TRAVELING MAUI’S MAIN ROADS FROM THE COFFEE FARM 
by Larry Turner

SKI SUN PEAKS - OR MAYBE NOT
by Yvette Cardozo

SEATTLE'S SPACE NEEDLE GETS A GLASS FLOOR - 500 FEET UP! 
by Lynn Rosen

How about spending a month and a half on a Maui coffee farm? Maui Mountain Coffee recently won the top prize at Maui's Annual Cupping Competition. Once you’re wired from all the coffee you can drink, it’s time to travel on and explore all the main roads of Maui. That’s a lot of miles for a Pacific island…

So what happens to your long awaited ski trip if suddenly you can’t ski? I had reservations at Sun Peaks Resort in British Columbia, Canada. I had a ski buddy lined up. I had winterized my car. And then I broke my ankle, putting a premature screeching halt to my ski season. “Ah, why don’t you go anyway. Try all those non-ski things you never have time for,” a friend suggested. Well, why not?

Seattle's iconic Space Needle opened its dramatic "Spacelift" and world's first revolving glass floor with its recent renovation of the 605-foot-tall structure. Hold onto your tummies and your heads. It's a spinning experience that just may throw you into a spacey place. Lynn Rosen takes us up, up, up and around, around, around.

OAHU - PART 1: A TUMULTUOUS BEGINNING
by Vicki Hoefling Andersen

CLIMBING SLOVENIA'S MOUNT TRIGLAV
by Lee Juillerat

Each of the four “main” Hawaiian Islands has its own unique icon, an image which comes to mind when that island’s name is mentioned: Kauai’s dramatic Waimea Canyon, Maui’s massive Haleakala, Hawaii Island’s observatory-sprinkled/snow-dusted Mauna Kea. Oahu’s icon, although a physical location, comes to mind as an event: Pearl Harbor. These islands can truly be an idyllic paradise, but have also—particularly Oahu––been a turbulent battleground of wills and ways.

What can you do in July, the height of the tourist season, when you’ve been suddenly kicked out of your house in Klamath Falls, Oregon, and you need someplace else to stay? Due to extreme water damage, our contractor insisted that we move out for a couple of weeks so he could begin extensive repair work. “At the last minute, during the height of vacation season?” we asked. “A hotel with available space won’t be easy to find!” This was high adventure, all right, but not the kind we welcomed!

Gaining Slovenian status doesn't come easy. It's a taxing challenge that involves a long hike to a mountain hut, then a non-technical but challenging climb to the summit of Mount Triglav, the tallest mountain in the Julian Alps. It's a region that spans Austria, Italy and, of course, Slovenia. Once on top, first-timers are instructed to bend over and sanctify the accomplishment with an odd tradition - three lashes on the buttocks by a native Slovenian.

HISTORY, HEALTH, HAUNTINGS: Eureka Springs, Arkansas - A Small Town With a Big Story

by Susan Cohn

The Basin Park Hotel is in Ripley's Believe or Not, as being a 7-story hotel with every floor on the ground floor, due to the mountainous terrain of Eureka Springs. You won’t find a single traffic light anywhere in this town. You also won’t find any two streets crossing at right angles that carry the same name. And with over 200 miles of native limestone retaining walls, our past citizens have created a village which gave Eureka Springs, one of its nicknames, "The Stair Step Town."

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