On this day in 1923, Hank Williams was born. Just 29 years later, he was gone. Like Hendrix, Morrison, and Cobain though, in a short time he managed to create a body of work that would be around far longer and would influence hundreds after him.

It’s hard to imagine the whole genre of country music without Hank Williams in it. Even if you can’t stand county and think you don’t know his songs, you probably know 10 or 12. You might even know the words to half of them subconsciously. That’s how much influence he has had on American music.

I have lived in Nashville twice, close to 14 years combined, so I couldn’t leave Montgomery, Alabama last week without stopping in the Hank Williams Museum. Since I was staying at the Renaissance Hotel there I had even less of an excuse to skip it: the museum is right across the street. And how cool is that logo pictured here?

This is a funky little museum built with lots of love, containing a treasure trove of artifacts and the singer’s belongings. Some are on loan, some have been donated, many came from son Hank Williams, Jr., who has managed to outlive his father by several decades. There’s an awesome powder blue Cadillac convertible that Hank Williams rode around in and the back seat of it was where he spent his final night on a trip up north to a performance. Kind of creepy to see a car that someone died in on display, but it’s a really nice car…

There are also some crazy over-the-top stage costumes with rhinestones aplenty and music notes down the sleeves, plus an array of boots to go with them. Sheet music, album covers, and silly souvenir items from when he was alive combine with movie posters of a film about him after and some nifty Japanese 45 covers grouped together. All the while you can hear his voice coming out of the speakers, hit after hit and great song after great song.

Naturally they gloss over the more unsavory aspects of the tragic hero’s life: heavy drinking, a morphine addiction from a back pain condition, plus two marriages in eight years and a daughter from a third woman. Hey, as many successful songwriters have said, clean and boring lives seldom lead to great lyrics.

If you’re still craving more after the museum, there’s a whole Hank Williams Trail with his grave site, the place where he ate chili dogs (the restaurant is still open), a cabin of his an hour north, and more. It might be bad luck though to do all this while playing the song of his that was at the top of the charts the week he died: “I’ll never get out of this world alive.”

I’d like to add my welcome, in addition to editor Tim Leffel’s last week, to the newest blogger with the Perceptive Travel Blog, Alison Stein Wellner.

Check out her bio here — her credentials will knock your socks off, if you’re wearing any, and her writing truly speaks for itself. With her recent PT posts on finding perspective in the Redwood Forest and a quirky postcard collection outside of Shanghai, I’m already hooked. I assure you — you will be, too.

A couple years ago I wrote a piece about the weird habit many of us have — me included — to dress differently when we’re traveling. When I’m in Europe, for example, I tend to think in terms of outfits with scarves and shoes that need polishing. Back in Montana, it’s centered around Tevas and quick-drying hiking clothes. (Please, do not ask me what I wear at home in between typing this, scrubbing the floor, canning peaches, and changing diapers.)

A cool story from NPR this morning about a genteel tea auction in Kenya sent me into a little nostalgia spin back to the time when I first started drinking tea, and why, and how my drinking habits vary depending on where I’m traveling to. (Before anyone starts sniggering, I’m thinking non-alcoholic drinks — I generally stick with wine or beer for booze, depending on where I am and what they specialize in, although I will try any country’s specialty [Uzo, Jenever, for example] even if just once.)

I grew up a coffee drinker. I picked up the habit from my mother, who still needs a strong cup or two to go to sleep, and refined it by going to high school in a town with its own fantastic coffee roaster. The habit only strengthened when my parents opened a coffee roasting business in Moscow (Montana Coffee, which my father is still president of) and I got a job in college working at Dunn Bros. Coffee in St. Paul, Minnesota, still some of the best roasted beans I’ve ever had. My family is now stuck in rut of coffee snobbery.

Tea came out of the blue, but it was a natural shift. It was, after all, for a guy, the one I’m now married to. In our St. Andrews dorm he courted me with … Nescafe. Boxed milk, no sugar. Now, I was happy to down Nescafe in Turkey because it’s what they gave us. But in Scotland? Unsweetened? For someone with a history of coffee snobbery? Brr. So I began asking about tea. I’d never liked tea growing up, but I realized that was due to the American penchant for fruity teas — raspberry, lemon — that tasted awful.

He taught me about black tea, Assam to be specific, how to brew it in a pot, how long to steep, when to wind it, to pour milk in the cups first, how he liked is, how I liked mine. And lo and behold, I fell in love with the moldy leaves. No sugar needed, just a splash of milk. For over 10 years now, it’s been what I drink at home, and I’m so fussy about it that I find it hard to consume elsewhere. We buy it in 2-pound bags from Special Teas, and are saddened when the monsoon season means we can’t get our favorite estate tea.

The first time she ever came to America, her first time on a transatlantic flight, my mother-in-law got off the plane shaky and woozy, and gratefully sat down in a cafe during our layover. She ordered — what else? — a cup of tea and nearly cried when someone set a glass full of ice and cold brown liquid in front of her. “Is that American tea?” she asked, ever so polite. The hot version wasn’t a whole lot better, and she finally went for coffee.

I do drink tea in England. How could you not? But when traveling, except where tea is excellent, my tastes shift back to coffee, and what I order switches constantly depending on where I am.

When visiting Montana I like to order the small hazelnut lattes I first grew to love at 16. In Russia, it’s strongly brewed Bodum press pots mixed with cream and sugar. I first associated Russia with drinking tea, the over-steeped, over-stewed leaves that sat for days in a tiny pot, being diluted ever more with hot water until every inch of tannin had been sucked out. But my father now runs a coffee roasting business there and I switched to coffee because I know it’s excellent.

