When I visited Hong Kong, my guide explained that his city, seated between water and mountain, is, in Feng Shui terms, ideally suited for good Xi (energy). If that’s so, Salt Lake City has good Xi in spades.
In the bowl of a canyon, surrounded by spectacular mountains (which offer some of the best powder skiing in North America), there’s water in the nearby Great Salt Lake as well as several smaller fresh water lakes. This has to be Feng Shui nirvana. Continue reading
It began when we went for a walk in downtown Cheyenne. A helpful hotel employee pointed us toward the city’s oldest commercial building, just up the street, with the words, “It’s haunted.” Continue reading
Cheyenne was ccccold today with a fresh coat of light snow. But we’re Canadians, so we donned boots and winter jackets and set out from our hotel, the historic Plains Hotel and headed for the Wyoming State Museum which has the virtue of being a few blocks walk away and indoors!
For three days we’ve been driving west on Highway 80…I-80 is the Interstate Highway that most closely approximates the route of the historic Lincoln Highway, the first road across America. It also roughly traces two other historically significant travel routes, the Oregon Trail across Wyoming and Nebraska, and the Mormon route through to the Great Salt Lake.
Covering great flat swaths of open prairie, with huge expanses of sky in every direction, the road might be boring but for the periodic photo-worthy glimpses of bare tree branches against setting sun, or coal black cattle framed against the sand-coloured fields now plowed for next year. Continue reading
Chateau Lafayette, modelled on The Ritz in Paris, seems an unlikely addition to a Pennsylvania resort. But this is no ordinary spot.
A turn in the winding country road brings us to …The Ritz!
There is the sweeping curve of the famed building, there the long, elegant windows, the wrought iron, the grand entrance. The only thing missing is the ubiquitous midnight blue Bentley parked in front.
No, the famed Paris hotel hasn’t been moved to Pennsylvania, but a facsimile now graces the Laurel Highlands. Built by the eccentric owner of 84 Lumber Company, Joseph A. Hardy, Chateau Lafayette is only one small part of the extraordinary resort that is Nemacolin Woodlands. Continue reading
