THE GREAT BARRIER REEF- ROUGH SEAS

When you think of the Great Barrier Reef chances are your imagination conjures a tropical paradise filled with fish and other exotic reef-born creatures. And you wouldn't be wrong.

But on our visit a couple of years ago we were aware of an incoming cyclone, the Southern Hemispheric term for a hurricane. The storm was still days offshore, but the fringes were beginning to destabilize the air, and as we were heading in from our day at the reef a tropical storm blew in, making for a very rough ride back to shore.

I enjoyed the rough seas, but some of the more delicate stomachs onboard didn't share the sentiment. It was probably the longest ride back to shore for several people in our midst.

Our boat was followed in by another day tripping vessel, serving to illustrate our own roller coaster ride across the sea.

No color correction on this shot, BTW. The sky was really that dark and ominous...

THE EXPLORER IN ME

"What intrigues me the most are those things in the distance, on the horizon. That is where I want to go; what I want to see next."

As I write this I am on a Westbound flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Dallas. There I'll make a connection to my eventual destination of Santa Ana -- more commonly known as John Wayne Orange County Airport.

Me in Japan, ca 1965

Join Wayne is my second preferred airport in the LA metropolitan area, at a time when my definition of "preferred" has a different meaning than it did a decade or so ago. Back then I didn't really give much thought to which airport I was using, just the flights and getting to the destinations involved. If I needed to get from Point A to Point Z I simply selected the flight and made my way to whichever airfield the arrangements required.

Atop Mt Haleakala

In many cases this default airport was LAX. And to give the giant monster its due: there is an excitement and energy level in flying from LAX that doesn't really exist at the smaller fields. But it's not just size -- I don't get the same "vibe" from equally large facilities such as DFW or PHX. But I do from others like MSP or JFK. 

(My favorite airport, Long Beach, was at the time still involved in a decade-long local legal morass on noise reduction -- which seriously hampered any airline from doing much, basically killing it as an option for me...thankfully that's no longer the case.)

The Mendenhall Glacier

The ruins at Tulum

I'm certain it's a personal perception, and once again I have to look to my childhood for influence and guidance. I truly believe so many of my ingrained more visceral responses to travel come from my early years. I've alluded more than a few times to the influence movies and television had on my perception of the world. James Bond; Casablanca (despite being filmed in a studio); Lawrence of Arabia; It Takes a Thief; The Saint; I, Spy and other globetrotting tv programs and films gave me my first true look at the world beyond my front door, and I learned an excitement that came from realizing that I, too, could visit all those exotic places. 

(It didn't hurt that my parents were fans of those sorts of programs. Their influence was more profound than television, though more subtle in many ways. Dad, who was a career Naval officers, would send us postcards and pictures from around the globe as his various deployments took him from one exotic port to another. Hong Kong still looms large in my imagination precisely because he and my mother met there a few times while we kids sat at home, dreaming of what it must be like. It's still on my NOW list to this day.)

Polar Bears on the tundra

Then came things -- worldwide news events like The Olympics -- which showed me in realtime what the world looks like. And the nightly news, when "nightly news" actually meant News and not Entertainment. The Huntley-Brinkley Report was the family go-to, and their reporters around the world again brought exotic places and unpronounceable names right into our family room. 

Times Square

Today the world seems to have become much smaller. Much more everyday. The popularizing of air travel, and the ubiquity of broadcast programming, means things are becoming a bit more homogenous. Unless you looks specifically for the differences, Des Moines isn't all that different than Charlotte, except for the plants. 

Alleys in Croatia

(On this particular trip I stayed in a very nice Marriott, and had dinner at a very nice regional chain restaurant -- both of which were not terribly different from places I stayed at and dined at in places like Seattle or Albuquerque. Quite nice, but nothing that screamed "you're in the South!", even though the restaurant billed itself that way...)

But exploring the world still holds a mystique if you know where to go and where to look. 

The Great Barrier Reef

Travel expands the mind, or so the saying goes. I have yet to meet very many open-minded travelers who are not citizens of the world and who understand that what exists outside their front door is only an infinitesimally small part of the whole. 

As I sit here at 35,000 feet I look down at the world below, one which I have only just begun to explore, and wonder at what is down there. What cool stuff lies unexplored and waiting for me? 

That is what I want to find out and what drives me to my next destination.

That and the coffee, that is.

Driving in the Mojave Desert volcanic fields

Hell, Cayman Islands

The Explorer in Me - Where next?

Pic of the Day: Storm Approaching

Last Spring my wife and I were fortunate enough to be out on the Great Barrier Reef to snorkel. It was a major event for us, and clicked off an item on our Life Lists of things to experience before we die.

A concern before we left shore to head out was the looming presence of Typhoon Ita, which had achieved Category 5 for a period while out over the Coral Sea, and was then headed -- slowly -- towards the Australian coast.

We finished our visit to the reef, and the captain of the boat, eying the darkening clouds, made the decision to head in with haste. Another dive boat -- of only three out on the Reef that day -- stayed briefly before following our lead.

