I used to do cool things and put them on my blog. Then, I bought a house and got married. There went all my money and time -- or at least that's my excuse.The last time I posted anything worth reading on this blog was years ago. Time is just ticking away and I've got a lot of the world left to see!
I know a lot of people put their house projects and dog pictures and stories about their family on their blog, but that doesn't seem like anything novel by now. I even take conventional trips to locales like Maui and Philadelphia. But even they don't seem like much to blog about lately. I started an education blog last month. It's a lot of fun to have an outlet for my professional soapboxing. But it's not walking the Camino or roughing it in South America. What's happened to me?
So, this Spring I'm dedicating myself to falling back in love with my life. We've only got about one shot at this life and if I'm not having a blast then literally what's the point, eh? Some hard decisions will need to be made. I'll probably need to strip away things that are time sucks (work...cable tv...pulling weeds, obsessively checking my bank statements, work) and replace them with things I love, like exploring new places, planning amazing adventures, making dope mix albums, completing all my random domestic projects, and reading.
I'll let you know how my mini-life makeover's going soon.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Get your iPhone dirty with gardening apps
 |
| Above: Plum blossoms in Japan. Jess Tuerk |
1. GardenID ($2.99) by MEDL Mobile gets high marks for its usefulness in picking out climate-appropriate veggies and flowers. My favorite thing about GardenID is that it contains specific information about different varieties of each plant so when you're at the nursery picking them out, you know whether Green Globe or Imperial Star artichokes will do better in your soil.
2. Garden Tracker (FREE) by Portable Databases lets you plan out your garden plots in a grid—perfect for these cold spring days when we wish it was warm enough to actually put those seedlings in the ground.
3. Soil pH ($0.99) by Toni Salter If you've ever wondered how to get higher yields or why your peppers aren't producing, look to your soil content. This straightforward app gives a step by step on how to test your soil, as well as a directory of the optimal levels for hundreds of plants.
4. Herbs + ($2.99) by Daniel Wall is an excellent way to start a "kitchen" garden full of medicinal and culinary herbs -- indoors or out. The app is an excellent choice for planting and growing advice in addition to medicinal uses.
5. Flowers! ($0.99) By Levitate LLC What I love about this app (in addition to its beautiful photos) is that it's a flower quiz, so you're challenged to learn about different plants and their upkeep.
6. Ideas4recipes (Free) Should you be adventurous this spring and plant kohlrabi or celeriac, or perhaps you find yourself with a counter full of spaghetti squash, find recipes to match the veggies you have on hand with Ideas4recipes,
7. Farmers Market Finder (FREE) by Tika And if you're hemmed in by skyline and concrete with not a container garden in sight? Do the next best thing and use the Farmers Market Finder app to support local growers.
Friday, December 7, 2007
The world is still small
A few weeks ago I got an email out of the blue from a woman named Kelley, at the Uof Oregon who found me through my Cota article and was herself writing a research paper on female travellers. She wanted to ask me some questions and read my blogs to potentially use in her research paper. "What an original academic area of study!" I thought. Why didn't I think of that? I'm sure there are millions to be made in academia, right?
Fanscinating person that I am, she decided to use my blogs as her case study. I have never been analyzed like this outside of the psychiatric evaluation for the Peace Corps, but all said and done I think she hit the nail on the head. Unless she is implying that I am masculine. I am not masculine. Well, maybe in certain aspects. Whatever the term means, anyway.
The following is entitled "Every(wo)man’s Travel Writing:
Performance of self in adventuress travel blogs" by Kelley Totten
I have included it in its entirety because I think it is pretty interesting. But if you want to get to the part about me, scroll about half way down.
adventuress
–noun
1. a woman who schemes to win social position, wealth, etc., by unscrupulous or questionable means.
2. a woman who is an adventurer.
adventurer
–noun
1. a person who has, enjoys, or seeks adventures.
2. a seeker of fortune in daring enterprises; soldier of fortune.
3. a person who undertakes great commercial risk; speculator.
4. a person who seeks power, wealth, or social rank by unscrupulous or questionable means: They thought John was an adventurer and after their daughter's money.
–http://dictionary.reference.com
Torun Elsrud cites a 1994 dictionary entry that defines “adventurer” in similar language as the entry above, with the following added onto the definition: “ –fem. Advent’turess (chiefly in a bad sense).” He then asks, “If this describes a contemporary and accepted view on male and female adventurous activities, who wants to be an adventuress?” (Elsrud, 614)
I do. Many of my female friends do. According to a popular women’s travel spokesperson, Marybeth Bond, the self titled “Gutsy Traveler,” “75% of those who take cultural, adventure or nature trips are women” (my emphasis, http://gutsytraveler.com/mbbStatistics.html). But do we call ourselves “adventuress”? We define ourselves as the masculine adventurer, the traveler who seeks risk, breaks out from her comfort zone and compiles “extreme” stories of bravery and courage.
Elsrud’s article, “Risk Creation in Traveling – Backpacker Adventure Narration,” argues that adventure travelers construct their identities through narratives that authenticate the traveler, reifying their status above mass tourists. His article focuses on risks taken (whether “real” or constructed) and its use as a tool to create a personal narrative. Elsrud regards the “traveler as a narrator, and the journey as a narrative. [His paper] describes acts as well as tales of traveling as meaningful symbols with which travelers make statements about their identity” (598). Interviewing primarily female solo travelers, Elsrud writes in his conclusion: “[…] women appear to be as “adventurous”, “risk-taking” and “daring” as any male traveler interviewed, indicating that they are upholding the cultural narrative described in [his] text rather than contesting it. However, this ignores the possibility that the narrative itself may very well be gendered” (613).
This paper examines adventure travelers’ online blogs as a contemporary manifestation of travel writing. Examining the blogs as performances of identity and highlighting a specific case study, I will explore if and how female travelers conform to or contest a masculine conception of adventure or independent travel.
The traveler’s blog as contemporary travel writing
An online Google search for “travel blog” lists over 23 million links. Travelers use online “blogs,” short for “weblogs,” to document their travels in a public space. The blogs allow travelers to post itineraries and photos, in addition to journal-style entries documenting their adventures. Intended primarily for friends and family, these travel blogs are posted on specific websites such as www.travelblog.org, www.travelpod.com, and blog.realtravel.com. The sites typically feature “Editor’s Picks” or a rotating selection of blogs on the front page, or entry point, into the website. The sites explicitly advertise themselves as a place to explore new places, suggesting visitors travel vicariously through the exploits of strangers.
Discussing round-the-world websites1, Jennie Germann Molz writes:
These narrative and visual representations of global travel become a virtual terrain where readers at home or at work can daydream about being on safari in Africa, riding the Trans-Siberian Railway, or playing on the beach in Thailand. […] The regularly posted installments are intended not only to keep readers updated on the travellers’ activities, but also to make readers feel as though they are actually a part of the round-the-world trip” (Molz, 2004: 171).
In the first chapter of Casey Blanton’s Travel Writing – The Self and the World, Blanton explains travel writing’s seduction for readers as a forward moving text that acts as a journey metaphor as it re-presents experience. According to Blanton, travel writing also functions as an educational tool for informing us about the other. “The persistence of this kind of writing is undoubtedly related to human curiosity and to a travel writer’s desire to mediate between things foreign and things familiar, to help us understand that world which is other to us” (Blanton, 2).
