Man

PRICE TAG $695*
“SHOULD I BRING my scarf?”

I’m not sure how to respond. I’m suiting up to paddle to Bull Island, a 5,000-acre barrier island and wildlife sanctuary on the outskirts of Charleston, South Carolina, with a buddy from back home, Jimmy. But ever since we met in the Atlanta airport for our dirtbag reunion tour, a 100-mile trawl through the salt marshes and palmetto trees between Charleston and Savannah, Georgia, it’s become increasingly apparent that Jimmy and I have gone our separate ways.

First, Jimmy deplaned wearing designer jeans and a button-down shirt and carrying a bag full of legal briefs for his job as a power-suit lawyer in New York. Then he refused to camp and, invoking a constant need for wireless Internet, booked us at a resort with valet parking and immense bottles of moisturizer in the bathrooms. Now, as we’re about to set off, he prepares to shawl up.

I talk him down and we push off. The paddle to Bull is relatively easy—or should be—but an encounter with a friendly porpoise nearly sinks our plans. “You sure it’s not an orca?” Jimmy asks. Once ashore, though, we seamlessly execute a seven-mile round-trip hike to Boneyard Beach, a tangle of dead oak trees bleached white by the sun and salt. In five hours on Bull, we see exactly two people.

But then, back at our boats, the wind shifts and three-foot swells erupt over the incoming tide. We need to paddle back through them. On our first try, waves crash over our decks, taking Jimmy with them. I steady his kayak until he situates himself in the cockpit and is able to push off again. He bobs in the roiling water, screaming as he paddles across the three-mile estuary. Near the opposite shore a fisherman comes out of his shack to find out what in the hell is going on. “Oh, hi,” Jimmy says, realizing he’s the one screaming. Eventually I catch up with him and we continue back to the landing.

We hop in the car and head south—in every sense of the term. But then a funny thing happens: Jimmy’s BlackBerry battery dies. We actually start talking. And reminiscing. When we pull in to Savannah, I care less that he still insists on a downtown hotel and oysters. It’s the good old days, only six times as expensive. After dinner, we spend the night barhopping; in the morning, we tour Savannah’s 19th-century mansions. Halfway through the afternoon, perusing a chocolate shop, I realize my flight leaves in three hours. It takes four to get to Atlanta. “Damn,” Jimmy says. “Wanna get shrimp and grits?”

EXPENSE REPORT
Cheese, bread, Snickers, and Chili Cheese Fritos: $24.29. Kayak rentals: $96. Starbucks: $8.39. *Optional and ill-advised traveling-with-a-New-York-lawyer overhead toll (beach resorts, four-star restaurants, etc.): $493.93. Extra night in an Atlanta Best Western after a missed flight: $72. Total: $694.61

Weekend Wise

Two for the Road
You know that travel cliché that says “it’s about the journey, not the destination”? Whoever said it must have ridden a motorcycle. When I take my truck, hours of driving separate me from the backpacking, mountain biking, or boating. But on a motorcycle, the adventure starts the second my feet leave the ground. Plus it’s cheap: All it takes is a $100 bill in my pocket and a 500-mile loop of pavement. And when the riding’s done, I feel completely justified splurging on a great meal and an extravagant hotel, preferably within spittin’ distance of a river. Done right, the motorcycle weekend ends up like the time I checked in to the high-end Sorrel River Ranch, outside Moab, after a day of riding through heat, wind, rain, and two states’ worth of spectacular landscapes. All I had the energy to do was sit on the porch overlooking the Colorado River, drink beer, and watch the sun set on the red rocks across the water. And then, in the morning, throttle home.

Junkin’ Your Trunk
I’ve heard a lot of people push trail mix as the ideal driving food. The rationale: Gorp contains no oils that are hard to pronounce and is less apt than chips ending in the suffix “-itos” to turn your car into a rolling Superfund site. But a person should preach what he practices. And when driving to bike, fish, or hike, do I fill Harriet, my ’94 Accord, with peanuts? No. I go with Fritos, Snickers, and beef jerky. I do this because I’m driving, not climbing Denali. Because life is short. Because the trans fats will be worked off once I park. And because, when Harriet starts smelling odd, I can stick an orange peel in the fan vents and turn up the air conditioning, which, on occasion, still works.

