Getting it just right for a winter skip-gen vacation in Germany with seven and ten year-old granddaughters.

https://www.mi-reporter.com/2026/02/23/a-skip-gen-vacation-to-remember-meanderings-by-mindy-stern/

A visit to Island Books on Mercer Island is always an adventure.

https://www.mi-reporter.com/life/travel-through-history-and-the-world-at-island-books-meanderings-by-mindy-stern/

After sampling cuisines from two other continents, I wanted to complete my global culinary tour of Bellevue, WA, which ranks as one of the most multi-cultural cities in the world. Join me as we begin our international travels with breakfast in Belgium, lunch in Vietnam and dinner in Peru.

https://www.mi-reporter.com/life/experience-three-continents-over-three-meals-in-bellevue-meanderings-by-mindy-stern

A shoulder season visit to Hood River, OR brings unexpected delights.

https://www.mi-reporter.com/life/hurry-down-to-hood-river-oregon-meanderings-by-mindy-stern/

On October 30th, the Seattle Seahawks will face the Detroit Lions at Ford Field in Motor City. And on November 18th, the Seattle Kraken play the Red Wings in Detroit’s Little Caesar’s Arena. But you don’t have to be a sports fan to have fun in Detroit, a city with multiple nicknames: “Motor City,” reflecting Detroit’s car-manufacturing history. “Motown City,” thanks to its enduring music legacy; “Hockeytown,” self-explanatory.

The pumpkin bread was still warm when I entered the kitchen in the John R Park Homestead in Harrow, a “living history” museum, where volunteers dressed in period costumes interact with visitors to demonstrate how food was cooked, wool was spun, and metal was forged. 

That braided bread you see at Jewish celebratory meals? It’s called challah. Try clearing your throat and pronounce the first two letters of challah with a guttural sound. Mazal tov - you’ve got it.

My first road trip began the day after I got a driver’s license. I was nineteen. In a car loaded with 8-track cassettes, my then-boyfriend and I sang along with the Grateful Dead and Van Morrison, heading towards Colorado. 

Yellowstone, America’s – and the world’s – first national park, was created by Congress in 1872 in order to protect its geothermal areas and geysers. At 3,472 square miles, it’s bigger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined, spanning across Wyoming, Montana, and a tiny part of Idaho.

You know what they say about the road to hell – it’s paved with good intentions. When my husband first started overlanding - towing a small trailer with a rooftop tent and camping in remote locations - I declared, “I’m not sleeping in that thing,” and stuck to my guns.

My husband proposed that we drive down on a Sunday to see an Earthdog competition. I thought I’d heard him wrong. “You mean Earth Day exhibition?” I’d gone to the very first Earth Day event in 1970, and remembered how New York City police on horseback intimidated the 100,000 who’d gathered in Union Square that April day to raise awareness of environmental issues.

Where do you go when you have a special occasion to celebrate? Since I entertain a lot and cook almost daily, dinner out is a real treat. And for special occasions, I love a fixed course menu, where the chef surprises you with three, four, or five courses. Why is it a surprise? Because with these meals, the menu changes daily, or weekly, allowing the chef to use the freshest, in-season ingredients. 

When it’s time to go out for a special occasion celebration, some really good options are easily accessible from Leschi. As a fan of farm to table dining, where meals are built around locally-sourced, in-season foods, I gravitate to restaurants that have perfected this concept. I especially like it when they prepare a meal around a theme, offering three, four, or five courses for a set price. When impressed by what a chef can do, I’ll go back another time and order from the à la carte menu. 

What kind of traveler are you? Do you like to know what you’re doing, where you’re eating, and plan things down to the last detail? I prefer building a loose outline and filling in the rest as we go. Spontaneous travel without advanced hotel reservations can result in a “no room at the inn” situation, so for a recent Southwestern road trip, I booked refundable lodging.

It was our second visit to Chiricahua National Monument. I’d never heard of this park until 2022, when a friend who grew up in Arizona said, “If you’re taking a Covid Road Trip in southern Arizona, Chiricahua is a must-see.” About two hours southeast of Tucson, we’d entered this park and discovered a place so fantastic, we scratched our heads wondering, “how in the world is this even possible?!”

For years, my home was full of pets: two cats and two dogs, all “rescues.” Over time, one by one, our animal companions died. First, Nile the cat, at age 19 or so. Then his sidekick, Sid. Next, we said a tearful goodbye to Mondo, our Jack Russell Terrier. Two years later, Poco, a Cairn Terrier, reached the end of his road.

The 2025 Northwest Flower and Garden Festival awarded its Founder’s Cup - the biggest prize of all - to Michael Orr of Method Hardscapes. His installation, “The Salish Retreat” included a large patio and a handcrafted, timber-framed pavilion with a fireplace made out of four giant boulders, a marvel to behold. But the two jaw droppingly beautiful totem poles, and the story behind them, put this entry above all the rest.

Nine years ago - in August - my youngest son moved to Phoenix. Hating the idea of him all by his lonesome in a U-Haul truck, I accompanied him. Driving through the desert, we needed oven mitts to open the door handles. It was 117 degrees! But that was summer. The time to go to Phoenix is in the winter, when Seattle’s weather is damp and dreary. 

As a special treat for my husband’s birthday, I’d gotten tickets to see Abraham Verghese at Benaroya Hall, part of the Seattle Arts and Lectures Series. The author of Cutting for Stone and The Covenant of Water - two best-selling novels - as well as nonfiction, is one of our literary heroes. 

Mercer Island owes its lushly landscaped lid park to former mayor and city council member, Aubrey Davis (1918 – 2013). In the 1960s, Washington State was eager to complete I-90, fulfilling the vision of a highway connecting all the way from Boston to Seattle. A thirteen-lane freeway slicing through the north end of Mercer Island was proposed. Davis’ mantra was “we don’t want to see it. We don’t want to hear it. We don’t want to smell it.”