DJ Trava

Archive for the ‘Leisure’ Category

The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, across from the Walker Art Center and the Guthrie Theater, is 11-acres of sheer delight of more than 40 works on permanent view. The Sculpture Garden is better known for the Spoonbridge and Cherry Fountain by Claes Oldenburg . If you’re staying at any of the luxury Minneapolis hotels located at the edge of downtown, the view of sculpture is hard to miss from your balcony.

Other fabuluous sculptures at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden include: Sagacious Head 6 and Sagacious Head 7 by Magdalena Abakanowicz; Hare on Bell on Portland Stone Piers by Barry Flanagan; Nautilus by Charles Ginnever; Prophecy of the Ancients by Brower Hatcher; X with Columns by Sol LeWitt; and Standing Frame by David Nash.

The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden has the best collection of outdoor sculptures in the United States. What’s even better is you can see them all for free. You can stroll freely until midnight and feel safe with all the hidden security cameras placed to keep visitors safe. As you’re strolling you’ll wonder about the state-of-mind of the artists and be amazed at the level of their creativity. Some sculptures you’ll absolutely adore and others not so much, but no matter what, you’ll thoroughly enjoy the Garden, located at 726 Vineland Place. Plenty of parking is available and the most parking will cost is $2.

It’s recommended, if you have time to also check out the amazing green house complex with its mixture of artwork. Plan to spend well over half-a-day, maybe even more.

Traveling with children takes a bit of planning.  From finding kid friendly restaurants that also appeal to the adults, to locating kid friendly hotels, there are just some things that need to be considered.  In Boston, this is not a problem.  There are many restaurants in the various neighborhoods that cater to the palates of the younger ones as well as the adults, and to find a listing of wonderful options for hotel accommodations, check here.

Once in the city, there are fun things to do such as the New England Aquarium, Aqua World and believe it or not, the Museum of Massachusetts Institute of Technology has quite a few programs.  The children enjoy the experience while they learn about the scientific world.  The mission of MIT’s Museum has always been to bring the public in, to make them aware of the technology and the sciences that many of the brightest minds study at the university.  Through their programs, children will find about about the world in which we live in today, as well as the discoveries made in the past and throughout history.  There is the history itself, and there is the history of the pursuit of those discoveries.

One of the annual events that takes place each April is the Cambridge Science Festival. The festival runs for nine days and includes more than two hundred events in which to take part.  Last year was the anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, as well as the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo’s Mission to the Moon.  Programs during the year cater to various age groups.  One such program available for older children is the Robotics Program.  Another program is titled “Why Towers Stand Up and Bridges Don’t Fall Down”.  This is a workshop in the wonders of technology and engineering and is interesting and informing even for the adults.  In all, one of the greatest places to visit when in the city of Boston is the MIT Museum.  One never knows what one may discover there.

The Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park — these iconic sights of New York City are well worth a visit for any traveler; however, if you want to go a bit deeper, see a little more, then there’s some pretty great places that most tourists know about only because they’ve stumbled across them.  How many people have booked hotels in New York without knowing about the casinos nearby (some places even have the casinos in them).  Who needs Atlantic City or Las Vegas, when you really can have it all in the Big Apple?  Since gambling doesn’t take up a full day or night, there’s plenty of other sights in the city.  Here’s a sampling:

There’s Joe, the Art of Coffee .  With two locations, this independent coffee shop is a terrific place to sit and contemplate the city, and some people insist its the best coffee in New York.  If you prefer tea to coffee, try Lady Mendl’s Tea Salon over at 56 Irving Place.  You can reserve a place at the salon and have a luxurious five-course afternoon tea.   At 108 Orchard Street, you’ll find the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, where you can take a guided tour that examines the history of immigration in the United States.  You may find the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum also interesting.  It’s over on Pier 86 on West 46th Street and 12th Avenue.

Be sure to check out, too, Scott’s Pizza Tour.  Scott Wiener, who runs the tours, is a well traveled young man who is constantly on the search for the world’s great pizzas.  He kept note of the best and worst pies in his Pizza Journals, and his obsession turned into this tour, where he tells you fun facts about New York Pizza as well as provides a goodie bag.  He’ll take you to pizzerias in Manhattan and then on to another borough (maybe Brooklyn or Bronx or Queens), to have your taste buds tested at at least two more pizzerias.  The tours are on Sundays from eleven in the morning to three thirty in the afternoon.  In order to keep giving pizza tours on the weekends, during the week he offers walking tours, perhaps to offset the calories.

