Travel restrictions to Cuba are slowly loosening for Americans. There are direct flights to Havana from NYC and Miami for legal travelers. Plans have also been approved for ferry service from Key West to Havana. Carnival Cruise Lines began bi-weekly crossings to Cuba from its Florida home base in May, 2016. Legal flights will also be available from the American continent to Cuba beginning in the fall of 2016.

When engineers were building a highway along California's coast, the outlook for extending the road along one far northern California section was simply too daunting. The challenges included the King Range mountains that rise steeply along the coast coupled with the area's proximity to the San Andreas Fault. Instead, the highway was relocated inland. The section it skirts has become known as the Lost Coast.

Oyster fishing...is that the term?...is done here the old-fashioned way. Two guys go out in a wooden skiff that they probably built themselves. One drives, the other stands on the side with long, wooden tongs that look like giant chopsticks with a metal basket on the end. He dips the basket into the water, wiggles it in the oyster bed to loosen the oysters, grabs a batch, swings it up and across to a shelf at the bow of the boat.

Snapshots from Amtrak's Coast Starlight
by Ted and Sylvia Blishak

Tassajara Zen Mountain Center Summer 2016

Real Skifi Skis Downtown Stockholm Minus Snow

Once the rainy season gets underway, these hills will turn the kind of brilliant green that hits you in the back of the eyeball, and stay that way until March when the grass dries out to a straw color. (Some call it "golden", to support the image of the Golden State.)

Nestled in a mountain valley, inland from the Big Sur coast in a remote part of the Ventana Wilderness, Tassajara has been long known as a place for self-discovery, healing and an escape from the stresses of everyday life.

The Finnish skiing collective Real Skifi, a ski + video outfit, has been dubbed as one of the sport's true innovators. In video Episode 15, below, the group visits a snow-free Stockholm, Sweden. This forces the skiers to be more creative than ever.

Who we are: For brief bios on the writers who form this Pacific Northwest collective, please click here.