writing travel

Mid-America road trips for wimps, part 2

First of all, dear reader, I want you to know I am home again safely after spending more than two weeks with my extended family in southern Illinois.

I had intended to stay a week or less, just long enough to recover from the solo drive south and make the rounds to see as many cousins as possible.

And yes, I intended to blog from the road, but I'm a wimp. Besides that, real life happened.

Late supper at Bien Trucha

Late supper at the fabulous Bien Trucha in Geneva, Illinois: Rick Bayless would love this authentic Mexican haute cuisine.

No reservations taken, so get there early to put your name in for a table. The kitchen closes at 8:45 pm. We lost count of how many latecomers were turned away.

Arriving before 7 pm, there was a 90 minute wait, so we started on the patio (cash only) with guacamole and a couple of Tecates. If we'd had more cash on hand, I would have gone for one of their special margaritas made with fresh lime juice.

The 10-plus things I learned at TBEX '10

Here's my very personal list, in no set order, of the idiosyncratic things I learned at Travel Blog Exchange '10 hosted by Kim Mance and her Galavanting team in New York City this past weekend. (Forgive me, Spud Hilton. This story is about my trip, not my reader's vacation.)

In part, it's a list of "shoulds." Yes, I know all about the evil of should. I've succumbed to it before and certainly will again.

1. I should get out of the house more. Especially if I want to continue calling myself a travel blogger. 

2. I should post more often, for the same reason.

3. I need to converse in person with other intelligent adult humans more often. (See point 1.) I do this best in small groups or one-on-one. I'm happy enough in a large group, but I tend to drift to the perimeter of the crowd to become an observer.

4. Two cocktails in one evening is my absolute limit when indulging in a public venue. Thanks to Sean Keener of @Bootsnall and Pete Meyers of @Eurocheapo for helping me (finally) figure that out. That's not to say I won't have to relearn my lesson.

5. Travel blogging isn't just a young person's sport, but one should recognize one's limits. (See point 4.) One should also stay in training.

6. It's okay to be weird in the company of other travel bloggers.

7. I can live without my laptop and digital SLRs for a weekend, but I can't live without some way to connect to the Internet. 

8. AT&T 3G service in Manhattan isn't as groovy there as it is in other parts of the country. (See point 7.)

9. It is entirely possible to cultivate real human relationships sight unseen via social media and blogs. Proof: the joy of meeting Zach Everson, Meryl Pearlstein, Renee King, Doug Anweiler, Lola Akinmade, Kara Williams, Todd Lucier, Jennifer Miner, Mara Gorman, Craig Martin, Christine Cantera, Jennifer Huber, Robin Locker Lacey, Trisha Miller, and countless others for the first time in the flesh after long acquaintance online.

10. I'm still capable of hero(ine) worship. Cases in point: Pam Mandel (I hope you don't think I'm stalking you on Twitter), Evelyn Hannon (I read and reread your Journeywoman travel tips before every trip to a new place), Gary Arndt (Your travel porn feeds my fantasies, and I have to agree with your camera advice, although I'd much rather travel with the camera I don't yet have).

11. It will take me a bit of time to get used to referring to people by their real names when I know them so well by their Twitter handles. (See point 9. If I didn't call you out by name, it's because I'm still in the process of rebuilding my internal contact database.)

12. Going out on a limb to write in one's naturally quirky voice is good practice for a persnickety grammarian.

13. I received no compensation or sponsorship for this post or for attending TBEX. I have only myself to thank or blame. I would, however, consider help getting to Vancouver next year.

My father's European travel photos, circa 1945: a Memorial Day tribute

For Memorial Day, in honor of my dad's World War II service in the 448th Bomber Group of the Eighth Army Air Corps, I am sharing some of the photos he brought back.

No one in my ancestral family ever took the Grand Tour. On one side, my people were such recent emigrants from Europe they had no desire to go back. On the other side of the family, their sea voyage to these shores in the 1600s must have ended all future dreams of international travel. 

I guess I did have a role model for my travel dreams. From the time I was a small girl, I knew my dad had been to England during the war, stationed in the town of Seething near Norwich. Although he never talked much about his wartime experience, he allowed me to study these aerial photos at length and picked out for me the various landmarks.

I'm only just beginning to understand how deeply my father's life was influenced by his war experience.  As the radio operator on a B-24 bomber dubbed Jokers Wild, he flew home on the same aircraft in which his crew carried out their numerous missions, with all crew members accounted for. The odds against that were huge, given the casualty rate in the 448th.

My father completed 30 missions over nearly 8 months in the European Theater of Operations. As he and his crew were en route to their 31st mission, the war in Europe ended.

His flight crew is pictured below in what looks like a staged photo. My dad, Lawrence Schoeny, is standing at the center of the group.

Update from Sandra Basgall on her travel to the eastern frontier of the Congo

 

Note: This is Sandra's January 22 report from Goma. Next stop on her itinerary is Bukavu. I am anxiously awaiting more news.

Goma in Eastern DR Congo has a frontier town feeling. Beautifully situated on Lake Kiva, one of the African Great Lakes, and the Micumba Mountains, this eastern border town lies along the Great Rift Valley where many of the African Great Lakes are found as well as many active volcanoes. The most active volcano in Africa, Mount Nyiragongo, sits to Goma’s north. In 2002, lava flowed through the center of town for the fourth time in a century. Some buildings that were two-story are now one-story with basements. The lava rock is everywhere and is used for building walls and making into brick. Many of the roads are just lava rock, and this makes for quite a bumpy ride.

It is easier to come here through Rwanda whose border is only ten minutes away than to travel from Kinshasa, and many of the aid workers here never get to the capital as they enter and exit through Rwanda. For me to get here, I had to leave my home at 5 a.m. in Kinshasa for a 9 a.m. UN flight. That morning there were three flights, one to Goma, one to Bukavu, and another on which only UN troops flew.