Where I’ve been (at least in part):
What I’ve been doing (at least in part):
I hope you’re enjoying your summer too!
Posts Tagged ‘travel’
Summer, in Parts
Posted in Holidays, Likes, tagged #ThingsILike, fun, inspiration, travel, yay on August 25, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Shooting Stars
Posted in Likes, tagged #ThingsILike, awesome, inspiration, science, space, travel on April 29, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Morning Over Mars
Posted in Likes, Science!, tagged #ThingsILike, awesome, creativity, inspiration, NASA, persistence, science, travel on March 23, 2017| Leave a Comment »
If the world feels a bit weighty this morning, grab a cup of something hot, sit back and enjoy Mars.
Oh Hey. Canada!
Posted in Likes, Other, Writing, tagged #ThingsILike, awesome, Canada, Hamilton, history, home, inspiration, Motivation, NASA, space, Thoughts, travel, work, writing, yay on October 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Every so often I am struck with the realization that I live in what is, to me, a foreign country. How cool is that?
•
There I was, about to start up the old treadmill desk and get to work when I looked out the window and had one of those moments. You may know the kind I mean (at least I hope you do), where suddenly everything you see shines with crystal clarity.
Oh, you may think, I hadn’t realized that the neighbor’s maple was quite so magnificent this Fall, and every leaf stands out. I think of it as seeing with a child’s eyes, before “this thing” and “that thing” become a group of “the usual things” that can be ignored without conscious attention.
Do we see each blade of grass when we walk past the lawn? I don’t. In fact, it would be an almost impossible way to live, I think, and I say that with the full knowledge that I am the sort of person who pays attention to the curbs when in Athens. (What? They’re made of marble. And oh yes, The Parthenon;)
I like the everyday, appreciate the curbs and libraries and sidewalk trees that we interact with on a daily basis. The common shapes our daily experience, even as it remains largely invisible. Even so…
I live in a foreign country! Part of my realization was the sudden understanding that I’ve accomplished one of the goals I set when I was a child.
I might have been twelve years old, the details are a bit fuzzy now. There was a group of friends in the room, all of us paging through an atlas (oversized, hardcover, with glossy paper). We argued over where to go, calculated the costs, plotted impossible strategies to get there.
Living in another country seemed the height of adventure. And now here I am.
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Canada is lovely and wild, with an often thin edge of civilization anchoring this vast swath of often frigid territory. Approximately 75% of the population lives within 100 miles of the U.S. border, and the continent looks very different up here at night.
That mostly dark bit mostly north of the U.S.? Yeah, not water. I’m waving!
Canadian history is much different than the version I grew up with. It captures an ongoing friction between very different cultures and the relatively peaceable integration of those worlds into a single entity. No flashy Revolution here. There are reasons for signs that list both French and English versions of the word “street.” There are reasons for the populations’ deep-seated love of Tim Horton’s coffee, and gravy-drenched poutine. This country has its own twists, its own heroes, its own storied and shadowed chapters.
It’s true that I can shop for groceries in my native language, read most of the signage and do not need a plane ticket to visit my parents, but I no longer live in the place I was born. It’s also true that even Canadians can be crotchety, the bread often has too much flour in it, and there really is only one road connecting the East and West halves of the country. (And they still won’t shut up about that time they burned down The White House…;) But for me, here and now, it’s all a bit magical.
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Pay attention, I remind myself. You just might find that the world is a far more beautiful and astonishing place than you remember. You might also realize that in spite of the knowledge that there is always more to do, if you work hard* and you keep moving even when it feels as though you’re going in circles, dreams can come true.
How cool is that?
. . . . . . . . . . .
* Need some motivation? I recommend the PBS Great Performances documentary Hamilton’s America. Both Alexander Hamilton and Lin-Manuel Miranda are inspirational as heck. It’s available online for U.S. viewers. The rest of us may be lucky enough to catch it on our PBS stations. (See? Not the 51st state after all;)
Adventure, Past and Future
Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged #amwritingscifi, #LadyAdventurers, airmail, creativity, flight, genre fiction, history, infrastructure, inspiration, navigation, quest, science fiction, sff, Smithsonian, speculative fiction, Thoughts, travel, USPS, wayfinding, work, writing on February 10, 2016| Leave a Comment »
It’s snowing! It’s pretty! All is right with the world.