Though this paper can not replicate the depth and scope of Mary Pratt’s Imperial Eyes, her terminology and approach as outlined in the Introduction should be considered in this discussion of travel writing. Most significantly, she writes of the “contact zone,” a typically disproportionate division of power that occurs between two people who were previously separated geographically, historically and culturally (7). Similar to historic travel texts, the contemporary traveler documents her contact zones via the travel blog. The traveler’s voice and imagery re-present the interaction at the contact zone from her perspective, rather than giving voice to the local. Pratt presents her work within the scholarship of travel and exploration literature while dismissing the notion of “travel writing” as a genre: “I have aimed not to circumscribe travel writing as a genre but to suggest its heterogeneity and its interactions with other kinds of expression” (11). Though she focuses on European travel writing in her text, she suggests flexible boundaries of the genre, allowing space for new literary and expressive interpretations of travel, a suggestion that allows for my argument of the travel blog as a form of contemporary travel writing.
Definitions of the adventure traveler and the construction of risk
Though people who travel may be classified into a debatable list of “types” and categorized by general traits (Cohen, 21-24), due to the limitations of time and space, in this paper I will use the term “adventure traveler” to suggest someone who seeks personal challenge or risk in their often unplanned itinerary and whose preferable mode of travel is typically with a backpack for an extended period of time. Elsrud defines the adventure traveler as an independent traveler in opposition to the more conventional traveler who is often labeled a “tourist” and seeks out package tours and group travel. “The adventurous traveler is usually regarded as a ‘real traveler’, a person interesting enough to write books and magazines about and to be followed around by a documentary film team” (Elsrud, 598). Munt notes that travelers seeking out “real” experiences are often motivated through literature, using as an example, someone who travels to South America after reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Munt considers this type of travel as “reflective of emergent postmodern tourism practices among a new middle class” (101). He does not argue against current scholarship on the “post tourist,” but instead suggests that an “other” postmodern tourist model exists, raising questions of status and identification. The “other” postmodern tourism focuses on the “real” holiday and involves specialized, tailor-made tourism (Munt, 102). “It should also be noted that ‘real’ among the new middle classes indicates a desire for authenticity, for ‘honesty,’ however circumscribed that may be in reality” (Munt, 103). As I will show later in this paper, adventure travel bloggers support Munt’s theory as members of the (white) middle class that place emphasis on experiences that reflect their personal ideas of “authentic” or “real.”
Connected to the idea of “real” travel is the notion of “risk.” Adventuress Betsy Elliot wrote, “I like to push my limits and have crazy stories for my friends later. I
like challenges and have friends that push me. My risks are small compared to others but they are real to me” (email correspondence with author). Elsrud writes that although risks may truly exist, the risks presented through travel narratives are often cultural or social constructs (598). Travelers present experiences as risks, whether intentional or not, as a device to construct a story that allows them to either maintain or elevate their position within their cultural structure.
Performing identity and self in travel writing
Although travel blogs write about an “other”, purportedly documenting one’s itinerary through an other’s land, they rely on personal experience as a means to convey their biased documentation. According to Sandra K.D. Stahl, people share personal experiences stories as a way of creating value systems (and through their retelling, personal values are remade and refined): “through personal experience stories we articulate and then test the values that identify our selves” (275).
“…I thought ‘I have to go on a long-haul trip, otherwise I’m not going to be the sort of person I want to be’ (Cathy, a young independent tourist)” (Desforges, 926). Desforges introduces his essay with this quote to exemplify his argument that a certain type of traveler consumes travel experiences as a means to create a self identity. Desforges distinguishes three terms – identity, subjectivity, and the self – in his discussion of a general theme of personhood. In tourism studies, the notion of identity is related to a collective whole representing location, region or class. Desforge’s study echoes Munt’s classification of travelers seeking out “alternative” tourism experiences: “[Munt] argues that these destinations are imagined and encountered as places where individual achievement, strength of character, adaptability, and worldliness can be performed and narrated, particularly among young tourists accumulating cultural capital to assert a middle class identity” (928). Subjectivity, an important concept when discussing travel blogs, refers to the methods by which people produce their world experience, as opposed to acquiring experience. The idea of “self” focuses in on a more personal understanding of identity. Desforges notes that although tourism scholars and tourists often refer to a quest to discover self, he refers to more recent theory that “conceptualizes [self] less as something to be discovered, than as something which is actively constructed through tourism practices” (929). Tourist blogs reinforce these concepts as they convey through narratives and photos a constructed self. Their subjectivity manifests itself in the blog, presenting created experiences that help reinforce notions of identity and self. The travel blog can be viewed as a performance, exhibiting the traveler’s self as a carefully created role within and connected to the context of a foreign locale. Blanton explains it in terms of the conventional travel writers of today:
The awareness of the interconnectedness of all matter and the role of the observer/narrator in collecting data leads the contemporary travel writer to literally and metaphorically connect himself to the world, since he sees that the world is, in fact, himself. These ‘post-Viet Nam’ travel writers, for the most part, travel alone, usually by foot or third-class conveyance, coming closer to the people among whom they travel than ever before. Freed from the essential certainties of self and other, this traveler embarks with less cultural baggage but with an inner struggle to define himself and assert his own presence among others who are even less clearly focused than himself (26-27).
The “internalized contact zone”
Ruth Jenkins draws on Pratt’s “contact zone” to define the internal interaction that occurs in the inner struggle to perform self in travel narratives. Jenkins defines “internalized contact zones [as] the subjective frontier in which the encounter is between a potentially authentic self and that constructed within the context of cultural experience” (19). Though Jenkins examines the internalized contact zone in terms of the Victorian woman traveler, her concept can inform the process that occurs in women’s travel blogs. Using an example from Victorian travel writer, Mary Kingsley, can elucidate Jenkin’s theory while contributing to a historical context in which to recognize gendered perspectives on travel. Mary Kingsley’s travel writing illustrates this concept well. Kingsley’s internalized contact zone exists between her portrayal of herself as an independent woman and as one of proper English society. When Kingsley decides to stay on board her boat traveling in west Africa, rather than go in to meet a French nun, she reveals in one line the duality of meaning that occurs in the internalized contact zone: “feeling quite certain I should get much misunderstood by the gentle, clean, tidy lady, and she might put me down as an ordinary speciman of Englishwoman, and so I should bring disgrace on my nation” (351). Kingsley opens herself up to both her own subjectivity and her constructed perception of the nun; she feels herself to be unfit in both language skills and dress to meet this stranger, while she simultaneously perceives herself in the eyes of the stranger who would construct a false impression of her as a representative of English society. I would also argue that Kingsley’s use of the term “ordinary” here suggests an ironic tone that embraces her role as an adventurer and extraordinary female, in contrast to an implied feminine role conforming to social norms.
Elsrud questions if similar constraints exist for contemporary women travelers who possibly construct their personal narratives in masculine terms that simultaneously reaffirms and contests the notion of gendered travel. He suggests that women are caught between this dichotomy. Though he does not refer to Kingsley directly, he notes a similar use of irony in female travel narratives: “Possibly irony, through dissociating properties, supplies the distance a woman needs when she realizes that she has been given the opportunity to act, but in the process of doing so may lose her identity tale to a gendered construction” (Elsrud, 614).
Janet Wolff refers to travel as intrinsically masculine and discusses the implications of using travel metaphors in academic texts, arguing its contribution to an androcentric body of cultural studies theory. In her discussion of female travelers, Wolff suggests that the gendered construction of travel limits women’s ability to perform self through travel narrative: “My argument is that the ideological gendering of travel (as male) both impedes female travel and renders problematic the self-definition of (and response to) women who do travel” (Wolff, 234). My research with travel blogs and interviews, however, contests this idea. Using one woman’s travel blogs as a case study, I will show how women adventure travelers find ways, whether in masculine or feminine terminology, to perform self through travel – they indeed “do” travel.
