I started writing a food/lifestyle column, Wendy’s Platter, in our local independent newspaper on the Sonoma/Mendocino coast in the early 1990s. The column was picked up and carried in multiple papers for fifteen years. In Wendy’s Platter, (think a journal ending with a recipe), I tried to capture my unique look at life while navigating single motherhood, food, and my travels.
I am a product of my family’s passion for travel. At age fifteen, my parents sent me to Peru to visit my sister and brother-in-law who were finishing up their Peace Corps stint. I ended up traveling on my own to Cuzco, Machu Picchu and across Lake Titicaca before heading back to Lima and to San Francisco.
Fast forward to my senior year in high school (which I never had…) when my dad got a job with UNESCO and we moved to Paris. My parents remained in Paris during my undergraduate and graduate years at U.C. Berkeley. However, I was able to go “home”–Paris–every other summer. With a base in Paris, I drove with cousins and friends from Paris to Norway in my parent’s VW bus in the summer of 1970, worked as a summer camp counselor in Spain in 1972, and drove from Paris to Greece in my parent’s Audi in the spring of 1974. All before I turned 25. Then I finished my M.B.A., and hit the business world for a more sedentary life.
Fast forward again thirty years: I started my own company, had a son, caretook my mother after my dad died, sang in a choir, earned a teaching credential then a school administrator credential, became a high school English teacher (chaperoned two European student tours to expose my rural students to Italy, France and England), and became a principal/superintendent to a few tiny rural school districts in Humboldt, Trinity, and Shasta counties of Northern California.
Retiring from education, I got married (for the first time at age 66) to a wonderful, willing partner, un-retired to become a magazine editor of the “Humboldt Historian,” a quarterly historical journal, and restarted my travels, this time with my husband, Nick. So far, we have enjoyed the coast of Norway on a mailboat, most northern Europe, Belize, road trips in the U.S.A.: the western states, a peak at the southern states including New Orleans, and the Great Lakes. The best part of these travels is catching up with relatives and encountering new friends along the way.
In 2023-4, we took our first 100-day trip to New Zealand. We realized that 100 days gave us enough time to truly explore. I wrote emails home with photos to an ever-increasing list of family and friends. On the plane home from New Zealand, we contracted COVID which was not fun, but forced us to slow down. I took that time to design and publish my first book, “100 Days: Fiji, New Zealand, Hawaii.” I have turned that book (from the emails) into a blog.
In July 2025, I re-re-retired from my magazine editor position so I could get serious about traveling and writing. First up is a 100 Day trip to Europe in the Autumn of 2025. In theory, and as the budget allows, there may be more 100 Day adventures for this 70+ gal and her willing husband.