Have you ever pumped one?’ She asked.

I’ve pumped a bike tire.

Not the same. I am not sure this trip is for you. Especially with men on board. They have no shame – no inhibitions at all, doesn’t matter how small the quarters are. You’ll probably be constipated for a week.’

We were talking about a potential group sailing trip in western Canada with Jessica and her family on one boat, Stretch, his father John  and me on another plus assorted boats in our regatta where Jessica, who is originally from Seattle, was friends with the people on board. We would be somewhere north of Vancouver in a place called Desolation Sound.

Jessica was giving it to me straight. The pros – stunning nature, warmer water than one expects in British Columbia, good people. The cons – the bathroom situation. And I wasn’t loving the name. Serene Sound, Soothing Sound, even Simple Sound, I’d take. But Desolation Sound? Made me think of the Donner Party. And that didn’t end well.

Somehow I signed up for this adventure. It seemed so far away at the time. As July drew closer and I was looking for reassurance that all would be well from Stretch, he adopted a comforting mantra:

This trip was your idea.

Okie doke – time to be a big girl, channel my inner Laura Ingalls Wilder, Jane Goodall, Ellen MacArthur – all those people I admired but never wanted to be.

Day one started out well in Seattle. I had my final bath in the hotel, donned my seasickness bracelet and handy wipes – you never know – grabbed my rustic duffel and headed to Kenmore Air’s seaplane airport on Lake Washington.

The two hour flight to Gorges Harbour was stunning…

And things didn’t look so bad upon landing…

I signed up immediately – for what could be my last massage. Ever. (Moby Dick’s great-grandson could still be lurking around)

Eventually, Stretch and John arrived from Vancouver (they sailed the boat, while I had opted for the seaplane route)

The moment of truth had come. It was time to get sailing…

and pumping

I liked the sailing a whole lot more than the pumping – Land stops like these got me excited:

I tried to view the pumping as a form of personal training – working on those bat wings – alternating arms key. Going to bed was a whole other exercise. Here’s Stretch demonstrating – and remember two people, not just one – had to squeeze into these snug premises…

Apart from these jolts to my previously pampered self, I was awestruck by the beauty of Desolation Sound. One particular swim in Unwin Lake at Tenedos was the highpoint of my summer. No people, no Moby Dick descendants, just us surrounded by clear, clean warm water and pine trees. As Jessica’s husband Maurice said,

This swim alone is worth the flight from London. The best places are the hardest to get to.

Below is part of Jessica’s gang towelling off…

Another highpoint was hanging out with Jessica, a 30-year friendship. We lost our tender on day one so she became my official gondolier…

I learned a bit about sailing too – terms like ‘rail candy’ (a bikini’d blonde on the bow), ‘here comes a puff’ (something about oncoming currents gathering steam- very exciting to sailors), and those famous last words, “we’re almost there’ (add another few hours).

Here’s me doing a lot of easing and releasing, I think. My total concentration is due to the fact that Captain John lost part of his thumb years ago not being focused…

I became so into sailing that ominous signs like this on our boat’s broken navigation system didn’t terrify me (plus I could swim to Jessica’s boat if needed)

I stopped looking in the mirror (there barely was one anyway) as Feral Elena has never been my best look. Style went out the window too. It was oddly freeing.

And when our last supper supplies ran short

I didn’t cry. Laura Ingalls Wilder thoughts kept me strong.

We had no wi-fi, no tender, a broken navigation system, no coiffeur on board, and somehow it was the trip of a lifetime – in a good way. I was surrounded by more natural beauty than I can remember with people that I love. Everyone was happy as this really was a total escape with zero pressure to look good or cook the perfect meal. We swam a lot, hiked when we could, made do and laughed a lot in the doing. The wind on our sails, the sun beaming down on us – who knows maybe a sailor was born?

Not to mention, the bat wings -Definitely flapping less.

Here’s a map to help you figure out where we were –

Bon Voyage

August, 2018

The post Sailing in the Big Blue Yonder appeared first on Elena Bowes.

“If 55 and over,” the label reads, “do not put directly against the skin.”

I toss caution to the wind and put the heat pad directly onto my 55+ back. If you don’t hear from me in a month, call my super.

Stretch and I like a musician called Miguel, a bit Marvin Gaye mixed with Prince. So, like normal people we buy tickets to go see him perform. My kids react like we are taking a gap year back packing around South America.

