AdventureDivas: Divas

AdventureDivas honors "women who are composing their lives—and whose actions, individualism and vision will rule the future."

flightless in cape town - AMAZING images

Via Jeneane Sessum, flightless in cape town. (And catch the tagline... "The penguin is mightier than the swordfish!" Brilliant!)

Tags: visual_thinking

Ethics for Travelers

Pam has a great post on Ethics for Travelers on BlogHer. Worth reading for any traveller. Follow the links!

Armenia Travel and Tourism - Armeniapedia.org

Armenia Travel and Tourism - Armeniapedia.org: "Welcome to the world's largest Armenian Tourism and Travel web site. With hundreds of pages about tourism destinations, hundreds of pictures, a free guidebook, useful phrases, hotel and restaurant directory, GPS coordinates and more, you'll find everything you need here!"

Ladybugs on the beach and Devils River

Along my walk back to the hotel on the shore of Lake Michigan, I bent down to take a picture of an old shoe. But wait, what was here? Ladybugs. I looked at the next clump of dried algae and more ladybugs. Orange, red and yellow-green, there were tons of them in every bit of detritus on the beach.

I could not believe how many there were. I must have taken 30 pictures, trying to capture the different colors and the quantity. I wondered if this was an, um, mating time, due to the stacks of bugs. A quick google search turned this up:

Q. At the beginning of September, thousands of ladybugs were found in Lake Michigan. Why were they in and around the lake?
A. Periodically, all kinds of different insects can be found flowing in and around Lake Michigan. Although, during the early part of this month, the Lake Michigan area experienced some strong weather patterns. Insects can be carried on strong air currents created by storms, only to be "dropped off" somewhere else.

Hm, maybe it was a fertility sign for my friends getting married!

On Friday we attended the lovely wedding at Devils River Campground. This tree was a stunning backdrop.



We had dinner and dancing at the Lighthouse that night, and on Saturday morning, had a great breakfast at Newey's in Manitowoc. Then it was time to head to the airport to fly home. I enjoyed my midwest escape!

Wisconsin and Lake Michigan

This past week I had a chance to do a little traveling to a part of the US I'd not visited before, the Green Bay, Wisconsin area. A dear friend was getting married in the Two Rivers/Manitowoc area. Another friend and I came in a day early to enjoy the fall colors. We first drove down from Two Rivers to Manitowoc, to check out Beernsten's chocolate shop. Of COURSE I must visit the local chocolate places. I brought my husband some chocolates (peanut butter filled chocolate cows and caramel filled chocolate apples!)


Next, we headed north to Door County, also known as the Cape Cod of the midwest. Door county is a giant thumb sticking into Lake Michigan. The penninsula is a rolling farm studded place, rich with fall colors, apple stands and your requisite cute little bayside towns. We went all the way to the tip where one can catch a ferry to Washington Island. We doubled back, bought some jam, then some fantastic bread at the Door County Bakery in Sister Bay, which also had a high end deli. We put together a little picnic lunch of olives, bread, cheese and cherry juice soda!

Back in Two Rivers (we stayed at the very friendly Lighthouse Inn, I went for a walk along Lake Michigan, heading towards town. There were seagulls and not another soul on the windy beach. I walked up to the breakwater protecting the river through town, and looked up towards Two Rivers which is dominated by factories right on the river and lake shore.


More in the next post...


Two_RiversWisconsin, Manitowoc

The World is Not Flat - Thank GOODNESS!

Lee and Sachi have launched the website, The World is Not Flat, to complement their upcoming year long adventure around the world. TWINF, as Lee fondly calls it, is a hybrid travel blog, online community of travelers, and trip planning tool for our wandering pair. If you have a travel tip or location specific experience, drop in and add it to the rich emerging travel stew!

TWINF

Global Nomads and TCK

Due to the digital nature of my work and travels, I have many friends all over the world. I have been particularly drawn into friendship with people who grew up or who live in a world that transcends any one national border. From a comment from Shoshauna on this blog, I started trying to find her organization. I searched for Global Nomads and soon found a number of interesting sites.

Global Nomads Virtual Village -- Welcome Gate

The Global Nomad Virtual Village (GNVV) is an internet-based, non-profit, organization; a virtual hub or virtual village, that provides global nomads, third culture kids, Foreign Service dependents, military brats,(basically anyone who shares the common bond of growing up in a foreign land)... a permanent "place" to keep in touch. The GNVV is also a repository for global nomad related information and resources. For a more detailed look at our goals please take a look at the GNVV Charter below. If you are courious why we are doing this take a look at our list of reasons.

