HOLIDAY READING

"I've always been blessed, or cursed, some might say, with an insatiable curiosity, a desire to find something out about a people and a place. That's where it all begins."
                                                                                              - Michael Palin




Travelers tend to be readers. It's an aspect of the logistics of most trips that at some point you're going to have some time to curl up with a good book, whether it's aboard an A380 at 35,000 feet, inside a pup tent at 5000 feet, at sea level next to an ocean, or trapped in a transportation terminal with a delayed departure. Chances are at some point you're going to read.

And that's a good thing.

For my part I alternate between fiction and non-fiction with regularity, and between new volumes and the classics. But a particular reading passion of mine, and a rather predictable one at that, are books that deal with travel exploits from people who spend much of their own time on the road. Travelers with a capital T.

And since we're in the middle of gift-giving season, here are a few of my favorites both of recent discovery and of a more long-term appreciation. All are available in your local bookstore and on Amazon. I recommend the local bookstore, who can order it or you if they don't have it in stock. I'd use Amazon if the Kindle is your current library-of-choice. I'm including links to the Amazon site for more information on each of the five selections below.


MICHAEL PALIN, FULL CIRCLE

Best known for his participation in the British comedy group Monty Python, Palin has been on the road for literally decades, developing a second career of sorts as a modern-day explorer and adventurer very much in the classic 18th century British tradition. He's circled the globe multiple times and is a member in good standing with the Royal Geographic Society, having served as its President from 2009 through 2012.

My favorite of his books is FULL CIRCLE. In it he details a voyage circumnavigating the Pacific Ocean, along with a film crew and a variety of locals he meets along the way. The adventure was filmed for television, but the book goes into a lot of the backstory and behind the scenes misadventures which didn't necessarily make the series.

Starting in Alaska, heading down the coast of Asia, crossing the Pacific to transit the coasts of the Americas he travels through a variety of places ranging from the highly urbanized through some truly hair-raising experiences a little further off the beaten path.

Fascinating read and well worth the time as you work on your Saint Barthelemy tan.

Palin's travel website, a font of information and insanity, can be found here.



ROBERT HEINLEIN, TRAMP ROYALE

Although well-known as a science fiction writer, Heinlein was also of a more adventurous nature. His book, Tramp Royale, gives us a glimpse into "how it used to be" to plan and execute travel before the advent of the internet.

Heinlein and his wife embark on a travel around the world, braving much less predictable situations as they explored a world much different from our interconnected and wired one. It's not necessarily an easy read and Heinlein's politics play into some of the commentary -- positions which the intervening decades will shed a less approving eye upon. (At one point he is startled not everyone in the world approved of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Whoudda' thunk?)

But it does provide a fascinating overview and exploration of the world of the 1950s entirely separate and somehow new from what we've all seen from videos of that era.



MARK TWAIN, INNOCENTS ABROAD

Continuing our journey backwards through time to previous travel eras, I have to admit this book really intrigued and motivated me as a young boy. It's still a pleasure to read Twain at the peak of his literary powers.

In Twain's time there were no globe-girdling chains of American food or culture, and Twain's observations of the differences in people and cultures is amusing, allowing us to turn a jaundiced eye towards ourselves and our relationship to the rest of the world.

It's an amusing read even now, and certainly gives us a glimpse back to a more adventurous and less complicated time.





ANTHONY BOURDAIN, NO RESERVATIONS - AROUND THE WORLD ON AN EMPTY STOMACH

Bourdain is an irascible no-conformist and so is this book. Unlike the rest on this list Around the World... is as much a visual feast as it is a literary one. Bourdain can write. I've enjoyed each of his books from the very first, Kitchen Confidential. But his stories of travel and food are well served by the photographs in this book, where we can see those things otherwise probably best left to the imagination but nonetheless fun to see. Bourdain uses the photography to pull us further into his adventures, adding an additional perspective to his narrative.