The past few weeks of above-freezing temperatures and no snow have been, for lack of a better word, weird. It reminds me of the time I spent in Arizona, and my first warm Christmas. Seventy degrees on Christmas? In the Northern Hemisphere? Weird. I thought I’d be happy to get away from the cold and snow but I guess childhood imprinting isn’t so easy to escape.
I’ve also been thinking about the desert for a story I’m working on. Remembering the dry expanse stretching to the horizon, tenacious scrub clinging to the sides of dry riverbeds and the clarity of the air at dawn. Thinking about the challenges of crossing such a place in an era before the things Americans tend to take for granted, like functional highways, a network of gas stations and cars that didn’t blow a tire every 50 miles. And I stumbled across this fascinating article in the Smithsonian’s Air & Space magazine, about a network of alien markings giant concrete arrows crisscrossing the continent.
Before satellites, real-time GPS or other modern navigation systems, pilots had to be able to see where they were going. They couldn’t fly at night or in bad weather, and figuring out where they were was a complicated affair involving tools like a compass, maps (on paper!) and a bit of guesswork.
Some towns painted their names in oversized block letters on rooftops to help pilots get their bearings. And sometimes—like when navigational delays slowed down transcontinental air mail delivery* after 1920**—the government saw the need for a more comprehensive solution to the problem and stepped in. In this case they built a system of 70-foot-long concrete arrows pointing the way:
The government built a path of 70-foot-long concrete arrows every few miles from coast to coast, each painted yellow and topped with a 51-foot steel tower that had a rotating beacon. Using the path, an airmail pilot needed only half the time to deliver a letter from New York to San Francisco.
Eventually technology caught up with our demands and the markers were abandoned. Where are these markers now? An intrepid couple named Brian and Charlotte Smith wanted to know the answer and embarked on A Quest (because let’s face it, it’s hard to get anything significant done without A Quest).
They go on road trips to investigate these remnants of a bygone era, and now you can too. With the help of drone lessons from their nine-year old grandson, they’ve assembled photos and a database of marker locations.
The core idea of this story resonates with me. It’s the same childhood fascination I had for the Pony Express or the challenges of nineteenth-century explorers. For me, it’s hard to read a piece like this and not conjure up a daring young Lady Adventurer winging her way across an untamed landscape on a new world, with nothing but a few isolated markers to keep her on track.***
Marvelous!
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* FYI, I love the USPS and public libraries and Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System. These and other basic infrastructure**** projects help make us a better connected, better educated country and have impacted everything from social mobility to what we eat for dinner.
** Before 1920, if you wanted to send a letter to your cool aunt in San Francisco, for example, it went via methods like stagecoach or boat or train. Slooooooow. Or you could send a telegram and tell the whole world your business… like Twitter, actually.
*** A lot like Beryl Markham, actually.
**** (A footnote within a footnote. Does that make it a toenote?) I just want to include the definition of infrastructure and ask lawmakers responsible for assigning project funds, how is this optional?
Infrastructure: The basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g., buildings, roads, and power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise.
West with the Night
Posted in Entertainment, Likes, Writing, tagged #LadyAdventurers, #ThingsILike, Beryl Markham, books, Ernest Hemingway, literature, nonfiction, travel, Writers, writing on February 5, 2016| 1 Comment »
Today’s #ThingILike* is West with the Night, a fabulous piece of non-fiction first published in 1942 by bush pilot, adventurer and racehorse trainer Beryl Markham. I picked it up in a second-hand store on the strength of the title and the back cover blurb. I’d never heard of the author, but when Ernest Hemingway says he wishes he could write so well, I pay attention. Glad I did.
“Did you read Beryl Markham’s book, West with the Night? I knew her fairly well in Africa and never would have suspected that she could and would put pen to paper except to write in her flyer’s log book. As it is, she has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen. But [she] can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves writers. The only parts of it that I know about personally, on account of having been there at the time and heard the other people’s stories, are absolutely true . . . I wish you would get it and read it because it is really a bloody wonderful book.”
