Roam

[feaito]

My sister-in-laws' idea of a great vacation is shopping on Rodeo Drive, or the Fashion Mall on the Vegas strip to me that's ploowey. I can shop any day on Michigan Avenue. Anne

I totally agree with you Anne. My idea of a vacation has nothing to do with shopping. I did shop a lot during my first travels to the United States, but that was because I had to seize the opportunity of buying books, Cds and VHS/DVDs that are largely unavailable in my country. I was just in awe in stores like Borders, Barnes & Noble, Circuit City, Best Buy, etc.

The last times in which I visited Raleigh I did it in another way. I ordered everything I wanted from Amazon to be delivered to my sister in law's home in advance, thus I could rest during my visit and avoid shopping and return with all my acquisitions (via internet) to my country .

[jdb1]

Judith:

Old Folks trip!!! You don't see much from the highways, you can use the interstates to get from state to state, but then you hit the frontage roads. We kept an eye out for what looked like interesting billboards. That's how we found the original home of the Precious Moments creator and the little museum he has set up there. It was November when we were there so it was kind of cold, but I imagine in summer it would be nice. I think it's in KY, but don't quote me. You wouldn't believe the aroma in the various fruit groves, or if you drive up in the mountains around Las Vegas, the pine smells like our house used to on Christmas eve when we had a real tree.

What I meant about NY was that when I travel, I want to experience different customs, foods, and scenery than the concrete mountains I see every day, or for that matter, dirt roads rather than concrete highways. My sister-in-laws' idea of a great vacation is shopping on Rodeo Drive, or the Fashion Mall on the Vegas strip to me that's ploowey. I can shop any day on Michigan Avenue.

Anne

Those trips sound lovely. They show TV programs about such things from time to time on the "educational" cable channels - especially when they've run out of those shows that are so obviously funded by places they are touting, like all those Hawaii and Florida programs.

I certainly agree about traveling just to shop. Why, unless you live somewhere so out of the way that you don't get to have the experience very much? I like to see the sights and, like you, not just the guidebook kind of sights. I have a friend in Taiwan who always asks me to come to Taipei, but such a long flight is out of the question for me now. Too bad -- imagine going to such a "different" place and having a friend to show you around!

I remember once going to Washington Irving's home, Sunnyside, which is just above NYC near Tarrytown, NY. It was the winter, and there weren't any other visitors but me and my beau. The re-enactors were baking, so they let us come into the kitchen to help and then we had tea and cakes with them. We were also permitted to go up into the attic with one of the hostesses and rummage around. Many of Irving's personal books were in trunks, and many of those had inscriptions to him from the authors. It was amazing to have the run of the house like that -- Washington Irving became more real to me because of it.

Let me know if and when you come to NYC, Anne. I'll be happy to show you how we natives live, and take you around my beloved Brooklyn. Our Brooklyn Museum is wonderful, and is second only to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in size. Yeah, we love "cultcha" in Brooklyn. Whaddya, kiddin' me?

[benwhowell]

Marco, as a Memphian, I can attest to the fact that barbeque is a Memphis staple. There are "joints" all over town-from tacky (but good) drive inns to the fancy Charlie Vergos Rendevous Room. Sometimes you can even find a great barbeque joint operating out of someone's home!
You can order online from Corky's (My friend, Rhonda, usually sends me a barbeque "care package" at Christmas.) http://www.corkysbbq.com/
If you decide to make the trip to Memphis...May is the best month. The barbeque cook off is held that month-downtown, on the bank of the Mississippi River. The Peabody Hotel would be the place to stay. They used to have (free) movie nights on the roof. I remember seeing "My Man Godfrey" one night. The barbeque cookoff ends with a concert from the Memphis Philharmonic and fireworks (from a barge in the river) and, of course, a rendition of "Ol' Man River."
The Memphis In May celebration salutes a different country every year-with events and exhibits (and LOTS of food-Memphians love to eat!) all over town-including a film festival with movies from that country.
And the flowers are in full bloom. Be prepared for rain.

[benwhowell]

You got me feeling a little homesick, Marco. Found a coupla sites to cheer me up...
The Peabody
http://www.peabodymemphis.com/home.cfm

The Orpheum
http://www.orpheum-memphis.com/

Beale Street
http://www.bealestreet.com/home.html

Memphis In May
http://memphisinmay.org/home.html

[Moraldo Rubini]

I guess I'll have to join an Old Folks travel club when the time comes.