Bourdain is perhaps the most popular and readily identifiable host of a travel/adventure show on the air these days, and part of it is his brand of being a sarcastic and at-time cynical explorer, pausing every now and again to experience he true and natural around a destination. Openly disdaining popular culture, he strongly advocates getting our hands dirty and our feet wet in our travels, preferring to eat at an open street market in Vietnam over, perhaps, the finest restaurant in London. And I cannot blame him. I've railed for years regarding getting yourself immersed in the local culture. My favorite target, The Olive Garden in Times Square, is only one of tens of thousands of examples Bourdain has noted over the years. In this book he accentuates the positive and provides the visuals to back him up.

Bourdain's CNN series Parts Unknown website can be found here.

and not so lastly, a new discovery....


JOSH GATES, DESTINATION TRUTH; MEMOIRS OF A MONSTER HUNTER

Yeah. I encountered Josh Gates a little later than many people have. This last Summer I was back in Annapolis. My sister asked me if I liked a tv show called Destination Truth. Now, obviously, I had heard of it. It runs on the SyFy Channel, and undoubtedly I had seen hundred of ads for DT and its ilk for years. Personally I had lumped all of the "Ghost Hunter" shows into a single basket, and considered them good for a Saturday afternoon viewing when nothing else was available on TV. As long as it was October and our Halloween decorations were up.

(I love Halloween and ghost stories. But having watched a handful of these shows I had grown weary of the "investigators" entering the same building ten other shows had done, and being scared by any little noise or breeze that crossed their senses. I would love to believe in the supernatural, and have in fact had a few weird experiences, but the shows all began to run together.. which is unfortunate, because Destination Truth and in particular its follow-up Expedition Unknown are relatively different.)

Gates' book is a crisp and easy read, with lots of personal comments and anecdotes detailing behind the scenes adventures which don't necessarily make it on the show. My favorite chapter, however is, Chapter 14, THE TOURIST EMPIRE is an essay I could easily have penned -- and in fact have done several similar columns here on the blog. He discusses the difference between being a Tourist and being a Traveler:

"Being a traveler means being an enthusiast, a vessel eager to be filled with the exotic. Being a tourist means checking off a prescribed itinerary, behaving like a sheep, and generally resisting the influences of the unknown in favor of familiar comforts. Citizens, this is a plea for sanity—nay, a call to arms! It’s time for a revolution against the imperial forces of tacky travel. I submit to you that there is a better way."

The rest of the book is fun and informative, but for the remainder of Chapter 14 I was nodding enthusiastically in agreement with his comments.  Being a Traveler versus being a Tourist -- and we all have done both, not matter who we are or credentials we trot out -- is a key differentiator in the reason we travel. Gates' website is here.

On the road...

People with a passion for travel often voice the same things,and it pretty much comes down to the drive forward and the adventure to be found there.

It's message that resonates through all five of the above books. Each of them come at the topic from a different angle and yet all coincide with each other when promoting the idea that for us to truly travel and be Travelers, we need to put aside our biases and simply experience the unknown with an open eye and an open heart. (The quote on the photo below is mine. It sums up my desire to explore nicely, I think.)

A five of these books is a worthy and good read. If you elect to buy one of these as a present, you might consider two and hold one for your own consumption. They won't let you down.

Cheers.

PIVOT!

"The world owes you nothing. It was here first." 

                                               - Mark Twain





Any regular reader of this column knows that I preach the importance of flexibility whenever you're on the road, whether vacationing or conducting business. 

When things go awry, oftentimes the only grasp on sanity is to "pivot" with the circumstances and work hard to make the best of a bad situation, changing what is changeable, and accepting those things that are not.

My wife and I have had an...interesting...year so far. Multiple hiccups and other challenges have come our way, and we're pivoting rapidly in ways that would endear us to our former peers in the ballroom dance community.

THE SIERRA NEVADA

A few weeks ago, a trip to Mono Lake, Lake Tahoe and Yosemite National Park -- to celebrate a recent positive development regarding my wife's health, as well as escaping construction chaos at our home -- turned rapidly, stubbornly and inescapably and into the proverbial Vacation From Hell. 

To whit:

- Our vehicle of choice for extended road trips is my wife's 2013 Hyundai Tucson SUV. It's a comfortable car which has seen us to Las Vegas, Santa Fe, Sedona, and Monument Valley to name just a few. It gets great mileage, has an AC that works well in temp-challenged environments, and -- as noted -- has seats which allow you to sit for extended periods of time without undue pain.