Although not the typhoon itself, the disturbed air along the storm's western edge created a weather disturbance which kicked up a significant ruckus itself. The seas became quite choppy, and the wide -- as you can see in the below image -- picked up considerably.

All boats made it to shore safely, though with more than a few green faces amongst the passengers.

We escaped Port Douglas the morning before Ita rocked ashore. Oddly enough, the tropical storm remnants of Ita were crashing into New Zealand as we landed there a week later, making for a rough arrival. But that's a photo for another time.

2014 Year in Review

"Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, Adventure."
                                                             -- J.K. Rowling






By any yardstick, 2014 has been, for me, an astonishing year for travel -- and I considered myself pretty well traveled already... 

First, I'd like to offer a strong "Thank you" to every one of my readers who have come along with me along the way. It hasn't been an easy year in some ways, but in others it's been truly amazing.

The statistics alone are startling: More than 65,000 miles on 9 different airlines. According to my FF mileage reports, nearly 90 flights. Business Class, Coach and First. Business and Personal. 24 domestic airports and five international.

Honolulu from above

A handful of delays, and a couple violent weather incidents. (Landings, mostly. Las Vegas -- a monsoon; and Auckland -- tropical storm -- top the list.) But for the most part an amazingly smooth series of flights. There were several cancellations, but not a single missed connection in the mix. That's a pretty solid record for my airline friends.

Storm blowing into Port Douglas, QLD

There were a few new things: my first flight on an Airbus A-380. Still ugly as sin on the outside, but nicely appointed and comfortable on the inside. The much more trim looking 777 was also a first for us. Virgin Australia has done a brilliant job of creating an uber-chic and relaxing environment.

But airline travel was not my only mode of conveyance. A tremendous variety of automobiles

Business Class Cabin - Qantas A-380

 got me around large swaths of territory in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, adding two new countries and three American states to my list of adventures.

And speaking of adventures, 2014 was a year full of them -- both good and not so much.

By far the most significant was the retirement of not one, but two of three N.O.W. LIFE LIST 2014 goals: snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, and dipping my feet in the Indian Ocean. Add in side-trips to two wine areas, the Blue Mountains, Perth and Auckland, New Zealand and you can readily understand why our May trip Down Under was not only the highlight of the year, but probably one of the best adventures in the last thirty years.

Bridge to Hanalei Bay

Later in the year we made a two-week jaunt over to Hawaii and spent time in one of our favorite places on Earth: Hanalei Bay. The beauty and tranquility of Kauai's north shore never fails to win me over in a major way. I'm not certain I would want to retire there, but it's easily at the top of my list of Best Places on Earth.

But it didn't stop there. 

You might have noted I wrote "two of three" when referring to my 2014 Life List. The third was a visit to the awe-inspiring Monument Valley, one of the most astonishingly beautiful desert locales in the American midwest. It's justifiably famous for the views it offers, and easily puts man in his place in the universe. 

Monument Valley

Work requirements saw a tremendous leap in my domestic travel, with trips two or three times a month throughout the Western United States. To a wide diversity of locations and environments: Dallas; Missoula; Las Vegas; Seattle; Albuquerque; the middle of South Dakota; Portland; Honolulu; Phoenix; The Bay Area; Reno; Austin; Minneapolis; San Diego -- and in many cases hundreds of miles along the highways and byways in between many of these spots.

Other personal trips included jaunts to San Diego and Las Vegas; an attempt to visit the fog-enshrouded Bryce Canyon; Maui; and a complete circumnavigation of The Grand Canyon -- without a single sighting of the Canyon itself.

Yes, there were some negatives. Being ill on my second day in Monument Valley was no fun, nor were the at-times unavoidable airline delays of hours and hours in airport terminals -- two of which resulted in rough weather at our destination, compounding the inconvenience. 

(As I noted in comments above, the two most memorable were A- an eight hour delay in Melbourne which resulted in landing during a tropical storm in Auckland, and, B- its stateside twin of a four hour delay in Phoenix, with a monsoonal landing in Las Vegas. I'm not a fan of storm-related landings, and these were two of the most energetic.)

Cheers

In summary, 2014 tested my mettle as a traveler, and I enjoyed (almost) every minute of it. (The intermittent health and operational hiccups along the way were unfortunate but unavoidable. C'est la vie.)

As we close in on the end of 2014, I offer a twin toast to the old year and the new. 

May good adventures find you, and liven up your life. Cheers.



Some highlights from 2014, a year On the Road (and in the air):

Leaving Long Beach

Wall Drug Store, South Dakota

View from the new Vegas High Roller

Sunrise in the Bay Area

Live band in Austin

The Great Barrier Reef

Selfie at the Reef

The Sydney Opera House

Stormy skies over Melbourne

Laguna Beach

The Vegas Strip

Seeing the Indian Ocean for the first time

Perth

Skies over Montana

Into Monument Valley

Road to Hana

The Hanalei Valley, Kauai

The New Zealand rainforest

The View from Below

BACK TO BASICS

"There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living."