Explanation of Method
As a solo traveler on an “around-the-world” trip in 2003-2004, I wrote mass emails that I sent to friends and family. Although I had some amount of control over audience, these emails acted essentially as travel blogs. As I started a general search of travel blogs I found I often compared strangers’ travel narratives to my own. Though my research on numerous travel blogs inform my research, I will focus on one specific blog – Jess Tuerk’s blog – for this paper. I found Jess’ online travel articles and blogs through a Google search of “adventure women traveler blog”. Upon reading of her travels in Peru, I found that we currently share a hometown – Eugene, Oregon. After an inquiry email, she called and we conducted a phone interview. I also sent out an email questionnaire to 18 female friends who at some point in their lives have considered themselves “travelers.” Though I only cite a couple of these interviews in this paper, the email and phone conversations have helped inform my perspective on the diverse experiences women have as travelers.
Adventuress Travel Blogs
“I never considered myself an adventure traveler until I got to Peru, where even a short bus trip can turn into an adventure – road blocks, llamas, livestock, rocky cliffs, flat tires and all” (http://www.gonomad.com/womens/0710/peru-rafting.html). Jess Tuerk begins her travel narrative with this statement, posted as an online travel article titled “Rafting the Cotahuasi – One Woman’s Whitewater Adventure.” This article led me to Jess’ travel blogs. In a phone interview, Jess elaborated on her approach to travel: “Part of it is whim. When I leave for a trip. I have an idea- I have a plane ticket. I just sort of go with the wind. I don’t know, I just follow wherever I seem to be leading.” The “wind” led Jess down the Class IV and V Cotahuasi River, near Arequipa, Peru on her first ever white water rafting trip. She wrote about the experience originally in her travel blog in May 2006, and then re-presented the experience in an online article posted in the fall of 2007. A comparison of the two suggests that in re-writing her experience, she is re-constructing her personal values and re-performing self. She emphasizes the risk and danger in her later account:
In May 2000, a 36-year-old British adventure travel journalist -- like myself, perhaps simply yearning for a good story and unique adventure -- was ejected from her raft above a Class V rapid, and her body was never recovered.
The 2000 expedition faced a combination of higher-than-expected water, poor judgment and bad luck. Could our party also fall victim to these circumstances? Was I, the inexperienced, young, female rafter amongst four stronger and river-savvy kayakers the Cota’s next probable victim?
One thing I knew for sure from my solo travels abroad was never to discount the emergency situation potentially lurking around every corner. As I finished chewing my lumpy oatmeal I swallowed hard at the thought.
(http://www.gonomad.com/womens/0710/peru-rafting.html)
In Jess’ original blog, she refers to the potential danger her inexperience can lead to in this adventure, mentioning the traveler to whom she relates to in spirit, though not in shared fatal experience:
Sergio needs me to paddle and I am going as hard as I can, but we hit a rock and I slide over the edge of the bright yellow raft, aware of what it about to happen. I am in the water, just ahead of the raft, and I see the river flowing over me. I reach up, please God, just out of reach of the blue rope. I throw my hands up again and catch the frame this time but cannot pull myself up and into the raft. I feel Sergio grab my life vest up an it is enough for me to tumble hand and foot inside. I hear him tell me to get the hell in the raft and paddle. Tough love, but truer words were never spoken. In 2001 a young BBC correspondent was lost on the Cota and her body never recovered. If I have never been on a rafting trip before, I have now been christened. (http://www.gonomad.com/womens/0710/peru-rafting.html)
Jess seeks out travel experiences that pose a challenge, both in terms of getting there and “surviving” outside of her comfort zone: “I like to go to unexplored places. I would rather it be kind of hard, kind of gnarly because that’s really fun” (personal interview). She tells me that she considers herself an independent traveler, though notes that calling oneself a “solo” traveler is “a kind of a misnomer – you’re not alone because there are people everywhere you go. I never really feel alone.” Blog entries confirm this, with a cast of different characters traveling in and out of the entries, mirroring their physical interactions in and out of Jess’ itineraries. Jess’ use of the term “gnarly” and her quest for “unexplored” locations, in terms of scholarship, suggests a masculine identity. In reading her article and in our conversation, I can not help but wonder if she indeed is constructing her identity in male terms. When I ask her who she travels with, if she prefers male to female travelers, she pauses and has difficulty answering the question. It is not that she is unsure, it is something she has not thought about. When I ask if she ever identifies herself as a female traveler, she says no. “It’s not about male or female to me. That’s just not something I really think about,” she tells me (personal interview). Jess has faced specific obstacles in her travels, which makes her aware of gender, but she does not feel that being a woman impedes her decision to travel. If anything, one might argue that her “masculine” language empowers her to overcome the obstacles. In an article she writes for an online posting with Transitions Abroad, Jess writes about her experience being assaulted in India (in this case, risk is presented as an advisory, rather than as a personal identifier):
When I finally got off the train at 1 a.m., it took me 45 minutes to get the stationmaster to take me seriously enough to file a complaint and another 15 minutes of haggling with him to send a policeman to escort me to the station. The final motivation for him to do so was a call I placed to the U.S. embassy in New Delhi.
[…]
I would never recommend that females stop exploring India by train, and I would spend 1,000 more hours on them to take in such a bewildering and beautiful country. (http://www.transitionsabroad.com/publications/magazine/0607/solo_woman_travel_in_india.shtml)
Jess displays her control of the situation and her ability to invoke action with the authorities. Her power may have been questioned through the assault, but she asserts herself in the situation, refusing to let it stop her from her personal journey.
Jess left on her first extended trip, spending six months traveling through India, Southeast Asia, Japan, Eastern Europe, as well as a few locations in Western Europe. In her initial travel blog, she performs her career identity as an educator, including “quizzes” for her readers (many of whom are her former students) who sign on to her “guestbook” to answer the questions. Jess mentions in our conversation that she found the emails and posted comments on her blog to be “amazing,” enjoying the support, encouragement and interest she received from home. She maintains her “home” identity while simultaneously presenting herself as the independent travel in far-off, exotic lands. She mentions in her final blog of this first trip that she embarked on this adventure as an effort to “find my way back-- back to the woman whom I knew had drowned in a regrettable period of depression.” She continues to explain her motivation for the journey, and its result: “and I slowly made small reconnections with the woman whom I had lost” (http://mytripjournal.com/journals/tuerk2005/entry49.html). As she gets ready to travel home, she reflects on one of her favorite books titled “The Long Way Home.” Her questions and reflections suggest an internalized contact zone between the “Jess of Home” and the “Jess of the Road.” Her travels become a metaphor to try and reconcile the two Jess’ and return to a new home, created through her new self identity.
Though Jess does not label herself as a “female traveler,” she performs her gender through her travel blog. Jess’ travel blogs contests Wolff’s assertion that a historically gendered approach to travel limits women’s abilities to define themselves in their own journeys. In an interview with another adventuress, Lori Constan rejects a gendered label: “I identify myself as a traveler. I am ALL woman but do not find it necessary to describe myself as a female traveler” (email correspondence with author). Lori’s adventure travels involve climbing and skiing expeditions, which she will typically undertake with a partner.
Perhaps Jess’ final statement in her first travel blog best illustrates her feminine association with her own identity of herself as a traveler. She ends her blog with the lyrics from a Be Good Tanya’s song entitled “The Littlest Bird.” The masculine identity of an old hobo with his rambling ways is juxtaposed with the feminine voice and bird imagery. The singer recognizes her vulnerability and addresses her fear, overcoming it to continue to fly.
