Here’s a link to my post today at Vagablogging, which takes a look at some of the more desperate, fundamental reasons senior citizens hit the road.
Less than 700 words and most of it’s quotes, but it took till four in the morning.
Bottom line: No matter your age, it’s not all sunshine and sailboats out there.
Entries Tagged as 'Making Sense'
The desperate motivations of senior travel
January 20th, 2010 No Comments
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Dark news from the Lehigh Valley
December 17th, 2009 1 Comment
Forget steel. American Weirdness is booming in the Lehigh Valley.
Today’s headline: Teacher dead from heroin overdose on a school night. A beautiful 24 year-old biology teacher, blond. At a high school 28 miles south on the previous day, the same drug lulled a girl to sleep in class.
Bowhunters recently found a decomposed body in the [...]
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Amanda Knox: Now what?
December 4th, 2009 No Comments
As college students around the world prepare for a big Friday night, Amanda Knox is preparing for a 26-year prison sentence. Minutes ago, an Italian jury convicted her of murder.
From an American perspective, the trial appeared to be a tragic, perversion-laced misunderstanding. A misunderstanding that would have been obvious if not for the clouds of [...]
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Vagablogging + Books on Boats
November 5th, 2009 No Comments
Something new: I’ve just started a weekly gig over at Vagablogging. Here’s a link to my post from last week about the magic of fort cities. This week it’s about the intersection of art and place.
Tonight during a World Series commercial break, I ran into the following passage which gives an interesting take on the [...]
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What if you don’t get the inner journey?
October 31st, 2009 2 Comments
It was the perfect recipe for transformation: A month-long trek around a clump of stupendous mountains. An ancient pilgrim path. A motorcycle through the jungle. A summer of scraping by with a baritone sax.
So what happens when you finally reread your journals and realize the pages are filled with mental dandruff? Quick shots of confusion, [...]
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A Quick Pilgrimage to Pittsburgh, PA
October 27th, 2009 3 Comments
Made a pilgrimage to Pittsburgh last weekend with my dad for the homecoming football game. Quick domestic travel, always a welcome complement to the long international breed. Left the Lehigh Valley at 4 pm on Friday and returned 29 hours later. Just over 19 hours in the Steel City.
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Never Count Out an Old Guidebook
October 17th, 2009 No Comments
Unassuming on the outside. Just your standard red Baedeker from 1959, right?
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The Effects of Two Months in South America
October 10th, 2009 1 Comment
Adam the Traveler has just posted reflections from his first two months in South America, along with some solid photos. Here are a few:
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Where Will a Walk Take You?
September 17th, 2009 No Comments
Have you walked across your city? Have you witnessed the bell curve of its development? Would you take the same route you’d use to drive? Or would you seek out some sort of alternate, foot-friendly route?
Yesterday I read about a back-up plan that many Bihari peasants keep in mind: Make the month-long walk to Calcutta [...]
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The Hazards of Prolonged International Exposure
September 11th, 2009 1 Comment
The right mix of cigarette smoke and cologne puts me on a sidewalk in Granada. A grey-blue overcast sunrise through a crack in the blinds is another Utica snowstorm. The smell of rare wood burning (a piano, let’s say) is the rush of India.
The more places we visit, the more elsewheres we can be transported [...]
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Why I Turned Down a Year in Asia for Bethlehem, PA
September 1st, 2009 6 Comments
Photo by Marty.fm
A couple months ago, I told some friends and family that the time had come. That I’d been home almost a year, and would soon hit the road to teach English in Asia. Boom–gotta get out of here. Next stop: Daegu, Korea, or Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
We’re trained to follow through on what we say, [...]
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What Do Travel And Storms Have In Common?
August 26th, 2009 No Comments
Travel and storms are both the changing of a place. You sense a distant rumbling that something’s brewing. An oncoming pressure drop. When the wind gets in your hair, you know it’s on.
It hits and jars your senses. There’s adrenaline, fear, and giddyness in some proportion, cut with the awe of something immediate and massive. [...]
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