My 87-year old mother is in many ways more comfortable in the 21st century than I. For instance, she's given up her land line, and now carries her cellphone whereever she goes. I called her this past Mother's Day and she answered with "I'm boating on Lake Lure in North Carolina!" (she lives in northern California). It seems she flew out to surprise a her nephew who was about to celebrate his 70th birthday. Surprise! She returned home for a couple days and then hopped on a train to Wisconsin to attend a graduation of some of her great grand-nieces. At 87, there's no stopping her. So I'm all for the Old Folks' Travel Club. I hope to partake in it myself one day...

Ben! Thanks! Your posts inspire me to want to really check out Memphis. I love that the Orpheum is showing movies in that grand palace, and now I want to see the Peabody Ducks. Quack!

[pktrekgirl]

Wow...well, since traveling is my absolute first love, I've been to a number of places. And since I love making lists almost as much as I love to travel, this post is likely to be long (and probably boring) to anyone who isn't as obsessed with travel as I am. And I am pretty obsessed.

I've been to all 50 states except for Hawaii, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. I have lived in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Idaho and Alaska. My favorite state, hands down, is Alaska - complete no-brainer.

I've also been to both Mexico and Canada...and to the Bahamas.

As for traveling outside the U.S., I've been to about 35 or 40 countries (including Mexico, Canada and the Bahamas), I think.

I've been to every country in Western Europe EXCEPT for Portugal, Wales, Sweden, Norway and Finland, (and if you count them as Western Europe) Greece and Turkey.

In Eastern Europe I've been to Poland, Czech Republic, Latvia, Russia and Ukraine. I actually lived in Moscow, Russia for a year, in fact.

In Central Asia, I've been to Uzbekistan.

In Asia I've been to China, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.

The countries where I've spent the most time:

Russia - one year
Japan - about 10 weeks total
The UK (mainly England, but also Ireland and Scotland) - about 9 weeks total
Italy - about 5 weeks total
China - one month
Vietnam/Cambodia - one month


My favorite cities:
Paris, France
Barcelona, Spain
Florence, Italy
Rome, Italy
St. Petersburg, Russia
Hong Kong, China
Beijing, China
Tokyo, Japan
London, England


My favorite countries:
Italy
China
Russia

My least favorite country:
Switzerland

Best Airport to kill time:
Hong Kong, China

Worst Airport to kill time:
Charles de Gaulle, Paris...or Dillingham, Alaska

Best City to kill time:
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Worst City to kill time:
Zürich, Switzerland (Zzzzzzzz......)

Most Impressive Sites I've ever visited:
Angkor Temple complex, Siem Reap, Cambodia
St. Peter's Basilica, Rome, Italy
Great Wall, outside of Beijing, China
Red Square, Moscow, Russia
The harvesting of a 42-foot whale by Alaska Natives on the beach of the Arctic Ocean, Barrow, Alaska


Most Sobering Sites I've ever visited:
The Killing Fields, outside of Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Hiroshima, Japan
Auschwitz, Poland
"Hanoi Hilton", Hanoi, Vietnam
"American War" Museum, Saigon, Vietnam
Grave of Pope John Paul II, Vatican City
Anne Frank Museum, Amsterdam

Best Art Museums (outside the U.S.):
The Louvre (duh!) - Paris
The Hermitage - St. Petersburg
Musee D'Orsay - Paris
The Uffizi - Florence
The Academia - Florence

Favorite single piece of art:
David - The Academia, Florence (IMO, if you see ONE piece of art in the world, let it be this one)

Most Beautiful Churches:
Notre Dame, Paris
Sacre Coeur, Paris
St. Isaac's, St. Petersburg
Any of the major Basilicas, Rome
Duomo di Milano, Milan
Basilica of St. Therese, Lisieux, France
Sagrada Familia, Barcelona (unfinished)
St. Stephans Cathedral, Vienna, Austria
Cologne Cathedral, Cologne, Germany

Largest Display of Conspicuous Consumption EVER:
Versailles

Favorite Small Towns that are off the beaten track:
Lisieux, France
Castellaneta, Italy (Valentino's hometown)

Most beautiful gardens:
Kyoto, Japan
Blenhem Palace, outside Oxford, England

Most breathtaking natural beauty:
Alaska - pick a mountain range
Jackson Hole area, Wyoming
Yangshou, China
Halong Bay, north of Hanoi, Vietnam

Coolest Architecture:
Barcelona, Spain

Most Romantic Cities:
Paris, France
Prague, Czech Republic

Most Amazing City Squares:
Red Square, Moscow
The Grand Place, Brussels
Tiananmen Square, Beijing
Old Town Square, Warsaw (would be cooler if it hadn't been bombed to bits and rebuilt)
Trafalgar Square, London

Best View:
View from Victoria Peak, Hong Kong (WOW!)

