Top Five: Most Restful Places

I've been to a fair amount of places and seen a fair amount of things. Over the years I've collected a few favorites. 

Here are my top five restful places, places that feel relaxing, and restorative:

1. Crane Beach, Barbados

With its pink coral-sand beaches and happy situation in the ocean (half of the island is windward and half is leeward, meaning half of the island has beaches with waves and half is mostly calm), Barbados is one of my favorite islands. On it's windward side, a special beach has captured my heart. There's just something so peaceful, so serene, so away from everything. Indeed, Crane beach feels as though it's perched on the very edge of the world.

Atop the rugged cliffs at The Crane sits The Crane Resort, a beautiful, old hotel (which recently has undergone major expansions and renovations, which are gorgeous!), which I cannot recommend highly enough!

2. Sundance Resort

There are a few things I like about Utah. Moab. Zion National Park. Hiking. Cafe Rio. And Sundance. If you need a relaxing state-side summer getaway, check out Sundance. Hiking trails in abundance, yummy eats, a beautifully manicured grassy knolls beneath tall pines and a great spa all make this place a great place to tune-out. If you like to Ski, go in the winter. Sundance's ski mountain isn't very large and it's fairly low in elevation, but several other world-class ski resorts are just a half-hour's drive further up the mountain. Check out my faves, Park City, Deer Valley and Brighton.

3. The Decks of any Cruise Ship

Anchored off the coast of Maui aboard Island Princess

Forward, Aft, port or starboard, there is nothing like being at sea on a warm day, surrounding by nothing but the big blue and a light breeze. A deck chair and a book are all you'll need to, as Princess Cruises says, Escape Completely...

4. Sawa Beach Camp, Red Sea, Egypt

Basic as basic comes, Sawa Beach camp is located on the Egyptian portion of the Red Sea and it is divine! Small huts built on cement slabs with palm roofs, each hut has a mosquito-enclosed mattress and a porch with a hammock. Communal bathrooms offer solar-heated water. A large common area for gathering and a restaurant. This piece of sea-front property will knock your socks off. Tip: Have the restaurant set up dinner for you on the beach. Perfection!

5. The Farm. 

This is last on my list only because, well, it's my family's and unless you're a relative or good friend, you probably won't ever visit my Gram's farm.

A World Made of... Salt

Just outside of Wendover, Nevada, on the Utah side of the border is a really, really cool spot: The Bonneville Salt Flats.

You might actually recognize this place. It's fairly famous. Films have been made here. (World's fastest Indian, and, of course, Pirates of the Caribbean 3). If you visit at the right time of year, you'll see lines of cars, SUVs and Motor Homes out on the flats, along the horizon, all there to check out the land-speed trials.

It's a crunchy, saline, dry world, crusted over with NaCl. You can take a walk, or even drive your car out onto the flats. But don't forget to rinse off afterward. Salt is a little bit uncomfortable, and corrosive to car paint.

I've wanted to take sunrise/sunset pictures here for ages. I've passed through before, but usually when the sun has been at it's zenith - a brutal, blinding time for photo taking. With an early wake-up call, I had a bit of better luck with light this trip:

Dear Mr. Redford,

The day after my Uncle's funeral I needed... something.

Instead of driving home from Utah on Sunday in order to be back at work on Monday (after just having driven 13 hours, all night, on Friday to get to Utah), I decided to take an extra day and drive back Monday. That meant that I had all of Sunday to rest, recuperate and relax.

It was a necessary thing, at that point, being on the brink of falling over from exhaustion, as I was. But a very basic problem presented itself quite early on in the day. The problem was that Utah has never been a relaxing place for me. For me, places carry visceral, emotional memory. 
Is it the same for you?
I associate places with times in my life, be they good, bad or somewhere in the middle.

Idaho: No thanks
Utah: Blech, stress and too many Mormons. (Can I say that? I'm Mormon. I just said it. There.)
California: Mostly good (except for the high cost of living, liberal yahoos, pollution, granolas, traffic and other such ridiculousness)
Caribbean: Heaven
Virginia: Home
Rome: Elysium
Craft Stores: Hell on earth
Airplanes: Exciting

SO there I was. In Blech. I mean Utah. For a whole day. With nothing to do and nowhere to go. I knew that I needed to accomplish two specific things to make the day successful:
1. A long nap. 
2. A hike.
(A Cafe Rio Salad would have made the day a trifecta, but I was in Utah and Cafe Rio is close-d on the Sabbath in Utah, which is great, unless one is traveling and wants to eat Cafe Rio every.freaking.day.)

