There are so many cool people and awesome cats in New York that it was tough to pick who to visit. There was my friend Mewonda on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, my buddy Troy Catnip on the Upper West, where he lives with a bunch of roommates and makes documentaries.

So much creativity! First, I decided to hit up St. Mark’s Place, which is really a chunk of 8th street, with Mewonda. We strolled around, looking at all the shops. St. Mark’s was a huge center for punk music back in the 70’s and now people who love that kind of rock still gather here.

“Look at that mohawk!” Mewonda said, pointing to a punk who had majestic pink spikes coming off of his head about a foot high in every direction.

“Wow,” I said, remembering that I’d seen someone similar in HandiLand, only with a small manageable ‘hawk.

“I think they get their hair that high with glue.”

“They have to, because hairspray alone can’t do that!”

Next, we walked by the place where CBGB’s used to be, on 3rd avenue. It was once a really cool rock club where bands like the Ramones played all the time. A few years ago, people shut it down and refused to let it have another lease. The owners and New Yorkers in the neighborhood were totally bummed.

“Some good tunes,” Mewonda said as we passed by. There’s a hip clothing store there now but it doesn’t quite have the same appeal.

Next, I walked to Union Square park and got on the subway to ride all the way uptown. I had to switch lines at Grand Central station but that wasn’t a problem… Grand Central is one of my favorite places in New York. When I switched, I took the shuttle subway car to Times Square, my other favorite!

After Times Square, I hurried uptown to meet Troy. “Guess what!” he said when I hoofed it all the way to his apartment and was ready to sit down.

“What?” I asked.

“We’re going all the way downtown again.” He grabbed his camera and pushed me out the door. This time, luckily, we took a cab. It was getting dark already and I didn’t want to crawl on the subway at rush hour.

“Where are we going then?” I asked.

We pulled up to the seaport. “To Staten Island!” Troy said.

For the rest of the night, we cruised around on the water and took pictures of the Statue of Liberty. New York from across the water, with its lights shimmering and glittering, is even more fun to look at.

Can’t wait to get to my place on Troy’s couch and have more adventures tomorrow!

Walking around this place felt like stepping into a time machine. We’ve all heard about those places where people dress in period costume and talk like medieval folks probably did: “Oh, m’lady, this bodkin sure doth vex me so!”

Well, Plymouth Colony is not quite that bad but it’s almost the same thing. Right when I arrived, I saw a couple people walking around in period costume. Which period? I had to do a little research to find out. It turns out, the Plymouth Bay Colony was settled by Captain John Smith in 1621, when he arrived at the New World.

It used to be as big as most of southern Massachussetts. How about that? No wonder, then, that I saw people in triangle hats and simple dresses, aprons and bonnets walking around. They were dressed like early American Puritains.

Now, it’s important to notice that the early Pilgrims were fleeing England so they could worship whatever religion they wanted. So their faith was really important. That’s why, strolling through the historic Plymouth Colony district of Plymouth, Massachussetts, I heard so many church bells peeling. It sounded rather nice. It also sounded like there’d be no crazy mad scientist waiting behind the next turn, eager to jump out at me.

Life in early Plymouth Colony was rough. In fact, that first winter of 1621, so many people died that the colony felt doomed. It wasn’t until spring came and then the first harvest the next fall, that the Pilgrims could celebrate their survival. They had a huge dinner and ate food inspired by the local Indians. The first Thanksgiving!

To commemorate their struggles, I went down to the local Pilgrim’s Progress sandwich shop and ordered myself… what else? A turkey sandwich with stuffing and cranberry sauce on the side!

I finished up my trip by going down to the waterfront where the Mayflower first landed to see a famous piece of stone: Plymouth Rock. This marker apparently rests where Captain John Smith first set foot on American soil. And boy, am I glad I set foot here! No more volcanoes for me for a while. Maybe I’ll stay in lovely New England and celebrate the spring thaw after a hard winter.

Lake Tahoe, which straddles Nevada and California, right in that angle where the two states meet, is a lovely place to go… in the summer or the winter. In the summer, there’s boating and lovely dockside restaurants. In the winter, the whole lakefront is blanketed in lush, quiet snow.

The first thing I had to do, of course, was hit the slopes. The best thing is riding up one of the surrounding mountains on a ski lift and watch the lake open up behind me, cold and blue. Racing down the mountain toward it is even better.

