San Juan

With its endless sweeps of evergreens and tiny harbors, the rocky San Juan Islands in Washington's Puget Sound seem miles away from everyday concerns.After all, this was the place a wealthy shipbuilder chose as his retreat when a doctor told him he had only a few months to live. Decades later, the shipbuilder was still enjoying his island idyll.There are scores of San Juans, but the islands most visited are those served by the Washington State Ferry system. Boats call daily on Shaw, Orcas, Lopez and San Juan, and each has its appeal.

ORCAS ISLAND, Wash. - The boat slides quietly through Thatcher Pass and past Decatur Island, where red-barked, madrona trees cling to the rocky bluffs. This, Lena Daniels recalls, was the Samish highway, a watery road that Daniels traveled eight decades ago in a dugout canoe, long before the U.S. government decided her people had ceased to exist as a tribe; long before a federal judge stripped them of treaty fishing rights. Still sure-footed at 92, Daniels climbs aboard the Paraclete to cruise through the San Juan islands and back to her childhood.

Duty Free International Inc. has gained a long-desired foothold in the Caribbean by signing an agreement with Aeroboutiques de Puerto Rico to buy lease rights for six duty-free and one newsstand-gift store at the San Juan International Airport.The transaction, which is expected to bring $10 million in additional annual revenue to Duty Free, comes just months after the Ridgefield, Conn.-based company completed a major acquisition on the U.S.-Mexican border.Duty Free, which has a large presence in Glen Burnie, did not announce a purchase price for the Caribbean business, but spokeswoman Dyan Cutro said "it's not a big chunk of money."

I could almost feel the spirits of an ancient tribe whispering in the rushes as I softly pushed through the thick undergrowth. Ahead, a faint path wound among the red boulders and up the steep, sandy slope to the cliff face. The ripple of the river and the sighing of the breeze faded to silence as I climbed into the echoing, open cave of sandstone, 30 feet high and 100 feet long. Low adobe walls rose in memorial their creators who lived and died here nearly a thousand years ago.I had found the home of the Anasazi.

OYSTER BAY, N.Y. -- Nearly a hundred years after the last shots were fired, admirers of Theodore Roosevelt are gearing up to fight a new battle of San Juan Hill.If they win, Roosevelt will finally get the Medal of Honor he was denied after his Rough Riders helped capture the Cuban hill and turned the volunteer officer into a national hero.Roosevelt's commanding officers nominated him for the nation's highest military honor soon after the Spanish-American War, but the Army balked. Some say it was because his gallantry wasn't extraordinary enough.

LOOKING AT MY TEEN-AGE daughter and soon-to-be teen-age daughter sitting slouched and sullen at the airport at 6 in the morning, having been rousted before daybreak for a flight to Seattle, I wondered how this vacation would go. I was hoping for a week of family bonding and fun -- a cousin's wedding, a reunion with friends, an excursion to the San Juan Islands and a few days in the city -- but traveling with sometime members of the SDT (Sisterhood of...

We trudged up the wooded path from the parking lot of Lime Kiln Point State Park, the so-called "whale-watching park" of Washington's San Juan Island, armed with borrowed binoculars, jackets and hope. It was only 10 a.m., with fog still hanging in the air. Surely the time for orcas to linger in the spot where everyone always said they were seen.Then we saw the handwritten sign: "Whales went north at 9:30 a.m."Yeah, right, we sniggered, clambering onto the rocks and listening to the plaintive wail of the little white lighthouse.

RIO GRANDE, PUERTO RICO / / Manuel Maldonado showed us hummingbirds, walking sticks, giant albino snails and other rain forest residents, but couldn't find a single coqui -- although they were singing all around us. Our visit to El Yunque, the Caribbean National Forest, had been delayed that morning. The rain forest was closed because of rain. Actually, a storm that ebbed as we arrived had scattered tree limbs, and U.S. Forest Service rangers had to make sure the roads were clear. "The Taino Indians called the land sacred, so the rain up here is holy water," said Manuel, our guide and driver.

Many years later, Theodore Roosevelt looked back on his "great day," July 1, 1898."It was a lovely morning," he wrote, "the sky a cloudless blue, while the level shimmering rays of the just-risen sun brought into relief the splendid palms which here and there towered above the lower growth. The lofty and beautiful mountains hemmed in the Santiago plain, making it an amphitheater for the battle."No mention there of the suffocating tropical heat, the mud, the confusion, the abominable slop that passed for rations, the stink of death and hasty latrines.

If you could add another wonder to the Seven Wonders of the World, it might well be the Panama Canal.An engineering marvel wrought by an international work force under the leadership of American visionaries, the canal made the centuries-old dream of uniting the two great oceans a reality.Almost everyone knows what it is and where it is. But what does the Panama Canal look like and how does it work?We got the answers to those questions on the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Legend of the Seas during a 2,911-mile, 10-day trip from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Acapulco, Mexico, in January.