The Global Nomads Group

Founded in 1998, the Global Nomads Group (GNG) is a non-profit organization dedicated to heightening children's understanding and appreciation for the world and its people. Using interactive technologies such as videoconferencing, GNG brings young people together face-to-face to meet across cultural and national boundaries to discuss their differences & similarities, and the world issues that affect them.

Worldweave "personal explorations of the global nomad experience." (See the article on cultural marginality.)

Anyone interested in traveling beyond the tourist circuit is in a position to reflect upon their own culture and the cultures they step in to. It changes us.

P.S. TKC = Third Culture Kids!

Passing it Along - Housing for Katrina Folk

Via badgerbag: messy, surly, full of books

"Please spread this, my grassroots media queens! We are Direct Relief! We can call and say that we are media, and ask for information, and they will put out.

Anyone who is from the disaster-affected zipcodes can get their hotel bills paid directly by the Red Cross. This is a joint effort between the Red Cross, FEMA, and a company called Corporate Lodging. They'll pay your hotel bill for 14-28 days. Here is the information from Corporate Lodging; you will need it to give to the hotel. I was told by the Red Cross media contact that this company has 90% of the hospitality industry participating.

How to use the Red Cross free hotel room program:

- are you from one of the affected zip codes?
- call a hotel and find out if they are willing to participate; tell them the web site for the ARC program, which has all the info on how the hotel can bill the Red Cross directly
- make sure you have *something* that says what your zip code is. I don't know if you need an ID. I'll call corp. lodging tomorrow and check. But, it's best to check with the individual hotel anyway.
- make your room reservation
- figure out how to get there!

The program was already in place nationwide, to help families whose homes were destroyed by fire. the Red Cross committed the money for expanding, and it sounds like Corporate Lodging scaled it up very quickly to respond to the disaster. Around 60,000 families are already in ARC-sponsored hotel rooms.

If you have already been staying in a hotel, you can submit your receipts to the Red Cross to your local chapter, and they will reimburse you.

...I will blog this info in many different places and it will spread very quickly to people who are reading blogs only, and are not seeing newspapers. It will go straight to the people that need the help in some cases. Renita, thank you very much for your useful information. ...

Even MORE direct financial help is available through this RC hotline :

Families in need can access this program by calling 1-800-975-7585 beginning at 9:00 a.m. EST Sunday. To apply for aid, victims calling in must be ready to provide their name, pre-storm address, ZIP code and home telephone number to call center agents. Callers must be prepared to write down a client identification number which they will take to a financial institution in their new community to receive the support. Families in need can access this program by calling 1-800-975-7585 beginning at 9:00 a.m. EST Sunday. To apply for aid, victims calling in must be ready to provide their name, pre-storm address, ZIP code and home telephone number to call center agents. Callers must be prepared to write down a client identification number which they will take to a financial institution in their new community to receive the support.

recovery2, katrina, hurricanekatrina, kitchentablerelief

Another Interesting Adventure

My friends Lee and Sachi are not the only Seattleites preparing for a major trip. Seems The Traveling Guys are also about to launch a globe-spanning effort that will be documented on the web. Is it something in the water here? If so, give me a drink!

twinf

One Bag: The Packing List

More packing wisdom, via Lee on his new (and still evolving - it ain't done yet, but us travel addicts are already subscribed) The World is Not Flat site. One Bag: The Packing List.

The Universal Packing List

What a gift. This little online tool queries you on your trip and then builds a packing list for you. Even emails it to you. Way cool. The Universal Packing List

Bill Anderson finds: One for the heart from Walt Kelly

This is a great quote. Have to share it, thanks to Bill Anderson.

edge city: One for the heart from Walt Kelly

"'There are other motivating forces besides anger that go into making up the so-called humorous treatments of recognizable situations. Despite his preoccupation with being a flashy, cigar-smoking, sharp, tough-minded, all-around good sport and well read to boot, the American male has soft deposits of tenderness in some of the lower strata of his make up. These occasionally quiver and rumble so that a recording is made on the seismograph of the mind. Such indications are very often ignored, put down firmly or chalked up as manifestations of approaching senility or drink-induced sentimentality. But now and then your infield is a little slow afoot and the heart puts a soft liner through for a two-base hit.'

- Walt Kelly, creator of Pogo"

Two Good Travelogues

For the wanderlusters, check out the recent Ghana posts from Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth: Travel Archives and the amazing story of the Constant's walk from London to South Africa.