All-round Funnest Country:
ITALY!!! No one knows how to have fun like the Italians. NO ONE. And they also have the best food.

Places I most want to visit, but haven't yet:
Tibet - particularly Lhasa
India
Ecuador & the Galapagos
Peru
Nepal - particularly Everest Base Camp
Kenya
Mali
Morocco
Israel & Egypt

Wow, I love to travel! I could do it 24/7/365. Seriously. The world is such an amazing place - I just can't get enough. Even thinking about this stuff makes me happy.

[movieman1957]

Holy jet lag, Batman!!!

[knitwit45]

Chris! The majority of the south is an enigma to me. I have long wanted to take a barbeque tour though; encompassing the best barbeque joints in Texas, Kansas City, Memphis and North Carolina. Judith is right: we all go to New York. And I sampled more barbeque when I was there these past months, but something tells me that the Memphis pulled pork, the Texan beef, the North Carolina vinegars and the smokes of Kansas City would surpass any of the barbeque establishments that I explored in Manhattan.

Jack/Moraldo:
Even as I am writing this, the historic 18th & Vine district ("going to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come") is hosting a Rhythm and Ribs event. This year, Al Jarreau and George Benson, among others, are perfoming. The fragrance of the smoke is everywhere!

The KC Chiefs fans (foolhardy souls) have taken tailgating to the max. Elaborate smokers and grills are set up at the crack of dawn, and the party lasts till game time....and for some, the party is the only reason to show up! If we don't turn it around soon, the parking lots are going to be pretty empty... but that's a whole different subject.

Anyway, if you ever find your way to KC, I would love to show you the best Barbeque in the world... hoo, boy, I just opened myself up for that one! But it really is the best.
Nancy

[cmvgor]

Age 18-21. Your tax dollars billeted me in West Germany, where I defended the Berlin Wall from stations in Munich, Ausgsburg, and a couple
of smaller places that I can no longer pronounce with certainty. I was in Infantry outfits mostly, but the last year I was in a Cavalry outfit, still doing an Infantry job, just helicopter - mounted. At one point planned a leave in Paris, but at that time some Algerian separatists were tossing
bombs around the sidewalk cafes, and GIs were not allowed to go there
except on duty. / I did go on leave a couple of times to Berchesgaden, and I toured the "Eagle's Nest." Spend a little time on the History Channel
and you can see shots of Adolph and Eva taking their leisure there.

At one point my unit participated in NATO manouvers in Norway. An exercise of some twelve days. Features: A couple of times we were ferried across the fjords on boats similar to the Staton Island ferry.
The Kirk Douglas - Tony Curtis film 'The Vikings' has some shots that
show the kind of setting we were in. / At a couple of points we were on mountain tops above the tree line, with no plant life visable except a pale
sort of moss on some of the rocks. / It was mid-summer and we were
250 miles above the Arctic Circle. The dark hours of night were 2.5 hours
long. The fruit I call huckleberries were ripe, and they were very good. /
The towns we visited included Bardifus (picture two dots above the u) and Tromso (picture a slashmark across the o). / Manouvers over, awaiting our flight back to Munich, we were billeted at a local Air Force base (NATO rules: take no photos) and were allowed some leave time in
Tromso. In a movie theater that seemed to be the off-hours use of a
warehouse, we saw 'The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad' and 'This Angry Age'
in English with the local language as subtitles. / Listening to a newscast in the local language we heard the words "Bermingham, Alabama". We asked a Norwegian Airman about the reference . A Black church had been bombed.

