Step right up, folks!

Life is one big amusement park: thrill rides that make your stomach do flip-flops (Will I get that new job? Will he notice that I exist?), freak shows (pick any morning TV program—the one with Hoda & Kathie Lee, for example), cotton candy and fried things on sticks (those rare days when EVERYTHING lands in your favor, YUM!), games to test your skill (balancing the checkbook), exhibitions of humanity that defy the imagination (try people watching at any mall/airport/beach…). And you don’t even have to buy an admission ticket for all that.

As for me—I live to explore the world, from hidden treasures and wondrous experiences in my own back yard to what’s going on across the country and around the world. Almost every outing presents an opportunity to see or do something new. I never know what adventure awaits around the next corner.

I never expected to do barrel rolls over the Gulf of Mexico in an open-cockpit, circa 1941 biplane, but there I was, strapped in behind the pilot, laughing and hooting like the barnstorming aviatrix of my daydreams. I never expected to zip line through a Costa Rican forest, but I did—and dang, those valleys are deep and wide between aerial platforms!

I also never expected, after 20 successful years of working my way up to my “dream job,” that I’d quit the 9-5 grind cold turkey to do my own thing, which largely consists of investigating the infinite possibilities a creative life has to offer.

I’m going to be your Spirit Guide—your “Free Spirit” Guide—at this Roadside Attraction: introducing you to people and places, art and culture, food and drink, stuff that delights the senses: anything that I find interesting, entertaining, fascinating or just plain weird, posted here for your enjoyment.

Hopefully Roadside Attraction will encourage you to see the world in its Technicolor splendor and to appreciate the little things. Every person has a story and every place has its charms. Maybe Roadside Attraction will inspire you to explore new places of your own.

So now, I draw back the velvet curtain and present to you this Roadside Attraction serial, in which the curiosities of mankind shall be revealed in kaleidoscopic glory…

UP NEXT…Your Field Guide to One Helluva Sugar Rush…