— Ernest Hemingway
Recommended.
* Again, items in this series of Things I Like are linked for your information; no sponsors, no kickbacks, just a sampling of things that I find useful or fun or funny or sweet.
Fantastic New Zealand
Posted in Holidays, Writing, tagged #aroundtheworld, birding, Maori, Motivation, Mt. Maunganui, New Zealand, nonfiction, Rotorua, Thoughts, travel on July 29, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Today’s trip in the WayBackMachine takes us to the lovely and verdant paths of New Zealand’s North Island…
July 29
Saturday
Rotorua-Mt. MaunganuiNew Zealand winters are gray and damp from what I can tell, but change to bright sun in a surprisingly short time. The steam from the sulfurous ground vents here in Rotorua blends with the misty air and settles in a chill layer on my skin.
We checked out of the Sheraton early and cruised the main street in town looking for breakfast. The perfect spot turned out to be the Nomad Café, run with sloppy panache by a couple of middle-aged traveler types with style. The food was cheap, plentiful and very good, and came with a side of email thanks to the array of computers in the back. While we ate breakfast and planned the day our laundry was being done in a wash and fold storefront next door. The perfect arrangement.
Our next stop was the Maori village. As we pulled up a tour was just leaving, so we rushed over in time to hear the guide describe what it’s like to live in a village where the ground is hot enough to bake potatoes. I had a great time being deliciously scared by the steam vents, the boiling pools of crystalline blue water, and the pit of volcanic mud bubbling viscously away.
The pools are different temperatures depending on the source of the water, and can change size and temperature based on geologic shifts but are generally stable. The Maori use the hot water for bathing, cooking, and heating. After the tour we shopped a bit, didn’t eat corn boiled in the pools out of respect for Maureen’s delicate sensibilities, and headed over to the meeting house for a traditional dance demonstration.
The meeting house itself was an unremarkable concrete block distinguished only by its entryway. Carved wooden beams framed the roof’s eaves, window, door, and supported the roof’s center. These beams symbolize Maori ancestors’ arms, eye, mouth and heart protecting the village. While potentially hokey at times, the song and dance performance was compelling.
Men, women, and several children in training lined up three rows deep at the front of the meeting house wearing traditional dress. The grass skirts did not hide the dark tattoos or obstruct the whirling pompom balls the women swung like bolos. The men’s deep, often booming chants supported the women’s melodic harmonies. A Polynesian-style guitar played backup. It sounded a lot like a very pissed-off Hawaiian band, actually. Fun.
We bummed around town for a bit after leaving the village, picked up the laundry, stopped into the Old Bath House where visitors were treated to hot water treatments, and went to a park with steam rising from vents near the swing set. The sulfur smell oozed from the steam vents and flowed through town, never entirely disappearing. The top news story in my paper this morning was about an aging actress found dead in her ground-floor room at the Sulfur City Motel. Apparent cause of death: suffocating levels of sulfurous fumes in her room.
The plan for the day was to sightsee, driving north to the coast until we felt like stopping. The scenery on the road out of Rotorua was beautiful green forest around a lakeside. Dad, ever alert, swerved to look at a flock of black swans and again for a fabulous group of peacocks. That last brightened up the creatively named “Hell’s Gate,” a geologic hot spot where we pulled over and walked among bubbling evidence of the fire below.
For a few dollars we were allowed to risk our lives on paths winding through steam vents, hot pools, boiling mud, and sulfurous fumes. All walkways had been reinforced against collapse using lumber and stone, which made me feel a little better about the “Don’t leave the path” and “You’re risking your life – We’re not kidding!” signs everywhere. My brother would have loved it.
The rest of the drive was pleasant and involved a lot of careening up and down and around to the coast. Evidence of logging was everywhere for a while and there were large swaths of land devoid even of sheep. Farm animals were more common near the coast and included fun herds of ostrich and some unidentifiable herd animals that reminded me of deer.
