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Dunes Make Perfect Peaks
Friends met us in the park, but the café was closed. “Why don’t we go out to the dunas?” they asked. Why not? Every season’s different on the Duna da Cresmina, just up the coast from the town of Cascais, in Portugal. We’d walked the boardwalk in February, August, November, watching as the paths covered…
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A Toast To Normandy
We spent a week in Normandy commemorating the 75th anniversary of Operation Overlord, or, as we know it in the United States, D-Day. Everywhere we went, from our outpost in Dives-sur-Mer to the reaches of Point du Hoc, we witnessed an outpouring of emotion from the veterans making one last visit to the beaches they…
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The RAF Bar
The legend of the bar preceded our arrival in Cambridge. With the renowned collaboration between the U.S. and British air forces during World War II top of mind as we entered the week commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion—D-Day—we followed our fellow pilots to the bar where this friendship of Allies was literally…
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Salgados With Sagres
We turned the calendar over Memorial Day earlier this week, and–aside from the solemn honor we pay on that day to our fallen heroes–the day also marks the unofficial beginning of summer in the U.S. It might as well be true in Portugal, as well, because the thermometer has crept back up above 28C over…
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Layover In Lisbon
Even in a hotel filled with Americans, you can spot the airline crew the second you walk into the bar. The jean shorts, the golf shirts, the neatly groomed hair…the clutch of folks who clearly know each other well but cannot possibly be related in the family sense–because everyone’s about the same age save for…
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Geneva’s Flying Tiger
Geneva, with its Swiss-mountain backdrop and snow-fed lake, makes for an achingly beautiful postcard–or just the right setting for a high-end show of gorgeous new jet flying machines. It had been decades since I’d been there–and just passing through–so I welcomed the days I was there for EBACE (European Business Aviation Conference & Exhibition) in…
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A Goose At FL330
While there are those who would counsel you against imbibing at altitude (it’s dehydrating…it saps your energy…it disturbs your rest), I have my own cautions, but they’re far from the proscriptive sort. Two things: 1. Your sense of flavor’s dulled in the dry, almost-hypoxic cabin air. 2. Unless you’re in First, you’re going to be…
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Reviving In Philly
I almost had enough time to leave the Philadelphia International Airport, hit Reading Market, and return, but I didn’t feel intrepid enough to go through security again. That said, with nine hours to kill, I needed a cogent strategy in order to squeeze the most fun out of a long sit at what is arguably…
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Four Peaks In PHX
Strangers meet in airports—it’s such a cliché, yet it happens every day. Our intersections bring together disparate folks on a shared mission, Point A to Point B, sometimes on a journey extended by extenuating circumstances. The pair next to me chatted merrily—if at high volume— as I took a stool at Four Peaks Brewing in…
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Brewing On The Neck
We’d stopped by for Mother’s Day last year—the perfect outing for a fun-loving, taste-full mom—so it made sense on a Sunday visit to drop by the Montross Brewery on the Northern Neck in Virginia to see what new treats they had to try. The taproom’s been open for a couple of years now, and as…