January 2011

Contact your travel agent or Celebrity (800-437-3111) for information on the Millennium-class ships, including the latest entry, Summit , which features in its alternative dining room lacquered panels from the first-class smoking room of the great French ship Normandie . The fourth and final ship, the Constellation , will hold a collection of memorabilia and artwork from a variety of ships. To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the launching of the SS United States on July 3, 1952, Celebrity has scheduled a special tribute during the week of Infinity ’s June 28 Alaska cruise.

On February 22, 1865, the St. Louis Tri-Weekly Missouri Democrat announced a newcomer to the river: “ FORT BENTON PACKET, IDAHO AND THE GOLD MINES. THE NEW, FAST AND LIGHT DRAUGHT STEAMER, BERTRAND . . . WILL LEAVE ST. LOUIS FOR FORT BENTON ON THE OPENING OF NAVIGATION . . . .” Three months earlier the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer had hailed the launching, in West Virginia, of “a nice trim little steamer, neat but not gaudy, [that] sits on the water like a duck.”

The Arabia steamboat museum, located at 400 Grand Boulevard, Kansas City, Missouri, is open daily. On Monday through Saturday, tours start at 10:00 A.M. ; the last is at 4:30 P.M. On Sunday, tours begin at noon, with the last at 3:30 P.M. The museum is closed on New Year’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day. General admission is $8.50 with senior, child, and group discounts. For more information, call 816-471-4030 or 816-471-1856, or click on www.1856.com .

you can drive to the swamp, of course, but if possible, sail a boat down the James River in autumn. You’ll pass William Byrd’s stately mansion, Westover, near Charles City. Farther downstream you’ll find the cruciform, triple-chimneyed Jacobean manor called Bacon’s Castle that Nathaniel Bacon’s revolutionaries seized in 1676. From there head south to the Elizabeth River, where your charts will take you to the stone-and-wood lock at Deep Creek, gateway to the Great Dismal Swamp Canal. Your craft should draw no more than six feet. Both the Deep Creek Lock and the one at South Mills open four times a day, at 8:30 and 11:00 A.M. and at 1:30 and 3:30 P.M.

HOBOKEN is EASILY REACHED from Manhattan by subway or ferry. This subway, properly called the PATH train, runs 24 hours a day from five stations in Manhattan and charges $1.50 each way for the quick trip under the Hudson River. Visit www.panynj.gov/path/pathfram.htm to see a system map, or call 800-234-PATH for more information. New York Waterway’s ferryboats run seven days a week, crossing from West Thirty-eighth Street in Midtown Manhattan and Pier A at Battery Park. The fare is $3.00 each way, and the best views are from the open-air deck upstairs. For schedules, go to www.nywaterway.com , or call 800-53-FERRY.

On September 26, 1918, the Meuse-Argonne offensive began. The attack on the German lines in France lasted for 47 days, until the war’s end, and remains the longest battle in American history. During the assault, Gen. John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force, made his troops a surprisingly blunt promise: By Christmas, he told them, they would be in heaven, they would be in hell, or they would be in Hoboken.

Even with eternal bliss as a possibility, it’s a good bet that most of the mud-caked doughboys prayed they’d end up in Hoboken. The small and often overlooked New Jersey city, in the shadow of Manhattan’s skyscrapers, had been the last place they had stood on American soil, and if they were fortunate, it would be the first place they’d set foot there again. The lucky ones did, and before Christmas.

GO TO WWW.BIGISLAND.ORG FOR INFORMATION on everything, starting with how to get there. I took Aloha Airlines directly from Oakland, California, to the Big Island, in part because its coach seats really do offer more legroom (800-367-5250). As for accommodations, the Big Island has plenty in all price ranges. Three superb resorts close to not only trails but major petroglyph fields are the Orchid at Mauna Lani (808-885-2000), the Outrigger Waikoloa (808-886-6789), both on the Kohala Coast, and the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai in KailuaKona (808-325-8000), on the Kona Coast. On the other side of the island, near Volcanoes National Park, I like to stay at the Kilauea Lodge in Volcanoes Village, which has a good dining room (808-967-7366).