Hot Boxing
Stripping off a wetsuit on the side of California’s Pacific Coast Highway with bottle caps threatening my bare feet—that’s when I most appreciate my Rubbermaid Roughneck Storage Box. I can stand in it and pull off my suit with dirt-free feet. Once that wetsuit is in the tub, I just put the lid on and stick it in my car without sand filling the lining of my trunk. It’s safe to say I have an irrational attachment to these plastic safe-deposit boxes. Go into my gear room and you’ll find tub after tub: one for headlamps and stoves, one for goggles and gloves, one for bike pedals and helmets, and one that’s always empty. Because you never know when you might need to leave town for the weekend.

The post Flying High appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

PORTSMOUTH ISLAND, NORTH CAROLINA – On a weekend last summer, while the rest of the beachgoing world descended upon overrun sand traps like Nags Head and Virginia Beach, I took a 4×4 and a shortboard and made for Portsmouth Island. There are a few selling points to this skinny, 18-mile-long barrier island in the northernmost part of North Carolina's Cape Lookout National Seashore. The surf, for one—you can catch punchy beach-break waves all along the eastern, Atlantic-facing shore. The fishing's not bad, either—bring a spinning rod and some shrimp and you'll pull in as much drum as you can eat. Also, the whole damn place is uninhabited. Except for a smattering of cabins near its middle, all that's to be found is miles of sea oats and dunes and the Atlantic coast's finest, most surprisingly reachable beach camping. There's not a paved road on the entire island, so the Park Service permits beach driving, which does wonders for people who secretly harbor redneck alter egos, like me.

Malia Jones

Malia Jones, your guide to summer. Check out more of Malia, including an interview, photo gallery, and exclusive video.

��

Fly into Wilmington (US Airways flies direct from LaGuardia in less than two hours), rent a vehicle, and drive the three hours to the town of Atlantic. Go to Morris Marina and catch a 40-minute ferry ride to Portsmouth Island (round-trip, $14 per person or $75 per vehicle; ), but don't board before renting a kayak at the marina ($150 for three days). Portsmouth offers only a few lodging options with roofs and walls, such as the unfortunately named Kabin Kamps (from $100; ). Pass the cabins by, head for the beach on the eastern shore, and pitch your tent above the high-tide line. Paddle out to the west side of the island and explore the miles of tidal marshes. Upon returning to your campsite, you'll notice, well, nothing. No lifeguard towers, no Rollerblades, no wafting scent of hair gel mixed with sunscreen. Just a big, white beach that's all your own.

The Easiest Catch

fly-fishing rock creek, montana

Hats off to Montana fly-fishing

MISSOULA, MONTANA – There are fishing purists who throw fits if another angler comes within 100 feet. In general I agree with this principle. But not in June, not in southwestern Montana. As fat, ugly salmonflies hatch and die by the thousands on Rock Creek, some 20 miles east of Missoula, the trout spend a good month slapping the surface of the 52-mile freestone river, and they don't care how many orange or yellow stonefly imitators are floating over their heads or how many hacks are elbowing for backcasting room on the shoreline.��So go, fight for space, get tangled in the cottonwoods, splash around. You'll still catch fish. Purists: There might be some open water above mile 21 on Rock Creek Road, where the holes in the road turn back sedans.

Fly into Missoula, secure a vehicle with four-wheel drive, and rent a fully furnished cabin on the creek (from $95; ).��For fishing advice delivered by a gravel-voiced old-timer who knows every riffle on the river, stop at Doug Persico's Rock Creek Fisherman's Mercantile, just off I-90 (). Warm up in town with the aspiring novelists at the Old Post Pub, where the food is bad, the music is slightly better, the waitstaff are beautiful, and the hatch chart on the wall is to be trusted, for the most part (). Afterwards, drink and gamble around the corner at the Oxford Saloon. If you're still on the poker table at 4 a.m., the bartender will serve you a free chicken-fried steak ().

Lights Out

How Not to Spend Summer

Collecting prize money for killing gophers at the Gopher Count festival, in Viola, Minnesota, June 19

Spitting seeds for four days at the Watermelon Thump, in Luling, Texas, June 26–29.

Literally watching paint dry at the National Fence Painting Championship, in Hannibal, Missouri, July 3–5.

Calling mosquitoes at the Great Texas Mosquito Festival, in Clute, Texas, July 24–26; contestants try to lure the biggest bug with their voices.