Maureen found a likely stopping place in the guidebook and we headed up Route 2 to the Bay of Plenty. Mt. Maunganui is a beach town, about three blocks wide running the length of the beach. As luck would have it we came to the water just at sunset. Everyone else hopped out to look at the waves while I stayed in the car to nurse my stomach, grateful for a break from the winding road.
Next thing I knew they’d all disappeared. I sat in the car getting colder, peering out into the dimming light wondering if we’d stumbled into a town of mass murderers. Just as my paranoia was reaching the point when I’d have to jump out of the car and be captured myself they came back, all smiles.
It seems we’d had the good fortune to stop right between two beachfront hotels. One was a collection of luxury condos let out to lucky souls like ourselves. In no time I was inside the top floor of the Belle Mar, running between the three bedrooms, huge living room, spa, two bathrooms, and a kitchen with Italian fixtures.
The place was wonderful, had everything you’d want in a luxury apartment, and was so fabulous that we decided to stay for our last two nights in New Zealand. The apartment even had a washer that was also a dryer, full sets of cutlery and dishware, and a big broad balcony running the length of the building. Wide windows looked out on both the mountain crowning our little peninsula and the beach with its necklace of islands. All this for NZ$175, or around $85 a night. What a find!
Valley of the Winds
Posted in Holidays, Writing, tagged #aroundtheworld, Australia, birding, hiking, Motivation, nonfiction, The Olgas, Thoughts, travel, Uluru, Valley of the Winds on July 23, 2015| Leave a Comment »
We’re in my own personal WayBackMachine again (a.k.a. my travel journal), hiking the red-tinged wilds of central Australia…
July 23
Sunday
UluruWhat a great day! Yesterday we spent time with the Rock, today we survived the Olgas!
That grocery shopping trip yesterday served us well. For breakfast we all had coffee and tea, along with bananas, apricot bars, and yogurt. We pulled white plastic chairs out onto the concrete apron around the cabin and had time to hang out in the sun, enjoying each others’ company. After an hour or so of sun-dappled relaxation we decided a morning hike through the Olga Mountains was a perfect Sunday activity. (Eek, a mouse in the room! Must be part of our high-priced entertainment package.)
The Olgas are the other geologic protuberance on the plain, but aren’t as catchily named as the Rock. Our housekeeper popped her head around the corner at the exact moment we were deciding whether to go and put in a plug for the Valley of the Winds. This is one of the walks through the Olgas and we decided we’d be fools not to check out the path this woman called “indescribable.”
For the next five hours we hiked, scrambled, birded and panted through a gorgeous trail of red rock and almost voluptuous desert flora. The fauna (broadly speaking) weren’t bad either – I saw lizards and insects and tons of birds. As of this evening I’m the proud sighter of a handful of beautiful blue green black Port Lincoln parrots, a very chatty pallid cuckoo, and tons of delightful little zebra finches with orange beaks and rouged cheeks and striped tails. Outside right now I’m listening to the cries of wild dingoes in the desert.
The Olgas’ scenery was dramatic and varied, with changeable clouds overhead conveniently shielding our skin from the worst of the sun’s rays. Buoyed by the day’s beauty and the presence of three Snickers bars in my pack we opted for the full 7.6 km route.
It was a perfect day hike. The whole circuit took a lot longer than planned but the greenery and birds and interactivity of the place kept my attention. It was 1.6 klicks to the burnt-out tree, another kilometer to the lookout over both sides of the valley pass.
Winding down out of the lookout valley the trail hugged the base of the main “Olga” and swept through a sheltered but open plain. The next two kilometers led over low hills and down stream beds, past uprooted trees and wildflower fields. Two point four klicks from the car we found a rain-fed water tank and rested in its shade.
The water drew birds to the trees around the tank and dozens of zebra finches braved our presence for a chance to enjoy the wet concrete under the tank’s tap. I watched the finches chatter and flit around the water spout, waiting for us to release a few drops of the precious fluid to replenish their bath.
