Tackling the Globe…

Back during the whirlwind that was my autumn, I made a brief stopover in Colorado en route to New York City to check out a new hotel brand called Cambria Suites. To be frank, my expectations weren’t high. The hotel of mention was located out near Denver airport, and have you stayed at many an airport hotel? Not usually (being the operative word) too fancy. Also, the company was marketing toward hipper travelers like me who might not have $300 to stay in luxury while on the road. I thought this was a polite way of saying there would be no frills. But you guys, I WAS WRONG. I loved it. It had the feel of staying in an InterContinental or comparable luxe hotel without the pricetag. Here’s an early morning (read: no makeup!) video tour of the roomy digs:

Cambria Suites in Aurora, Colorado from krysleigh on Vimeo.

My friend Jenny, her girlfriend and kid met me there, as well, and we were all blown away that you could get this for as little as $129 a night.

The downtown breakfast area was also swank, and there was an all-day coffee bar that I definitely took advantage of, thanks to my 5am flight time, whenever we’d retreat to the hotel to rest our feet.

Aurora, where this particular Cambria was located, is not too far from downtown Denver either; we rented a car and were to the 16th Street Mall within 20 minutes. There’s also something to be said for not having to get up at the crack of dawn to check into your flight; I dig that about staying out near the airport.

I cheekily asked the wonderful people at Cambria if they’d be interested in giving one of you a weekend stay to any of the properties to a reader, and they were delighted! This is a full WEEKEND people. In any of the 25 properties you choose! Truly amazing. Been looking for an excuse to escape to the Lone Star State? Always wanted to check out Paula Deen’s fine fare in Savannah? Here’s your chance. Take a look at the list of Cambria Suites across the country and leave a comment below about which one you’d pick. As always, I’ll consult Random.org to pick the winner; we like to keep things fair and square around these parts. Contest is open to anyone and everyone from now through Friday, Feb. 12, 5pm EST. You’ll get an extra entry for Tweeting this link (just let me know if you do so).

*All images courtesy of Cambria Suites.

I’ve had a lot of California-centric Photo Fridays lately but that’s because a) uh, I live here (duh) and b) even after two years, I still kind of can’t believe that this is my home. I mean, really, hardly a day goes by when I’m driving along the coast or passing a new city site that I previously hadn’t noticed and don’t think, “wow, California truly is a page out of a fairy tale—and it’s my fairly tale, too.”

Two summers ago, SVV and I ventured an hour up into Marin to a sprawling farm called Devil’s Gulch for the premier foodie event in, well, all of the States really. Roosters crowed out to one another across the barnyard, as if to alert one another that company approaches. A hefty pig the size of a small horse snorted out in fear that he might be the next young thing to decorate the dinner table (he wouldn’t be wrong in that assumption). Glasses clinked in merriment on the other side of the 75 acres Devil’s Gulch Ranch comprises, as the sun sank below Samuel P. Taylor State Park in the distance, leaving pink streaks across the sky. It really was the perfect setting for dining alfresco.

We were there for an ongoing series of dinners called Outstanding in the Field, covering it for both Newsweek and the Travel Channel; I doubt there’s a one of you out there who lives in the US and hasn’t heard of this company, as it’s been written about ad nauseam in every newspaper and magazine across the states in its decade in existence. All the food and wine is local to that particular dinner and organic, often taken directly from the site, as was our case at the ranch. Sometimes you even get to see your food in the flesh—or at least its brother—before it winds up on your plate.

The first OITF dinner was held in 1999 with 60 of founder Jim Denevan’s friends and acquaintances gathered around the table. Now, for at least six months out of the year, Denevan and a handful of employees travel the country by van and organize alfresco meals for the public, accommodating as many as 140 diners—in fields, ranches, dairies, vineyards, community gardens, whatever they may find that jives with their beliefs. Renowned chefs from New York, Chicago and San Francisco, among other cities known for culinary excellence, fly in to prepare the meals. Participants are given the opportunity to see where their food is coming from, interact with the farmer and explore the area where they’re eating. In one season alone, Denevan’s posse will put together more than 40 meals in the United States from California to Maine, and even venture as far as France, Spain and Italy. Last I spoke with Denevan, he said he was angling for a Greenland feast, but I don’t know if that ever came together. You also have to be waiting at the computer the day the season’s schedule goes up each spring (this year, that would be March 20), as dinners sell out immediately. It’s not unlike French Laundry, really.