—CLAIRE NAPIER GALOFARO

GRAND CANYON, ARIZONA – The summer solstice at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon is a throng of shuttle buses, clicking cameras, and vendors hawking I GC booty shorts. But on the less frequented North Rim, there's a nighttime solstice party where you can watch the skies erupt in peace. Under the orchestration of Arizona's Saguaro Astronomy Club, a score of astronomers from across the country converge to set up powerful telescopes on the terrace of the Grand Canyon Lodge, a castle-like stone building perched on the edge of the canyon (doubles, $100; ). For eight nights, more than 100 people—hikers, amateur stargazers, passersby—stop for a quick peek through a scope and end up staying, starstruck, as late as 5 a.m. Since the Grand Canyon has one of America's darkest night skies, you can see Saturn's rings, storms on Jupiter, and millions of stars glittering like galactic bling. Exploit the extra daylight with a quad-busting, nine-mile round-trip hike on the North Kaibab Trail to the Roaring Springs waterfall, 3,050 feet down the canyon. Afterwards, refuel with the lodge's brand-new Grand Cookout dinners. The chuck-wagon-style beef brisket, roasted chicken, and fresh-baked biscuits will sate the most astronomical of appetites ($35 per person). Nearest airport: Flagstaff, Arizona, a somewhat daunting 200 miles away.

Flatwater Freedom

GRAND MARAIS, MINNESOTA – The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is one of the largest wilderness areas east of the Rockies. It's also one of the most heavily trafficked: More than 200,000 people ply its 1,200 miles of routes annually. So while the weather's best in late summer, I go toward the end of June, when the water is cool, the smallmouth are biting, the blackflies are disappearing, and the Boy Scouts hoping to earn their tree-carving badges have yet to arrive.

Fly into Duluth and pick up a canoe on your way to Grand Marais at Sawbill Canoe Outfitters ($85 for three days; ). There are nearly 80 entry points to the Boundary Waters; ignore most of them and enter at East Bearskin Lake, 26 miles from Grand Marais up the Gunflint Trail highway (entry permits, $16 per person; ). A 2.5-mile paddle plus a short portage lead to Alder Lake, where there's a perfect camping spot on the tip of the main peninsula. Bring a lightweight rod and cast a Rapala into the rocks just offshore. With any luck, you'll catch dinner to fry over the fire. The next night, stay six miles away in a lakeside cabin at the Old Northwoods Lodge, bear-and-lumberjack kitsch at its finest (doubles, $120; ). Before leaving, dine on Lake Superior trout at the Angry Trout Café (), a refurbished fishing shanty on the harbor in Grand Marais.

The Backyard

ANYWHERE, USA – Look, I'm a patriot. I like beer. And having mostly overcome a scarring childhood incident involving a bottle rocket, the San Francisco police, and a hefty insurance claim by a downstairs neighbor, I like fireworks again. So don't get the wrong idea when I tell you to stay home on the Fourth of July. But for God's sake, do stay home. Something like 41 million Americans will celebrate by going somewhere, making this the busiest travel period of the summer. Even if you're the kind that digs the woozy high of flirt-flirt honking as your convertible crawls through a carbon monoxide haze—which, I think, makes you a high schooler—consider that July 4 is traditionally the deadliest day of the year on our nation's roads. The second-deadliest? July 3. And anyway, I've devised the ultimate at-home party: a few friends, lots of beer, barbecue (see The Guide, page 65), and a kiddie pool. You can add bottle rockets—just don't shoot any into the neighbor's window.

Great Green North

STRATEGY: THE WELL-PACKED WEEKENDER

Seven items to have at the ready:
1. Rubbermaid’s 75-quart DuraChill Cooler, which keeps beer cold for almost a week ($43; rubbermaid). 2. Sweat- and waterproof K2 Endurance Sunblock ($13; ). 3. Patagonia’s wrinkle-free Vitaliti polo shirt, which looks better at dinner after you’ve worn it hiking ($55; ).4. Smith’s gold-rimmed Bellaire sunglasses ($100; ). 5. Hi-Tec’s V-Lite Radar II eVent light hikers, which can double as trail runners, since they’re built onrunning lasts ($120; ). Drive west an hour to Baddeck and set up camp at the Chanterelle Country Inn, a solar-heated B&B where the organic dinners mean wild mushrooms, fresh mussels from the harbor out back, and, until July 15, lobster; for the rest of the month you're stuck with the snow crab (doubles, US$158, including breakfast; ). Then load up your bike and drive out to 200-year-old Acadian villages, through Highlands National Park, and, if 18 percent grades don't dissuade you, to the majestic north end, where you can take a guided sea-kayak tour through pilot whale feed zones (US$100; ). Before leaving Baddeck, unwind at a ceilidh, the old Celtic precursor to the rave, with fiddles, tin whistles, and (in place of ecstasy) the island's own single-malt whiskies.

