Strolling the Real Tlaquepaque

I have been to Sedona's Tlaquepaque arts and crafts shopping and gallery center, and enjoyed browsing there immensely. But the real thing, the original, the old town about 10 miles from Guadalajara is even better. This community of more than half-a-million inhabitants inspired the Arizona shopping area.

Below are the tops of two landmark churches, El Santuario de Nuestra Señora de la Soledad (The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Solitude) and San Pedro (Saint Peter),

Many of Tlaquepaque's streets are for pedestrians only.

The old town is full of Talaquepaque history.

Beautiful carved door.

The center of Tlapequaque is clean and graffiti-free.

Small shops line narrow, car-free streets selling all manner of goods for residents and visitors.

Portals on some buildings along wider streets, like the main pedestrian street, protect people of sun and rain.

Open doors permit a peak of lovely center courtyards.

Food vendors are ubiquitous.

As are imaginative buisness, like this man who hacksaws any name onto a black key in just minutes.

And then, there's music, music everywhere.

And art and crafte as well, from very ancient...

...to very new.

Delta Doubles Second-Bag Fee

Airline raises fee from $25 to $50, beginning next month

Early last May -- less than three short months ago -- Delta Airlines joined US airlines' stampede to charge most passengers for checked bags and imposed a $25 fee for the second bag. Come August 5, Delta us upping the surcharge race by doubling that fee to $50.

Pity the passenger (or his/her company) who must check more pieces than that. The third bag will now cost $125 (up from $80) and a whopping $200 apiece for the fourth through 10th checked pieces, which is more than many flight legs cost on an advance-purchase ticket .

Extra weight and size count too. An overweight bag between 51 and 70 pounds on a domestic rises from $80 to $90, and an oversize bag 62 inches to 80 inches of the total of its length plus its width plus its height rises from $150 to $175.

As bone thrown to first-class and certain premium passengers, Delta will still let them check up to three bags for free. Business travelers often carry on everything they need -- unless, perhaps, they are attending a trade show and are taking presentation materials. However, other flyers who routinely check many pieces will be paying big-time. FWIW, Delta says that it accepts up to 10 checked bags per passenger on its own flights and four checked bags on Delta Connection carriers.

Think of broadcast media or film makers who will be charged $175 per item for camera, perhaps film or video tape inventory, lighting, or sound equipment, will be paying a lot of such surcharges. Athletes with heavy equipment (hockey bags come immediately to mind) are really getting socked for extra baggage fees, as are people heading for sports vacations with ski equipment, fishing gear or golf bags.


"Commercial airlines are the cheapest way to deliver bags in America," William Swelbar, an airline expert with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been quoted as saying, noting the obvious that it costs more to fly on a heavier aircraft than one with a lighter load Swelbar postulated Delta's position as, "If I'm going to be in the moving business, I'm going to be compensated like a moving business."


Tom Parsons of BestFares told reporters, "They'd rather put high-paying cargo on that plane rather than people's bags." The phrase, "eople's bags," of course, implies people, and Parsons didn't add that cargo doesn't need to be reminded to buckle its seatbelt, drink those costly soft drinks and eat those little baggies of snacks, complain when a flight is delayed, get drunk and disorderly, or try to cram extra stuff in the overhead.

Guadalajara's Hospicio Cabañas Fab Faberge Exhibition

Imperial Russian treasures displayed in magnificent Spanish Colonial landmark

The opening reception of the Society of American Travel Writers' 2009 convention took place in Gaudalajara's magnificent, monumental Hospicio Cabañas. Originally a hospital and refuge for the homeless and the helpless, and later an orphanage, it now houses the Cabañas Cultural Institute and its schools for arts and crafts, and it has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Aficionados of Spanish Colonial architecture know it for its grandiose presence in the heart of Mexico' second-largest city. Art lovers revere the brooding, dramatic murals painted by Jose Clemente Orozco more than 120 years after the building was completed. Much of Orozco's work in his native country was destroyed, because it was considered to dark and too violent, but masterpiece remains.

That we would see Orozco's work in the Hospicio Cabañas was no surprise. What was a surprise is that at the end of the opening event, someone casually mentioned that the Faberge collection would be left open for us. If you read Spanish better than I do, click here for more information on the exhibit. I have no idea how long this magnificent exhibition of Romanoff treasures will be open, but I was thrilled to have seen it. Photography was permitted -- under the watchful eyes of armed guards --but I was too busy looking and trying to puzzle out the key parts of Spanish descriptions of each object to try to take lots of pictures, and some that I snapped through glass didn't come out all that well. There were, of course, jewel-encrusted compacts, cigarette cases and more; paintings and paper documents; swords and scepters; garments and opulent geegasws, and an intruiging explanation of the role the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis had in protecting (or something) Romanoff treasures when as an editor with Doubleday, she shepherded a book on the topic.

