Jeremy was deployed to Afghanistan on July 2nd, and our life before & immediately after was an emotional and logistical frenzy. So when Dad brought up his life-long dream of spontaneously flying to NYC to catch a show, I took the bait. We decided to go for several days, a week after Jeremy left. It was good having something happy on the horizon during all the stress, and turned out to be a week of father-daughter Weilbacher fun. Sure, we had shared Google docs to plan, but for us, it was indeed spontaneous and lax!

We stayed at a modern boutique hotel (Solita Soho Hotel) on the border between Soho and Little Italy – it straddled awesome food, awesome shopping and an awesome lack of tourist mobs. That is the trifecta of NY happiness. What we did not expect was the triple digit temperatures: our first day there was 103. Now this Florida girl is not one to complain about heat, but combining concrete jungle, 103 and walking all of lower Manhattan: we were crosseyed.

New York is New York, so I won’t try to recreate Fodors by describing it. We did an “off the beaten path” kind of trip anyway. We walked around a lot, ate at little local joints, and just went with the flow. So here are some photo highlights (you can check them all out here on my Flickr album). We’ve all sat through enough “vacation slideshows” that take an hour. So I’ll try to keep this manageable

Eating. Eating. Eating. This is something at which we are extremely skilled. French food took a front seat this trip (if I have any rein, I choose French!) Le Pain Quotidien was a little French bakery with long wooden communal tables, that served up delicious European breakfast. We started a few mornings here & each bite was heaven. We also had a delicious steak dinner at Les Halles, of Anthony Bourdain fame. It was a dark cozy bistro with loud music, dismissive servers (I chalk it up to “french influence”), delightful food, and French pressed coffee. A few other great foodie moments were: stumbling on the Full House Cafe in Chinatown, and randomly choosing the Bridge Cafe by the south seaport which is the oldest continuous bar in the city.

Because I was so busy trying to help Jeremy get ready to deploy, I hadn’t had much time to research & plan like I typically do for a trip. The only thing I knew I absolutely wanted to see, was the Highline in Chelsea. It’s a defunct elevated train line, turned into am aerial garden footpath. It’s an amazing greenspace with almost 2 miles of nature, shady benches, breezes, and art students sketching the skyline. I’ve been very interested in urban greenspaces, and NY had a great reputation for initiating projects like public schools creating vegetable gardens on their roofs, and this Highline. Added benefit: when sweat was running in our eyes, it was divine being up high, blowing in the breeze with the wildflowers.

We saw two incredible shows – “Lend Me a Tenor” and “Fuerzabruta”. First we saw Anthony Lapaglia and Tony Shaloub in “Lend Me a Tenor” and it was hilarious. As in, “my cheeks hurt so bad from laughing” hilarious. It was the kind of show where you could see how much fun all of the actors were truly having. The photo above is from “Fuerzabruta“, a gorgeous interactive performance (akin to Stomp or Blue Man Group) which transcends language). Thumping techno gets the whole audience jumping & engaged. This photo is of a huge water tank suspended above inches our heads, with 4 girls on basically a theater-sized slip-n-slide. It was artistic, fun and joyous, and again – you could see and feel the energy of the performers.

One of the only “touristy” things we did was a cruise around the Manhattan island at sunset. And if you’re going to do something tourist, this is definitely the one to pick! Here’s a shot of the Statue of Liberty, framed by the Manhattan bridge & Brookyn bridge.

Ok, so I fibbed. I had 2 plans – to see the Highline and to shop! Soho is the obvious choice for all the “big brands” and I pounded the pavement hard there. But I also took a morning to tour the thrift and vintage shops in Soho, Nolita and the Lower East Side. I pumped Ana Tijoux on my iPhone, and literally shopped til I dropped. Edith Machinist turned out to be the vintage shoe mecca of the world. Housing Works is a chain of high end thrift stores, with proceeds going to housing for AIDS patients. I also stumbled on Laboratorio Del Gelato in the Lower East Side, which refortified me for more shopping (hellooooo black mission fig gelato)!

But the best part of the trip? Hanging out with Dad. Geeking out various Apple stores. Getting lost trying to walk on the Brooklyn Bridge (don’t ask). Asking every single cabbie and doorman where he is from. Fodors doesn’t tell you about those kinds of adventures!

We just took a long weekend to visit Jeremy’s family in Lake Charles, Louisiana. It’s a solid 14 hour roadtrip, but we stopped for sno-cones in Mississippi (I got coconut flavor)! We spent most of the weekend photographing the beautiful scenery, swamps, bayous & wildlife. They also took us out on their boat on Lake Charles and along the ever-narrowing forks of the Calcasieu River, where we saw waterfront mansions, rusted tin roof cajun shacks, boys on rope swings jumping into the water, and lots of other happily sunburnt boaters. Naturally, conversation everywhere turned to the oil situation and we went to a beach just to see if anything was happening there. No oil, but a little city & beach decimated by Hurricane Rita that was slowly beginning to rebuild – but the scars of such events run deep and are seen all over. The crawfish was unbelievably good, the people were unbelievably welcoming & gracious, and there’s a radio station in French (with that wonderful cajun twang).

Feel free to visit my album of photos from the trip, and check out Jeremy’s as well.