��

The Uncrowded Mountain Town

[photo size="full"]1498521[/photo]

TELLURIDE, COLORADO – Between the weekends of Memorial Day and Labor Day, the town of Telluride hosts no fewer than 15 festivals. Think about that. On any given Saturday, you might have to share this remote outpost's epic hiking trails, casual restaurants, and approximately 23 parking spaces with either hordes of slamgrass fans (the Bluegrass Festival), a gaggle of oeno­philes (the Wine Festival), or an army of downward-doggers (the Yoga Festival). But crowds are the last thing you want to see here. Placed at the dead end of a box canyon and surrounded by 14,000-foot peaks, Telluride offers as good a setting as any town in America for a quiet summer idyll. So there's only one celebration worth attending: The Nothing Festival. For three days, there are zero planned events—but something incredible does happen. Hotels open up (try the Telluride Mountainside Inn; doubles, $119; ), Main Street empties out, and a few visitors breathe easy. How to spend those days? Just bring your hiking boots and follow the directions on telluridenothingfestival.com: “Thank you for not participating.” Nearest airport: Montrose, Colorado, 70 miles away.

America's Oktoberfest

[photo size="full"]1498606[/photo]

PORTLAND, OREGON – Nothing says summer like 60,000 people raising glasses of beer into the air and letting loose a spontaneous cheer that makes Yankee Stadium sound like the baking section at Borders. Welcome to the OBF, or Oregon Brewers Festival, which takes place every July in Portland's Tom McCall Waterfront Park. With 72 participating breweries from around the country, it's the finest outdoor tasting in the world that doesn't require speaking German. The beer's cold and often of the hard-to-get variety—I'm partial to Allagash White, a spicy Belgian-style wheat beer. By the end of the day, the local blues bands sound much better than they are, and as the sun sets, those cheers grow longer and a hell of a lot more infectious. The wise visitor, though, doesn't spend all four days at the festival: With more than 270 miles of bike routes in the city, plus Forest Park, the nation's largest urban forest, Portland offers ample opportunity to work up a healthy thirst (rentals, $28 for a half day; ). Freshen up at the Heathman Hotel and browse their library, which contains first editions signed by the likes of Kurt Vonnegut (doubles, $230; ). Then go drink up and scream ($5 for an official mug, $4 per beer; ).

The Non-Hamptons

LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK – For discerning New Yorkers, the North Fork of Long Island has long provided a much more relaxing escape than the Botox-injected Hamptons side. But as word gets out that North Fork wineries like Bedell are rivaling their cousins in Napa, there is some concern among locals that things may not stay so quaint. My suggestion? Stay home and pretend to visit. A few things you could imagine and then brag about at the watercooler: sailing from Preston's dock, in Greenport, on a restored 1906 schooner while slurping down fresh oysters (day trips on the schooner Mary E, $38; ); tromping through Shelter Island's vast nature preserve; kiteboarding Peconic Bay ($100 per hour with Island Riders; ); bathing with locally made goat's-milk soap at the North Fork Table & Inn (doubles, $275; ); or riding the 40-mile North Fork bikeway toward Orient Point beach with the sun and salt water on your face (daylong rentals, $28 at the Bike Stop, in Greenport; ). Your co-workers will be none the wiser, and I won't get in trouble for letting the secret out. Nearest airport: MacArthur Airport, 50 miles from Greenport.

True Grass

[photo size="full"]1498621[/photo]

GRAND TARGHEE, WYOMING – Perhaps you're one of those people who holds to the misguided notion that bluegrass music is for hippies. If so, you may be familiar with Telluride's annual jam-o-rama, which is a great party and a good place to go if you like Hacky Sacks and Ani DiFranco. Real bluegrass festivals, on the other hand, are about impromptu circles of fiddlers and banjo pickers in which solos are passed around with far more reserve than whiskey.