Julia, did you know Mommy and Stretch are going to a Miguel concert and their tickets are in the mosh pit so they can dance…

Julia: Hahahahahahaha

OMG

They’re gonna freak out.

Ignore. That’s my new mantra. Not just my kids but the Miguel security guard. Everyone in front of us in the line was flashing their IDs. I didn’t think it was so hilarious that I was too.

M’am, you can put that way,” chuckled the guard.

Clearly, he had not glanced down to see my age-defying, hip ensemble – black leather trousers, Duro black and yellow top and black sneakers (no socks).

I am just not so sure about this ageing thing. It sneaks up on me when I am innocently just going about my business. When did people start calling me M’am?  Or CVS get so mean? “All Levels Yoga” sounds pretty tame, doesn’t it? It is so NOT, all levels or tame. If it were, I wouldn’t have stopped mid-class, mid-pose (along with not-so-bendy Stretch) to assume Resting Buddha pose. Meanwhile, the remainder of the class blissfully contorted themselves into positions that frankly, looked unsafe and a bit show-off-y.

The above is a roundabout way of explaining why I fell in love with Rancho la Puerta (RLP), a health spa in Baja California, Mexico that made me feel remarkably more youthful after just a week. I found my people. First night I went to a talk on how diet can prevent dementia. The next day it was time to get down and dirty with some Zumba Funk. No one laughed at me, which is not to say I didn’t laugh a lot throughout the week.

Manuel, the beloved Puerto Rican fitness instructor, gave it to us straight:

Listen my friends at this age you are never going to have a six pack. Just get over it. Train for function. Train for health. Not ego.

Manuel with my friends Ann and Nancy below.

Touted as a “camp for adults” RLP is anything but fancy. To be honest, I was slightly dreading going. The rooms are basic with no wi-fi, internet, or TV and only the patchiest of cell service.

Around the ranch mobile phone calls and internet are only allowed in certain designated lounges. Alcohol isn’t exactly forbidden, but it might as well be. My friend Nancy, a regular along with her sister Ann and friend Andrea, told me what she really loves are the 7am hikes. I’m a creature comfort gal. None of this was singing comfort to my well-tuned ears.

But I liked the idea of a girls’ trip and exiting New York in February for Tecate, Mexico did sound appealing.

What I re-learned at RLP is how much fun camp is. By forcing people to disconnect, you actually reconnect to yourself and everybody else at the ranch as no one is buried in their devices.  I met lots of interesting people, loved the boulder-filled hikes at dawn on Mt Kuchumaa which borders the 4,000-acre ranch,

and got pleasantly lost on the ranch’s myriad of meandering garden-filled paths. I Hula-Hooped, Trampolined, and  did some sound-healing. Below are Mark and Denise L of Paradise (yes, that is their name), their company The Resonance Code.

I fed a few hens.

I even played Bingo. I almost won the Biggest Loser prize, but narrowly lost that. That takes real talent.  Every night I’d read a few pages of my book (no scanning Instagram option) until I fell into a deep, contented sleep.

Founded in 1940 by Deborah Szekely and her late husband,

RLP’s essence has not changed in 78 years. Mind, body, spirit all get a reboot here. There is so much to do that I wasn’t bored for a nanosecond, and the healthy food tasted too good to be healthy. You can go back for seconds, even thirds.

I try to give you so much to do that you want to come back. I want to offer something for every person, said Barry Shingle, director of guest relations and programming. Whoever you are, you’re going to find something to do.”

Shingle, who moved to the ranch from Seattle with a degree in Journalism 18 years ago, is clearly very fond of Deborah, and hosts weekly Bingo night with comic flair.

While I exercised in the mornings, I spent many an afternoon researching the slew of fab spa offerings. There is always a talk after dinner. My personal favorite is the weekly Q&A with Deborah, who turns 96 in May.

Deborah is a force; she works out five times a week, keeps a treadmill in her bathroom, is actively engaged in the ranch and civic projects in San Diego and watches her diet – no meat, chicken or cheese. Here are a few of her pearls:

Q: What keeps you so healthy?

A: Friends are very important. Loneliness is a pernicious disease. And you have to decide not to be lonely not when you’re 60 or 70, but when you’re 40 or 50. It’s by doing favors. My mother had a thing about friends. “You cannot give with a closed hand’. The act of giving is the act of receiving.

Q: How do you stay so mentally sharp?

