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Escape Artists offers up a global discourse ranging from great finds close to home to adventures far afield. You'll find weekly travel deals here, too. Share your road wisdom, rave about great finds and rant about roadblocks that get in the way of a great trip.
Contributors: Travel editor Kerri Westenberg, Curt Brown, James Lileks and Bill Ward.
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Do you have a "Crashplan"?
Posted by: Kerri Westenberg under Passports Updated: May 24, 2012 - 11:41 AM
Many a press releases passes over the desk of the travel editor. A few leave me scratching my head. Take this, for instance: A company called "crashplan" is touting its services for overseas travelers. Perhaps a name change is in order? When I take to the air on a transcontinental flight, I'd like the idea of crashing -- with or without a plan-- to be far from my mind.
To be fair (and to make up for my gripe by giving the company internet time), Crashplan provides data back-up services and it clearly has many applications. The marketing peeps decided to remind travelers that they can back-up travel plans, passport numbers and other vital travel documents using the company's service. Not a bad idea, though you can share that info with a family member back home for free. But just in case you'd like the service, which you can access 24/7 from any computer or smart device, get yourself a crashplan -- and fly safely.
The landing site was Ontario, Calif., and the first 30 miles of the drive from the airport did not impress. More sprawl than squalor, but not a place I'd particularly want to live (or visit).
In due time we got off I-15 and into a town called Temeculah, and the landscape picked up immediately. I'm not sure where they get their water from in this arid region, but they're using it well. The plantings at our destination were particularly lush.
The South Coast Winery Resort & Spa lives up to all parts of its name except "coast" (there's nary a wave in sight). Its accommodations are cool and warm, the facilities top-notch. But what's going to lure folks to this area an hour northeast of San Diego is the "winery" part, with a couple dozen of them already established and more on the way.
Callaway might be the only name familiar to Minnesota wine consumers, but more are on the way. The wines I sampled from South Coast and Wilson Creek were quite tasty.
Temeculah was on this vinous path in the late 1990s, but an insect called the glassy-winged sharpshooter hammered the vineyards a decade ago, and it took years for the recovery to, uh, take root.
So now Temeculah is a nice place to visit, and I would want to eat and drink, if not live, there.
All in all, a $20 ticket was worth the diversion
Posted by: Curt Brown under Regional travel, Road trips Updated: May 11, 2012 - 6:32 PMGRAFTON, N.D. -- Numbers, to some extent, define us all. We juggle PINs, social security digits, passport numbers, cell phones and passwords in our brains like some street performer or circus act. Well, I got a new one: No. 877.
Yep, according to the amiable clerk of courts, I became the 877th person ticketed in 2012 in tiny Walsh County, N.D. But what started with a whispered couple of curse words under my breath as state trooper Cashin (pun intended) strolled down the shoulder ended up not such a bad deal.
I pulled off the boring interstate south of Winnipeg looking for a diversion to break up the boredom and check out an old church in the dot of a town called Oakwood, N.D. On the way back to I-29, after rolling through a stop sign in the absolute middle of the flatest stretch of earth -- just east of Grafton -- trooper Cashin zoomed out of a farm field neatly sewn with a spring planting of wheat. He gave me a ticket for $20 and suggested we visit Lower Fort Garry in Winnipeg as he and his wife had recently.
Four miles later, we found the cool art deco court house built in 1940 out of rose marble and other smooth stones and stylish angles. The clerk laughed when I asked if I get the early bird discount for paying my fine within five minutes of my infraction. Outside, I learned that a half-dozen of Grafton's finest had mustered up for service on May 14, 1899 and died in the Spanish-American War trying to quell some revolt in the Philippines. Seems like an awful long way from home. The statue in their honor includes a quote: "No one stampedes the First North Dakota."
No one gets away with a Hollywood stop in Walsh County, either. But for $20, a self-guided tour of a nice piece of architecture with some history thrown in wasn't such a bad deal after all.
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