Go to Targhee and you'll see. Fifty miles across Teton Pass from Jackson Hole, at Grand Targhee Resort, the Grand Targhee Bluegrass Festival (three-day pass, $125; ) hosts 6,500 people over the course of the weekend, compared with the 10,000 who choke Telluride per day. Mountain-town favorite Tim O'Brien headlines, but listen closely to Tony Trischka's Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular. The two banjos (never a good idea) can be abrasive, but Trischka plays with Michael Daves, a Georgia-born guitarist with a gut-wrenching high tenor that's far more Joe Strummer than Jack Johnson. For a break, ride Targhee's new lift-accessed mountain-bike park. If you can score a room in the resort (doubles, $125), look for the headliners picking and passing bottles in the lobby, and don't say a word.��Nearest airport: Jackson Hole.

Moon Paddle

[photo size="full"]1498501[/photo] [sidebar hed="STRATEGY: THE SURPRISE DIRECT FLIGHT"] Easy routes to the regional airports mentioned in this story: Delta flies from Atlanta to Jackson Hole in just under six hours (from $370; ). Continental flies from Houston and Dallas to Montrose, Colorado (from $400; ). Allegiant Air flies regularly from Las Vegas to Duluth (from $270; ) and Missoula ($140). And barring any planning hiccups, Horizon Air will offer direct service from Los Angeles to Flagstaff starting this June ($200; ).

TOMALES BAY, CALIFORNIA – It wouldn't be hard to miss the coastal village of Marshall, an hour north of San Francisco on Highway 1—only 100 or so people live here, and the place looks kind of scrappy. But gritty is in these days, and last summer, restaurateur Pat Kuleto turned Marshall into the home of the North Coast's most serenely stylish digs. Nick's Cove & Cottages is a cluster of gussied-up fisherman's cabins, complete with water-view decks and bedside cheese plates. Next door, Nick's roadhouse serves oysters caught out front and pinot noir from up the road. But the reason to go is the full moon on Saturday the 16th: As night falls, kayak due west from your cabin, past Hog Island, and visit Tomales Point's tule elk herd (daylong rentals from Point Reyes–based Blue Waters Kayaking, $60; ). When you return to shore, moonlit wine tasting and oyster slurping await on the deck of your cabin (doubles, $300; ). Nearest airport: San Francisco.

Lightning Show

walter de maria's lightning field

MOTHER NATURE’S LASER SHOW: Walter de Maria’s Lightning Field

QUEMADO, NEW MEXICO – Whoever named the two-diner town of Quemado (translation: “Burnt”), in southwestern New Mexico, had a way with words. The place attracts a fair amount of lightning strikes. That's why sculptor Walter De Maria put his installation, the Lightning Field, which combines highbrow art with one of the last great remote landscapes in America, nearby.

Fly into Albuquerque, rent a car, and drive three hours southwest to Quemado. At a small white gallery-like space that could be in SoHo, you'll await a grizzled cowboy who drives precariously fast in his truck and drops you off 45 minutes later at a three-bedroom cabin overlooking the fields. Your provisions: enchiladas, whatever libations you've brought, and orders to wander. The installation consists of a surreal one-mile grid of 400 stainless-steel poles in the lightning-happy high desert. The display is best viewed from the back porch, with a cold Negra Modelo in hand. Book far in advance—you can rent the cabin for only one night ($250 per person with maximum six-person occupancy; ). What to do with the rest of the weekend? Doesn't really matter, if you're lucky enough to see lightning strike out the back door. But there are plenty of weird attractions around that could exist only in New Mexico—the Very Large Array of radio telescopes, near Socorro, for instance.��Spend the next night in the emerging artsy town of Truth or Consequences and soak at the Sierra Grande Lodge (doubles, $130; ).

Treasure Island

SANTA CATALINA, CALIFORNIA – In the early days of Hollywood, Santa Catalina Island's sand coves doubled as Tahiti and its mountains stood in for the Wild West. A 76-square-mile island located 25 miles southwest of Los Angeles, Catalina has retained its flair for drama because 88 percent of the place is a land trust. Charter a sailboat on the mainland in Marina del Rey (from $100 per day; ), five miles from LAX, and sail five hours to Catalina. Catalina's port town of Two Harbors provides immediate access to the island's 50-mile network of rugged hiking and mountain-biking trails (daylong bike rentals from Two Harbors Dive & Recreation Center, $53; 310-510-4272). For cozier digs than the berths on your boat, stay at the Banning House Lodge, which has 11 ocean-view rooms (doubles, $216; 800-626-1496). To branch out from the sails and trails, sign up for Two Harbors' annual buffalo-chip contest, during which townsfolk gather at the pier to throw buffalo dung onto the beach. The record toss—187 feet—is waiting to be broken.