Immediately, I was at an impasse. Where could I go to take a nap and not be bothered for a few hours? And then go for a hike? Where would I be welcomed with my blanket under a tree and not woken by hormonal college students or screaming children (a rarity in the area of "Family Town, USA")?

Sorting through the mental haze of jello-pudding-like goo that was my brain at that point, an answer popped into my head and off I shot! Down the freeway, like a semi-sluggish, sleep-deprived rocket I drove, then up the Provo Canyon and through the tunnel, ultimately hanging a louie and making for Robert Redford's little piece of respite in Utah. Sundance.

I don't know why Mr. Redford chose Utah, of all places, to create his blissfully relaxing resort, but I'm oh-so-glad he did. And oh-so-gladder that he chose a spot near Provo (one of the muscle-memory proverbial black holes in my universe). When I was at school at the "Y," I could always count on the fact that a little journey up the Canyon to Sundance would buoy my over-worked, over-stressed and otherwise mentally fatigued facilities.

This particular Sunday was no exception to my expectations. But this particular Sunday, I approached the place not as a student going for a hike, but as a grown-up traveler looking for some down-time.
I carried my blanket from the car to a patch of grass near the pond. It was a spot I'd lounged lazily at after many-a-hike. The deep gurgle of water rushing through the pond and on down the mountain coupled with other mountainous sounds - birds chirping, trees rustling, wind. I closed my eyes, only to open them again two hours later, feeling perfectly secure, perfectly content and absolutely comfortable that I was in a spot that no one would ask me to leave.

You know what I mean, don't you? Most nice resorts won't allow random people to nap on blankets on their lawns. A stuck-up looking concierge or the like will "politely" ask you to vacate the premises. Not so at Sundance. That's because Sundance is different. In fact, every staff member I encountered had the same uber-helpful-without-being-obtrusive vibe happening.

I overheard one glitzy woman exclaim to her travel partner in surprise "This place is surprisingly underdeveloped for a ski resort." The travel partner, a man who had obviously been to Sundance before, smiled a knowing smile and answered, "You think so?" He got it. She didn't. Places like Sundance aren't underdeveloped, they're protected from the machines of mass marketing and the finance geeks of the world. They exist, thriving on love and vision rather than solely on a bottom line.

I decided to do some exploring, and visited the art gallery and the glass-blowing facility. Both places I'd never seen before, despite having visited Sundance numerous times. Next, I wanted to hike. But I wanted to do something different what I'd done during my time there at University (Primarily Stewart Falls). So I bought a lift ticket and rode the ski-lift to the top of the first, summer-green rise, where I hopped off and explored the Dry Lake Loop. Every employee on the lift line greeted me with a smile, a bit of conversation and an "Enjoy your day!" By the time I'd ridden the lift back to the bottom of the mountain, I'd nestled up onto one side of the chair, legs stretched out along the seat, so mellow I could have kept riding all day, just feeling the breeze brush against my cheek, watching the mountain scenes change all around me and enjoying the game of lazy-peek-a-book the sun played with the fluffy-white clouds overhead.

So this is the Utah that vacationers rave about, I thought. Well, it's so lovely to finally meet you.

Classy, educational, yet ultimately very protective of both the nature surrounding it, and the human spirit of creativity, Sundance Resort is the perfect place for anyone to just get away, any time of year. Until next time, my friend.

 Betcha didn't know Utah has Aspen groves. For real.

Capture the Color Photography Contest

www.travelsupermarket.com is hosting a clever photography contest. Bloggers can enter by publishing a blog post of photos that capture the colors blue, green, yellow, white and red.

Here's my entry:

YELLOW: 

 I shot this photo on my first trip to Rome, in 2009. Why it took me until 2009 to visit Rome, I have no clue. I fell completely in love with the old, romantic, dirty, historic, fabulous city immediately, but especially with the buttery yellow color I saw everywhere, from the buildings to the sky.

