Where I've Been: Tracking It

Photo courtesy of Amy Ruppel

Since I (semi-permanently) dismissed the idea of getting a tattooed map of the U.S. on my person in order to mark off, one tattoo pin at a time, where I’ve traveled, I’ve been on the hunt for a new way to detail where I’ve been. (Please don’t recommend a scrapbook. I’m not that girl.) I think Facebook “where I’ve been” maps are annoying and show-offy. And a traditional pinned map still appeals but … I just haven’t found a U.S. map I want to stare down at all the time. But, today, I found my new I’ve-been-there collection idea: prints of artist Amy Ruppel’s state birds pieces. As my bank account allows it, I’m going to build the collection, bird by bird. I guess I’d better clear some wall space.

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Where I’ve Been: Tracking It

Photo courtesy of Amy Ruppel

Since I (semi-permanently) dismissed the idea of getting a tattooed map of the U.S. on my person in order to mark off, one tattoo pin at a time, where I’ve traveled, I’ve been on the hunt for a new way to detail where I’ve been. (Please don’t recommend a scrapbook. I’m not that girl.) I think Facebook “where I’ve been” maps are annoying and show-offy. And a traditional pinned map still appeals but … I just haven’t found a U.S. map I want to stare down at all the time. But, today, I found my new I’ve-been-there collection idea: prints of artist Amy Ruppel’s state birds pieces. As my bank account allows it, I’m going to build the collection, bird by bird. I guess I’d better clear some wall spac

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Mixing Birding and Business Where Others Don't Care To Go

I love the idea of bird-watching.

I love birds, I love being out in nature, I love having something to do while I’m out in nature. Too bad I’m really bad at bird-watching. I can spot only the most obvious birds, I can identify only the most easily identifiable. Subtleties escape me. (What color are their feet? Are you kidding me?) If I’m with real bird-watchers and they do the spotting and identifying, I am capable of watching. That’s about it.

I love it anyway.

So I think the people in this New York Times article are cool—they mix birding with business trips. Birder and leadership training consultant, Cyndi Lubecke, of Prospect Heights, Illinois, likes to choose assignments in places with good birding. “My colleagues have loved me for that,” she said, “because my choices were places like Toledo, Ohio, and Fayetteville, Ark.—places they didn’t want to go.”

In a couple of weeks, I’ll be bird-watching (in my own lame fashion) and reporting from the first Lesser Prairie Chicken Festival in Woodward, Oklahoma. (And yes, there is a Greater Prairie Chicken, too. It’s larger and more abundant than the lesser variety.) The birds will be singing and dancing for love. Really. Stay tuned.

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Mixing Birding and Business Where Others Don’t Care To Go

I love the idea of bird-watching.

I love birds, I love being out in nature, I love having something to do while I’m out in nature. Too bad I’m really bad at bird-watching. I can spot only the most obvious birds, I can identify only the most easily identifiable. Subtleties escape me. (What color are their feet? Are you kidding me?) If I’m with real bird-watchers and they do the spotting and identifying, I am capable of watching. That’s about it.

I love it anyway.

So I think the people in this New York Times article are cool—they mix birding with business trips. Birder and leadership training consultant, Cyndi Lubecke, of Prospect Heights, Illinois, likes to choose assignments in places with good birding. “My colleagues have loved me for that,” she said, “because my choices were places like Toledo, Ohio, and Fayetteville, Ark.—places they didn’t want to go.”

In a couple of weeks, I’ll be bird-watching (in my own lame fashion) and reporting from the first Lesser Prairie Chicken Festival in Woodward, Oklahoma. (And yes, there is a Greater Prairie Chicken, too. It’s larger and more abundant than the lesser variety.) The birds will be singing and dancing for love. Really. Stay tuned.

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Are We Ready To Honor Confederate History?

As a Yankee in the South, I’m used to the sensitivities still surrounding the Civil War, aka the War Between the States, aka (‘round these parts) the War of Northern Aggression.

But while visiting Civil War battlefields is standard historical tourism, I wonder if enough time has passed even now for the nation to join Southern states in other observances honoring Confederate history, as this Chicago Tribune article discusses. (And I didn’t realize April was Confederate History Month in Texas. It took an article in a Yankee paper to clue me in to that.)

But the Confederacy is part of our nation’s rich history. We don’t have to embrace it in its entirety to respect its place in our past. Maybe it is time to let it out into the light.

