Yes, getting a look at the "renters" in each campground -- or hotel or motel -- should definitely be part of the reconnaissance mission, especially if you're alone or alone with kids.

That "inner voice" is surely a learned response, a skill honed by time and experience, but its seeds, I believe, were planted in us at creation. We're hard-wired, I think, to be able to tell a teddy bear from a rat. Our "animal instincts." Incredible gift.

And, rockgarden, we, too have stayed in Nerja, Spain, at the El Capistrano Villages ( www.elcapistrano.com ). Spain's Costa del Sol is a great destination, and Nerja, I think, is the most beautiful of the Costa del Sol resort towns. Some of the towns on the Costa del Sol, like Torremolinos, are heavily developed and chock-a-block with high-rise apartment and hotel complexes. Nerja retains much of its old-world appeal. It's picturesque and offers quiet, languid glimpses into local history, architecture, culture and traditions that are lost in the sprawl of other coastal towns. Nerja has managed to keep its heart and soul intact.

I'm glad it's a new day. Last night was a computer meltdown marathon. The Microsoft Word on the upstairs PC must have been hungry, because it kept eating my son's history paper. He'd invest an hour or two, see the dreaded words "Normal...template...revert...recovery...do you want to, yes or no?" then poof, his work was gone. This happened three times. Six hours of work swallowed into the ether. Tough for a 16-year-old to take.

While he was tearing his hair out and IM'ing his friends in anguish, I was on my laptop at the kitchen table trying to update my website, which hadn't had a retool since January. Like most of you, I rely primarily on word-of-mouth, personal appearances and the Web to tell folks about "Ribbons of Highway," and I had some new reviews, publishing credits and, of course, my BWS Featured Author status to share.

Well, my laptop assumed multiple personalities, opened window after window in rapid-fire succession, prevented me from closing any of them, and spit porn, gambling and - no surprise - virus-killer shortcut icons all over my desktop.

Adam managed to coax his paper to completion, and I was able to freshen up www.LoriHein.com . (I'd love your feedback.) After our little journey into the cyberabyss and back, I went to bed thinking about how dependent we are on our computers. I resolved to back up my electronic book marketing activity with a bit more old-fashioned pavement-pounding. More face-to-face interaction and emphasis on visits to libraries and bookstores, speaking engagements, book club readings, church, craft and book fairs.

When the computer behaves, it can take us anywhere in the world. But there's a whole world in my own backyard, too. I just have to tear myself away from the computer screen and get out there and talk to it.

My computer crashed one day and I lost an entire chapter for my book. I started making copies on a floppy after that. How frustrating!

I've even started doing double backups -- floppies and CDs. I've had floppies that suddenly turned "corrupted" on me and were rendered useless. I, too lost a large chunk of my book one evening. About three hours' worth of writing. I took a deep breath, started over, and I think that what came out the second time was better than the first effort. The silver lining, I guess.

In writing a blog story about Morocco that I'll be posting in the near future, I included, as I have in stories to places like Srinagar, India, links to Web sites that offer travel advisory information. World travel is a rich, rewarding experience, but it carries risks, and it's wise to be informed before setting out.

I recommend reading the travel advisories posted by the governments of the U.S., the UK and Australia. Here are links to their travel warnings pages:

U.S. Department of State -
Home page: http://travel.state.gov
Warnings page: http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_1764.html

UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office -
Home page: www.fco.gov.uk
Warnings page: www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1007029390590

Australian government travel advice page: www.smartraveller.gov.au/zw-cgi/View/Advice/Index

It's also useful and enlightening to read newspapers from the countries you're planning to visit. Find links to newspapers worldwide at www.World-Newspapers.com and www.OnlineNewspapers.com .

Because the links I just provided were so long, I just checked them all to make sure you'll get to the sites. The Australian government link didn't work, so just use the homepage, www.smartraveller.gov.au and find the advisories from there.