BLUE:

While in Utah for a friend's wedding, I took a drive out to remote Saltair to see the weird salt/sand flats and the Salt Lake. A storm moved through during my time there and this is one of the really cool images from that day. The sky was so gray and ominous one moment and the next moment it opened up and *Bam* hello, gorgeous blue!

RED: 

My first taste of Greece was sampled via Sailboat. I snapped this photo of my chipped, red-polished toes just before jumping into the 19ft of beckoning, brilliant blue-green waters in the cove of a tiny, near-deserted island in the Greek Dodecanese Islands. (Of course, I put the camera down first.)

GREEN:

Exploring the beautiful Wadi Rum Preserve in Jordan was, at times, kind of like being on a driving version of Disney's Jungle Cruise. I think good ol' Walt must have visited this place and tried to mimic it's utterly amazing, exploratory (Indiana Jones-ish) feel. Pink sands, crystal clear starry skies at night and an unforgettable time staying overnight with the Bedouins in Wadi Rum were topped only by my falling head over heels for this amazing, faded old army-green truck. I was offered it, as part of my dowry, if I agreed to marry the local Sheik. Sadly, I had to leave the truck, and the Sheik behind.

WHITE:

While walking across one of Stockholm's many, many bridges, (the city was built on 14 islands) I happened to look down and see this gorgeous, swirly black body of water, almost oily looking it was so black. As I pulled my camera out, several swans, native birds to that region of the world, but beautifully exotic in mine, paddled into the area. I quickly fired off several shots and was super excited about this one.

All images Copyright Christy Warnick, 2012 

For the contest, I'm nominating: @sweetbookshelf, @kellywestover_, @itravel81, @the_HoliDaze, @natthefatrat and @OopseyDaisy917

To check out this fab photo contest, click here: http://www.travelsupermarket.com/c/holidays/capture-the-colour/

We'll Always have (Cafe) Rio...

I went to Utah.

I went to Utah this past weekend. I went for a wedding. Let me just say that very little in this world will entice me to go to Utah.
I simply do not like it there, Sam-I-Am.

You see. I went to school there. Against my own wishes. But according to my better judgement. I went to "The BYU," which is an entirely sound and delightful institution of higher learning. I received a great education there, hands-down, no-disputin' it. But I never really enjoyed the "College Experience" that BYU had to offer. And the campus, while clean, just didn't live up to my expectations of a college campus after having attending Indiana University (Beautiful campus!!).

As for Utah in general: I never really enjoyed the "Culture." (Call me crazy but I hate Jello) And there are just SOOOOO many Mormons in Utah! Geesh.

(Yes, I am Mormon also. So you could conclude that I ought to have fit in there... but I grew up in Northern California with *shock/horror* cultural diversity! And Berkeleyonite hippies. And call me crazy again, but I like diversity. And most hippies. And I want to grow old wearing long, flowy pants and tunics and scarves. True story.)

Anyhoo... Things that could get me to go to Utah include:

1. Skiing. It's pretty much awesome there. Great powder! Brighton. Park City. Love them!
2. Family doing stuff there. (Luckily I don't have much family there, so...)
3. A dear old college roommate getting married there.
4. Stopping there on a layover in the Salt Lake airport (grudgingly).
5. Not freaking much else!

Oh.
6. Zion National Park. I want to go.

So, that's it.

Wait!
Number 7 (lucky 7): Cafe Rio! YUM.

Can you guess what dragged me up there this time?

Bingo!!! Numero Tre.

A wedding.

And ya know what? I had fun. And when the wedding was over I found myself with an entire extra day. So I took two field trips.

I'll tell you about the first in another post.

The second field trip was to The Great Salt Lake! It's a real place you know. It's salty. And great. And a lake. Not unlike the Dead Sea.

And when I went (for the life of me I don't know why I'd never been, what with going to BYU for three years and all.) the sky had just finished a putting on a gorgeous display of lightning and rain and moody cloudiness, and was in the process of clearing all that away AND bringing on the sunset. What a lot of work all at once, right?

Well, that whole mess looked pretty much amazing.

See?