by Michael Shapiro | Apr 2, 2016 | Blog, Sports, Stories, Travel
“Close your eyes and you’ll see what I mean,” says my skiing companion Walt as we traverse the 10-mile trail to Yosemite’s Glacier Point. My friend Walt is legally blind, unable to see the grandeur of Half Dome and the park’s other...
by Michael Shapiro | Nov 11, 2015 | Blog, Sports, Stories, Travel
There are a number of places in Alaska where you can see bears, but when I heard that Admiralty Island near Juneau has a protected bear reserve and that the best way to get there is by paddling a kayak for a couple of days, I couldn’t resist. The irony: it took...
by Michael Shapiro | Aug 8, 2015 | Blog, Food, Interviews, Music, Sports, Stories, Travel
Sometimes, if you’ve worked with an editor for a while, she approaches you with an assignment. And occasionally she opens the door to your dream story. When my editor at Inspirato suddenly had an opening for a feature and asked me to pitch a story about Chicago,...
by Michael Shapiro | Mar 17, 2015 | Blog, Sports
Below are excerpts from the recent “I hate cyclists” blog post by Sebastopol meat company owner Adam Parks. I read this on his site on Saturday. It’s no longer up, but I can post excerpts and my responses to this despicable rant in which he suggests...
by Michael Shapiro | Apr 1, 2014 | Blog, Sports
LOS ANGELES — Veteran Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully was suspended today by Major League Baseball for 50 games after performance enhancing drugs were found in the announcer’s booth at the Dodgers’ spring training stadium in Glendale,...
by Michael Shapiro | Dec 11, 2013 | Blog, Sports, Travel
Exactly 10 years ago today my mother, brother and I sat with my father as he drew his last breath. He’d been battling pancreatic cancer for eight months; I’d been on assignment in England, interviewing travel writers for my book, A Sense of Place when he...