The coolest thing about my visit to Lake Tahoe was the Olympic Village at Squaw Valley. The Winter Olympics were held here, and ever since then, Squaw Valley has been a center for serious skiiers and winter vacationers.

At the very top of a steep, treacherous gondola ride, is the Olympic Summit, where they have an ice skating rink perched in the clouds! Gliding around on that ice, I almost felt like I was flying among the snow-capped mountains.

After my adventures in the volcano, I have to tell you, I needed a little cooling off!

But I did get a chance to visit HandiLakula Volcano the other day. And it was wild. You may think a volcano is some exotic thing that erupts once in a billion years. But you know what? A lot of islands have come to be because volcanoes have built them up over time. When you have an underwater volcano under the ocean and it constantly oozes magma and lava, that hot, liquid rock hits the water and cools down.

Then it forms… you guessed it: solid rock. Enough solid rock that sometimes an island or a mountain emerges. Rises right out of the sea. It takes a really long time, of course, but that’s how HandiLand came about, back in the day. That’s why the farmers in the Country do so well — we’ve got rich, volcanic soil that helps lots of different things grow.

Anyways. Since the volcano is a pretty big tourist attraction, I was sent there for this assignment. And everything was going really well for a while. I rode a bus to the top of the volcano, snapped some pictures of HandiLand from above, peered down into the crater and was a little disappointed that there wasn’t any bubbling, scalding lava, posed for pictures with a couple readers… the usual.

I was about to turn around, head home and file a pretty boring old travel story, I had an idea. There were steps going down into the crater. I was sure of it. What kind of travel journalist would I be if I didn’t investigate and spill the beans to you guys?

So I quietly broke away from my tour group and pretended to drop a lens cap down the steps leading into the crater. A park ranger stopped me. “Just what do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

“I dropped my lens cap. I’ll be right up, I just need to get it.”

I jumped the barricade and scrambled down the steps before he could stop me. Now, not the smartest thing to be doing — just skipping down into the crater of a volcano — I know. Just because HandiLakula had been dormant for over 500 years didn’t guarantee that it’d STAY that way.

But I took my chances and walked down the rocky steps. The more I walked, the steeper the descent got. And the warmer. For every step I took, I tried not to imagine the hundreds of billions of gallons of hot magma beneath my feet.

Finally, the path ahead of me began to straighten out. It seemed to go behind some kind of boulder. Well, I’d risked everything to get down there, so of course I had to duck behind the rock and see where the path led. Just in case I found anything, I took the not-really-missing lens cap off my camera and shoved it in my pocket.

When I got around the boulder, the path got much thinner. I took another step and saw a glimpse of fire. My heart started thundering in my chest. This was it… the lava was coming!

But no. I looked again. That was definitely lava, but it wasn’t rushing toward me at volcanic speeds. In fact, it was flowing down a nice gully. And there was a window separating me from it. Not that a puny glass and wood window made me feel any better, but I’d found something I totally didn’t expect.

That was a sign that someone was down there. Now I couldn’t control my curiosity. I snuck up to the window, camera in hand. And that’s when I saw him: Dr. Hissorkian! I thought he was a legend, but no. There he was in his very own evil science lab inside the volcano. I took a really quick picture but the sound of my shutter going off must have triggered an alarm.

Before I knew it, sirens were blaring all around me. I dashed up the steps, skittering and slipping on rocks the entire way, kicking dirt behind me. Nobody came after me, but I’m still nervous. When I got up to the surface of the crater, the park ranger gave me a disapproving frown.

“I found it,” I said with a tiny laugh and waved my lens cap at him. It was all I could do to keep from completely freaking out. We’ll see if this story gets me in trouble. I hope not, but I have a bad feeling about this.

That’s right, the Roamin’ Rambler took to the states for the next few installments of my travel column. Why the Florida Everglades? Because that’s what we hit first! When you prefer to travel by boat, like I do, you pretty much have to start in the watery bits of a place. And there’s nothing more watery than the Everglades!

Now, before I get any futher along, let me tell you – the Florida Everglades are a completely different world full of different rules. The Everglades are over 100 miles long and local Seminole Indians have called it “Grassy Water” for years.

Let me tell you – they got the name spot on. Most of the Everglades are sawgrass prarie and look exactly like a big old field. Except I could paddle my boat right through it. Until Roamin’ Roger, my assistant and I, saw something that made us stop: Bobby Gator.