Well I feel like an old hobo, I'm sad lonesome and blue
I was fair as the summer day now the summer days are through
You pass through places and places pass through you
But you carry 'em with you on the souls of your travellin' shoes
Well I love you so dearly I love you so clearly
Wake you up in the mornin' so early
Just to tell you I got the wanderin' blues
I got the wanderin' blues
And i'm gonna quit these ramblin' ways one of these days soon
And I'll sing
The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs...
Well it's times like these I feel so small and wild
Like the ramblin' footsteps of a wanderin' child
And i'm lonesome as a lonesome whippoorwill
Singin these blues with a warble and a trill
But i'm not too blue to fly
No i'm not too blue to fly cuz
The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs...
Fanscinating person that I am, she decided to use my blogs as her case study. I have never been analyzed like this outside of the psychiatric evaluation for the Peace Corps, but all said and done I think she hit the nail on the head. Unless she is implying that I am masculine. I am not masculine. Well, maybe in certain aspects. Whatever the term means, anyway.
The following is entitled "Every(wo)man’s Travel Writing:
Performance of self in adventuress travel blogs" by Kelley Totten
I have included it in its entirety because I think it is pretty interesting. But if you want to get to the part about me, scroll about half way down.
adventuress
–noun
1. a woman who schemes to win social position, wealth, etc., by unscrupulous or questionable means.
2. a woman who is an adventurer.
adventurer
–noun
1. a person who has, enjoys, or seeks adventures.
2. a seeker of fortune in daring enterprises; soldier of fortune.
3. a person who undertakes great commercial risk; speculator.
4. a person who seeks power, wealth, or social rank by unscrupulous or questionable means: They thought John was an adventurer and after their daughter's money.
–http://dictionary.reference.com
Torun Elsrud cites a 1994 dictionary entry that defines “adventurer” in similar language as the entry above, with the following added onto the definition: “ –fem. Advent’turess (chiefly in a bad sense).” He then asks, “If this describes a contemporary and accepted view on male and female adventurous activities, who wants to be an adventuress?” (Elsrud, 614)
I do. Many of my female friends do. According to a popular women’s travel spokesperson, Marybeth Bond, the self titled “Gutsy Traveler,” “75% of those who take cultural, adventure or nature trips are women” (my emphasis, http://gutsytraveler.com/mbbStatistics.html). But do we call ourselves “adventuress”? We define ourselves as the masculine adventurer, the traveler who seeks risk, breaks out from her comfort zone and compiles “extreme” stories of bravery and courage.
Elsrud’s article, “Risk Creation in Traveling – Backpacker Adventure Narration,” argues that adventure travelers construct their identities through narratives that authenticate the traveler, reifying their status above mass tourists. His article focuses on risks taken (whether “real” or constructed) and its use as a tool to create a personal narrative. Elsrud regards the “traveler as a narrator, and the journey as a narrative. [His paper] describes acts as well as tales of traveling as meaningful symbols with which travelers make statements about their identity” (598). Interviewing primarily female solo travelers, Elsrud writes in his conclusion: “[…] women appear to be as “adventurous”, “risk-taking” and “daring” as any male traveler interviewed, indicating that they are upholding the cultural narrative described in [his] text rather than contesting it. However, this ignores the possibility that the narrative itself may very well be gendered” (613).
This paper examines adventure travelers’ online blogs as a contemporary manifestation of travel writing. Examining the blogs as performances of identity and highlighting a specific case study, I will explore if and how female travelers conform to or contest a masculine conception of adventure or independent travel.
The traveler’s blog as contemporary travel writing
An online Google search for “travel blog” lists over 23 million links. Travelers use online “blogs,” short for “weblogs,” to document their travels in a public space. The blogs allow travelers to post itineraries and photos, in addition to journal-style entries documenting their adventures. Intended primarily for friends and family, these travel blogs are posted on specific websites such as www.travelblog.org, www.travelpod.com, and blog.realtravel.com. The sites typically feature “Editor’s Picks” or a rotating selection of blogs on the front page, or entry point, into the website. The sites explicitly advertise themselves as a place to explore new places, suggesting visitors travel vicariously through the exploits of strangers.
Discussing round-the-world websites1, Jennie Germann Molz writes:
These narrative and visual representations of global travel become a virtual terrain where readers at home or at work can daydream about being on safari in Africa, riding the Trans-Siberian Railway, or playing on the beach in Thailand. […] The regularly posted installments are intended not only to keep readers updated on the travellers’ activities, but also to make readers feel as though they are actually a part of the round-the-world trip” (Molz, 2004: 171).
In the first chapter of Casey Blanton’s Travel Writing – The Self and the World, Blanton explains travel writing’s seduction for readers as a forward moving text that acts as a journey metaphor as it re-presents experience. According to Blanton, travel writing also functions as an educational tool for informing us about the other. “The persistence of this kind of writing is undoubtedly related to human curiosity and to a travel writer’s desire to mediate between things foreign and things familiar, to help us understand that world which is other to us” (Blanton, 2).
Though this paper can not replicate the depth and scope of Mary Pratt’s Imperial Eyes, her terminology and approach as outlined in the Introduction should be considered in this discussion of travel writing. Most significantly, she writes of the “contact zone,” a typically disproportionate division of power that occurs between two people who were previously separated geographically, historically and culturally (7). Similar to historic travel texts, the contemporary traveler documents her contact zones via the travel blog. The traveler’s voice and imagery re-present the interaction at the contact zone from her perspective, rather than giving voice to the local. Pratt presents her work within the scholarship of travel and exploration literature while dismissing the notion of “travel writing” as a genre: “I have aimed not to circumscribe travel writing as a genre but to suggest its heterogeneity and its interactions with other kinds of expression” (11). Though she focuses on European travel writing in her text, she suggests flexible boundaries of the genre, allowing space for new literary and expressive interpretations of travel, a suggestion that allows for my argument of the travel blog as a form of contemporary travel writing.
Definitions of the adventure traveler and the construction of risk
Though people who travel may be classified into a debatable list of “types” and categorized by general traits (Cohen, 21-24), due to the limitations of time and space, in this paper I will use the term “adventure traveler” to suggest someone who seeks personal challenge or risk in their often unplanned itinerary and whose preferable mode of travel is typically with a backpack for an extended period of time. Elsrud defines the adventure traveler as an independent traveler in opposition to the more conventional traveler who is often labeled a “tourist” and seeks out package tours and group travel. “The adventurous traveler is usually regarded as a ‘real traveler’, a person interesting enough to write books and magazines about and to be followed around by a documentary film team” (Elsrud, 598). Munt notes that travelers seeking out “real” experiences are often motivated through literature, using as an example, someone who travels to South America after reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Munt considers this type of travel as “reflective of emergent postmodern tourism practices among a new middle class” (101). He does not argue against current scholarship on the “post tourist,” but instead suggests that an “other” postmodern tourist model exists, raising questions of status and identification. The “other” postmodern tourism focuses on the “real” holiday and involves specialized, tailor-made tourism (Munt, 102). “It should also be noted that ‘real’ among the new middle classes indicates a desire for authenticity, for ‘honesty,’ however circumscribed that may be in reality” (Munt, 103). As I will show later in this paper, adventure travel bloggers support Munt’s theory as members of the (white) middle class that place emphasis on experiences that reflect their personal ideas of “authentic” or “real.”
Connected to the idea of “real” travel is the notion of “risk.” Adventuress Betsy Elliot wrote, “I like to push my limits and have crazy stories for my friends later. I
like challenges and have friends that push me. My risks are small compared to others but they are real to me” (email correspondence with author). Elsrud writes that although risks may truly exist, the risks presented through travel narratives are often cultural or social constructs (598). Travelers present experiences as risks, whether intentional or not, as a device to construct a story that allows them to either maintain or elevate their position within their cultural structure.