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What Some Locals Have To Say About SXSW

Twitterers are all a-twitter about the fun they’re having at SXSW in Austin, and the party is only just getting started. But are long-time locals having as much fun being descended upon by the hipster masses? I polled a few of my Austin buddies about the fun they’re having … or not.

Ruth Pennebaker, a blogger whose work often appears in the Texas Observer

I go to the film festival only and try to fit in, even though everybody else is taller, thinner, younger, dressed more hip (layers and scarves this year—lots of both). The high-rollers also wear official badges around their necks, which are the social equivalent of having balls, I believe. I have a lowly pass, but that’s better than being in the line to buy an individual ticket, so at least I get to feel superior to a few people.

Last year, the film festival overlapped the music festival, which I always try to avoid. I roamed around downtown, secretly pretending I was the original Mrs. Willie Nelson, the wife who sewed him into a bedsheet and beat him with a broom for coming home late and drunk. It made me feel much better—as if I had a colorful past much better than the lackluster present. Hey, at least I was close to the right age.

Kellye Rila, a bureaucrat and former DJ
I always look forward to SXSW because lots of my friends, the ones I already know and the ones I’m gonna meet, come to town to play. I am always profoundly grateful when it’s over because they go home. This year will be bittersweet because there are a couple of very big holes. Not seeing Danny Roy Young on Saturday morning just doesn’t make any sense at all, and it will never be the same without Chris Gaffney. I am looking forward to seeing what streets and highways the City of Austin decides to close this year to make it really hard to get around—always an adventure!

Karen Reiter, curmudgeonette
Twenty years ago, before I lived in Texas, I came to SXSW for the first time. I had good time. It was more of a regional event … ya know, South by Southwest. But now Austin’s full of half-built condos and too much traffic and SXSW is a circus that takes over the city, making it a lot more fun for visitors than residents.

I hate crowds, therefore I hate SXSW. There’s never anywhere to park near the “happening” areas, therefore I hate SXSW. Frequently even people with wristbands and badges can’t get into the “important” “official” showcases (who does get in?), therefore I hate SXSW. And the people who run SXSW do anything they can to squash any little event they see as competition, which is a damned good reason in and of itself to hate the whole thing.

On the other hand, it gives me an excuse to stay close to my happy home in South Austin where I can pretend the whole thing’s not happening. And all those attendees bring beaucoup bucks to the city, so something good does come of it.

This year (because my significant other is performing) I am being forced to attend an all-day (basically outdoor) event. At least it’s not in a “happening” area, so there should at least be reasonable parking, and some really good bands are playing so I will most likely enjoy myself despite myself.
But much as I hate SXSW, I would never deny the joys of it to those who want to participate. Maybe it really is just more fun when you’re the out-of-towner.

T. Tex Edwards, musician

Sorry, I was TOO BUSY to reply!

(I guess the above about covers it for me …)

& it sounds like Ms Kritt (aka Karen Reiter) already covered the subject aptly …

Helen Anders, travel writer
We’re leaving. I’d like to say it’s to avoid the hordes, but we’re headed to South Padre Island to cover spring break. Woo. Hoo.

We were home for SXSW last year and caught a couple of free shows. Like most people in town, we can’t afford the showcases. The biggest problem is the influx of cars in a town that has no parking.

John Anders, retired newspaper columnist
We go eat hamburgers at The Tavern, one of the good, reliable non-venues where we’re virtually sure no one will drag out a guitar—for that weekend, at least.

Our musician friend Pat Whitefield, who sat alphabetically next to Charles Whitman in class at UT (“nice, nerdy guy who let me cheat off him on chemistry exams,” says Pat), has been an Austin musician for 40 years. He hopes to get out-of-town gigs during SXSW.

“It’s hard enough making a living in this town,” says Pat, an upright man on upright bass. “So now you have the place flooded with musicians who fall in love with Austin over the weekend and suddenly want to come here and live. Which makes the competition to make a living in music even fiercer. All the local musicians hate South by Southwest. Can you blame us?”

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Some Travel Writers Will Do Anything For A Buck

Photo by Jan Beckendorf via Flickr

Every time I watch it on the Winter Olympics, I decide that luge is an utterly insane sport that you could not pay me enough to try.

“Chicago Tribune” reporter Christoper Borrelli evidently does not feel the same way. They paid, he tried (in Muskegon, Michigan). Here’s the story.

A sample: “Sue Halter, my instructor, told me that in 15 years here she had seen only one person lose teeth while luging.”

Some people will do anything for a buck.

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Can Tourism Save Detroit?

Photo by mandj98 via Flickr.

