Category: Travel

Where I’ve traveled and traveling experiences

Hail Mary, just in case

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date September 6, 2003

I drove to a Pow Wow in Kentucky today, just now returning. The gathering was held at the Trail of Tears park, and if you don’t know the story about the Trail of Tears, I’ll be covering it later and providing some photos.

In addition to all of the tribal dancing, singing, and story telling, the Pow Wow also featured a Fire Dancer from Mexico. Fire Dancing is a re-awakened Aztec dance that involves, among other things, putting parts of one’s body into a fire.

I thought it was interesting that before this dancer started, he kneeled on the ground, prayed for a minute, and then crossed himself. The irony of this, as you’ve probably already guessed, is that the Aztecs were basically destroyed by the Spanish, as they embarked on a mission as conquistadors to spread their Catholic religion; stopping along the way for a souvenir. Or two.

Speaking of religion, I wanted to extend AKMA congratulations on attending and presenting at BloggerCon, in a session titled Weblogs and their Spiritual Context. I still don’t care for BloggerCon and its associated focus on the illuminati, but I’m not going to rag on anyone for going. If people can afford it or can get sponsored, and they obtain some good from it, then I say more power to them. However, I still reserve my right to continue to rag on the conference itself.

As to the conference, I have to wonder about the following, included in the description of AKMA’s session:

Not only do bloggers have souls, about which some of them talk more or less often, but religious organizations have — or might be well-served to start — blogs. This session will involve reflections on the ways that blogs share features of the spiritual autobiography, and ways that blogs bespeak spiritual dimensions of our personae; ways that blogs can clarify congregational identity, both for curious observers and for reflective members; and ways that deliberate weblogging can enrich the spiritual lives of both individuals and congregations.

Not only do bloggers have souls… — that’s an interesting statement to begin a description of a session on spiritual contexts and weblogs, especially after the discussions this last week. To be honest, I don’t see AKMA’s hand in this write-up, but regardless of who wrote it, well, all I can say tactfully in my tired state (Kentucky’s a bit of a jaunt from St. Louis) is hmmm.

More on the Trail of Tears, the Pow Wow, and additional photos later.

Travel

Today’s Digital postcard

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date July 3, 2003

I walked the length of the Embarcadero today, at least most of it. Combined with the heavy lifting yesterday, and all the driving, and I’m more than a little tired. Tomorrow, no exploring, no salsa dancing, though I may go out tomorrow night to watch the fireworks.

(Sorry to those on the Salsa dance watch.)

Instead, on this quiet day, I plan on hanging around the hotel, taking it easy, and working on a couple of things for the co-op server – including getting suexec working and trying to figure out the Movable Type timezone problem. Besides, I’ll avoid the hordes coming into the city for the fireworks. Last year, the streets were impassable and both bridges blocked with traffic.

However, I will make one more trip to my beloved Dog Beach in the morning.

This afternoon I spent some time at the Ferry Building and at the Thursday Farmer’s Market, though I was disappointed at the size of the affair – a couple of booths, a few customers. The Ferry Building itself was worth the visit. I love clean architecture, with large and open spaces and a minimum of geegaw.

The fog rolled in again tonight, which is good as it will help keep the weather a bit cooler tomorrow. It’s fascinating to watch the fog roll into San Francisco. It starts at the Pacific side, and then rolls over the Castro area, while another band comes in past Golden Gate and over the Presidio, spreading into the Bay, like cotton batting being rolled out for cutting. While this is going on, the rest of the city is under bright sunshine but the breeze stays cool, with a hint of the moisture surrounding the city.

San Francisco really is a place for couples, because there is nothing more romantic than walking along the beach in the fog, listening to the waves break against the shore and watching the pelicans fly gracefully past.

You can keep your diamond rings, your champagne and soft music, fancy words of lust and love, and satin sheets and candlelight. I’ll take the sand, the sounds of the ocean and being wrapped in the fog, sharing a stretch of beach with someone as content with the silence as you are.

You might jokingly say I’m a cheap date, however I’m anything but – I’m in love with perfect moments: with events and emotions and comradery and companionship that are just so. A diamond ring is easy by comparison.

Travel

In San Fran

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date July 2, 2003

Arrived in San Francisco last night. I’m staying in a wonderful hotel near the Embarcadero that I found through Hotwire. I’m amazed at how much I could save – enough to be able to afford to stay at this hotel.

The Wayward Weblogger co-op is going very, very well. Still work to do on it, the weblog statistics package is strange and I want to install a different one. There is a problem with MT and timezones and I’m wondering if it has to do with my setting the machine clock to GMT. Any ideas?

I’ve also got to install email filters at the server – I’m getting close to 600 emails a day now with all my weblog domain names. I can’t find the legitimate emails at this point.

Much to write on but first, work before pleasure. I’m off to the storage unit to spend a day unpacking and repacking boxes.