Performing identity and self in travel writing
Although travel blogs write about an “other”, purportedly documenting one’s itinerary through an other’s land, they rely on personal experience as a means to convey their biased documentation. According to Sandra K.D. Stahl, people share personal experiences stories as a way of creating value systems (and through their retelling, personal values are remade and refined): “through personal experience stories we articulate and then test the values that identify our selves” (275).
“…I thought ‘I have to go on a long-haul trip, otherwise I’m not going to be the sort of person I want to be’ (Cathy, a young independent tourist)” (Desforges, 926). Desforges introduces his essay with this quote to exemplify his argument that a certain type of traveler consumes travel experiences as a means to create a self identity. Desforges distinguishes three terms – identity, subjectivity, and the self – in his discussion of a general theme of personhood. In tourism studies, the notion of identity is related to a collective whole representing location, region or class. Desforge’s study echoes Munt’s classification of travelers seeking out “alternative” tourism experiences: “[Munt] argues that these destinations are imagined and encountered as places where individual achievement, strength of character, adaptability, and worldliness can be performed and narrated, particularly among young tourists accumulating cultural capital to assert a middle class identity” (928). Subjectivity, an important concept when discussing travel blogs, refers to the methods by which people produce their world experience, as opposed to acquiring experience. The idea of “self” focuses in on a more personal understanding of identity. Desforges notes that although tourism scholars and tourists often refer to a quest to discover self, he refers to more recent theory that “conceptualizes [self] less as something to be discovered, than as something which is actively constructed through tourism practices” (929). Tourist blogs reinforce these concepts as they convey through narratives and photos a constructed self. Their subjectivity manifests itself in the blog, presenting created experiences that help reinforce notions of identity and self. The travel blog can be viewed as a performance, exhibiting the traveler’s self as a carefully created role within and connected to the context of a foreign locale. Blanton explains it in terms of the conventional travel writers of today:
The awareness of the interconnectedness of all matter and the role of the observer/narrator in collecting data leads the contemporary travel writer to literally and metaphorically connect himself to the world, since he sees that the world is, in fact, himself. These ‘post-Viet Nam’ travel writers, for the most part, travel alone, usually by foot or third-class conveyance, coming closer to the people among whom they travel than ever before. Freed from the essential certainties of self and other, this traveler embarks with less cultural baggage but with an inner struggle to define himself and assert his own presence among others who are even less clearly focused than himself (26-27).
The “internalized contact zone”
Ruth Jenkins draws on Pratt’s “contact zone” to define the internal interaction that occurs in the inner struggle to perform self in travel narratives. Jenkins defines “internalized contact zones [as] the subjective frontier in which the encounter is between a potentially authentic self and that constructed within the context of cultural experience” (19). Though Jenkins examines the internalized contact zone in terms of the Victorian woman traveler, her concept can inform the process that occurs in women’s travel blogs. Using an example from Victorian travel writer, Mary Kingsley, can elucidate Jenkin’s theory while contributing to a historical context in which to recognize gendered perspectives on travel. Mary Kingsley’s travel writing illustrates this concept well. Kingsley’s internalized contact zone exists between her portrayal of herself as an independent woman and as one of proper English society. When Kingsley decides to stay on board her boat traveling in west Africa, rather than go in to meet a French nun, she reveals in one line the duality of meaning that occurs in the internalized contact zone: “feeling quite certain I should get much misunderstood by the gentle, clean, tidy lady, and she might put me down as an ordinary speciman of Englishwoman, and so I should bring disgrace on my nation” (351). Kingsley opens herself up to both her own subjectivity and her constructed perception of the nun; she feels herself to be unfit in both language skills and dress to meet this stranger, while she simultaneously perceives herself in the eyes of the stranger who would construct a false impression of her as a representative of English society. I would also argue that Kingsley’s use of the term “ordinary” here suggests an ironic tone that embraces her role as an adventurer and extraordinary female, in contrast to an implied feminine role conforming to social norms.
Elsrud questions if similar constraints exist for contemporary women travelers who possibly construct their personal narratives in masculine terms that simultaneously reaffirms and contests the notion of gendered travel. He suggests that women are caught between this dichotomy. Though he does not refer to Kingsley directly, he notes a similar use of irony in female travel narratives: “Possibly irony, through dissociating properties, supplies the distance a woman needs when she realizes that she has been given the opportunity to act, but in the process of doing so may lose her identity tale to a gendered construction” (Elsrud, 614).
Janet Wolff refers to travel as intrinsically masculine and discusses the implications of using travel metaphors in academic texts, arguing its contribution to an androcentric body of cultural studies theory. In her discussion of female travelers, Wolff suggests that the gendered construction of travel limits women’s ability to perform self through travel narrative: “My argument is that the ideological gendering of travel (as male) both impedes female travel and renders problematic the self-definition of (and response to) women who do travel” (Wolff, 234). My research with travel blogs and interviews, however, contests this idea. Using one woman’s travel blogs as a case study, I will show how women adventure travelers find ways, whether in masculine or feminine terminology, to perform self through travel – they indeed “do” travel.
Explanation of Method
As a solo traveler on an “around-the-world” trip in 2003-2004, I wrote mass emails that I sent to friends and family. Although I had some amount of control over audience, these emails acted essentially as travel blogs. As I started a general search of travel blogs I found I often compared strangers’ travel narratives to my own. Though my research on numerous travel blogs inform my research, I will focus on one specific blog – Jess Tuerk’s blog – for this paper. I found Jess’ online travel articles and blogs through a Google search of “adventure women traveler blog”. Upon reading of her travels in Peru, I found that we currently share a hometown – Eugene, Oregon. After an inquiry email, she called and we conducted a phone interview. I also sent out an email questionnaire to 18 female friends who at some point in their lives have considered themselves “travelers.” Though I only cite a couple of these interviews in this paper, the email and phone conversations have helped inform my perspective on the diverse experiences women have as travelers.
Adventuress Travel Blogs
“I never considered myself an adventure traveler until I got to Peru, where even a short bus trip can turn into an adventure – road blocks, llamas, livestock, rocky cliffs, flat tires and all” (http://www.gonomad.com/womens/0710/peru-rafting.html). Jess Tuerk begins her travel narrative with this statement, posted as an online travel article titled “Rafting the Cotahuasi – One Woman’s Whitewater Adventure.” This article led me to Jess’ travel blogs. In a phone interview, Jess elaborated on her approach to travel: “Part of it is whim. When I leave for a trip. I have an idea- I have a plane ticket. I just sort of go with the wind. I don’t know, I just follow wherever I seem to be leading.” The “wind” led Jess down the Class IV and V Cotahuasi River, near Arequipa, Peru on her first ever white water rafting trip. She wrote about the experience originally in her travel blog in May 2006, and then re-presented the experience in an online article posted in the fall of 2007. A comparison of the two suggests that in re-writing her experience, she is re-constructing her personal values and re-performing self. She emphasizes the risk and danger in her later account:
In May 2000, a 36-year-old British adventure travel journalist -- like myself, perhaps simply yearning for a good story and unique adventure -- was ejected from her raft above a Class V rapid, and her body was never recovered.
The 2000 expedition faced a combination of higher-than-expected water, poor judgment and bad luck. Could our party also fall victim to these circumstances? Was I, the inexperienced, young, female rafter amongst four stronger and river-savvy kayakers the Cota’s next probable victim?
One thing I knew for sure from my solo travels abroad was never to discount the emergency situation potentially lurking around every corner. As I finished chewing my lumpy oatmeal I swallowed hard at the thought.
