The Naked Face is a classic Sidney Sheldon mystery. Judd Stevens is a psychotherapist and several people close to him have been murdered. He isn’t sure if it is real or imaginary or if he is actually the target. It is even possible that he is having a breakdown and he is the murderer. This [...]

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We went to the Mansion at Judge’s Hill this weekend for dinner. I had never been to the restaurant. I had only been there for a wedding reception so I knew that their little courtyard was very pretty. Dinner is in the main house and it is beautiful. The ceilings are very high and very [...]

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After looking at a lot of Italy travel planning books, Fodor’s Essential Italy: Rome, Florence, Venice & the Top Spots in Between is the one I went with. We carried this book everywhere. It doesn’t have a lot of details about any one location within a city, but it has plenty to whet your appetite. We [...]

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Scorched Earth is the 13th book in the Able Team series by Dick Stivers. In this book, Able Team is heading to Mexico to help fight the heroin wars. On their way to Mexico, their jet is shot down by a Mexican gang in cahoots with a renegade arm of the Mexican army. The only [...]

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The Able Team Series by Dick Stivers is similar to Phoenix Force and the Mack Bolan series. Able Team is a group of commandos that is able to act outside the normal chain of command. They are sent to hotspots as an equalizer that doesn’t necessarily play by the rules. The first of these books [...]

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When we finally got to Vernazza after our long road hike from Corniglia, we decided to eat lunch. Vernazza was definitely the most crowded of the villages in Cinque Terre. I think there was a tourist bus that had let people off. We went down to the cove/beach/port to eat lunch. We ate outside overlooking [...]

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Corniglia is the middle village in Cinque Terre. It is the only village where the ferry does not stop. It is a pretty small little village that is very high up on the hillside. To get down to the water (which we did) it is hundreds of stairs. We tried to count, but it was [...]

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Typhoon Season is the 14th book in the Carrier Series by Keith Douglass. In this book, an American yacht has a run in with the Chinese military. The USS Jefferson is in the area to either avert a war between China and the United States or to fire the first shots. To help matters, Tombstone [...]

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We did the Crockett Falls/Crockett Gardens portion of the Good Water Trail at Lake Georgetown.  It was very secluded.  If you make it to the falls, make sure you go past the sign that points to who knows where.  The falls is a little farther up the trail.  I went off in the direction of [...]

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I’ve lived in Austin for 16 years and I’ve never heard of Commons Ford.  It was terrific.  There was no one there.  We saw a few people on the river, but no one in the park.  It could have been because we got there at 9:00 on a Sunday and the park does not open [...]

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