Five o’clock found us hot and tired back at the hotel, where we devoured the rest of our groceries. Bryan’s brie and salami were a huge hit with me, and everyone enjoyed the nacho cheese Doritos, leftover pizza, and roasted chicken-flavored chips. All washed down of course with vodka tonics from Bryan’s birthday bottle. A nice little happy hour, complete with sunset.
Back to our favorite restaurant. Between us we had the lamb, veal, lasagna, gnocchi, and of course more salad. I love being in countries where you don’t have to worry about water or fresh vegetables. We came home for a beer with the (one-man) band and closed down the Outback Bar at 10 p.m.
While I’ve been writing it has started and stopped raining. The drops sounded loud on the porch overhang and came down fast, but tapered off quickly. This is a very nice place, despite the price and lack of amenities and nightlife. I’ve always liked the desert, even with snakes and scorpions (and the fact that I like the East Coast smell of worms after rain because it tells me that the earth is alive). The desert is never as empty as it seems, and it’s full of survivors like the yellow flowering shrubs and pink-gray star flowers lining the paths today.
Tomorrow we move on to Sydney and true Australian winter. I’m looking forward to seeing what a city’s like here and to running water in my room. I also think, deep in my touristy heart of hearts, that it’s going to be damn cool to see the Sydney Opera House. There! I said it!
Night of Lattea
Posted in Holidays, Writing, tagged #aroundtheworld, Australia, green building, lattea, Motivation, nonfiction, poetry, Thoughts, travel, Uluru on July 22, 2015| 2 Comments »
July 22
Saturday
Uluru“The Naked Days, or Night of Lattea”
Today is an Uluru day. We all piled into the wagon and drove the few miles to Uluru National Park. We bought three-day park passes and entered an area that looked just as dry and scrubby as that we’d just come from. The only access was by a two-lane highway rimmed with red dirt. The earth here is made of an iron oxide that practically glows, and the wetter-than-usual weather has kept greenery alive against the red backdrop. There are a surprising number of trees here for a desert, and the low shrubs are showing off a variety of colored flowers.
Pulling into the Cultural Center’s parking lot I saw that Frank Lloyd Wright’s got nothing on aboriginal architects. The Center was so integrated into the landscape that it was hard to even see. Red sand paths through low bushes showed us the way to a collection of low buildings with fluid walls and no visibly straight lines. The roofs were thatched grass held in rounded shape by discrete applications of chicken wire.
Smooth red brick blended into the landscape and framed native murals, which depicted the myths played out on the Rock. The great snake goddess who came here to avenge her nephew. The monster sent to kill a whole tribe. The waterhole guarded by a spirit with the power of life or death. All these things have left their mark on the Rock’s surface, and are recorded so that the natives remember Proper Way, or Tjukuru tribal law (I think that’s how it’s spelled). Do what the law says and all will be well. Step out of line and there’s no telling what might happen. Nothing good.
The afternoon perked up with the arrival of an aboriginal tour guide named Millie and her Anglo mouthpiece Megan. We joined the 3:15 tour starting at the Cultural Center and heard tell of the legends surrounding Uluru and how the locals lived before White Fella came to town. Megan, a white Aussie in her 30s, translated what Millie had to tell us about the lives of the spirits and the natives who remember them. Everything Megan said began with “Millie says that.” For a good while I thought that Millie was just for show and that I was witnessing a classic example of cultural appropriation. By the end of the tour, though, it seemed clear that Megan, while knowing her stories pretty well, was often prompted and corrected by Millie. Millie didn’t say much, but she was definitely listening.
The tour left from the Cultural Center and moved on to the Water Hole just next to Uluru. We were shown cave paintings that Millie explained as parts of The Law’s stories. The drawings, like those we saw in Kakadu, were the 10,000 year-old equivalent of a school blackboard. Elders would paint the walls and tell stories to educate children in the Proper Way. That was the way tribal custom and behavior was passed on, Millie said, in the “naked days” before the white man came.
Megan also produced a number of film canisters containing edible or medicinal plants used by aborigines. We all sat in a circle and everyone but Maureen tasted the offerings, at least until Dad found a chunk of glass in his bush plum. Where the hell did that come from? I kept looking and smelling, but didn’t taste after that. At the end of the tour Millie decided she liked our group and let us pose with her for photos.