(http://www.gonomad.com/womens/0710/peru-rafting.html)
In Jess’ original blog, she refers to the potential danger her inexperience can lead to in this adventure, mentioning the traveler to whom she relates to in spirit, though not in shared fatal experience:
Sergio needs me to paddle and I am going as hard as I can, but we hit a rock and I slide over the edge of the bright yellow raft, aware of what it about to happen. I am in the water, just ahead of the raft, and I see the river flowing over me. I reach up, please God, just out of reach of the blue rope. I throw my hands up again and catch the frame this time but cannot pull myself up and into the raft. I feel Sergio grab my life vest up an it is enough for me to tumble hand and foot inside. I hear him tell me to get the hell in the raft and paddle. Tough love, but truer words were never spoken. In 2001 a young BBC correspondent was lost on the Cota and her body never recovered. If I have never been on a rafting trip before, I have now been christened. (http://www.gonomad.com/womens/0710/peru-rafting.html)
Jess seeks out travel experiences that pose a challenge, both in terms of getting there and “surviving” outside of her comfort zone: “I like to go to unexplored places. I would rather it be kind of hard, kind of gnarly because that’s really fun” (personal interview). She tells me that she considers herself an independent traveler, though notes that calling oneself a “solo” traveler is “a kind of a misnomer – you’re not alone because there are people everywhere you go. I never really feel alone.” Blog entries confirm this, with a cast of different characters traveling in and out of the entries, mirroring their physical interactions in and out of Jess’ itineraries. Jess’ use of the term “gnarly” and her quest for “unexplored” locations, in terms of scholarship, suggests a masculine identity. In reading her article and in our conversation, I can not help but wonder if she indeed is constructing her identity in male terms. When I ask her who she travels with, if she prefers male to female travelers, she pauses and has difficulty answering the question. It is not that she is unsure, it is something she has not thought about. When I ask if she ever identifies herself as a female traveler, she says no. “It’s not about male or female to me. That’s just not something I really think about,” she tells me (personal interview). Jess has faced specific obstacles in her travels, which makes her aware of gender, but she does not feel that being a woman impedes her decision to travel. If anything, one might argue that her “masculine” language empowers her to overcome the obstacles. In an article she writes for an online posting with Transitions Abroad, Jess writes about her experience being assaulted in India (in this case, risk is presented as an advisory, rather than as a personal identifier):
When I finally got off the train at 1 a.m., it took me 45 minutes to get the stationmaster to take me seriously enough to file a complaint and another 15 minutes of haggling with him to send a policeman to escort me to the station. The final motivation for him to do so was a call I placed to the U.S. embassy in New Delhi.
[…]
I would never recommend that females stop exploring India by train, and I would spend 1,000 more hours on them to take in such a bewildering and beautiful country. (http://www.transitionsabroad.com/publications/magazine/0607/solo_woman_travel_in_india.shtml)
Jess displays her control of the situation and her ability to invoke action with the authorities. Her power may have been questioned through the assault, but she asserts herself in the situation, refusing to let it stop her from her personal journey.
Jess left on her first extended trip, spending six months traveling through India, Southeast Asia, Japan, Eastern Europe, as well as a few locations in Western Europe. In her initial travel blog, she performs her career identity as an educator, including “quizzes” for her readers (many of whom are her former students) who sign on to her “guestbook” to answer the questions. Jess mentions in our conversation that she found the emails and posted comments on her blog to be “amazing,” enjoying the support, encouragement and interest she received from home. She maintains her “home” identity while simultaneously presenting herself as the independent travel in far-off, exotic lands. She mentions in her final blog of this first trip that she embarked on this adventure as an effort to “find my way back-- back to the woman whom I knew had drowned in a regrettable period of depression.” She continues to explain her motivation for the journey, and its result: “and I slowly made small reconnections with the woman whom I had lost” (http://mytripjournal.com/journals/tuerk2005/entry49.html). As she gets ready to travel home, she reflects on one of her favorite books titled “The Long Way Home.” Her questions and reflections suggest an internalized contact zone between the “Jess of Home” and the “Jess of the Road.” Her travels become a metaphor to try and reconcile the two Jess’ and return to a new home, created through her new self identity.
Though Jess does not label herself as a “female traveler,” she performs her gender through her travel blog. Jess’ travel blogs contests Wolff’s assertion that a historically gendered approach to travel limits women’s abilities to define themselves in their own journeys. In an interview with another adventuress, Lori Constan rejects a gendered label: “I identify myself as a traveler. I am ALL woman but do not find it necessary to describe myself as a female traveler” (email correspondence with author). Lori’s adventure travels involve climbing and skiing expeditions, which she will typically undertake with a partner.
Perhaps Jess’ final statement in her first travel blog best illustrates her feminine association with her own identity of herself as a traveler. She ends her blog with the lyrics from a Be Good Tanya’s song entitled “The Littlest Bird.” The masculine identity of an old hobo with his rambling ways is juxtaposed with the feminine voice and bird imagery. The singer recognizes her vulnerability and addresses her fear, overcoming it to continue to fly.
Well I feel like an old hobo, I'm sad lonesome and blue
I was fair as the summer day now the summer days are through
You pass through places and places pass through you
But you carry 'em with you on the souls of your travellin' shoes
Well I love you so dearly I love you so clearly
Wake you up in the mornin' so early
Just to tell you I got the wanderin' blues
I got the wanderin' blues
And i'm gonna quit these ramblin' ways one of these days soon
And I'll sing
The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs...
Well it's times like these I feel so small and wild
Like the ramblin' footsteps of a wanderin' child
And i'm lonesome as a lonesome whippoorwill
Singin these blues with a warble and a trill
But i'm not too blue to fly
No i'm not too blue to fly cuz
The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs...
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
This isn't mine, but
isn't Baby Hennessey pretty cute? Betsy, I got the hint already. She's waving at us all. Hope you don't mind me posting a picture of your womb on my blog.
I'm a bit bored as I sit in a Quality Inn in Klamath Falls, OR on a trip for Connections Academy. I'm administering state tests to a bunch of youngsters tomorrow morning, as per NCLB requires me to. I will withhold all editorializing, for fear that I might get put in jail for breaking some fine print Patriot Act teacher statute.
I'd like to take this opportunity, while I sit rotting in this smelly town in southern Oregon and there's little else to do, to rant instead about cable television, of which I've watched about 4 hours of tonight. I have no more will to live or go outside anymore, but I did get really excited to find a reality show about people who paint designs on cars. Switched back to a very special 2 hour The Biggest Loser, and then finally settled on a TLC destination weddings show. And for a little bit of culture, threw in the dance contest show with Tom Bergeron (because I thought it was America's Funniest Videos at first) on commercial breaks. Turn off your TV's people, it's turning us all into drooling morons.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Leaving
Eugene's trees are at their "peak" right now -- one of the best color season's I've ever seen.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Ooh ooh I found it!
Woohoo, the picture of mi amigas from the August visit to Lansdale. From the left: Kristi Fretz (Ohio fame and fortune), Caroline Wicks (if you were paying any attention you recognize her from her visit to Portland in August), Laura Malick-Glaudel (at 3 (?) months looking pretty good there in the middle), yours truly, and Quincy Carpenter (who I was really worried about after reading this article in the Boston Globe http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/10/05/quincy_carpenter_assaulted_in_ny/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+City%2FRegion+News).
After spending a good deal of time with our hands on Laura's belly, we all wanted a piece of the action. Okay, well, I did. And then I forced everyone to take this picture.