Things don’t always run smoothly, though, which I suppose is understandable when you’re dealing with Mother Nature: SVV’s sister and her husband, for example, went to a dinner in Paso Robles the week after ours at a time when the county was experiencing an unseasonable 111-degree heat wave. Thus, the OITF crew pushed back the dinner. “Because the time was changed, there was not enough lighting,” she told me. “After the first course, we couldn’t see what we were eating. Since the dinner was pushed back because of the heat wave, it didn’t end until almost midnight. By that time, the two measly candles on our table had burned out. If there had been three times as many candles, the lighting probably would have been adequate.”

Also, those who attend a dinner must have open minds as far as food goes. It’s not as if you have an entire menu from which to order; you’re pretty limited to what the chef feels like cooking up and what ingredients he/she has access to. I lucked out and got to eat the fare of San Francisco celebrity Traci des Jardins (of Jardiniere fame), so you better believe that did not disappoint. Overall, it was a great experience. To this day, however, I’m still a bit skeptical about the pricetag—most dinners wind up being $200 or more a head (and yes, even though we were covering the event, we paid for our meals, too, out of our own pockets…magazines these days don’t exactly have deep pocket books)—especially as you could get the same meal in the city for $50 or so. Not to mention the crew who charges so much is a bunch of nomadic hippies from Santa Cruz, so the exorbitant cost almost goes against the principle of the whole organization, if you ask me. However, if someone else were wanting to pay my way, you better believe I wouldn’t turn down that opportunity.

*All photos taken by my beau, SVV, with a Canon XSi and 17-85mm lens.

**For more Photo Friday fun, visit Delicious Baby.

On Feb. 4, 2008, a slightly nervous Southern belle-cum-New Yorker, who was about as jittery as a coffee addict on his second week of withdrawal, boarded a JetBlue flight taking her away from all things she knew and which comforted her to a vast, unfamiliar landscape called California. She had no jobs lined up, no friends of which to speak in her new ‘hood, and no clue if the decision—packing up her life and completing changing course, all for a boy—was the right one.

She almost didn’t do it. In fact, over Christmas just a month prior, they discussed if it truly was the smart choice. She was leaving her in-house gigs of magazine editing in the global mecca for publishing, and had never once tried to make it as a freelancer. Sure, she had perseverance and drive, but would that be enough to make it—or a recipe to break it? She had cold feet, and up until the last minute, she didn’t know if she’d actually make it onto that plane. After all, while they’d known each other two-and-a-half years, they had only spent one of those in the same zip code, and that was living in a fairytale world far away from reality.

It worked out, of course—the job, the boy; but you all know that—and now she’s engaged to him, set to be married on May 22, 2010, after a 367-day engagement. She has more work than she could even imagine: Though it’s not always what she wants to be doing and she spends more time hustling for gigs than actual writing, she realizes in such a crappy job market, a steady income stream is a blessing, no matter how it materializes (edited to add: OK, it does slightly matter how it materializes; stripping and selling one’s organs on the black market are not jobs that she necessarily endorses). She has friends who would bend over backward to help her in a pinch, close gal pals who were introduced to her via this space on the Internet, and others who are just a car ride (or flight) away, littered along the West Coast.

It’s ironic, yes, that on her two-year anniversary she will finally spend her first night in her new city home, after all the long drives and nights of dreaming of the day she’d finally be a city dweller again. You see, in an effort to save money, pay off some debt and eventually be able to afford a house to call their own, they worked their way down the Bay Area Peninsula, from his hometown of South San Francisco to San Mateo. Little bits of their collective soul died here and there living in such places where “the sidewalk rolls up at 8pm,” as her friend John—also a Peninsula resident—might say, but they knew the end result would be that much sweeter. (Plus, she being a social creature made it a point to line up activities in the city at least every other day, so she didn’t fall prey to the curse of suburbia.)

Two years ago, she was trapped in an oscillating cycle—in both a professional and personal sense—from which she didn’t know if she’d ever find her way out. New York tends to do that to a girl, especially the wandering, lost twentysomethings it so often attracts, only to pick them up, beat them down repetitively like an abused puppy who doesn’t know any better but to keep coming back for more, and then scrape them off the sidewalk—wash, rinse, repeat.

Then, he came along; he gave her hope, he gave her an escape route, he gave her love. He gave her a second family far from her own, a home in a place more beautiful than she could ever imagine. And for all of that, she will be eternally grateful. Of course she is, it’s why she agreed to marry the boy after all.