“Aaaah!” Roamin’ Roger screamed.

“What’s up?”

“Did you see that?”

I hadn’t seen a thing. “No, see what?”

“G-g-g-g…”

“Grandma?”

“No!”

“Gumbo?” I asked, my stomach rumbling because we’d been cooped up in our boat a while.

“G-G-G-G-GATOR!”

And before I knew what my arms were doing, Roamin’ Roger and I were paddling away from that thing in the water that looked exactly like a miniature, moving, swimming, toothy island.

Luckily, within minutes of paddling we hit the fresh-water swamp of the Everglades and then the Hardwood Hammock and then the Hotel Hammock, because we figured we’d be safer indoors. The Florida Everglades are 17,000 years old and, seeing Bobby Gator with his dinosaur smile, I believe it.

Captain Ironhook asked me to hunt for his ship that wrecked on Shipwreck Reef, called the Thundarr. The Thundarr was his ship before he built the Plundarr. I was very excited to dive and see the wreck, except there was a huge problem when I got down to the bottom of the ocean at Shipwreck Reef.

I haven’t told anybody this until just this moment: I didn’t see the Thundarr. There was nothing down there but coral.

“Yarr, so did you find me Thundarr down tharr at Shipwreck Reef?” Captain Ironhook asked when he hauled me up to his skiff. I took my scuba mask off and nodded. It made me feel crummy to lie, but I had the feeling that Captain Ironhook wasn’t being totally honest himself. Before I admitted anything, I wanted to do my research.

Well, you wouldn’t believe what I found out!

It turns out that Captain Ironhook actually wrecked the Thundarr on the shores of Cathattan Beach, right on the sand. He didn’t hit Shipwreck Reef at all! That would explain why I didn’t find a single splinter down there on my dive, let alone a galley stove or plank from the ruined ship.

The only reason I can finally post this story is that I talked to Captain Ironhook and came clean.

“I didn’t find the Thundarr down there, Captain,” I said. “Are you sure you wrecked it there?”

For a second, I thought I was getting Captain’s Ironhook right to the face. He clenched his remaining fist and screwed up his eyebrows. If you’ve never seen a pirate angry, I wouldn’t recommend getting him that way. “Yarr,” he told me, “what are you sayin’? Are you callin’ Captain Ironhook a liarrrr?”

“No, not that, of course not,” I said, grabbing my notepad and preparing to make a quick exit. “It’s just that I’m wondering if perhaps you might… uh… not have been… uh… totally… honest.”

Captain Ironhook hung his head. “Yarr. Well, ya found me out, Ramblarrrr. I didn’t wreck the Thundarr at Shipwreck Reef.”

Whew! I wasn’t about to get clobbered by the Captain. “Where did you wreck it, then?”

“Yarr, I drove that galleon right outta the watarrr. Right onto tha beach. It was a foggy night out at the harbarrr and…”

“That’s okay, Captain Ironhook, I understand,” I told him. And I did. He was just embarrassed. He’d been a pirate his whole life and one mistake, one foggy night, could’ve ruined his entire reputation. Well, now that his secret is out, I bet he’s feeling a whole lot better about the whole thing. When I visited him at the Plundarr for breakfast, he was all smiles and gold teeth.

“Yarr, it was time to put that old secret to rest. Thanks, Ramblarrr.”

I’m just doing my job. I thought I was responsible for traveling and bringing back good stories, but it turns out I’m also a pirate detective. Go figure!

When Milo dropped by my desk and wanted to know if I was free to go to the Caverns, I had to swallow the big cannonball of fear building up in my stomach and nodded.

“I’ve got all the gear,” he said. “All you need to do is take along your camera!”

About half an hour later, we were standing at the mouth of the Caverns. Milo rushed ahead but I couldn’t take another step.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re not walking?”

“I know.”

“So?”

“I’m nervous.”

“What are you scared of?”

The dark. The spiders. The bats. Falling through the ground into some kind of cave lake. Never finding my way out. You know, any of those would’ve been a great answer. But something about Milo told me I shouldn’t spill as many beans. “Nothing,” I said with a firm shake of the head. This was it. I had to make it work.

Well, I have to tell you. I did my best Indiana Jones impression and it actually worked out fine. There were about three or four bats but they flew by without problem. They didn’t even stop to look over at us. When Milo and I crawled all the way into the depths of HandiLand Caverns, we found an amazing cave lake.