After spending a good deal of time with our hands on Laura's belly, we all wanted a piece of the action. Okay, well, I did. And then I forced everyone to take this picture.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
www.gonomad.com
I know, i know. I think the name of the website sounds suspicuously like "gonads" too, but at least they published my pictures and personal essay.
http://www.gonomad.com/womens/0710/peru-rafting.html
or read about mine and other just as fabulous trips on "Travel Reader" blog here:
www.gonomad.com/travelreader
http://www.gonomad.com/womens/0710/peru-rafting.html
or read about mine and other just as fabulous trips on "Travel Reader" blog here:
www.gonomad.com/travelreader
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Where's Waldo Lake
you ask? Well, it is apparently high, high up in the mountains. Waldo Lake is Oregon's second largest (after Crater) and is quite deep in places - up to 400 ft. It is an outdoors paradise of hiking and mountain biking trails, boat launches, and camp sites. A late September hike sounded like such a romantic idea -- sun, colored autumn leaves, crisp air, the clear waters reflecting the sun and sky... Actually, I just wanted to get out of town while the Duck's game was happening. Alas, even the people in the parking lot at the lake were listening.
Emily Hall (yes THE Emily Hall, of North Penn High School and Boston University fame, is apparently still folllowing me around the country and has landed in Eugene for an anthro degree), her boyfriend Thomas, Melinda Penwell (see the Tahkenitch Dunes hike for more on Melinda), and Hannah the Therapy Dog, and I all piled into the 2-door Civic for the leisurely Saturday afternoon
drive south and east into the mountains.
This is Emily asking the Gods why she wore blue jeans on a snowy hike. It was a wet snow, with about 4 inches of accumulation. Since the air temp was hovering just above 32, we got bombed with big wet snow balls falling from the pine boughs for just about the entire 7 miles. Good thing we all had our big leather boots on. It was sure fun slogging through the wet slush with such great people, though.
After this shot, my camera battery died.
Emily Hall (yes THE Emily Hall, of North Penn High School and Boston University fame, is apparently still folllowing me around the country and has landed in Eugene for an anthro degree), her boyfriend Thomas, Melinda Penwell (see the Tahkenitch Dunes hike for more on Melinda), and Hannah the Therapy Dog, and I all piled into the 2-door Civic for the leisurely Saturday afternoon
drive south and east into the mountains.
This is Emily asking the Gods why she wore blue jeans on a snowy hike. It was a wet snow, with about 4 inches of accumulation. Since the air temp was hovering just above 32, we got bombed with big wet snow balls falling from the pine boughs for just about the entire 7 miles. Good thing we all had our big leather boots on. It was sure fun slogging through the wet slush with such great people, though.After this shot, my camera battery died.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Driving is more fun when you're legal
Yesterday I finally cajon-ed up and took the Oregon driver's license written test. I was pretty frightened of it (a certain G.L. took the test 5 times before passing, but she's a NY driver...enough said). Yes, the answer to your question is that I already took one of those oh...10 years ago in PA, but apparently Oregon wanted a piece of the action in my bank account as well. I guess I can't complain about that since I haven't paid any sales tax here. (How does Oregon pay for services like police, you ask? what police?).
But! I digress. The moral of this blog is that I PASSED with a score of 28/35 (85%!) and (drumroll) got my motorcylce endorsement as well. I am now legal to ride around at free will on two wheels and the wind in my hair. Send all congratulatory notes to: the Comment button just below.
PS There's an interesting debate that's been brewing about a National Driver's License, which to me right now sounds appealing except that it's sponsored compliments of GW and the centrifuge of evil, the Patriot Act...http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2005/05/67498
But! I digress. The moral of this blog is that I PASSED with a score of 28/35 (85%!) and (drumroll) got my motorcylce endorsement as well. I am now legal to ride around at free will on two wheels and the wind in my hair. Send all congratulatory notes to: the Comment button just below.
PS There's an interesting debate that's been brewing about a National Driver's License, which to me right now sounds appealing except that it's sponsored compliments of GW and the centrifuge of evil, the Patriot Act...http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2005/05/67498
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Boldly Leaping Into 2007
This is the new purchase, a refurbed AT&T 8525. I know the technology has been around a while, and no, it's not an iPhone ($500 v $99), but I still think enough of my new little smartphone to consider nicknaming it in the future as it develops more of a personality. I have been using it for work for about a week now and have no complaints. I really like that the keyboard slides out from the side -- all those darned blackberries are too small to type on. I highly recommend a smartphone in general, people-- these are the future of personal computing!!! I didn't want you to get left behind or anything.
My favorite feature is pictured below: BubbleBreaker. High score: 715
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Blogger now takes videos!
A blast from the past to test it out
From March 2005 - In Cusco, Peru.
Music Montage #2
From January 2005 - A goodbye to Philadelphia, off to South America
From March 2005 - In Cusco, Peru.
Music Montage #2
From January 2005 - A goodbye to Philadelphia, off to South America
Tahkenitch Dunes Hike
It's the weekend in Eugene and most people around here get out into nature at least one day of the two. The sunny and 80 weather is hard to pass up.
My friend, fellow amateur x-country skiier, Euginian, and matchmaker Melinda Penwell set up a hike around Tahkenitch Dunes yesterday. Her husband, Mike, dogs Pepper and Hannah, Carrie Tennant, and I all braved the "more difficlt" 6 mile trail. Now, I won't actually admit that it was difficult, because I don't like to admit such things... but it was one of the better hikes I've been on in Oregon.
If you like changes of scenery on your hiking excursion, this is definitely the one to take. It's got the beach, ocean, sand dunes, pine forest, lakes, and older-growth all wrapped into one. Some uphill dunes climbing ensure that you break a sweat and get your drive's worth. I liked it especially because it was a loop. I hate backtracking.
To get there: 1.5 hrs. From Eugene take 126 West and then head south on 101 for 14 miles after reaching Florence. You reach Tahkentich trailhead parking first, but go past that approx. 1 mile to the campground and start the loop hike there.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Summer 2007
Well, folks. Let's see. It's been one hell of a summer. A bit of a play-by-play:
In June...
I wrapped up the schoolyear and said goodbye to my amigos and estudiantes at Pleasant Hill, Oregon Connections Academy, and Lane Community College. I would put up their pictures, but I don't have their expressed written permission, and I wouldn't want anyone seeing herself on a random blog one day without her expressed knowledge. Except my friends. I will use their faces at my convenience without much regard for their feelings.
In August...
I know I was going to wait til next year to travel all, but I just couldn't resist building in a little "side trip" to Spain, since I was going all the way East to visit the folks in Philly anyhow. It was on the way. Or something.
In June...
I wrapped up the schoolyear and said goodbye to my amigos and estudiantes at Pleasant Hill, Oregon Connections Academy, and Lane Community College. I would put up their pictures, but I don't have their expressed written permission, and I wouldn't want anyone seeing herself on a random blog one day without her expressed knowledge. Except my friends. I will use their faces at my convenience without much regard for their feelings.
My parents visited for a week. Mom touched the Pacific Ocean for the first time ever. A highlight for me.
I moved out of the Blue Trailer at 441, where I lived this past year, to greener pastures across from Monroe Park. It was a move up in many ways. and included a final goodbye to R.B., who I will miss. But probably a very wise move. I have a backyard, hammocks, ping ping table, dart board, private bath, office, 2 great roommates Nick and Bill, and attic bedroom.
And, in the "personal healing" category, I heard from a certain J.B. for the first time in 3 years. If anyone out there knew me at that time in my life, you know how much the words "I am and every will be sorry," have meant to me this month. A satisfying end to a chapter in my life.
In July....
I attended my second Eugene Pro Rodeo and had my first brush with barrel racing.