The Tucson unfortunately suffered an important malfunction on the day we were to drive out, necessitating a quick delivery of it to the dealer and the substitution of my little red sports car for the voyage, a Hyundai Genesis Coupe -- which is not suited to long drives (foreshadowing of things to come).

Pivot.

******************************

- Day one involved a drive to Lee Vining, a mountain community on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, directly adjacent to Mono Lake. Upon arrival, my wife immediately succumbed to altitude sickness -- Lee Vining is at 6800' -- and felt ill. Not truly "down for the count", but achy and nauseous. Just the sort of thing you want when you're on vacation.

I left her only long enough to drive my little sports car down a gravel road (more foreshadowing) to shoot the limestone tufas the lake is famous for. It's a fascinating area and we'd planned on spending a half day in the area exploring the lake and various tufa stands -- I'm attracted to otherworldly sorts of environments and the lake has been on my extended photography target list for more than a decade.

Knowing, however, that she wouldn't really feel better we elected to head out in search of lower grounds -- or at least keep the physical activity to a minimum until she became accustomed to the mountainous area's thinner air.

Pivot.

******************************

- Next day we headed for Lake Tahoe -- periodically pulling off onto gravelly sidings for photographs of the spectacular Sierra Nevada; the occasional stream; or barn; or cow --  and checked into our resort. 

We dropped off our luggage and proceeded down the hill to Lake Tahoe, which was seething with tourists. Seething. Went back to the resort, discovering it was a full 1100 feet higher than Tahoe -- and Lee Vining for that matter -- kicking in a second round of her altitude sickness.

(My wife previously could go as high as 7000' without much ado, but her recent bout of Doctorus Encounterie, i.e. "health problems", seems to have lowered that....)

Things compounded from there when her altitude sickness was made all the worse by the discovery that 

A) Our resort had no air conditioning (none).

And B), We were on the afternoon-sun side of the building. By 7pm our little room was a balmy 90+ degrees. 

Pivot.

******************************

Several Front Desk pleas for mercy and one hostage situation later we were moved to a considerably cooler East-facing room, which was fine until 10am the next day when we hit the mid-80s.

(I won't discuss the absolute short-sightedness the original designers must have had by not including AC in the resort's design. Unforgivable for any complex willingly hosting a Summer clientele, regardless of the locale.)

So we decided a nice drive around the lake was in order...which would have been delightful had there been a single -- just one! -- parking space available in any of the large number of potential lake-viewing areas. But, in the more than hourlong circumnavigation of Lake Tahoe, not a one was to be had, and in fact cars were lined up along both sides of the road in multiple locations when parking lots were saturated. Illegally. Tourists. Weekenders from Sacto, Frisco and Reno. Others who imagined a trip to Tahoe was a requisite plan for the weekend.

(Admittedly, it was my error for not considering that the weekend before was a holiday, meaning families might have opted for a vacation in the shortened work week.)

Back to the room, then out to dinner. 

At dinner the decision is made -- we being constant and rather experienced travelers -- to change plans, admit defeat and flee Tahoe in search of quieter and more enjoyable demesnes. 

To California's famous Gold Country. Wine tasting, country drives, small towns, and a place we'd yet to go. From there we would be just a few hours away from the prize destination of the trip: Yosemite!!!

(I have never been to Yosemite, despite living in California for some forty years. One previous attempt was stillborn as we encountered the last major snow to hit the Sierras in two decades, forcing us to turn back.)

Pivot. 

******************************

- Checked out, accepting the profuse apologies from the desk staff regarding the AC situation (turns out it's a decade old ski resort which, apparently, hadn't planned on opening outside ski season). Drove steadily downhill as my wife slowly regained her "not nauseous" state of mind..er, stomach.

- Stopped in Placerville for a customary breakfast at a cool little place called the Cozmic Cafe, a neat-o keen little munch place we'd visited on a previous drive up to Lake Tahoe from Sacramento airport. 