I’m going to have to do an article about this cave lake, Cool Cats. It was spectacular. My advice for anyone out there – don’t let your fears stop you from exploring.

Out past Cathattan Beach in the crystal blue ocean all around HandiLand, there are adventures aplenty for those who want to get out and do something fun this summer. Sure, Cool Cats can snorkel over the Great Hairier Reef and take pictures with their underwater camera, but the treasures of the deep are even better far, far offshore.

To get to the prime scuba spot, Shipwreck Reef, the Roamin’ Rambler had to take an hour-long boat ride with Captain Ironhook, HandiLand’s resident pirate whose ship, the Plundarr, is parked at HandiLand Harbor.

“Why have you started taking scuba divers out to Shipwreck Reef,” I asked him.

“Yarr, I love anything to do with the wat-arr. Besides,” and here he leaned in super close and lowered his voice, “I once lost a ship out tharr, the ship I had before the Plundarr, it was called the Thundarr. And let me tell yarr, it ain’t called Shipwreck Reef for nothin’.”

You can bet this got my attention! A real shipwreck at Shipwreck Reef? For as long as I’ve been traveling around HandiLand, I’ve never heard of it. There were stories, of course, but I didn’t believe them. Now, I was on a boat with a real, live pirate and we were heading out to sea.

Captain Ironhook parked the boat in a calm spot of water and threw his anchor down.

“How do you know we’re here?” I asked him.

“Yarr, don’tcha think I know the wat-arr? My ship’s been through here, remembarr?”

I strapped on my scuba gear and loaded my camera over my shoulder. While I was down there taking pictures for the article, I thought I’d get to do a little snooping of my own. As I was about to jump off the boat and into the sea, Captain Ironhook caught my arm. Luckily, he used his hand and not his claw!

“Do me a fav-arr, won’tcha matey? When you’re down tharr, look for the Thundarr.”

Did I find the long-lost pirate ship? Did I get a peek at the treasures of Shipwreck Reef? Tune in next time for this very special two-part installment of the Roamin’ Rambler’s travel adventures!

To be continued…

Roamin’ Rambler here, bringing you the most unusual travel stories in all of HandiLand. This week, we meet Board Bettie, who is addicted to her skis. So much so that she doesn’t wait for winter to come around again before strapping on her snow buddies.

“Why wait, I figure,” she says. “If all I need to do is go to HandiPeaks, where it snows all year long, then why bother with the beach?”

Some of us might agree while others just don’t get the snow mania in the middle of the nicest, sunniest season. “Who’d want to go skiing right now?” Milo asks as he looks out over the pool at HandiLand Academy and tips back a nice, cold glass of lemonade. “I’m just biding my time between the beach and the pool. A jacket? Please. The only thing I’ll use my jacket for is a beach umbrella.”

Milo seems to be in the majority but that isn’t stopping Board Bettie. “I meet all kinds of people on the slopes in the summer. They’re much cooler than the Cool Cats I meet in the winter. At least in the summer, I know they’re cold-loving cats of my own breed!”

While this travel reporter can think of a few things he’d rather do than ski this summer, the magical mountains of HandiPeaks pump out snow year-round for all kinds of board and ski maniacs. See you on the slopes – don’t forget your sunglasses!

“I strapped on my rocket,” he says, “and went for a little ride. All I had to do was use my Super Duper Rocket Boosters and soon I was outta the stratosphere!”

It only took Neil three hours to fly the moon and pick out his favorite landing spot. “You have to make sure you’re not landing in a crater – those guys make for one bumpy touchdown.” He knows from experience. This is Niel’s twenty-ninth trip up to the Moon since he got his brand new rocket parts for Christmas.

“I built the rocket myself, in the garage. I made such a mess that my parents grounded me for a week! Too bad they couldn’t keep me grounded this time…”

When he’s on the Moon, his favorite thing to do is experiment with zero gravity. He likes to see how high he can jump. “But not too high,” he warns, “because it’s hard to get down!”

After some bouncing, he settles in for his favorite activity ever – Earth watching.

“It’s so cool to see it spin. I get out my Telescopetron 3000 and take a peek at all the countries swirling by under the clouds.”

His favorite place to watch out for? The island of HandiLand, of course! This is Roamin’ Rambler, your Cool Cats Magazine travel reporter, signing off!