I said goodbye to many of my new Eugene friends, who found teaching work in different parts in the country and state. Every weekend was a going away party, it seems.
I was graced by a visit from miss Caroline Wicks, who I would like to believe loves me enough to fly across the country to Portland out of her unabashed love for yours truly, however... I think that it was probably the marine biologistapalooza that drew her out here. We visited the Japanese Gardens, Rose Gardens, and Chinatown together.
In July....
I attended my second Eugene Pro Rodeo and had my first brush with barrel racing.
I said goodbye to many of my new Eugene friends, who found teaching work in different parts in the country and state. Every weekend was a going away party, it seems.
I was graced by a visit from miss Caroline Wicks, who I would like to believe loves me enough to fly across the country to Portland out of her unabashed love for yours truly, however... I think that it was probably the marine biologistapalooza that drew her out here. We visited the Japanese Gardens, Rose Gardens, and Chinatown together.
In August...
I know I was going to wait til next year to travel all, but I just couldn't resist building in a little "side trip" to Spain, since I was going all the way East to visit the folks in Philly anyhow. It was on the way. Or something.
But first, I stopped in Lansdale and spent a fabulous evening having dinner with the parents and chatting it up with Caroline (ahem, 2 weekends in a row?? is that really necessary?), Laura, Kristi, and Quincy. Four of the best friends I could ever ask for. Who has the picture of our magical night together?
The next day, I was graced with a visit from another old friend, John Serrao, who was conveniently en route back to Syracuse from an exploratory trip to D.C. I think he was wowed by all that the Northeast Extension had to offer. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the wowed look on his face after he drove it.
And then, it was off on a flight from PHL to Charles deGaul airport to Barajas airport on Tuesday night. The trip deserves its own entries, not this "what I did on my summer vacation" blog crap that you've just invested 2 minutes of your lifetime scanning.
Monday, August 13, 2007
La Playa de Galicia
After a few hard days of walking the Camino (okay, we really didn't go even half as far as most people walking it, so I feel like I wuss) it seemed like a good idea to high-tail it to the beach. Fernando picked us up from Sarria and shuttled us to the car. An hour or so later in the late afternoon I found myself standing for the first time staring out over the Cantabric Sea. Azure, moody, vast, and dynamic.
We spent a bit swimming while the sun was still cooperating, and then I fell asleep happy and loving life on the beach reading while Fernando and Oscar showed off their volleyball skills for the woman sunbathing topless just next to us.
Not bad spending your summer vacation hanging out with two handsome Spanish boys, who both speak English, on a beach in Europe. Maybe I've done all right with my life after all. 
Saturday, August 11, 2007
El Camino de Santiago
Last time I was in Spain I had wanted to check out the Camino, but didn't have time. This trip, I was determined to do something about that pang of traveler's regret that comes from going a long, long way to see a land and a people, but not going that last step to experience something really important. To me, the Camino de Santiago was important to experience this time.Most people in the U.S. look at you blankly when you mention the Camino - which is good in so many ways, but I do think it deserves top billing as one of Spain's most valuable experiences for travellers.
A little history for you: Caminos span all over Europe (even one that starts in Russia) and all end up at Santiago de Compostela - where St. James is said to be buried. The most popular route, the camino frances, begins in France and traverses down and over for 800 km and takes the average walker over a month to complete. Pilgrims (pelegrinos) have been walking the Way of St. James (the brother of Jesus) for over 1,000 years. In 1993 it was dubbed a "UNESCO WOrld Heritage Site" although I have been to many of these and not sure what that really means exactly.
The route is marked with yellow spray-painted arrows directing pilgrims which direction to take on roads, trails, and paths. The way is also marked by the scallop shell, as seem below.
In addition to walkers, bikers also abound on the route, which seems to me like an ideal way to "do" the entire camino frances. Some time I'll definitely go back and try the entire way on two or less wheels, although I'm not sure how to attach paniers to a unicylce right now. Some also ride horses and donkeys. Less ideal, if you ask me.
I had an authentic Galician guide, Oscar, below, who professes not to have changed at all since his last stint on the camino back in 1993. He does, however, point out at every opportunity how the camino itself and the towns it traverses have changed since then. I like to give him a hard time and bunny ears in pictures.
I'd like to tell you that I went the entire way, but time was limited. We started our pilgrimage in Piedrafita, walked for 27 km on day 1, slept in Tricastella. One day two, we walked 23km to Sarria. Below is a pictures of Piedrafita in the far distance, and a good illustration of the nice hill we started out walking up. 
One of my favorite parts of the walk were the crumbling old farming villages that I would never have imagined existed if not for getting to walk through them. The Galician countryside is rustic and unbelievably beautiful. 
Watch out!
Many people walk the camino, of course, for its religious significance. The sins being wiped away thing and not going to hell for eternity is a HUGE motivator, I'm sure. If that's your thing. 
For many people who do the walk, it's pure athleticism and tourism. Then there's a bevvy of pilgrims who are on some kind of life-tranisiton cleansing process. For me, I needed to feel what the Way was like, to experience a living and breathing history that keeps so many hundreds of years of collective memory. So many stories and lives and struggles faced along the very same path that my feet were to follow.
Knowing this, I was surprised that as I walked I felt that the walk was so personal - It seemed as if it were only mine and mine alone as my steps added up to shuttle me into unseen panoramas and villages. The steps became a meditation, and with no other distractions, I was free to think about the path of my life. The lessons learned by so many thousands of pilgrims were lost to me, and I had only the next step ahead of me to plant and my own body and soul to move along the road. Leave it to a really long walk a far way from home to bring a little bit of clarity and meaning back into my life.
Our last 8km! Picture worthy.
Me journaling in Sarria after a good rest, ready to head to the beach.
"Buen Camino!"
A Spanish language account of the camino can be found at: http://oscarcastedo.blogspot.com/
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Holy Toledo
I think that saying, "Holy Toledo," must come from the fact... ahhhh I have no idea right now to tell you the truth. But there is one very impressive catedral there. I had the good fortune of driving up to Toledo from Madrid -- it makes a perfect day or side trip from the city. By bus, allow an hour. But if you cozy up to a nice madrileno with auto capabilities, make that 45 minutos on the A-4 Autopista. Less if they are Formula 1 fans.The above picture is of Toledo Cathedral, which is apparently one of the largest Gothic style cathedrals in the world. Also apparently, it must be viewed from the inside to be properly appreciated. Apparently, you should get there during God's business hours if you want access. In all my recent disavowel-ing of organized religion I had forgotten that God locks the gates to his house/tourist attractions. Oh well, my dress was probably too short for entry anyway.
Okay, so maybe the "holy toledo" exclamation comes from the fact that it is famous for a period named "La Convivencia" when Jews, Arabs, and Christians co-existed peacefully. Once inside the city walls, be sure to just wander and get yourself lost amidst the antiquated colorful casas that line narrow and steep streets. 
The old city of Toledo is situated on a hill, surrounded by a wall and the Tagus river on all(?) sides. These pictures were meant to demonstrate that, but instead I think better show off my cute summer dress, so I'll include them:
Below: statue of Cervantes (Toledo is located in La Mancha) that is popular among tourists. I'm ashamed of my unoriginality in this picture.
And of course, like a good tour of any city these days, you can wind your way back to Plaza Mayor and treat yourself to a Toledo Bic Mac with a McFlurry for postres.
Below: statue of Cervantes (Toledo is located in La Mancha) that is popular among tourists. I'm ashamed of my unoriginality in this picture.And of course, like a good tour of any city these days, you can wind your way back to Plaza Mayor and treat yourself to a Toledo Bic Mac with a McFlurry for postres.
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