Out of the Army, back home and in college. The summer between Sophomore and Junior years, I went with three other guys from the same
campus to do "custom combining" on the wheat harvest. We joined the
boss in June in Oklahoma, near Enid, and moved north as the wheat ripened. In Oklahoma, in origional Land Rush territory there are, or were
in the 1960's, mile wide farms of nothing but wheat, with a little notch cut
out of one side for the farmers' homes and outbuildings. Our boss operated 4 combine harvesters and 4 two-and-a-half-ton trucks for hauling
the grain to the silos. We saw little of cities; we stayed in farm country, where the tallest structures were the grain silos, sometimes 20 stories high.

Oklahoma. Kansas. Nebraska. Wyoming (a weekend break that allowed one day at the Frontier Days Rodeo in Cheyanne). Now out of the flat land and mile-square fields, and sometimes the wheat fields had to be
contoured around some land that wouldn't plow. A jog through Colorado
with a distant view of the Rockies. A stay in a trailer park in the biggest
town on the tour -- Great Falls, Montana. Harvested near there in sight
of some buttes that would have looked good in a John Ford background
shot. Our last stop with the crew was Cutbank, Montana. It's just south
of the Canadian border, and has a claim to fame of sorts: There is an
Air Force weather station there, and when cold air starts down from Alberta, that is the first official thermometer it hits, and that's the
temp that goes on record. Cutbank is to the West what Buffalo, NY is to
the East. -- Two or three times a year, its mentioned in the news as the
coldest place in the country.

We experienced sleet in August in Cutbank, and my schoolmates and I
parted from the crew there. We went part of the way back by train.
One regret: crossing the Black Hills of South Dakota at night; didn't see
a thing. Changed trains in the Twin Cities. Back to the boss' home in
Kansas, where one of the guys had left his car in storage all summer.
Driving back, crossed the southern tip of Illinois and parts of Arkansas
and Tennessee.

I've stayed pretty close to home since. A weekend junket to Charleston, S.C. A few day- trips out and back. For health reasons, I'm content to have it that way. If I ever get another chance to see the Black Hills or
some of the Great Lakes terrain, I'll take it, but I won't make any sacrifices to do it.

[knitwit45]

cm, reading your post was like traveling with you. People often sneer or smirk when I say Kansas is a beautiful state, because we don't have mountains, oceans or beaches. I tell them to take a trip through the Flint Hills, and NOT imagine wagon trains going slowly along, wondering if Indians would be over the next hill. It truly stirs the soul to see the prairie as our forefathers did.

The fields of wheat, stretching as far as you can see, will take your breath away, just by their quiet glory. And when the combines are stretched out, side by side, it reminds me how far we have come, and yet how basic our needs still are, for the bread of life.

Guess you just caught me on a gabby day...but thanks for sharing your travels.

Nancy

[Vecchiolarry]

Hi,

I've travelled a lot over the past 60 years - - too much really and now, it's more a chore thatn a pleasure.
Security, especially unnecessary security, makes it a pain.

Places I have not been:
Central & South America
Caribbean
Australia & New Zealand
China - except for Hong Kong
India
Indonesia & Philippines
South East Asia - except for Singapore
Africa - except for Egypt & Morocco
Middle East - except for Israel & Lebanon

I've been all over Europe except for Albania.

Larry

[cmvgor]

[quote="knitwit45"]cm, reading your post was like traveling with you. People often sneer or smirk when I say Kansas is a beautiful state, because we don't have mountains, oceans or beaches. I tell them to take a trip through the Flint Hills, and NOT imagine wagon trains going slowly along, wondering if Indians would be over the next hill. It truly stirs the soul to see the prairie as our forefathers did.

The fields of wheat, stretching as far as you can see, will take your breath away, just by their quiet glory. And when the combines are stretched out, side by side, it reminds me how far we have come, and yet how basic our needs still are, for the bread of life.

Guess you just caught me on a gabby day...but thanks for sharing your travels.

Nancy[quote/]

Knitwit45;

Just the act of writing that experience up stirred up a lot of dorment memories of an experience I enjoyed. For one thing, it was a tour into a sort of subculture that only a minority have experienced. -- The Custom
Combiners. For that part of the year they live on the road and travel from stop to stop like a circus crew or something. An investment in a combine harvester of his own would put a burden on a farmer; It makes sense for him to hire a crew that can gather all his wheat in a matter of a few days and have it all over with. The boss I worked for bought new harvesters and new trucks every year, and sold them at the end of the harvest. When my schoolmates and I left our boss at Cut Bank (correct
spelling, per MapQuest), he was arranging the sale of the machines we had used that summer, and the crew still with him were enough to drive his two pickups, two trailers, his fueling truck and his wife's luxury sedan
back to Kansas. His wife and daughter and a foreman and his wife with their own trailer had been with us all summer. The value of the used equipment gave him a good return, and helped make the venture profitable.