A: Curiosity. I’m really interested in a lot of things. I read a lot. I want to know. There’s so much to learn in life, and I never get bored.

Q: What else would you attribute to living so long?

A: I never thought about living so long. I live in the moment. This morning we had hail. I really enjoyed getting out into the hail. It’s sort of like having an ice cream cone… I don’t fret about the past.

Q: What would you like us all to leave with?

A: I’d really like to see all of you being focused on your own community, on your own people, share what you learn here to help others.

April, 2018

The post Getting Older, Staying Younger – From Miguel to Rancho La Puerta appeared first on Elena Bowes.

Dawn to dusk this group of nearly twenty women and one patient husband persevered, never letting exhaustion, hunger or fabric fatigue  dampen their will to enter just one more shop.

Dig, dig, dig, that’s what you have to do in these shops, said Fine to me, the obvious weak link in the pack. Always haggle! And of course, you should NOT get things made but I Do it as I can’t resist. Sometimes it works and it is fabulous.  Sometimes I cannot believe just how they screwed up!! I have a true love hate with the process. I think the key is to make pieces, have them in time before you leave so you can make alterations if necessary.

Like an archeologist on the scent of an old bone, this group of women – many working in the design world – somehow knew that under that pile of random materials, lay the perfect quilt, bedspread or tea cosy that they’d been hankering after for years.

It’s a textile frenzy, insanity but it’s worth it, said Fine, who has been to India over fifty times in the last 19 years.

While Fine may live between Dallas and Manhattan, her heart is firmly based in the exotic east, where she draws much inspiration for her covetable textile line.

Fine and the Texan athletes flaunted their purchasing prowess in Rajasthan’s shopping mecca Jaipur. We flew to Jaipur at the crack of dawn from lake-filled Udaipur and spent the day visiting several of Fine’s favorite haunts, never bothering to check in to our hotel, put our feet up, lie by the pool, sit. No, we had work to do.

 I always go to Anokhi, the Zara of India with blockprint designs at dirt cheap prices, said Fine. And I love the carmelized onion, Gorgonzola pizza, orange cake and fresh pomegranate juice for lunch at the Organic Cafe next door.

For the sheer quantity of choice and range of colors, Fine likes two Jaipur spots, blockprint nirvana Ridhi Sidhi

and antique fabric and vintage retailer Saurashtra Textiles. Below is Fine’s Dallas bedroom with a bedspread from Saurashtra Textiles. Her digging paid off. The paintings in her bedroom are by Sunita Kumar , a close friend and confidante of  Mother Teresa.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, for those who like small, less overwhelming places (ME!) Fine recommends Brigitte Singh where we saw blockprinting in action.

We spent the afternoon dazzled by jewels at the renown Gem Palace, Munnu and Gem Paradise – all within spitting distance of each other. I did quite well at Gem Paradise where I thought their prices beat the competition.

Time for a tea break? Hardly. Next shop til you drop was Hot Pink, where I bought some chic linen men’s shirts and a few oversized beach bags for my daughters.

In that same complex Fine pointed us to a new designer Ayush Kasliwal where I stocked up on original presents for the home- bronze shaped gheckos that double as bottle openers, wood carvings, pretty ceramics. We then went to buzzy Bar Palladio for a deserved cocktail

and what I foolishly thought would be the conclusion to our day. Hah!

Fine has the energy of a Labrador puppy. She  took the diehards to her favorite outdoor dining spot – the restaurant at Oberoi-owned Rajvilas, about half an hour outside of town. Remember we rose at 5am, took a flight and had not stopped touring, spending and yakking all day. I needed a vacation from my vacation.

That’s my favorite hotel. Mr Oberoi really gets it. It’s all very simple, cottons, made in India. It’s very luxurious, but sort of humble too. It’s not trying to be European, explained Fine.

And for lunch the next day we ate on the old style terrace of this two hundred year-old haven  Samode Haveli.

It’s charming and not over-designed, Fine said.

Note to gem enthusiasts: Lisa’s absolute favorite jewelry shop is in Delhi, not Jaipur.

If you want really fine things, my friends the Bharany’s are the best.  The father was a great antique textile designer. They have the best jewelry, the best.

While in Delhi Fine likes to visit the restored, sprawling  Bikaner House spread over eight acres in Lutyen’s Delhi and with interesting exhibitions.

You can see inside great mansions, how people actually lived. So many former maharajah places are government-owned and in disrepair, but not this one.