I had a vegetarian omelette. My wife had a fruit bowl which, from all appearances, had been made by stripping several large farms of their entire blueberry, strawberry, melon and blackberry crops. Christ it was big. A dainty dollop of whipped cream sat atop this flagon of fruit, as if to hide the bushel of produce below. 

(The coffee was excellent, just so that little fact is not lost in the conversation.)

As we sat eating I looked over at a wall of local-artisan works. Befitting the Cozmic Cafe, the theme of one artist was indeed "out-of-this-world" in a good way. Really talented, and three of his pieces caught my eye. My wife excused herself at an opportune time to visit the loo, and as she was gone I crept over to the wall, hoping against hope that the cost of one of the littler alien portraits would be within the capacity of my moth-eaten wallet. 

Shockingly the sign said "One for $7, two for $10". I splurged, snagging two of the little beasties (sized 5"x5") for an as-yet-to-be-determined wall back home.

In conversation with the cashier as we made good on the bill I found that the artist had actually just been in and just down the street at his gallery. (I had photographed the interior of the Cafe and subsequently discovered the artist was, indeed, in two of the shots.) 

Not being on a tight schedule -- or any schedule at all at this point -- we went down to his gallery and visited with him. Again I splurged, purchasing a far more decadent 12" x 36" print for the lofty charge of $45.

(His website: Zac Pangborn) 

Pivot.

******************************

I'll hop forward a day here, since the only item of interest in the interim was a cute little shop with garden decorations and other tchotchkes owned by a woman who wants to carry Cris' CDs in her shop. Oh, and a cute little ice cream and candy store in Sutter Creek. Well, then the cheese shop. And the wonderful meatballs and spagett...ah, but I digress.

Day two in Sutter Creek I awoke in agony. 

The entirety of my lower back -- (insert foreshadowing payoff #1 here) saddled with an uncomfortable sports-car driver's seat endurance test of, at that point, roughly 800 miles PLUS the work of loading and unloading luggage from selfsame automobile's "you wanna put luggage in here???"-sized trunk -- seized up and began a series of spasms which would have the nearby town of San Andreas' fault quaking with envy. 

I was, quite literally, unable to do much more than fall out of bed and muscle my way to a standing position using the nightstand, the bed and a groggy wife as my support system. I freebased vicodin, which had zero effect. A couple hours later, down went four Advil (which claims a muscle relaxant). Nada.

After a few frantic calls a local chiropractor agreed to beat upon me for an hour, attaching electrical probes to shoot me full of voltage for twenty minutes along with the bending, stretching and popping of bones -- which enabled me to get carefully back to the car and reach the very unhappy decision that, for the second time around, Yosemite was going to be beyond our reach. Or my pain tolerance, at least.

The rest of that day w drove a little further down the road -- my wife behind the wheel as I desperately tried to keep from using language which would upset even a seasoned sailor every time we encountered a pothole, or turn, or breeze from a hummingbird's wings.

Pivot. (Gently.)

******************************

And so we drove the six hours to Long Beach, fighting country roads and Los Angeles freeway traffic.  

Finally and uncomfortably home, a day early, we discovered that progress on the remodel had continued unabated, even by weekends, meaning that the wall of our bedroom and also the wall of our kitchen, had been breeched and replaced with an artsy combination of studs and plywood. 

In our absence, the person we had watching the house and our dog had little choice but to completely empty the contents of the pantry -- which is being temporarily displaced by the remodel -- onto the dining room table. In the bedroom he was forced to disconnect and move the television in the bedroom onto the floor of the other bedroom. And, finally, act as therapist for a by-now seriously disconcerted Dalmatian dog, who was deeply upset at the chaos around his previously warm and relaxing house and yard. 

Therein lies the tale of the vacation from Hell.

What's that? The second portent/foreshadowing mentioned above? Oh, yes. The gravelly roads and sidings. About that.

After visiting my own chiro and finally getting relief from the torture rack my back had become, I dropped my car off at our friendly dealership, retrieving the now perfectly functioning Tucson, and leaving the overburdened coupe for a well-deserved wash, oil change and maintenance work. 

A few hours later we receive a phone call from the service manager (who we have unfortunately gotten to know quite well over the last six months) (another story for another time). 

