State of Place

Been thinking about how many Facebook status updates are location-based. Quick peeks into places, snapshots of travel big and small.
Here are a few from last week:

weather.com says that there is a tornado warning for Stoneham this evening…I’m not sure I believe that!

Yay I have something to do tonight. Going to The Albany Roller Derby at [...]

The desert salt flat and bright blue sky met far away at foot-level. Massive trains crept by on twelve sets of tracks, their red and black and white bodies sharp against the imposing sky.
Every picture snapped became the best picture I’d ever taken.
A crowd of backpackers milled about, complete with keffiyehs. Are you catching the [...]

Thinking about the millions of ways to exist on the Camino de Santiago. Again.
Read more in my post on Vagablogging this week.
Thanks for checking it out…
Ultreia!

UPDATE: LivingInPeru.com, which knows this area way better than I do, DOES NOT recommend trying to walk out. Just sayin’. (Plus I guess the airlifts are almost over.)
Seriously — this is a repost of the instructions given by Cole Gainer to a friend on Facebook. Pass it on to anybody in there who might benefit:
If [...]

Climbed through the woods, up the steep face to the lookout. On the way up heard a parked car blaring the latest autotune, expected to find some homeboy and his girlfriend. Instead, a circle of people, lots of leather jackets, heads bowed, arms around each other. Big man in a suit saying a prayer in [...]

[Free rhyme inside]:

“Dazed people walking the streets of Port au Prince keep saying the same thing: “Haiti is dead.” And on one level that’s true — this small country has just endured one of the most searing natural disasters in history, and death is everywhere.  Death is on sidewalks, on the roads, in rivers, buried in rubble [...]

(Read it aloud):

…and you’re not a trained disaster relief worker, please consider donating the money you would have put towards a trip to one of the following charities already working in Haiti:
Direct Relief International (Charity Navigator report)
Partners in Health (Charity Navigator report)
Doctors Without Borders (Charity Navigator report)
“After the initial rush to get to a disaster site or [...]

Here’s a link to my post over at Vagablogging today:
U.S. intelligence employs vagabonding ethic…and vagabonds?
Hope you can find a minute to check it out…thanks and Happy Wednesday.

Here comes another year of word choices. You tell me: What’s cliché, what’s not?
(As much as I love my Lowe, I’d like to see 2010 be the Year of the Steamer Trunk.)
Created on wordle.net

By running away, Laura Dekker proved she’s ready to sail around the world. It’s about time the Dutch courts get out of her way.
When most teenagers are grounded, their parents tell them to stay in the house. Not so for 14 year-old Laura Dekker–when she proposed an attempt to become the youngest sailor to circle [...]

Here’s a link to my Thanksgiving post on Vagablogging.
And here’s a huge thanks to YOU for reading! It’s been about four months since I started this blog and it’s still very much a work in progress…
-Brett

The number of trekkers on Nepal’s Annapurna Circuit/Muktinath Pilgrimage grew 25% in the 2009 season–but what does that mean?
According to the article linked above, it means that guesthouse owners hoping for foreign clients are refusing to serve Nepalese trekkers.
It’s unclear whether the owners are actively turning away their compatriots while waiting for foreigners, or just [...]

If that’s your question, here’s one way to do it:
American Pilgrims on the Camino will hold hospitalero training from March 16-18, 2010, in Winter Park, Florida. (The training is part of the larger National Gathering, which includes the Gathering of Pilgrims from 3/19 to 3/21 and Spiritual Retreat from 3/21 to 3/23.)
If you’re a North [...]

Big News of the Day:
The Innkeeper’s Guide (a k a How to Be an Innkeeper/Hospitalero on the Camino de Santiago…or Anywhere Else) has been revised and posted (with fancy permalink on title bar above).
Do you want to volunteer as a hospitalero on the Camino de Santiago? Do you currently host guests who travel by foot, [...]