And for fashion she has her eye on up and coming Parisian designer Cecile Dascali. A final top tip from the chief:

I  think it is important to go some place rural. The main cities have grown so much and with the rise in tourism and the growing Indian middle class you really don’t see the traditional India as much in cities today. Go some place off the radar or difficult to get to. I recently went to Gwalior and Orcha.  After over 50 trips to India, that was as exciting as my first trip.

 January, 2018

The post Top Tips from Top Shopper: Lisa Fine on Jaipur appeared first on Elena Bowes.

So when our family plus friends the Vere Nicolls voted unanimously (minus one vote) to go skiing this past Christmas, you would be right in assuming that I was channeling my inner Mother Theresa. Call me Saint Elena.

And if you have to sacrifice yourself for others, then why not do it at an Aman?  I highly recommend snow martyring at the Amangani in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Perched on a hill about twenty minutes outside of town, the Amangani has views galore,

a steaming après ski hot tub,

high quality masseurs and easy-to-work, soothing fireplaces in every room. Plus the staff are extremely helpful, friendly and patient.

I figured that St Elena would just spend the week enjoying the hotel, testing out the spa,

sipping cocoa and reading by the fire, while the others, poor fools, braved the elements.

Sadly, my hopes of an indoor ski vacation were not to be. Every morning my friend Melanie, who must have been in the SAS in a past life, insisted that we go cross-country skiing on lengthier and lengthier treks.

Melanie is a cold weather person. She is also very strong – mentally and physically. She does not scare easily. So signs like this:

or Instagrams like this:

or mysterious paw prints like this:

don’t phase her. Even the faintly tinged pink paw prints we saw didn’t scare her. (Sorry, I didn’t take any pics, I was on an adrenaline rush, focused solely on distancing myself from owner of paw prints.) Later when I asked Melanie if she’d seen the suspicious footmarks, she said nonchalantly,

Oh, I thought those belonged to a very big dog.

Dog had not occurred to me. Mountain lion, wolf, bear, moose, that’s what had occurred to me. Especially moose. Apparently, they are everywhere in Jackson.

So what does one do if one encounters  a moose? I conducted an informal survey (asked every single local I met), and here are some of the answers I got:

Run like hell

Running won’t help you. A moose can outrun anything.

Stay still

Make yourself look big

Play dead

Give ’em a wide berth

Climb the nearest tree

Well, no one’s died. This year.

These replies were not reassuring. Not one bit. I am not a wildlife lover. The closest I got to wildlife growing up was my turtle Myrtle. When Melanie and I would go cross country skiing, she was invariably way ahead of me in deserted snowy wilderness with a lot of easy-for-moose-to-hide-behind trees.

Stunning, isn’t it? she would shout over her shoulder.

Or after the pink paw print ordeal, which also included a freak storm, golf-ball sized hail stones and 50 mph winds, Melanie sighed,

Wasn’t that a spectacular day?

Yes, because it’s over, I thought.

Typical, I didn’t spot this backpack essential in the Amangani shop until the last day …

In the end, thanks to my friend’s forceful, confident character, (aka bossy) I decided that I do kind of like ski holidays – as long as there are absolutely no moose sightings – NOT ONE – and I get to pamper myself when I get back to the hotel, surviving and all.

January, 2018

The post Boot Camp with Mel, Me and the Moose appeared first on Elena Bowes.

but my eldest daughter Kate, an interior designer in Manhattan,  assured me Fine was good.

Cool, I thought, I like fabrics.

Like a lamb to the slaughter.

I guess my first clue that this trip wasn’t pure sightseeing with a pashmina tossed in here or there was when I met the 19-strong group, almost all of whom  hailed from Houston, Dallas,San Antonio and Fort Worth, plus Louisville, Kentucky which is pretty much the same thing. I was a tad confused – had I unwittingly joined some Texan Delegation? Was Delhi Dallas’ twin city or something? Fine print has never been my strong suit.

But Indian prints, here we come.

I soon learned that these women and one charming husband- – all very chic and groomed with trunks of equally chic luggage to my single carry-on (which drew simultaneous gasps of admiration and horror) –  had signed up for the trip, not because their youngest was deserting the mother ship, but because of their devotion to  the dynamic and fun Mississippi-native Lisa Fine who sources many of her designs from India, a country she adores and knows inside out.