We left the Center near sunset and had the perfect opportunity to stop at the Sunset Viewing Site just off the road. Of course, everyone else had the same idea. The sunset wasn’t much more spectacular than the one last night from the hill behind the hotel, but we were a lot closer. The Rock didn’t care if we could see purple and red highlights on its flanks, it knew there’d be other times, other sunsets.
Half an hour later, convinced by a quick visit to the other fancy restaurant that our first choice was the best, we sat down to a nice dinner. Bryan had oven-fired pizza, Maureen linguini with shrimp, Dad the creamy duck and gnocchi, and I had salmon with risotto and a huge Mediterranean salad. Two days of chicken nuggets and fries had pushed me to the edge and I wanted greenery bad. The cool green cucumber in my salad went beautifully with the Kalamata olives. We also tried the Clancy wine, a red blend of cabernet, merlot, shiraz and who knows what else. It was a big hit.
For dessert I invented the “lattea,” a cup of tea with hot foamed milk. (Ok, it’s a tea latte, but tell me lattea isn’t a better name:) It took some explaining but the waitress managed to translate my request into a steaming hot cup of delightfully restorative beverage. The perfect end to a fascinating day.
Red paint on sandstone
Through heat
and rain, through gods
and dreams
Waiting.
Left Toward Humpty Doo
Posted in Holidays, Writing, tagged #aroundtheworld, #keepleftlookright, Australia, Bill Bryson, Darwin, Kakadu, Motivation, nonfiction, Thoughts, travel, Uluru on July 19, 2015| Leave a Comment »
I received a request for more travel writing (thanks for the positive feedback, folks!) and I’m happy to oblige. Fifteen years ago today I was still on my around-the-world-on-a-shoestring adventure and lucky enough to be in beautiful and fascinating Australia. (For more, and often hilarious, writing on this fine land, I recommend Bill Bryson‘s excellent In a Sunburned Country.)
July 19
Wednesday
Darwin-KakaduToday was my first real day in Australia. I woke early and showered, then walked to a car rental place down the street and picked up a car. It’s a Camry with the steering wheel on the right (meaning wrong!) side. Weird, but fine once I got used to it.
I rescued my incredibly resilient brother from the jaws of the commercial aviation system, checked out of the hotel and started driving east. I took a left toward Humpty Doo and cruised down the Arnhem Highway. There aren’t that many roads up here so getting lost wasn’t as much of a problem as finding places to refuel. In these isolated parts the petrol stations are like souped-up 7-11s back home. They’ve got everything from gas to snacks to a lunch counter complete with short order cook. My brother bought an amazingly large and leaky hamburger with everything on it (we’re talking usual condiments like cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, mustard, ketchup, but also Thousand Island dressing, ham, pickled beets and a whole fried egg!). I had toast with peanut butter and everyone was happy.
It’s about three hours from Darwin to the Kakadu Park hotel where we were staying and I drove, pleased that being on the wrong side of the road was really no big deal. Keep left, look right, that’s my motto. I didn’t sweat it at all, except for that one time when I may have clipped a highway reflector post with the passenger-side mirror. Fortunately, both objects involved were spring-mounted. No harm done!
We pulled into the hotel mid-afternoon and found Dad and Step-Mo out by the pool. After halloos and stories, Dad joined us on a two-hour billabong boat tour where I saw two crocodiles, a ton of birds, and a sunset. I took many pictures. I was not eaten.
The road back to the hotel ran through scrubby trees and dense undergrowth, all of which exuded more elegance than during the day. The magnificent headdress of stars certainly helped.
We had dinner at the hotel restaurant (kangaroo isn’t so bad, really), drinks at the bar, then called it a night. I couldn’t stand to be behind in my writing anymore though, so I’m up and pleased to be back on track.
Spotted today: white parrots, a long lizard, three big monitor-type lizards with purple tongues (by the pool), a kangaroo (dead), big snake (dead), a wallaby (alive), biting insects galore, and the Southern Cross – beautiful!