The post The Empty Beach appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

TURKS AND CAICOS

PEACEFUL AND PRIVATE

Even celebs vie for reservations at Parrot Cay, a 1,000-acre private-island resort in the Turks and Caicos that specializes in weddings for no more than eight guests. Exchange rings at the end of a boardwalk leading to the sea or in a tiki hut overlooking an empty white-sand beach.
POST-VOWS: Start your journey together in one of the resort’s canoes-you’re a team now-or go deep-sea fishing for wahoo, mahi-mahi, and tuna. Then retire to your airy villa, with a four-poster bed, surrounded by gardens of sea hibiscus and frangipani. Later, take a yoga class for two or splurge on a couple’s massage at the Como Shambhala retreat center.
WEDDING PLANNER: To marry in Turks and Caicos, you must submit an application, birth certificates, passports, immigration slips, and affidavits proving that neither groom nor bride has been married (or a copy of the divorce decree).
Doubles from $390; 877-754-0726,

Baja: Romantic Mexican Paradise

BAJA
ROMANTIC MEXICAN PARADISE

Whether you want to seal the deal on the beach, atop a white stallion, or on a yacht as the sun sets over the Pacific, Las Ventanas al Paraíso has you covered. This 61-suite Los Cabos resort specializes in all things love, from the spa’s bride treatment-a bath, honey wrap, massage, facial, and manicure-to candlelit dinners on the beach.
POST-VOWS: Horseback-ride trails with sea views or take a surf lesson. Rejuvenate with a massage in your suite, with its inlaid pebble headboards and paintings by local artists.
WEDDING PLANNER: In addition to passports and birth certificates, you’ll need a blood test to ensure you aren’t related.
Doubles from $450; 011-52-624-144-2800,

Lake Michigan: Great Lakes Grandeur

LAKE MICHIGAN
Great Lakes Grandeur

Say your “I do’s” on Lighthouse Point’s 13 waterfront acres as the setting sun illuminates the St. Helena Lighthouse, on northern Michigan’s Straits of Mackinac. There’s only one wedding each weekend-with room for up to 30 guests to stay at Lighthouse Point-so you’ll have the inn’s pines and cedars, perennial gardens, and expansive lawns all to yourselves.
POST-VOWS: Explore the Sturgeon and Pine rivers by canoe, or bike nearby on car-free Mackinac Island. You and your closest kin will have four cozy cabins, with cedar interiors and rustic wood-and-leather furniture, to return to.
WEDDING PLANNER: A three-day rental of the property costs $6,000. Lighthouse Point can help you arrange catering, flowers, and music.
906-643-8621,

Maine: Down-Home New England

MAINE
DOWN-HOME NEW ENGLAND


Everything about Blair Hill Inn, an eight-room 1891 mansion-turned-country-inn, feels like home, from the innkeepers’ snapdragons to the smoked-shrimp-and-Brie omelette. Get hitched in the gardens in summer, then feast on grilled lobster flown in from the coast in the turn-of-the-century carriage barn.
POST-VOWS: Your married adventure begins in a bountiful region: Kayak Moosehead Lake or Prong Pond, raft the Penobscot or Kennebec rivers, or hike to the summit of 5,268-foot Mount Katahdin, the state’s highest point. At the end of the day, you’ll find respite in the Jacuzzi, a lake-view rocking chair, or your suite, with a mahogany bed and wood-burning fireplace.
WEDDING PLANNER: Blair Hill Inn’s wedding fees vary from $500 to $2,000, for ten to 150 people, and receptions start at $40 per person.
Doubles, $250-$425; 207-695-0224,

Hawaii: Land of Lanai

HAWAII
LAND OF LANAI

Blissfully undeveloped Lanai will sweep you and your betrothed away with its unrefined beauty. In the central highlands of the rugged 141-square-mile island is the Lodge at Koele, a secluded 102-room hotel. Tie the knot on a lava cliff hundreds of feet above the surf or on a golden beach.
POST-VOWS: Rent a mountain bike on-site and ride seven miles to the Garden of the Gods. Or hoof it on horseback along the Paniolo Trail, which runs through old ranchland that is home to deer, quail, and wild turkeys, not to mention panoramic views. When you return, the luxuries of Koele await you: fresh-squeezed pineapple juice, feather pillows on four-poster beds, and an orchid house to explore.
WEDDING PLANNER: The Lodge at Koele has its own planners, who can arrange everything from the service to the cake.
Doubles from $400; 800-450-3704,