Two Panamas are in the world, one lies at its center, the thinnest part of the connecting land between North and South America, home of Panama City and the Panama Canal, one of the great engineering achievements of the early Twentieth Century.  The other Panama rests a bit higher on the globe, also on a narrow strip of land, a peninsula known as the state of Florida.  If you’re looking to stay in the latter, check here.  You may see a description of the former Panama, but if you click on the hotels, they’ll bring you back to places you can stay in Florida.

This second North American city, Panama Beach, contains a great deal to see and do for the entire family.  It’s a place in which you might play miniature golf one hour and swim with dolphins the next.  There’s amusement parks, waterparks, and museums.  For instance, take a look at Gulf World and Zoo World to explore marine and animal life.  In Gulf World, you can swim with dolphins, discover what it’s like to train seals, even experience a magic show.  Zoo World also provides safe encounters with everything from a parrot to a wolf.  You may dive underwater in Dive Locker and explore the waterways on the Betsy Ann River Boat or the Swamp ‘Vette and its Airboat Adventures.

The Panama at the middle of the Earth has been used as a trade route for nearly five hundred years.  When the Panama Canal was completed in 1914, ninety-six years ago, but Panama City Beach, Florida, began its history in 1936, founded only seventy-four years ago.  The slogan for this city is the “World’s Most Beautiful Beaches,” which is hard to argue once you see them and the brilliant white sands.

I had been wanting to scuba dive for many years, for as long as I could remember and last year my sister surprised me with a trip to Miami.  Luxury hotels dot the beaches along the coast of Miami, and my sister found us the perfect one, one that was just a few steps from the beach and just a block away from the scuba diving company she had booked our excursions through.  Although my sister did not have the long standing desire for diving that I had, she had become interested in joining me when she discovered that the only state aside from Hawaii to have extensive coral formations just off shore, is Florida.  She was fascinated with the elements of the natural world, that took years to grow, or rather live plants and animals that reach very old age.

We have some of those things in our home town, such as century old desert tortoises and saguaro cactus, however the coral reefs along the shores of Miami and other Florida beach towns, are thousands of years old.  Coral is fascinating, a coexistence of plant and animal life, much of the vibrant colors provided from the plant half of the partnership.  Along with the important role that coral plays in the environment, these structures also provide shelter to numerous other marine life and they serve to protect the cities along the coast from storms.  An now, the coral reefs provide economic security as many people from all over the country travel to Florida for the very same reason my sister and I went there, to dive amongst the coral.

We had had a few great days of diving when our instructor told us of a place, just a bit of a drive from Miami, to a town called Homestead Florida.  Here is where the Coral Castle is located.  My sister was intrigued and so was I, so the next day we rented a car and took off to check out this Coral Castle.  We found hundreds of carved sculptures, all carved from coral rock.  They were constructed over a period of thirty years by Ed Leedskalnin.  Leedskalnin would not let people watch him work so during the years there were speculations that these massive sculptures were actually created via paranormal means.  My sister and I came home with a bunch of photographs, from the underwater coral reefs and marine life to the incredible works of art we found at the Coral Castle.  She is already planning our trip for next year.

A lot of health problems are related to stress, there’s no doubt about it.  It’s true that there are many things that can’t be avoided in life, and there are many health conditions that can’t be prevented by any level of foresight.  But stress is certainly something we can do something about.  Avoiding stressful situations altogether is usually the best method of prevention, but of course, it’s not always possible, or realistic.  For the unpreventable stresses, and the grind of modern life, we need to be able to find ways to relax.  With hot tubs and spas, the possibility of relaxation is always close at hand.

Having your own hot tub means that you have the option of taking a break from the wild ride of the world, and letting yourself come back to your own rhythms again, so that your own inner drummer can start to beat the right meter to set the pace for your mind and body.  The ability to relax can have long-lasting effects on health.  It’s one of the best ways to build immunities, and it seems as though the body is built for a relaxed state.  All the systems function better, and the only thing that seems lacking is adrenaline.

