Hong Kong is to New York as New York is to Texas

Hong Kong, China

It took less than 30 minutes, at the dinner hour, to zip through Chek Lap Kok Airport immigration, grab our bags and board the A21 double decker bus (US$4 for the 40 minute trip) to Tsim Sha Tsui. Deplaning 525 passengers from our Emirates Airlines Airbus 380 took longer.

Many things have changed in the almost 25 years since my last visit to Hong Kong. And a few did not, like the Star Ferry. Still a suprisingly peaceful way to cross the harbour, probably because most people are riding the subway.

Hong Kong is built for speed. This city-country that never sleeps is still the King of Capitalism. Scrambling out of the bus before....

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Build It and They Will Come

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

If the United Arab Emirates had a slogan it would be: Go Big or Go Home.
Dubai's ski-hill-in-a-mall has a chalet experience. A cozy place, under the concrete sky, to rest from the 20-second, one-turn run.
Money is no obstacle in the United Arab Emirates, a country the size of Maine. To prove it they built a ski hill. Nestled in the desert on the Persian Gulf. In the center of the largest city. Inside Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates, not far from Chanel and Cartier. It’s real snow, on a two-turn mountain, shaped like an L. It has a Quad Chairlift. Whether watching, as I did, or skiing as MacGyver did, it is a mind bending sight.
The locals rent down parkhas and ride the Quad Chair up and down the mountain, photographing the crazy foreigners shushing down the hill on sticks, on snow, in the desert. MacGyver is photographing an Arab woman in an abaya and a shayla, the Gulf style head covering, wearing a long down coat. She is photographing the foreigners sitting in the snow trying to control their sticks, er skis.
And that’s only one of the over-the-top activities....

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MacGyver Takes Podium at Ferrari World Grand Prix

Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Don’t be fooled. Ferrari World’s raison d’etre is for the old boys, not the young ones galloping excitedly between the candy-apple red race cars.

A Ferrari Formula One car on display at Ferrari World, the world's largest indoor amusement park with the world's fastest rollercoaster, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.When I made my future husband list, in the top five criteria was: must not like organized sports. I was thinking hockey, baseball or football, something that can be religiously followed anywhere by all media, TV, newspapers and radio. Not only did MacGyver not watch these sports, he seemed to be a modest participant in the favorite five activities of men, worldwide, that are loathed by women...

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Dog Days of Summer Sucked

Livingston, Montana

A husband and wife team pulling a stepdeck loaded with a small truck pulled up beside us on the gravel parking lot at the Livingston, Montana truck stop.

“We watched the load board every morning and by the time we left home we were willing to take anything to get out,” she told me. “I’m worried freight is dropping off earlier this year.”
The freight 'glory days' of late July. We are escorted onto the tarmac at Miami Airport to transfer MRI equipment bound for Chile.
Full of optimism we moved up the trucking ladder in July, dropping our 53 foot dry box trailer and picking up a stepdeck or dropdeck, platform trailer. Expecting to run hard into the fall, we were stopped dead. Freight fell off a cliff for us in Denver, Colorado on Monday, August 13th, the day we delivered our load-from-hell, a load we mothered for an entire week.

“I hate to get into politics,” she said. “But I think businesses are just waiting now, to see what happens (with the presidential election in November.) We’re not considering buying a new truck until we feel it’s right.”

Truck drivers are the economy’s canary in the coal mines. The Dow Jones Transportation Average (DJT) is well below it’s May high of 5,390. Truckers see things....

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Ten Years Beyond the Best Day Ever

Flagstaff, Arizona

“Oh come on,” MacGyver’s voice was gentle with an exasperated edge.

“For 99 percent of the population this is the trip of a lifetime,” he continued. “For you it’s just Saturday.”
The eruption 1100 years ago of the Sunset Crater Volcano north of Flagstaff, Arizona created spatter pools. A hole in the ground surrounded by black lava rock walls.
While I am capable of shocking people -- I headed off to the Caribbean for a sailing adventure when I’d never been on a sailboat and I learned to drive a big truck when I hadn’t driven a car in ten years -- I am a pampered creature, a city girl, who doesn’t like to be uncomfortable and doesn’t like to put out much physical exertion, only when absolutely necessary, like the day we got married.

Ten years ago today...

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