Straight from the Spouse’s Mouth

A bride offers five tips to wed by

Destination weddings-nuptials that hit the road instead of being bound to home turf-are an increasingly popular option for travel-hungry brides and grooms. They now account for 10 percent of U.S. weddings, having doubled in the past decade to 230,000 ceremonies annually. Detailed planning is key to pulling off a faraway ceremony, so keep these tips, culled from personal experience, in mind:
FIND YOUR INNER TRAVEL AGENT You have to play the part to ensure that everybody arrives happy. We began by sending a thorough e-mail that included directions, airport recommendations, other travel info, things to do, and a map.
KNOW THE MARRIAGE LAWS Research the details well in advance. Marriage laws vary by state (and country) and are all listed at , with international links. We got our marriage license after answering a few questions at the county clerk's office-including “Are you related?”-and forking over ten bucks. You may need to arrive at your destination early to take care of the paperwork.
MAKE A PRE-WEDDING VISIT Really. A preview is absolutely necessary, even if your best friend raves about the place. Web sites and phone calls tell only part of the story. During our visit to Dunton, we were able to walk through the event to see how everything would go, and then make adjustments.
ASK DETAILED QUESTIONS ABOUT CHARGES Even the best places may have unexpected fees, like wine-corkage charges. Request an estimate and even a sample bill from a recent wedding. You might ask, “Are there going to be any surprises on my bill when this is through?”
ONCE IT STARTS, JUST HAVE FUN When you arrive, nothing else should matter-you are officially done working. Whatever happens, happens; just roll along and have a blast!

The post Get Some Wows with Your Vows appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

I love the scene in Cinema Paradiso when Alfredo, the projectionist, tells his protégé, “Life isn't like in the movies. Life is much harder.” While I can see how this was true in small-town Sicily during the 1940s, I think the more fitting line for my generation would be “Life isn't like in the movies. Life is much less interesting.”

wedding

Where outlaws, nudists, and newlyweds roam: nephews, usher Henry, and groom

wedding

Bluegrass band Sweet Sunny South

wedding

Nieces, nephews, and henry with Lovey, the couple’s Canine

wedding

The’re Mr. and Mrs.

wedding

Where dirty jokes are told

Except, of course, for those seminal moments that take on blockbuster proportions. Like when I first saw my future husband, Stephen, on a Friday night at the information booth in Grand Central Station during rush hour. Our eyes met through a sea of people and, yes, just like on the silver screen, it was love at first sight. For the first time ever, my real life slipped into reel life.

Fast-forward three years—I was nursing Stephen's soccer-induced broken nose and dented spirit when (face cast and all) he asked me to be his wife. Can you say HBO special? As we began planning and fantasizing about our wedding, I couldn't help wondering which classic movie our big day would most resemble. While the cast was all set, the genre wasn't so clear. Film noir? Romantic comedy? Period piece? Horror flick? And what about a set?

Because we live more than 2,000 miles from where either of us grew up, we decided to have a destination wedding and invite our families and close friends. We liked this plan because it meant no one had to play host, and everyone got to be a guest. And we decided two things up front when we began planning our October 2004 wedding: The setting needed to be so spectacular that no one could complain about (or even remember) the inevitable flight delays, the cost of the plane tickets, or the days taken off work. And since our group ranged in age from one to 74, the place had to be fun for all.

We auditioned countless destinations: old inns in Northern California and Vermont, B&Bs on Block Island, a resort on Cumberland Island, ranches in Montana, lodges in Wyoming, even a sailboat to charter around the Caribbean. After four months of research, we found the spot—Dunton Hot Springs, a ghost-town-turned-luxury-wilderness-resort in the San Juan Mountains outside Telluride. We were thinking Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid meets Bonnie and Clyde, but without anybody dying in the end.

Its gorgeous natural setting is the main reason we fell so madly for Dunton. Way up at 9,000 feet on the West Fork of the Dolores River—nine miles along a one-lane dirt road—the resort looks onto two of Colorado's famous fourteeners. But it was Dunton's tarnished past that sealed the deal. If the bullet-perforated signs could talk, they'd reminisce about the overly optimistic gold miners who lived there in the 1890s, leaving behind a schoolhouse and a brothel when the mine shut down. They'd recall the motorcycle gangs and the nude-volleyball-playing hippies of the sixties and seventies. It seemed perfectly appropriate to marry in a place where both outlaws and nudists once hung their hats.