Working at Dunn Bros. in college, I learned to make mocha steamers, a mix of cold-pressed coffee, chocolate, and drops of syrup that I fell in love with (and formed a daily, sometimes hourly, habit that forced me to quit the job in order to relieve the caffeine addiction). When visiting my older sister in Santa Cruz, CA, I always go for an iced chai mocha, which, like the mocha steamer above, I’ve never found anywhere else.

In Vienna it’s the classic melange served with sparkling water, in Australia it’s a cappuccino, in Britain it’s simply white coffee with raw sugar. In Portugal I tried everything described in my guidebook, partly as a way to practice pronunciation. I like to drink whatever the country makes best, just like with wine and beer.

I’m curious what others drink while away from home. Do you search for your favorite beverage? Are you desperate for your latte first thing in the morning? Or do you go for something different, spying out the tables around you to see what satisfies the local caffeine addiction?

Last month, on my way from Ashland, Oregon to the coast, I took a detour through Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park. Daylight was rapidly fading by the time I got there, so there wasn’t time to hike around, but the ranger suggested an auto route that would allow a glimpse of a few big trees. I’d only seen California redwood trees once before, at Muir Woods near San Francisco, and they’d thrilled me so deeply that I was glad just to be near them again.

The facts of the California redwoods are these: They grow only on a narrow strip of Pacific coastline, mostly in California, and just barely brushing into Oregon. They used to be in Europe, Asia, Greenland and Japan, but changing temperatures over time corralled these giants into this corridor. They can grow to more than 370 feet tall,  or about the height of a 30 story building. These aren’t the tallest trees in the world – Douglas firs grow taller — but they are the biggest living organisms on earth, by volume. Redwood trees live 20 human lifetimes. They don’t fall over, because their roots intertwine with their neighbors. In their shade,  fairy tale giants of their species also grow.  According to the park’s visitor’s guide: “Sword ferns grow as tall as a person, skunk cabbage leaves extend as long as our arm, fungus bigger than dinner plates emerge with the first winter rains…”

Howland Hills Road is narrow and windy, and the car created a swirl of dirt and dust in the lengthening shadows.  I bounded from the car, camera pointing up into the sky filled with trees to infinity.  I was snapping photos like mad –  mostly futile, since I didn’t get anyone in them for scale. “Are we shrinking? Have we shrunk?” I exulted.  If someone had told me that I was in fact, five inches tall instead of five foot six, I would have almost believed it.

And I didn’t even see the biggest trees, in fact, comparatively speaking, I saw puny ones. If there had been time to walk down to Stout Grove, which wasn’t far away, standing beneath them,  I believe I may have felt five centimeters tall. And even those are nothing compared to what’s deeper in that forest – redwood Titans, gigantic trees that scientists hope mere tourists will never find. (See this Orion piece by Richard Preston.) If I’d seen a Titan,  I might have wondered if I actually existed at all.

Once again, the redwoods deeply thrilled, and ever since, I’ve been pondering why that is, exactly.  Here’s my theory: It’s not very easy to remember what it was like to be a child. Sure, we all have our childhood memories, but I’m talking about the visceral feeling of being small, the feeling of a being a creature who peers up at the underside of tables and is eye-level with kneecaps. It’s more common to have the sensation of being larger than one ought to be, since that’s what happens as we grow up –-we get bigger, and everything around us seems smaller. Being in the redwoods, that’s suddenly reversed. Once again, we’re small creatures in an oversized world.

I had always assumed that in order to have an authentic wine adventure you had to leave the city and head for the surrounding wineries. But on a recent trip to Sydney, Australia, I found out that’s not necessarily true.

Wine Odyssey provides a full-on interactive wine adventure right in the heart of the city. Located in the infamous Rocks area of Sydney, this wine bar, which features wines from hundreds of boutique wineries, takes you on a fun and relaxing wine  journey.

All you have to do is walk through the Wine Odyssey’s doors and into the Wine Journey Room to know you’re on to a good thing. This room, where you can test a wide selections of Australian wines by the 25ml, 75ml, or 150ml glass, is self-service (via automated card-activated system) which means instead of having to look and act knowledgeable, you can simply pour and taste.

Of course, you might actually want to  sharpen your knowledge of Australian wines. The  best way to do that is by booking the Tasting Theater experience which lets you wine taste while watching a 45 minute film by six Australian winemakers.

Sitting on a stool in the small darkened theater, which resembles a high school science lab, you are greeted by the winemakers who discuss how their wines evolved. It’s quite an intimate experience, especially when each of the winemakers raise their glass and talks you through the various aromas and tastes you can expect to experience as you are sipping (tasting) their wine.

Then it’s off to the Aroma Room where you can put your nose to work. This small room has a collection of 50 plus aromas that are commonly found in wine, ranging from rose, lemon, and pineapple to wet leather, molding earth, and rotten eggs. Wander around the room,  read the fact sheets,  pull out aroma spigots and inhale. Your nose will never be the same again.

Once you’ve had enough aroma smelling, head back downstairs for food (and more wine). Or maybe just more wine. No one here is in a rush for you to leave. There are plenty of small rooms, complete with comfy seats and sofas, to rest, relax, and reflect.

Wine buffs and novices alike will be seduced by this treasure trove of wine.