travel

We all love easy answers to life's pesky problems.
An unusually sweltering week in May? Must be global warming. A news story we don't like? The left-wing media conspiracy (or right-leaning Fox News).

A visit to Colonial Williamsburg serves up a smorgasbord of emotions. Awe in that so many of its quaint 18th-century buildings are still standing. Delight in being able to take a clopping carriage ride along the august avenue known as Duke of Gloucester Street, or watch tradesmen practice brick-making and shoemaking with 18th-century tools.

Antigua, pronounced locally as "An-TEE-ga" rather than "An-TEE-gwa," was named by Columbus in 1493 on his second voyage to the New World, after the Church of Santa Maria la Antigua in Valladolid, Spain. But English settlers made the "u" silent.

Conversely, Barbuda is "Bar-BEEOO-dah," not "Bar-boo-dah."

If you go: Williamsburg, Va.

Getting there: Colonial Williamsburg is 150 miles south of Washington, D.C., near Interstate 64 (exit 238).
Visitors can also fly into Norfolk, Newport News/Williamsburg International and Richmond International airports.

My last meal consisted of a bagel with cream cheese and fruit yogurt gulped down in the hotel room before dawn. So, fast-stepping through Terminal C of Washington's Reagan National Airport 12 hours later, I was looking both for the gate to my US Airways flight and a place to chow down.

A 'yes' man, in the finest possible way.
Ronald MacDougall has been on call around the clock since New Year's Eve 2003. As resort host, he caters to the needs and whims of VIPs at the Don CeSar Beach Resort and Spa in St. Pete Beach. Discretion is his stock in trade. Don't ask him to name names.
Q. Who qualifies as a VIP?

Before the camera rolls and Evelyn Madonia extols the wonders of her Red Rose Inn, she wants makeup. Lots of makeup.
"Are you ready for sparkles?" the makeup artist kneeling in front of her asks.
"Always."
Madonia is the face of the Red Rose Inn, a woman who proves that elbow-length gloves can be worn regularly in the 21st century.

Why take your dog on vacation?
It's a reasonable question. For some people, the dog is one of the reasons they need a vacation.
But with more hotels and tourist sites welcoming the fuzziest member of the family, the better question just might be: Why not take the dog?

Beginning this summer, pets will be able to fly to meet up with their human companions on vacation.
Pet Airways, a pets-only airline that transports animals in the main cabin, starts July 14 and will serve five airports: Teterboro (west of New York), Baltimore/Washington, Chicago Executive, Rocky Mountain Municipal (near Denver) and Hawthorne Municipal (near Los Angeles).

Vacation travel season is almost upon us and it looks like getting there from here, or elsewhere, is going to be as bad as it has been in past summers -- or worse.