Photography Travel

The road goes on and on, and on and on

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date July 1, 2003

When I’m on the road, I’ll either sleep like a baby or toss and turn all night, and this trip is a tosser and turner. Normally I take great joy in road trips, but this one just isn’t clicking for me. It shows in my writing, and it showed in my driving, which was, frankly, pretty bad today. Not because of the car I was driving but because I kept doing stupid things. Stupid, stupid things.

I decided to see if I could wake up my interest in the trip by varying my route and going I70 through the Rockies to Castle Canyon in Utah, and then travel up I15 to Salt Lake City.

As I expected the scenery was incredible, and I’ve included some photos in this post. Note that the day was very hazy, so the colors and lines are muted. But I think you can see at least a glimpse of the beauty of the scenery of I70 west of Denver.

First comes the Rockies, and my roommates poor old van had a difficult time making the steep grade. I was further slowed because around every corner is another breathtaking moment, and by the time I entered Utah, I was far behind my scheduled arrival in Nevada tonight.

Utah was hot, hot, hot — 105 degrees F. But again, around every corner was another vista, formation, bit of color what have you that I had to explore and capture. Even when it meant walking around in the desert and around rocks at these temperatures.

(One legacy of this adventure — a headache that began with the altitude change in Colorado and was continued with the temperatures in Utah.)

The oddest thing happened along I70 just before making the turn to I15 to head north — these bugs were crawling across the road, big ones that looked like a cross between a giant red bee and some kind of beetle. They were a dark reddish brown, all one color, and they crawled quite quickly. I would estimate their size at 1-2 inches long. I tried not to run any over, but it was impossible as more appeared as I traveled.

Now, what was even more disconcerting is that several ‘attacked’ the van as I drove past, or at least, that’s what it looked like. They hopped at the van as it went by. To me this suggests an attack. Perhaps they’re a hitchhiking species.

The further I traveled the more bugs, until at one bridge, there were literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, crawling across the road. I never, in my life, wanted a car to work as I wanted the van to work today. Do not break down, I found myself whispering.

I have no idea what these bugs are, and have never experienced anything like this. True, I’ve had little sleep the last few days, but I’m not imagining the critters. At least, I hope I’m not — I still have several hundred miles to drive. I know that I’ll have nightmares tonight from this one, which is probably why I’m still up writing this post. If anyone knows what these things are, please, please, let me know.

I ended up getting into Salt Lake City at 9:30. Bone tired. I have another day of driving tomorrow, which I am not looking forward to. However, I’ll have time in San Fran to rest up before trip home, the fogs are in this week (my favorite San Fran weather), and I won’t need to make another run to the coast for anything other than pleasure in the future.

At this point, though, what I want is to stay close to home. To continue my exploration of Missouri’s hikes and culture; to work on the Wayward Weblogger co-op server (the neighborhood is filling nicely); to contribute to Echo and some other RDF projects. Not to mention write and take more bandwidth stealing photos.

For the first time in I don’t know how long, I don’t want to travel. I don’t want to go somewhere. If a rolling stone gathers no moss, then I want to grow some moss on my butt.

Travel

Checking in

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date June 30, 2003

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I ended up stopping for the night in Limon, Colorado, at this little oasis of hotels/eateries/gas stations. The motel was a bit pricey, but as an added bonus – high speed internet! In the middle of Colorado cattle country.

I have found that I’ve finally reached a saturation point in this particular route. All the states between Missouri and California are very nice, lovely, friendly and interesting – but after this trip, I don’t want to see any of them again. Well, at least for a good long while.

Uneventful trip other than a car in front of me blowing a tire out. They managed it like a pro. Hope that never happens to me. I did make excellent time, but today’s miles are catching up tonight. You all would recognize the feeling – tired and disoriented. I hate that feeling.

The decision for tomorrow is whether to go up I15 to catch I80 in Salt Lake City, or to take I25 and catch it in Cheyenne. This is the shorter route, but I haven’t been in I15 for ages, and it’s very pretty. Rocky Mountains.

Catching up on weblog reading, I can see some disagreement that the Echo project is even occurring. This isn’t surprising, but it shouldn’t be happening. Echo is open to everyone, and all input is welcome. People can involve themselves if they want, or ignore if they don’t. This is the weblogging way to run a project of this nature.

I was going to make several detailed comments on this, but they would serve no positive purpose. Instead, I’ll continue my support of Echo, help when I can, and focus on photos and other writing.

See you in a couple of days in San Francisco.

PS Quick update before I reluctantly pull my hands away from the computer and start today’s drive: Who’s up for working on a RDF vocabulary of Echo with me? Not as a syndication format, but a full vocabulary, for integration with other RDF-enabled vocabularies? There is this but more in line with co-existence with the syndication format. However, I think there’s enough data in the data model to start the vocabulary now without waiting on the syndication effort – the vocabulary should derive from the model, and mappings developed later.

Has someone started this already? If so, can you paste a link to effort in my comments?

Second Update Started wiki page for this effort.