You don’t need adrenaline in a hot tub, and this is good news for many people.  In a society that seems to be built on adrenaline but without any outlets, moving toward a relaxed state of mind is a very pleasant idea.  And even the martial arts teach that a relaxed mind and body is ready, and can respond to any situation with calmness, and the right actions at the right time. It takes practice and discipline, to be sure, but just remember that the training involves spending a good number of hours letting the water float and spin over your muscles, bringing you back to a state of health that was already always there.

A few weeks ago, it was about 116 degrees Fahrenheit in Phoenix.  It was about two pm, and hot, and I had been up the night before, all night working on the computer trying to meet a deadline.  I was exhausted and had no motivation left.  I have a hot tub in my back yard. The landlords installed it after looking over the options offered by choosehottubsdirect.com.  I have lived with this tub in my backyard for three years, but never once ventured into it.

I looked out the window, and it was hot.  Summertime in Phoenix makes you say that over and over…”it’s hot, just so hot outside” as if saying it over and over will make it get better, or seem more bearable.  But I knew that I had to spend another eight hours on the computer before I was finished with my 36 hour work day, and I needed something to keep me going.  Coffee was not doing the trick anymore.  I searched for my bathing suit, found it and went outside.  I unlocked the cover and turned on the jets.

As I stepped into the tub, my dog Jack, looked at me and tilted his head, he knew it was hot.  And he did not understand.  I held on to the rail and stepped into the water.  At first, it wasn’t so nice.  Everything was just a bit too warm, the air, the water, Jack’s breath.  As I sat in the middle of the jets and the bubbles and the warmth, I felt calm and energized at the same time.  Jack was confused, as stated, and he eventually just jumped in with me.  Not naturally for a Chicago city dog, but he couldn’t help himself.  He nervously tried to get out, and I bumped him up to edge so he could do just that.

And the minute he was out, he took off like a mad man, tearing around the yard in a full run, wild look in his eyes and all.  I got out just after that as well, and understood why he seemed to feel so good.  The air and the breeze that had been so oppressive before, now felt cool.  Energy was restored.  Jack felt better, I felt better.  We looked at each other and knew what was on our minds.  See, we both own a bad, and evil cat named Frida.  If she could feel the effects of a hot tub soak, perhaps she would be a bit nicer.  We looked in her direction, but she hissed at us and hopped the fence.  She must have known what was on our minds.

The hottub can be the new centerpiece of the home.  It’s a place of refuge, that delightful idea you might have when you’re at work and the day is more stressful than you’d like, where you start to daydream about relaxing in the hottub when your work is done.  It can also be the magnet that draws friends over for those lovely evenings where a barbecue and a soak is the order of the day.  It helps to create new and fantastic memories, there’s no doubt about it, and has benefits that can’t be underestimated.  The healing powers of hottubs are spoken of all over the world, and here you have it at your disposal.  The benefits of water on the body are numerous, from regaining a sense of equilibrium, the sheer comforts of relaxation, and not to forget increased circulation.  There are also benefits of relaxing in the sun.

Interestingly enough, there have been many new studies that suggest that moderate exposure to the sun can be quite healthy, and the risks are very much outweighed by the benefits.  Of course, some common sense is necessary here, to remember that prolonged exposure can certainly damage the skin and open up the possibility of health problems.  And burning can put you at risk for sure.  It’s even been demonstrated that age might have something to do with it, where burning during the adolescent years can create problems later.  Ironically, the adolescent years are often the time when people are most likely to spend time out in the sun, for recreation and also because of the beauty myths of the dark tan.  As long as the extremes are avoided, the benefits of the sun can really start to play a role in your hottub experience.

The health benefits of the sun have to do with one of the more necessary chemicals the body needs, Vitamin D.  The only sure way to get Vitamin D is by exposure to sunlight, and in moderation it can produce profound effects on physical as well as mental health.  It counteracts the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder, as well as produces serotonin, which balances out the mood in a profound way.  So take some necessary precautions, don’t overdo it, but go ahead and get outside and enjoy your hottub during the daylight.  It does wonderful things to the body and the mind.