I'm leaving my home in Portland, Oregon to visit family in eastern Tennessee.  My family needs help.  I'm in the airport now, waiting for my first flight.

The airport was different this time with a fancy wooden dome over the entry area, and wooden chandeliers and whatnot.  They're promoting Oregon as a tree farm.  They're also promoting Portland ( Read more... )

Adventure is worthwhile.
~~Aristotle

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness,
and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.
Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things
cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth
all one's lifetime.
-Mark Twain

Come, come, whoever you are.

Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.

It doesn't matter.

Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Come, even if you have broken your vow

a thousand times

Come, yet again, come, come.

-Jalaluddin Rumi

This is a great post with a few specifics about gestures that mean something different in other places.
http://www.scienceofpeople.com/2014/07/gestures-shouldnt-making-abroad/
by Michiel Andreae from The Netherlands
( Read more... )

When I go on a trip, I keep three lists.  GIB, WIH, and DN are abbreviations for the lists: Glad I Brought, Wisht I Had, and Didn't Need.  Based on these lists I am able to refine my packing for that actvitiy or destination.  I'm going to share with you what I learned about packing for a trip to Kauai, Hawaii in December.  If you use this system, ( Read more... )

I was wearing my new black PEACE T-shirt, that says shalom in Hebrew and something analogous in Arabic.  We were walking back to our condo along the coastal trail in Kapa'a, and I stopped in the restroom to let off happy hour.  While I was in there the locals accosted Will and he approached a pack of 4 guys and one gal who were hanging out by a ( Read more... )

Life is a journey,

not a destination.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Arabian peninsula = Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Leb¬anon, Oman, Palestinian territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Yemen ( Read more... )

Incantation used to bring the Geni from the bottle
in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad:

From the land beyond, beyond
From the world past hope and fear
I bid you Geni, now appear..

--Ray Harryhausen ?
(thanks to ML)