He's not wanting to tell me something...never a good sign when it's a mechanic on the phone. He hems and haws, telling me they finished the oil change, replaced this filter and that filter, adjusted something which needed adjusting and....here his voice takes on an "I don't want to tell you this" tone.

It seems that all four of my tires were well past their freshness date. In fact, said he, it looked like some of the damage to the tires looked like something sharp might have shredded them down to the steel on the inside track, which was extraordinarily dangerous. 

He mentioned specifically that driving in mountain roads had been much more of a risk than we might have thought. Had I, possibly, been driving on gravel or rocks recently? (Uh, oh!) He paused. 

"Yeah, upshot is it's going to cost $1200 to replace all four of them. And it has to be done...these are dangerously unsafe, Mr Barber. Will that be check or credit card?"

Um. Yeah.

Pivot.

Bits and Bites

Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something. 

- Thomas A. Edison 

The Brand

We hit a major milestone over the weekend with the number of page views to the blog -- so a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has read and continues to read our little messages in a bottle thrown into the great ocean of the internet. Without you this would be nothing more than a private journal with pictures, and that's at the extreme opposite end of what we're trying to accomplish here.

So..you may ask.. what IS it we're trying to accomplish. other than maybe putting up a bunch of pretty pictures with halfway intelligent observations to accent their visuals? "Trying to take over the world"?

Well, no. Stopping well short of that famous line from the utterly consciousness-changing television program The Animaniacs, what we're trying to do is relatively simple: make an interesting and useful new brand of travel information.

The internet is utterly rife with a variety of sources ranging from the absolutely professional and informational, such as Concierge.com and other travel publication sites, to the user-supplied review sites such as Tripadvisor.com and Fodors.com. Then, of course, there are the advertising and booking sites for the various travel-ralted companies. Airlines, cruise ships, etc. All of them generally very useful and appropriate when needed.

So why add to the clutter? Simple: I wasn't finding a site that offered both objective opinions on sites backed up by a personal library of photographs which allowed for a visual perspective. Not to pat myself too enthusiastically on the back, but most travel photographers aren't good writers, and vice versa. I like to think I have something to offer in both categories, hence The Thumbnail Traveler.

The blog, Facebook page and Twitter are but three of an intended five aspects of a web presence we're completing out over the next six months. In addition to these sites, you'll also see a new and more comprehensive Thumbnailtraveler.com, which will feature full pages of photographs, write-ups and links to important travel sites all built around a single destination. At the moment the site has a handful of galleries up, but none of the write-ups. This will be finished out in the next few months, and then additional pages will be added as we add destinations to the overall portfolio.

Once this is all up and running, we're planning on adding interactive Forums to the entirety, so that we can all talk about the various experiences, journeys, and suggestions when it comes to our trips. I want to make this a complete community of travelers built around the concept of the adventure, but more importantly sharing it with others.

So cool stuff to come, and we hope you enjoy and can make use of the sites.

And this brings me to the next phase.

I used the word "Sharing" in the paragraph above. I use the word "Share" in the tag line for the Thumbnail Traveler: "Share the Adventure".

I need you to share. Not in the touchy-feely getting-in-touch with you inner traveler sort of way, but in a direct, open and interactive fashion here and elsewhere. If you like the blog, tell someone else about it. If you like one of the posters I put up to illustrate this column, feel free to copy them -- copyright free -- and send 'em out to your friends. We want to get the word around.

Now, flipside (and it's all about YOU): See the section at the bottom of this page marked "Comments"? Please, please feel free to add an intelligent thought or experience or comment. We want this to be a two-way communication. Not only feedback, but your own opinions.

The same with the Facebook page. Feel free to post your own thoughts, recommendation and links. It's a lot more fun that way!

This year is already shaping up to be a truly fun one for travel. We just got back from a marvelous visit to Las Vegas -- where we had a blast and several shots from the trip will feature prominently in the next blog entry -- as well as future plans that will take us throughout the Southwestern United States and later through Northern Europe.

It's gonna be a banner year, so please join us and SHARE THE ADVENTURE.

Thank you.