Time magazine’s slideshow capturing Detroit’s decay in photos by French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre is stunning and utterly heartbreaking.

My thought as I watched: As travelers/tourists we’re a powerful economic force. Can we help save Detroit?

A number of years ago, I worked with a woman who was originally from Detroit. She loved her hometown and missed it terribly. I can’t remember her name, but I vividly remember the glow on her face when she talked about the city she’d left behind and to which she vowed to return someday.

What is it about Detroit? Friend and fellow writer Margaret Littman, another fan of the city says, “I love Detroit’s architecture and public art and wide boulevards. But more so, I love that Detroit is such a microcosm of American: boomed thanks to ingenuity and innovative and now struggling with what to do next. It is a melting pot for better (lots of ethnic restaurants) and worse (racism). Plus, I’m a sucker for an underdog.”

Now, Detroit sounds pretty bleak and hopeless in Motor City Breakdown an article in the most recent Rolling Stone. Here Mark Binelli, another Detroit expat, takes an evocative look at the decaying city through the lens of the decaying Big Three automakers.

For example: “To get to the conference, I ride the People Mover, an elevated tram that runs through downtown Detroit in a three-mile one-way loop. The city used to have an extensive trolley system, but it was purchased by National City Lines, a front company formed by GM, Firestone, Standard Oil and other corporations with automobile interests, after which the trolley tracks were ripped up and replaced with buses. The People Mover began running in 1987 and seems, in its utter uselessness, as if it might have been built by another secret auto-industry cabal as a way of mocking the very idea of public transportation. The monorail cars are automated and driverless, like trams at the airport or an amusement park; occasionally, walking along a barren downtown block, you glance up and notice a pair of empty cars passing above your head at a haunted crawl.”

Also worth a click is Detroitblog, mentioned in Binelli’s article, where you’ll find find tender-sad stories unfolding in the shadows of the large-scale decay.

Poor Detroit. The C&VB Web site, where I went to find photos to use for this post, includes this message about its image library: “All photographs are available free of charge for editorial usage and the positive promotion of metro Detroit as a travel and tourism destination.”

I don’t imagine a lot of places have to specify “positive.”

Like Margaret, underdog cities hold a huge appeal for me, and the decline of Detroit adds an irresistible mystique. It’s in on my list…

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A Truth About Hawaii Spoken in Jest?

I have to admit that I am among those who laughed and laughed at this harsh Saturday Night Live skit that had Hawaiian officials in a huff.

The Gallup Well-Being Index recently ranked Hawaii as the second happiest state in the nation, after Utah, but my limited experience with the state (three visits) introduced me to more hostility than happiness. I’m actually a little afraid of Hawaiians. I understand that they have reason to be pissed off, what with their paradise being paved over with hotels and low wages and all. It’s a problem with tropical paradises everywhere. So I’m not passing judgment, really. I’m just saying.

For example, once, when I was visiting a guest ranch, the Hawaiian storyteller hired to entertain guests learned I was a travel writer and got all up in my face about how my type were destroying the islands for personal gain. It wasn’t a conversation, it was a tirade I couldn’t stop and it was so rough that other guests finally intervened and got him to back off.

Then there were the ukulele lessons on a Hawaiian cruise. Ooh, I still get tense thinking about that. I went to every lesson and practiced my little heart out in between. Then, right before we went on stage for the big passenger talent show, our teacher informed us we would be playing a song we had barely touched in class, and that he wasn’t allowing us to use our sheet music. This felt entirely like calculated hostility, meant to make us look like chumps. I don’t know what chords I played on stage but they weren’t the right ones and I hate that guy still. This was supposed to be fun.

Hawaii itself was a thousand times more lovely than I even imagined it would be but these experiences kind of tainted it for me. So Hawaiian officials might be offended, but maybe it’s a discussion that needs to be opened. And I do mean discussion—as in both sides keeping open minds and ears—because even as I laughed at the sketch, I wasn’t sure who it was harder on. The abuses heaped on the tourists had a painful ring of truth, too.

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West Virginia: Reversal of Fortune?

Oh, West Virginia. We feel for you. It can’t feel good to show up dead last on Forbes’ list of the best states in which to live. Word of your ranking comes on the heels of your governor’s plan to boost the state’s image. Maybe the campaign will also help brighten the spirits of residents and, eventually, lead to a better than 50th out of 50 ranking for both the emotional and physical health of residents. We know somebody has to come in last, but we look forward to seeing you move up the list. You and your people deserve better.

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