Here’s a sample of the one-of-a-kind Louisiana moments I feel privileged to have seen:

Louisiana lakes, smooth as glass, just after dawn

Crawfish, Me (taken by Jeremy), and Jeremy shooting on the boat

Courtesy of Hurricane Rita, in the tiny costal town of Cameron, LA

Purple wildflowers

Dramatic clouds at the Pintail Wildlife Drive off Creole Hwy near Cameron, LA

Yesterday a friend told me where to find a local “you pick ‘em” blueberry farm – I’ve been on the hunt. I couldn’t find any friends out & about today (and on my sister’s scale, I rank below her friends… typical!!!) So I was fixing to just go by myself, no biggie, I figured I’d take lots of photos & wander around. Then DAD said he’d go. You know… “just to keep me company.”

Now, Dad has never picked a thing in his life. Mom & I pick everything we can get our hands on – you’ve already heard about our loquat escapades!. Her side of the family is thick with generations of gardeners & farmers. My grandma’s pickles beat out all the mountain folk at the Carolina fairs & just today she told me about the ripe tomatoes in her garden; and my Uncle Bill can grow a feast if you give him an inch of soil. Dad’s parents, on the other hand, loved the cooking part… just not the “getting dirty” part. And Dad has rightfully inherited Grandaddy Bob-Bob’s culinary skills. But dirt? outside? picking things? Not really his style.

Or so I assumed. Next thing I knew he was rummaging around the garage for buckets. If he’d had time, he would have googled the best picking techniques. We raced off in my truck, with a huge thunderstorm looming in the distance. The blueberry farm was close by… (you can go to the LocalHarvest.org website to find local farms, farmers markets & co-ops close to you).

The farmer, Jim, pointed us towards the endless rows of potted blueberry bushes – $4 a pound. Can’t beat that, when they’re about $6 a pint at the grocery store. Dad was so cute: first he paced down the row checking them out, then would pick just the biggest ones. He answered work phone calls about computer problems, and compared my bucket to his. He had less than I did, but they were all perfect looking. I pick everything ripe off of a single bush before moving onto the next. (Maybe I’m just a lazier picker!)

The sky was getting thicker & the rain was about on top of us. I could feel it prick at the back of my neck & the temperature dropped fast. Just look at the sky in the photos I’m posting here – can’t you feel that rain about to come? So Dad poured his berries into my bucket & we headed back to the barn to pay up. 2 pounds even. The first quarter-sized drops hit the windshield as got in the truck, and by the time we pulled out onto the hard road it was a downpour.

15 minutes to pick 2 pounds of blueberries with my Dad. Fantastic. If you know my dad, you know that he shows love by DOING. And today that meant getting away from the computer, getting a little dirtier than normal & having purple fingers. I guess this means I have to share some of the cobbler I make with him, huh? Yeah, he earned it.

Question: How do you end up in such a gorgeous, quiet place like this?

Answer: By kicking up dirt & riding noisy 4-wheelers around in the backwoods for hours with 6 of your best friends!

(Jeremy striking a manly pose)

It’s spring in Florida (and Mom’s birthday today!) so that means little orange loquats dangle from the trees like Christmas ornaments. My momma, Susan, has a one-tracked mind as soon as they’re ripe. She knocks on strangers doors to ask if she can pick their loquats. She’ll drive all over town trying to find one she spotted the day before. And (my favorite), she regales us with stories that start with “So I sat there in the car trying to decide – that tree was covered in loquats, but it was smack in the middle of yard of a scary looking trailer, and I didn’t want to get shot!”

Momma even remembers being about 3, and her grandaddy lifting her up high to pick the loquats across the neighbor’s fence. So she comes by all of these fruit-inspired shenanigans honestly! So when she & I found a perfectly ripe tree in the middle of town, we naturally filled up a bagful of them (yes, we asked first). We were originally in search of the more elusive mulberry, but we were NOT about to turn down these beauties! We had a great time picking & photographing them (and each other!)

Are you asking me: “What the heck are you rambling about? What’s a loquat anyway?!” I gotcha covered. They’re a sweet little fruit that grows in bunches, kinda like grapes. Touch your fingertip to your thumb – that’s about how big they are. And they’re bright orange when they’re sweet & ripe. Loquats have a thin, super-soft fuzzy skin & flesh like a peach, and a “peach grape” is about the best way to describe them. There’s about 3 hard, smooth pits in the center (so have a seed spitting contest).

When I got home with my bag o’quats, I consulted my favorite food/cooking site, The Kitchn, for ideas on perhaps baking with them. Here’s what a I found: an entire page of people saying “Forget that, just stand under the tree & eat them on the spot like the rest of us!” No matter. By the time I finished reading it, I’d eaten them all anyway.

So here’s to my momma, the loquat-hunting queen, on her fifty-something birthday: May your life continue to be fruitful & sweet! I love you, your Katie girl.

I’m a driver. Always have been. I’m a windows-down, hand-in-the-wind, music-blasting, cruising around kinda gal. (Oh and I say “gal” apparently). One of my favorite things to clear my head is to go for a long drive on the backroads in the country.Out past the phosphate mines, there’s this long dusty, sandy road with a handful of strawberry & orange farmers, and lots of cows. And zero traffic. Perfect place to kick up some dust and smell the orange blossoms. So for those of you somewhere still wintery, or those of you at a desk for the moment, here’s a little mini-roadtrip in Florida just for you. Happy Travels!