Its a sub-group with a lifestyle and identity of their own, for the most part known only among the farmers they harvest for and the grain-storage operaters they deliver to. And it takes up only part of their year. My boss operated an auction service during the off months ("Have gavel, will
travel").

Some memories not mentioned previously: 1. Manouvering the combines
around working oil wells in Oklahoma; they looked like giant crickets doing
something obscene. 2. On the road between customers -- four grain trucks with combines mounted on the backs, two full-size trailers, one behind a pickup and the other behind a fueling truck, the foreman and his
pickup, towing his trailer, and the sedan in the lead. All in radio contact
by CB radio. Very similar to a military convoy. 3. In the square-mile fields in Oklahoma, a stistic: Put down a 14-foot harvester blade at one end of the field and make one trip to the other end, and you've harvested,
in square footage, an acre of land. Good year, good crop, you may have emptied your grain bin into your satellite truck three or more times,
and have it very close to full. 4. Our boss was a religious man and did not
work on Sundays. He had run this route often enough that he always knew of a nearby church that he could attend. He had contacts with truck and harvester dealerships when their attention was needed for the machines, and he had past contacts with banks that knew our paychecks
could be cashed. A background like that takes time to build, and it is the lifeblood of that business. 5. Spending a day and a half carefully washing and re-washing every combine, every truck, because we were going to cross a state line the next day and face a very tough inspection. The next day, at the border station, the inspector walked down the line of vehicles giving each one a glance, then waved us through. 6. And this one really charmed me: Harvesting on a wide, flat plane in the neighborhood of Cut Bank, several different crews visable from my vantage point, and, overhead, V-shaped flights of Canada Geese, starting their migration south, and coming in to look over the cut portions to check us out for dropped grain. Sometimes several flights in sight at the same time. And on the ground, the odd pheasant or two, in full plumage, searching for the same bounty.

There's an Alan Ladd movie 'Wild Harvest' (1947) about custom combining, but that script (I've seen scraps of it) insists on throwing in all kinds of perils and fights and fires, etc. It's never occured to me to look for it, but I hope that The Learning Channel or The History Channel has a few essay-hours devoted to this subject for the information of the general public. It IS one of the important supports of our general economy.

[jdb1]

cmvgor, your descriptions are poetic and inspiring. I would love to see the places you've described.

I never saw "Wild Harvest," and I suppose I assumed it was something completely different from what you've described. Now I'd be interested to see it.

Many thanks.

[inglis]

Hi Ben
I did a tour of Europe with my Mom back in 83, and had a blast .London was amazing ,it's still my favorite city of all time.I have been back 3 times since that tour. The last time was bittersweet as we took my Mom back to Scotland to be buried. My brother and I had a 3 day stop over in London before we were to meet my other brother and his family in Scotland.
This time we went to AbbyRoad Studio's and was blown away that I finally got to see it.I put a little message on the wall there and it said well Mom I am here. My brother had me shoot him with the video camera walking on the pedistrian walk that is used on the cover of the AbbyRoad album.We walked all over the place and spent alot of time in Soho. We stayed at Earl's Court and ate Indian food every night for dinner and the Indian beer was fantastic,we could not get get enough of it ,it was so good. My daughter wants to travel,and I am encouraging her to do so when she is older.I think it's one of the best forms of education that we can give ourselves, to be exposed to other cultures and to learn about the differents customs.Well speaking of customs ,I have friends coming over tonight,and I am going to be making sourpussie martini's .They are great! .My kids are at sleepovers tonight so we are going to relax and listen to some musci and have a few drinkies.Have a great Summer Ben! Cheers Inglis

[Professional Tourist]

There's a site where you can create maps to show where you've been, but I can't get the image to show here. Anyway, the red shows where I've been in the States.

And here's where I've been world-wide.

It's a big world. Still so much to see...

Thanks for the link to the World66 web site!

I've created a map of the places I've visited (although some, such as the caribbean islands, don't show up very well.)