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My Latest Story for Virtuoso Traveler on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail

Already on a high from meeting 85-year-old Jimmy Russell, the master distiller at Wild Turkey the past 65 years, I took to the backcountry roads and was soon smitten by the scenery. My trusty Waze led me through fields of Kentucky bluegrass shimmering under the midday Autumn sun, graceful and strong thoroughbred horses roaming the hillside, and a maze of white picket fences that seem to meander haphazardly toward the horizon. I pull over under the shade of a maple and its last tinges of colorful foliage and take it all in, gulping deep breaths of serenity, before continuing on to my next distillery stop on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. 

To read more about my experience on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail this time last year, please see my cover story in the October issue of Virtuoso Traveler. 
 

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Eighth Annual Hotel Week in Manhattan January 4-14, 2019

If you want to visit New York at a discount, then head to the city during their Eighth Annual Hotel Week in early January. The Refinery Hotel, Library Hotel, High Line Hotel, and Archer New York are just a handful of top-tier properties that will cut their rates considerably during this time. For example, Hotel Edison in Times Square will only be $100 a night, more than 50% off their usual rate. Hotel Week NYC™ was created by PR maven Nancy J. Friedman in 2010 to address the occupancy dip most hotels experience after the holiday season. It’s a perfect time to visit Manhattan without the crowds, see the Andy Warhol exhibition at the Whitney and Network, featuring Bryan Cranston, on Broadway. 
 
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Lawren Harris Finally Goes Solo

When the actor Steve Martin first viewed a painting by Lawren Harris, he mistook it for a work by Rockwell Kent. 

         
“I thought it was the best Rockwell Kent I’ve ever seen,” says Martin, punctuated by his legendary laugh. “It was breathtaking.”
 
That was over 20 years ago and soon Martin was in the home of longtime Harris collector, Ken Thomson, purchasing several of his canvases. When Ann Philbin, director of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, saw these paintings at Martin’s house during dinner one evening, she came up with a “wild and crazy” idea. Showcase the mid-career paintings of Lawren Harris and allow America’s version of a modern-day Renaissance Man, Steve Martin, the opportunity to curate the show. The result is “The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris,” on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston though June 12 after a successful run at the Hammer Museum. The exhibition will next travel to Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario in July and afterwards return the majority of these works back to the their respective Canadian institutions in time for the country’s 150th anniversary celebration in 2017.
 
To read my review of the Lawren Harris show at the MFA, please see the latest issue of Everett Potter’s Travel Report.  
 
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March Newsletter Now Available at ActiveTravels.com

Another snowy day in Boston. Sure, looking at the snow-covered pines were charming the first or second time this winter, but now it’s March and I’m ready for spring. In the meantime, I’ll daydream about French Polynesia, the destination that started me on the road to becoming a travel writer. News from the Road: French Polynesia, our first feature in the March newsletter, will give you valuable insight into traveling around this group of South Pacific isles. Other topics we touch on are five hotels we recommend in Venice, why Amsterdam is the hot Europe destination this summer, how to bypass long lines at favorite sites in London and Paris, and to what extent Azamara Club Cruises is shaking up the cruise industry by spending more nights in port.  I’m happy to report that our April newsletter will feature our first drawing, a 2-night stay and dinner at one of my favorite resorts in New England, the Inn by the Sea in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. So stay tuned.

 
In the meantime, enjoy the weekend and stay active! 
 
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Favorite American Drives, Oregon Coast

In 2005, I was hired to pen a story about whale watching along the Oregon coast during spring, when the gray whales migrate north. I brought along my brother Jim, who worked as photographer, starting our trip in Portland. That first night, we had an exceptional meal at Paley’s Place and had our first taste of the beverage we’d happily be drinking the rest of the weeklong trip, Oregon pinot noir.

From Portland, it’s only 75 miles on Route 26 West to the shores of Cannon Beach on the Oregon coast. First stop was towering Haystack Rock, which stands tall in the shallow waters, inspiring awe from all who stroll on the hard-packed sand. After dropping our bags off at the upscale Stephanie Inn, we drove over to nearby Ecola State Park and took a hike in this emerald forest, where massive 300 year-old Sitka spruce trees have trunks as wide as a redwood. The woods soon recede, replaced by sandstone bluffs, pink colored beaches and the great expanse of the Pacific. 