Thanks to a million-dollar-plus renovation, today's Dunton Hot Springs caters to a highbrow crowd without abandoning its frontier authenticity. The 11 restored guest cabins, with original 100-year-old wood planks, are outfitted with luxurious sheets and fancy soaps, and the owners' not-too-shabby art collection is scattered throughout. (The Eggleston prints making a cameo in the dance hall are my favorites.) Bearskin rugs, elk-hide bedspreads, Navajo and Ute artifacts, and even an Indian ceremonial bed create a romantic ambience. And every meal from the unfussy, Auntie Em kitchen tastes better than the last: simple, magical concoctions—like wild-mushroom tamales and caramelized butternut squash—made from organic ingredients.

Dunton's old-time charm dictated the rest of our wedding oeuvre. Our nieces would play bridesmaid fairies with the help of feathered tiaras and rose petals; our nephews, the ring bearers, would wear top hats. We'd need a photographer with American Gothic sensibilities, a menu of autumn's yummiest dishes, and an antique wedding gown (never worn). And as luck would have it, one of the best bluegrass bands in the West, Sweet Sunny South, was less than three hours away in Paonia and willing to provide the original soundtrack.

I still can't quite put my finger on what was so darn perfect about our weekend—was it the fact that I felt like Katharine Ross riding on the handlebars of Paul Newman's bike? The game of charades in the bar? The dirty jokes by the bonfire? The herd of elk that rushed through town at dusk? The lithium in the hot springs?

I think it was all these things, but mostly it was that for one long weekend, my new husband, our families and friends, and I got to erase the thousands of miles between us and pretend that we lived in this tiny town, eating all our meals together, hiking, dancing, soaking, and being together—just like the pioneers who got here a hundred years before us. And just like them, I imagine, we were filled with hope for a little luck in our futures.

Access & Resources
Dunton Hot Springs (970-882-4800, ) can be reached by flying into Telluride, Cortez, or Durango. Doubles start at $250 per person per night (two-night minimum), including meals and unlimited use of the hot springs. Or rent the entire town, with lodging for 34 people, for $12,000 a day, including meals and the hot springs. Massages, horseback riding, fly-fishing trips, guided hikes, and mountain biking cost extra. Airport pickups are $100 one-way from Cortez and Telluride and $200 from Durango. The San Miguel County Clerk's Office (970-728-3954) dispenses marriage licenses on West Colorado Street in downtown Telluride, a 45-minute drive from Dunton.

The post “I Do” with a View appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

Growing up in a city of nine million, I got used to being a little bit scared all the time, but here in the Southwest, at night, when it's really dark, I mean D-A-R-K dark, and almost completely quiet (too quiet), it can get WAY more freaking scary. For me, the late night dog walk feels just like walking straight into the scariest part of a Stephen King novel. (Yes, I'd be the naive girl about to scream her head off.) Thank goodness for the Stanley Maxlife 369 flashlight to put my mind at ease. Not only does it light up the backyard like the stage at a Kiss concert—with three brightness settings—but like everything Stanley makes, it's positively indestructible. Armed with the ol' 369 in my hand, I've got the confidence and fearless bravado to go into even the creepiest corners of the arroyo behind our house. I haven't even started on its powerful “instantly blind” effect (by way of its six pre-focused lenses), which I can turn on any psycho-crazy half bear/half escaped convict who may or may not be hiding behind the shed. Why is it called the 369, you may wonder? It works on three, six, or nine AA batteries. With three batteries, it's as lightweight as a cell phone (very convenient!) but with the full nine its heft puts my mind at ease—not to mention the 200-plus-hour (that's 8.3 days, people!) life span. How comforting to know that its slip-resistant rubber grip keeps the thing glued to your hand even when your palms suddenly start gushing sweat at the sound of a breaking branch . . . even if you could drop it, its got shatter-resistant polycarbonate lenses, and of course its groovy handle features anodized-aluminum space-frame construction perfect for bashing… space aliens?… no, lighting your way! $25,

Stanley Maxlife 369 Flashlight

Stanley Maxlife 369 Flashlight

The post Stanley Maxlife 369 Flashlight appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.