Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on August 29, 2010 at 12:17am

I don't know if it counts as travel in the traditional sense, but...

I work seasonally and live out of my motorhome. Went to Flagstaff Arizona intending to spend a couple of weeks while getting knee surgery then go back to my Summer job at Lake Powell. Except the Summer job fizzled.

A couple hundred applications and still no job with the Park Service anywhere else.

In a snap decision I figured, "I'm in a college town; let's go back to college."

So anyway, my few weeks passing through Flagstaff is now going on 6 months and will very likely be a year ... until hopefully Summer will find me a new Park Service gig elsewhere in the country.

Part of why I'm doing the seasonal-gig thing is because that's just the kind of job I seem to do best in. But another part of it is that I do indeed love to travel, explore new places, little towns, local flavor, natural wonders. With the motorhome I can simply take my 'house' with me wherever I go!

I'd never spent much time in Flagstaff before this, so it's pretty new to me. Not a very big college town, but definitely a college town. Especially with Arizona being such a red state, it's nice to find a haven of higher learning and hippie environmentalist types. Definitely not hard to find organic produce 'round here and downtown is very nostalgic-historic. There are no suburbs to speak of or even that gradual transition from city to rural as in many places. I park my RV out on national forest land which surrounds the city. Pristine camping spot to school is 10 miles.

If ever anyone visits Arizona thinking it will be all flat, hot desert and cactus, come spend some time at 7,000 feet in pine forest and in the shadow of our 12,000 foot volcanic peaks! Haven't had a chance to do it yet but I know there are places here where you can hike through lava and ice tunnels. Plus a lot of Native and Pioneer history and the Lowell Astronomical Observatory.

Permalink Reply by The Big Blue Frog on August 29, 2010 at 11:45am

You're also not far from the Meteor Crater. Check it out. It's an amazing sight. I've seen it twice.

Permalink Reply by The Big Blue Frog on September 2, 2010 at 4:12pm

I was in Panama City this past weekend, but I didn't have any free time. I was there for my brother-in-law's pinning. He was promoted to Major in the Air Force. The promotion ceremony was full of God and Jesus references, and the invocation was given by a Southern Baptist minister from my BiL's church.

Permalink Reply by Pat on September 23, 2010 at 11:43am

Had a humorous incident occur while travelling in Wyoming this summer. We (my S/O and her friend) stopped at Independence Rock in Alcova, WY. We saw about 5 or 6 large tour buses in the parking lot, and a large throng of people dressed in period "pioneer" costumes; women and girls in long dresses and bonnets, and men and boys with suspenders and straw hats. I didn't think much of it until I heard a teenage girl tell another girl she was sinning by showing her ankles. And then I heard one of the group yell to a young boy that he had better get back to the bus because, "Mr. Ward's significant wife is looking for you." I realized I had stumbled on to a nest of Mormons.

It wasn't so bad, until I got back to the parking lot and was talking to a normally dressed woman. I mentioned I was a tourist and was enjoying my stay in Wyoming. The chat was going fine until she looked at my license plate on the truck (Illinois). She looked back up at me with an obvious air of disapproval, and said had been to Illinios once - Nauvoo. And, without so much as "kiss my ass" she turned around and walk away.

Discretion, being the better part of valour, we got in the truck and left.

Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on September 27, 2010 at 12:14am

Welcome to the rural West.

Ya damn Yankee.

Permalink Reply by Prog Rock Girl on October 21, 2010 at 7:23pm

At the end of the summer I went to Denmark to see my dad. I felt kind of "meh" about it b/c how could Denmark be more exciting than India? And I historically didn't get along too good with him. I ended up having a blast! The Danish countryside was very beautiful. I went on lots of nice hikes, and Nexelo Island was the most beautiful hike I've ever been on...I took a ferry to the island and then walked around. My stepbrother and his family came by and invited us to stay with them a few days in Copenhagen, which was also great b/c I wanted to ask them but I felt like I didn't know them very well! We got a good idea of what Denmark was like.

Permalink Reply by The Big Blue Frog on June 21, 2011 at 4:06pm

My wife and I spent a week in the Ft. Lauderdale area this May. We visited an excellent butterfly park north of Ft. Lauderdale. Lots of great science-y stuff to see and do.