We headed south on Route 101, stopping in the fishing community of Bay City for small, tender Kumamoto oysters on the half shell at Pacific Oyster. Dessert was creamy blackberry ice cream at Tillamook Cheese Factory. As we grew closer to Depoe Bay, the traffic and commercialism increased. Yet, south of Newport, the coastline is its wild self once again.

In the small arts community of Yachats, houses cling to the high cliffs, nestled in a forest of spruce and leafless alder trees. The hills reach their highest point, 900 feet above the beach, at Cape Perpetua. We drove to the top and jumped out of the car to take in the exquisite vistas. At the start of the Giant Spruce Trail, a man yelled joyously, “A whale.  I just saw a whale.” My brother and I ran over, but didn’t see diddlysquat. 

Our final night was spent at arguably the most perfect spot on the entire Oregon coast, a former assistant lightkeeper’s quarters set on a grassy patch below the Heceta Head Lighthouse. Below, breakers explode against the burgundy red cliffs that hem in a narrow beach filled with driftwood. In the darkness, we grabbed a flashlight from the inn and hiked up to the lighthouse to watch it flash beacon after beacon across the rugged land and then out to sea.

The next morning, we tried again to find one whale, any whale, but saw no fluke or spout the entire trip. Didn’t matter. We still had an awesome time. We topped it off with a visit to Willamette Valley, the heart of Oregon wine country. From Yachats, it was about a 2 ½-hour drive to the outskirts of Salem, home to our favorite wine of the week, Cristom. Vines cling to the slopes of their 60-acre lot and are named after the owner’s four daughters.  We also stopped at the Tasting Room in Carlton to try his selection of little-known gems that never make it out of the state. Then it was an hour drive back to Portland and our flight home. An exceptional drive that I can’t wait to do again!
 

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Why We Love Rick Steves European Guidebooks

In a May/June 2000 story for Transitions Abroad magazine entitled “The Best and Worst Of Europe—with Apologies to None,” Rick Steves writes “the area south of Edinburgh is so boring the Romans decided to block it off with Hadrian’s Wall.” In another section of the piece (still found online and worthy of a download), Steves notes, “Oxford pales next to Cambridge, and Stratford is little more than Shakespeare’s house—and it’s as dead as he is.” Then there’s this juicy tidbit: “A hundred years ago, Athens was a sleepy town of 8,000 people with a pile of ruins in its backyard. Today, it’s a giant mix of concrete, smog, noise, tourists, and four million Greeks. See the four major attractions (the Acropolis, Agora, Plaka, and great National Archaeological Museum) and get out to the islands or countryside.”

 
Best known as the host of the PBS series Rick Steves’ Europe, the man is also a prolific guidebook writer, one who is not in the least bit bashful about sharing his opinion. This is what we want in a travel guidebook, someone with an expert opinion we trust who can break down the destination for us. We don’t want a book the size of Anna Karenina detailing every nook and cranny of that country with little or no judgment (the old Lonely Planet guidebooks come to mind). Most of us have a week or two on vacation, if we’re lucky. We simply want someone to tell us you’d be a fool to miss the Sognefjord fjord in Norway or Burg Eltz castle in Germany, according to Steves. 
 
To see my latest column for Men’s Journal on how to pick a trusted guidebook, click here. 
 
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Skywalk Saint John Set to Open This Month

While in New Brunswick several weeks back, I was fortunate to take a behind-the-scenes tour of the new skywalk set to make its debut this summer. Saint John will now be the third spot in North America to open a skywalk, in addition to the Grand Canyon and Jasper National Park. Unlike those two skywalks, which are designed as semi-circles, the Skywalk Saint John is more like a long plank extending more than 25 feet out from the building. Look down through the glass flooring and you get an exhilarating view of the cliffs, bridge, and a unique tidal shift called a reversing falls. A series of rapids in the Saint John River can be seen switching direction in the churning whirlpool below. A 10-minute film will explain this unique phenomenon caused by the tidal shifts on the nearby Bay of Fundy. Below the skywalk, the Reversing Falls restaurant offers those same glorious vistas thanks to floor-to-ceiling windows. Expect freshly caught yellowfin tuna, halibut, lobster, oysters, and provisions from local farms once it opens. 

 

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