(If you go to these sites from this forum, it takes a bit of aggressive back button clicking to return to BWS, but you'll get there...)

These sites make for some fascinating "travel reading."

And, of course, it's these security issues -- the ones travelers need to be aware of before heading abroad -- that are helping fuel the heightened interest in domestic travel since September 11 (although gas prices will no doubt take a toll on the number and length of our road trips). But more of us are indeed looking for great travel experiences within the U.S. and Canada. Terrorism has increased our desire to find beauty and wonder right here at home.

Here is another excerpt from "Ribbons of Highway: A Mother-Child Journey Across America," an excerpt that I read aloud at an interfaith observance marking the third anniversary of September 11:


There are moments, so many of them as you travel America, when something about this land takes your breath away. Its diversity and beauty enrich and amaze. A gorgeous land, one tableau melting into another. You need only crest the next summit or round the next lake or cross the next valley to come to someplace breathtaking, alive, proud, or peaceful. Someplace vast, productive, interesting, or important.

Often on this journey, when we came to a place that was exquisite in its way, I thought about September 11. On many a 300-mile day, which might have seen us rise in one time zone and retire in another, I thought about terrorism, still jarringly fresh and disturbingly fearsome.

But the magnificence and seeming infiniteness of the land put terrorism into perspective, and I was quieted. I shared my thoughts with Adam and Dana. They would inherit the world we lived in and helped create, and it was important to talk about America not just as a landscape or road trip or series of historic, cultural or scenic stops, but as a living, organic nation of people trying to find its best fit in the puzzle of the world. In trying, we’ve made and will make mistakes, and, more now than in the past, the world will ask us to pay for them. Sometimes, payment exacted will be fair and just. Sometimes, as on September 11, it will be insane, brutal, and murderous.

But, being out in America, getting up every day with the sun to follow new roads, I fell in love with the country I’d lived in and taken for granted for 44 years. I saw her strength and her strengths. Terrorism would be a fact of life, perhaps for generations, but the country we were traveling through told us not to fear. On the whole, we’ll be okay, it said.

America in its soul is a good, honest place. I found myself thinking that terrorists could pick away at small bits of us, like they did in Manhattan, killing people and creating hell on earth in some targeted corner of our world. But they could never take it all down. They could obliterate small pieces and make despair and chaos rain down on some chosen area. But the whole is just too big to bring down, and the people too resolved and resilient. They can’t really get us, I’d think, as we drove through endless landscape that changed and changed and brought more wonder the longer you spent in it. They could jab, but the nation’s sheer size would keep it standing, with tough pockets and corners stepping in to help tend wounds and fill gaps.

The quiet places intrigued me most. America is not just New York or Chicago or San Francisco or Miami. It’s a powerful chain of strong, silent, little known places that relish their freedom and react when it’s challenged, whether by bureaucrats, developers, punks, or terrorists. People and places that step in and act when something they love is messed with. I thought and felt this as we moved through the land.
---


www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1591134536/

Beautiful.

Thank you, Dianne. (If I keep posting excerpts, no one will ever have to buy my book. They'll be able to come here to BWS and read it...)

I just sent an email to your sister, Linda. I asked her if she'd mind if I pointed folks to her Paris Photo Tours ( http://parisphototours.com ) in a future blog post. I add new travel stories to the blog three or four times a week, and I'm overdue on a story about France.

And ladies, Dianne's sister offers The Girl's Day Tour -- a tour of Paris just for women. Shopping, tea rooms, chic haircuts, a hammam ... Sounds awesome. Also, her site has a link to Panache Rentals, which offers short- and long-term apartment rentals in Paris. Find them at www.panacherental.com. I think we can safely assume it's a good outfit if Dianne's sister recommends it.

I told her she should have a Sex in the City tour since the last season was filmed mostly in Paris. We went to one of the restaurants that was in the show.

You're doing a great job on this thread, by the way.