                                             Nelson Mandela

I'm sitting at my desk, in the dark, wearing an "Air Mango" collared shirt, purchased at a Jimmy Buffett store in Philipsburg, Sint Maarten. 

Yesterday, all day, I was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the palm of a hand and the words "Bandolier National Monument". New Mexico. 

Two days ago it was a green t-shirt, unfortunately "tie-dyed" over the years by the California sun, from the very chic Caribbean island of St. Barth. The design is of a stylized air plane on a runway with the words "L'avion" on the front of the shirt, a reference to the island's famous air strip -- an e-ticket ride for anyone who has even flown into or out of there. Or both.

In our kitchen and the back laundry room are display cases with more than a hundred forty shot glasses from around the world. I started my adventures, decades ago, by collecting coffee mugs, but this quickly grew unwieldy. Shots glasses are far easier to display and collect. Both cases are full, with the overflow sitting atop the display, begging for the next earthquake to send them flying into the air and onto the floor tiles six feet below.

Travel is a fundamental in my life.

A few weeks ago, as we returned from a tremendous trip Down Under, I put this blog on pause. Coming home, with the perspective on having a great adventure fresh on my mind, I pounded out a handful of essays and started to post. But something was missing. You noticed it too. Usually when I post a new blog entry I get quite a few first-day visitors. But something was wrong. Only five people checked in that first day. And only six the next day.

Something was wrong. So I posted that I was taking a brief sabbatical to figure things out. It wasn't much fun any more, and this was bleeding through in a way that it wasn't much fun for the reader either. So I posted notices here and elsewhere that I was taking a breather to figure it all out.

Being the good friends that they are, a couple of people offered polite suggestions and thoughts, while most people sent me a note saying they would miss "living vicariously". And I appreciated them all. But it didn't really help put the finger on the problem. Why was it no longer fun, and why was no one coming to the blog. 

That was my second error. My day to day stats were actually up. But not for the newer stuff. I was getting (and continue to get) regular hits to previous posts dealing with New Mexico Chocolate; the sunrise on Mount Haleakala; what it's like to fly above the clouds on a bright morning; and other things. Of particular note is the stratospheric popularity of the film locations for Under the Tuscan Sun.

Then the phone rang. It was a good friend of mine, a well-known writer who is one of the most solid and supportive people I know. We talked for a couple of minutes, exploring different possibilities, ideas, and direction. I argued a bit -- we rarely argue -- and kept pointing out that I couldn't do things because it didn't fit in with the business model I had in mind. The branding of The Thumbnail Traveler, and the eventual direction I wanted to go. 

He listened, patiently. Then, as he is so very able to do and do well, he nailed it.

"It sounds to me like you've lost the passion."

"Wha-?"

"You're not creating from a sense of passion. You're just doing business."

I argued some more. 

Our conversation drifted to other topics, but I could hear a sense of disappointment in his voice. I wasn't getting it.

Fifteen minutes later the penny dropped. He was right, the bastard.

Two of my very favorite passions in life -- beyond my wife and our respective families and friends -- are travel and photography. The combination are what drove me to create The Thumbnail Traveler in the first place. It's what adds so much texture and complexity to my life, and gives me perspective on who we are and what we have. I look back at my original blog entry and realize I wasn't talking about the wonder and talking about the photos -- I was treating them as incidental and just basically talking instead of enthusing.

I was treating it like a job.

(Don't get me wrong. Jobs can be fun and fulfilling. But taking your passion and allowing it to become mundane is a sad thing.)

I look back and realize that my photographs -- almost entirely lacking in the last four posts -- devolved into simple illustrations. To me, as a photographer, they are (or should be) the -- *ahem* -- focus of this blog. So why wasn't I treating them that way? I loved the places I was going, the adventures I was having, but the explanation of them became simply about providing content. Not telling my friends (that would be you, the reader) about the experiences I'd had. The fun. The adventure. When things went wrong, and when they went so very, very right.

And what I learned along the way, about myself as well as about the place I was visiting. The people I met. The flavors, the smells, the worlds I encountered. I was missing -- in the last six months or more, I think -- what it feels like to have the Indian Ocean lapping at your ankles. Of the insanity of the Vegas Strip. The taste of coal oven pizza in The Village. Gazing down upon Paris from the heights of the Eiffel Tower.

That is what this is all about, this moving from one spot to another.

So.

I like to think I'm back. I called my friend and called him the appropriate names, while at the same time thanking him for the insight. My wife, hearing what he'd said, reinforced the message. It's about the passion.

So please, rejoin me on this adventure. Keep me honest. Let's have some fun. Tomorrow I will post the first of what I hope is a long series of true adventures, based on the visuals I have created to bring you along with me.

After all, I've heard somewhere that All I need is a change of clothes, my Nikon, an open mind and a strong cup of coffee.

Taking a break while snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, a life-long dream come true.