Nearby Mountains Cooler Than the Front Range

Higher elevations = cooler air = relief from daily temps above 90 degrees

Temperatures in the Denver -Boulder area have hit the mid-90s every day for what seems like weeks and weeks -- though unlike the Northeast, where I grew up, the humidity doesn't match the temperature. Even in the height of summer, pockets of snow remain at high elevations, and cool air makes hiking a joy when you start early to beat the high, searing sun on the ascent. Here are some recent getaways within a two-hour drive of Boulder to which we have escaped in the last few weeks:

Ypsilon Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, July 4, 2008

Blue Lake, Indian Peaks Wilderness, July 10, 2008


Lake Isabel, Indian Peaks Wildnerness, July 14, 2008

Wilder Gulch, Vail Pass, July 19, 2008

Lake Dillon, between Frisco and Silverthorne, July 20, 2008

Bear Lake-Lake Odessa-Fern Lake Loop, Rocky Mountain National Park,

July 22, 2008

TSA is Reaching Out to Children as Future Recruits

The Transportation Security Agency must be planning to be around for a long time, because it seems to be reaching out to children and appeal to their career aspirations. That's what James the Future Gringo discovered when he got a gate pass to help his mother manage her carry-ons at Denver International Airport. His blog post has several delicious observations and theories as to what this is all about. His efforts to obtain a yellow "DEN Junior TSA Screener" sticker were admirable but fruitless.

Meanwhile, I wonder whether these stickers are for real -- or whether someone with a mischievous but devious mind ordered them from a custom-sticker outfit. Whether the stickers are genuine or a joke, if you are as much of a fan of the TSA as I am (and as James seems to be), you definitely want to click on his post.

Guadalajara: A Wet Welcome

I arrived in Guadalajara on Thursday afternoon for the Society of American Travel Writers' 2009 convention. The sky was gray, but it was not raining when we landed. I know this for sure, because the airport (GDL) does not have jetways (or does not have jetways for all aircraft, and passengers descended dry stairs and crossed a dry tarmac to reach buses that took us to the terminal. Soon affter we boarded buses that would take us to our hotels, it started drizzling.

Then, it started raining harder -- and then harder still. The bus driver kept off the elevated highway and took lower roads -- I would call them service roads. Before long, each road resembled a river. Passing vehicles generated waves of water that washed over curbs. Cars and trucks stalled in water-filled intersections. People huddled under bus shelters and in doorways. I wondered whether Guadalajara had a single functioning storm sewer.

I managed to get only a couple of vaguely decent images through the bus window and the downpour.

Astonishingly, the roads were dry the next morning. I don't know where all that water went, but I'm glad that it did.

Travel Thumbnail #2: Frisco Historic Park & Museum

This is the second of a series of periodic reports on specific places I've visited -- and which you might want see to as well. Post a comment or let me know directly what you think of this new Travel Babel feature.

The Place: Frisco Historic Park & Museum, CO

The Story: This museum and local park containing a complex of historic structures from Frisco's mining heyday is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year -- and next year, the town of Frisco itself turns 130. I've passed the old schoolhouse with the "Museum" sign many, many times, but it was usually before or after skiing, which meant the museum wasn't open, or when I didn't have time to stop and look around. A visit last week was enough to convince me that I had missed a genuine Colordo high-country treasure.

Many local small-town museums are a jumbled hodegpodge of anything anyone chose to donate, from genuine historic treasures to old trash. Unlike such museums, which do have their own funky charm, Frisco's is sensibly laid-out, well lit, clearly labeled and truly informative -- in short, it was curated, not thrown together.

The museum (built in 1899 as a saloon, later the town's schoolhouse, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places) features a working railroad layout (put a quarter in the slot and watch the train go around), old school desks that children love to sit in and a variety of such displays as glass-cased objects from the Swan River Valley's past. Recent civil engineering history spotlights the construction of the nearby Dillon Dam and Eisenhower Tunnel. In the natural history realm, there several taxidermed specimens of local fauna.

Beside and behind the museum are nine relocated buildings. The oldest is an 1860 cabin, before there really was a Frisco. Others range both chronologically and functionally from the 1881 jail to the 1943 Log Chapel. Most date from the 1890s, and all contain additional historic displays from mining, ranching and trapping in the valley. Household goods, furnishings, clothing, the role of women in the valley, ski history and more are documented. Some structures also include recorded, push-botton audio narrations in voices from the past. In all, it is extraordinarily well done.

Tips for visiting: If you are interested in American history, Western history, Colorado history or mining history, be sure to allot a couple of hours for your visit.

Cost: Free

Coming Event: The museum's official silver anniversary celebration of the park and museum takes place August 15-17, 2008, featuring an art and antique show, an old-fashioned ice cream social and live music.

More Information: The Frisco Historic Park & Museum is located at 120 Main Street; 970-668-3428. Click here for the museum's own audio-video preview, or see my almost-silent movie by clicking on the image below. It is my first effort at including a video segment, so please excuse an amateur's technical inadequacies.



Summer hours (May-September), 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.; Sunday, 9:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m. Winter hours (October - April), Tuesday-Saturday, 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m., Sunday, 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. Closed Monday. The park tself is open, even when the buildings are closed.

Frisco's Main Street is roughly parallel to Interstate 70. Take exits 201 or 203, and follow the signs.