While Fine may live between Dallas and New York with a past stint in Paris, she still sounds like she could be sipping Mint Juleps on her Hattiesburg porch.

Listen y’all…, purrs Fine, and we do happily.

Fine at work…

and at play with best friend Cici…

Fine led this group of interior designers, architects, general shop-til-you-drop Texans and one clueless outsider to her  favorite haunts in Rajasthan, especially shopping mecca Jaipur. The group never tired of a chance to see one more print, one more rug, bedspread, napkin, patterned tea cosy.

Houston designer Ann Wolf – the cat who got the cream…

Louisville lovely Kelly Cohen got the gem

Mari McAlister from Santa Barbara got the earrings

And New York designer Charlotte Moss got the country…

On the final heavenly night in Jaipur after elephants, camels, fireworks and trumpets, not to mention a festive dinner with touching  toasts when I thought everyone was finally ready for bed, I spied a diehard group in the extraordinary Rambagh Palace Hotel Book Shop with the spirited Moss offering words of wisdom:

Never go anywhere without a credit card.

Below is most of our group plus our two fabulously knowledgeable, patient and well-dressed guides, Girish and Sanjeev.

While shopping was the backdrop, India was the star attraction. The country, of which I only got a tiny taste,  overwhelms, seduces, delights and shocks even the hardiest of travelers.

What will endure for me are the photos, said Moss, that will transport me back to the finely carved marble of the JianTemple at Ranakpur, the celebration of Diwali given by the Majarajah of Jodphur at the Umaid Bhawan Palace, the Taj Mahal at sundown and sunrise, the canopied boats gliding through early morning mist over Lake Pichola in Udaipur and the craftsmanship on display in every temple, palace, and fort. The deeply lined brown faces of the people, the sounds of market chatter, tuk-tuks beeping at no one in particular, animals foraging in the street, the smells of spices interwoven with smoke and the colors…..the colors…my photos will take me there.

Below are some photos to take you there.

Manhattan-based designer Katie Ridder taking in the stunning grandeur of Jodhpur ….

India by day…

by night…

the squalor…

the sacred

the colors…

the warmth

the surprises

the streetlife

the nightlife

Take me back to this magical place …

From the moment we arrived in polo-loving Jodhpur, the blue city, I was dazzled.

We stayed at the Umaid Bhawan Palace, the second largest inhabited palace after Buckingham Palace. We arrived the day of Diwali, India’s festival of lights ceremony …

Don’t miss the Mehrangarh Fort, which Rudyard Kipling called “the work of giants”.

We then drove several visually exhilarating hours to “the Venice of the East” Udaipur, which is surrounded by lakes and mountains. There we stayed at the Taj Lake Palace which is divine with pools so long that one lap is plenty.

Glass peacock wall art at the City Palace…

Our group went wild at Ganesh Handicraft Emporium, a three-story house packed with wares so intoxicating that I bought some white filmy patterned  curtains for windows I don’t own.

But where we really went to town was in Jaipur, Fine’s soul city. There we loved Anokhi for its hand-blocked fabrics and vast selection of goodies from sarongs to pajamas, plus lunch next door.

I never go to Jaipur without dinner at Peshawar and lunch at Anokhi where I have caramelized onion and Gorgonzola pizza, orange cake and fresh pomegranate juice, said Fine

Wolf’s favorite purchase was this onyx bowl from Jaipur’s unmissable Gem Palace…

The colors will remind me of the colors of India-even on the dullest winter day, writes Wolf. And I’ll forever have this as a reminder of those palaces and forts and ordinary buildings painted peaches to pinks. It’s hard to pick a highlight from the trip as we saw so many exceptional things…but the one I’ll never forget is the Hall of Mirrors at the Amer Fort.

If only I was Samantha Stephens in Bewitched, I would crinkle my nose and say,

Take me back to India now.

I am still reeling from the saffron, indigo, pale pinks, wandering elephants, swinging monkeys, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, stones I’d never heard of, scrambled eggs with tumeric, cumin and coriander, begging children, smiles, red dots, marigold flowers, trumpets, turbans, marble, and of course, the wonderful people I met on the trip.

As Boston architect Heather Wells emailed us in her group farewell,

Until we meet again ….. Namaste

November, 2017

Note: I want to thank the group for sharing their photographs with me. Several of the above are not my own. And I want to thank Lisa Fine, Indagare, Lucy at Banyan Tours, and of course, India, for giving me the trip of a lifetime.

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