Last week was a helluva few days for many reasons but mainly because—hello—did you know moving sucks? We went to Mammoth this weekend for a very quick 48-hour work trip (SVV promises to blog our awesome time for me when the moving dust settles), which proved more stressful than not as we flew into San Jose yesterday morning, drove straight to Foster City, picked up a moving truck and some eager immigrant movers at Home Depot, and transported all our belongings in the following seven hours, with the added assistance of my dear Moose who loaned us her pointer fingers and organizational skills (she’s a good egg, that one). We still can’t get our Internet company (ahem, AT&T, ahem) to actually show up when they say they’re going to, meaning I’ve missed out on a lot of work time waiting in an empty apartment and also that while all our furniture and boxes are physically in the new Presidio Heights pad, Scott and I and our desk sets and spare bed remain in San Mateo because I have (eek) one week left on my next book deadline and, alas, that requires a constant Internet connection! Whew, that was a long sentence. But ant army invasion (as in hundreds of thousands, no exaggeration), work annoyances and Internet snafu aside, I was particularly bummed last week as this amazing assignment to Mozambique I thought was going to happen with a good friend/photographer fell through much to both of our dismay, but then it was easy to make lemonade out of lemons, because what do you know, out of the blue, this happened:

(I’m LunaticAtLarge lest you don’t follow me on Twitter, and if that’s the case, may I ask why not? Ha. I’ll follow back, I promise! I’m not a Twitter snow, like some I know.)

Anyhoo…that’s right, people! Eight days ago, Rwanda was little more than a movie and a whole lot of tragic past in my mind, and now! Now, I get to go explore its nooks and crannies, see its gorgeous landscape (Lonely Planet calls it one of the most beautiful countries in all of Africa), hang out with gorillas, and have an all-around good time for a week prior to my journey to South Africa with my mom (could the timing have worked out any better?). Even more exciting is a long-time blog friend Katie Hammel (and new editor of BootsnAll as of today) was the other winner, so our inaugural IRL meeting will take place in Kigali! How about them apples?

How did this happen, you ask? Well, Twitter, of course. How else do good things materialize in the year 2010, after all? It started when a few of my travel-y friends Tweeted about the Rwanda government’s call for travel writers and bloggers to win a tour/contest by doing little more than following them and reTweeting the message. Only, you know me: I don’t do anything half-assed. So my next few Tweets looked something like this:

Moral of this story? Persistency pays off. And not only did I harass them incessantly, but I even went to their Facebook page and left comments, including my blog link and professional site. And then I went one step further and TwitPic’d SVV and a baboon to show the uncanny resemblance and how not only is my dad a certified ape (it’s true; you never saw a darker, hairier Caucasian), but my fiance is also a descendant of the primates. (If you saw him scurry up some 20-foot-tall scaffolding, you’d be inclined to agree.)

And then, before I knew it, Ben from the agency repping Rwanda contacted me and would I be free to go on a week-long tour of Rwanda in mid-March? And, um, even though I have one major FIRST EDITION (meaning, a bazillion times more work than an update) book deadline that falls after that time period on April 1 (I REALLY hope that editor doesn’t read my blog), I responded “HELLS TO THE YEAH.” No need to worry: I will be reporting back here frequently with all sorts of good multimedia material and, likely, writing some stories about the experience for some of my outlets. (If you’re a travel editor with a need for Rwanda coverage, e-mail me!)

The only “minor” catch is that I’m responsible for getting myself to Kigali, which is no easy endeavor. As luck would have it, my ticket to Johannesburg from San Francisco, which Mom and I have yet to book as we were waiting for word on Mozambique, is no more expensive to fly in 10 days earlier. However—and this is a huge however—I’ve found that flights within Africa? NOT CHEAP. In fact, the most economical flight of all is via Kenya Airways and is a stifling $900. So if anyone has any tips on how to get there for cheaper, PLEASE let me know. And if you’ve been to Rwanda and would like to give me some tips or recommendations worth checking out, I would love to hear them. As of now, the only thing I know for sure is that there will be gorillas. Or, even if you’ve never been and weren’t even the slightest bit aware that Rwanda’s a country in Central Africa with a turbulent past (to which I ask, where have you been in the last 15 years? unless, of course, not born yet is the answer), is there anything specific you’d like to know about first-hand while I’m there?