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Travel
Friday, January 13, 2012
Travel / Chow One Million Bowls of Chicken-Feet Soup
Posted by Adam Borowitz on Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 3:30 PM
But on my recent trip across Northern Peru, I hit the wall when it comes to one aspect of Peruvian dining. Perhaps I’m getting a bit older and set in my ways, but chicken-feet soup for breakfast, which was the only thing available along one especially long trek through the Andes, finally did me in. I ate it anyway — personal weaknesses are no reason to insult the cook, after all — but the memory of chicken feet floating around in oily broth has been plaguing me for days.
It was good to experience this. Good travel teaches us as much about ourselves as it does about the places we visit. It was shocking to realize how much I craved a fried-egg sandwich after only a few short weeks, and how I was plotting to craft my own breakfast burrito as soon as I had access to a kitchen. Food, it seems, has as much, or maybe even more, to do with our comfort than the place we lay our head at night.
On a side note, Peru is currently experiencing a bit of a culinary renaissance thanks to chef Gastón Acurio, which will be fun to watch as the years roll on. Due to the country's amazing variety of landscape—from oceanside beach towns to deep Amazonian jungle villages, and everything between—the food is some of the most varied I've ever experienced. It seems it will only be a matter of time before American chefs catch on and start infusing their menus with some of the incredible flavors the country has to offer.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Travel / Sports Retired 56-Year-Old Bikes Around the World
Posted by Irene Messina on Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 5:43 PM
Christine Farrugia is a retired government worker, but she isn't taking it easy just yet. She's on a mission to teach and raise money for children by biking around the world. She started off in California and will be in Tucson through early next week. At noon on Monday, Jan. 2, she will be at Fairwheel Bikes, 1110 E. Sixth St. to talk about her journey. Future stops include Houston, New Orleans, Orlando and Miami as well as Cape Town, South Africa and Harare, Zimbabwe. Visit www.projectmiracleco.org for details.
Read on for more info:
Christine Farrugia is currently riding her bike, alone, around the world. Beginning early December with an event that included the Mayor of Pasenda and many others seeing her off. The 56 year old retired government worker with over 20 years of teaching is peddling her way to a year-long bicycle ride around the world to raise awareness and money for Children’s issues.
Ms. Farrugia had an epiphany recently, a seed of an idea that came from one of her students. An avid traveler and sometime bicyclist (to school and back), a student asked "if she had ever ridden her bicycle around the world"? It was at that moment that she realized that she had an opportunity to make her classroom much larger than just the standard four walls. With over 20 years experience teaching she will embark on a bicycle ride around the world. Christine has begun the year long trek that will take her from California to major cities and small towns across the US to Asia, Europe, South America and everywhere in-between.As Christine sees it, it's more than just a bike trip around the world-"I will be teaching via Youtube videos. I am working with a teacher at Hillsides who will show the video once a month with Q & A with the kids, the teacher will email me the questions and I answer the questions on the next video. My goal is to do this in every school in the world."For Christine Farrugia, this is a chance to teach children the world over about the importance of exercise, determination and that anyone (even an ordinary person) can accomplish anything if they put their mind to it. She has also established the Project Miracle Co, (organized solely to raise funds for established children's charities) that will be the direct beneficiary of the media attention her bike ride will generate.
Travel A Music Video About Luggage
Posted by Dan Gibson on Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 3:00 PM
Probably to try to convince people that their luggage handlers don't randomly beat the crap out of your stuff, Delta Airlines made a suitcase with six cameras mounted inside to show the journey your bag takes when you fly between Atlanta and New York.
The video's sort of interesting, but it's made far better by adding a great song by Tycho as the soundtrack. So, even if you don't care about behind-the-scenes airport stuff, chill out to "Hours" for two minutes and 43 seconds.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Travel / Tech/Games The Ultimate Beach Toy
Posted by Jim Nintzel on Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 4:00 PM
This looks like it would be a lot of fun in Rocky Point.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Travel Interstate 10 Likely To Be Dusty, Windy Today
Posted by Brian J. Pedersen on Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 10:30 AM
A wind advisory isn't usually something that constitutes an update on such a high-brow blog compilation as The Range, but considering how dangerous Interstate 10 has become because of dust storms, it bears mentioning today.
That being said, the National Weather Service has warned of high winds, sustained between 25 and 35 mph and gusting to more than 50 mph, in the Tucson area from 11 a.m. today until early Saturday morning.
Such winds can easily lead to blowing dust, especially along I-10, where numerous dust- and wind-fueled wrecks have led to major wrecks, injuries and deaths this year.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Fun in General / Travel In Defense of Yuma: It's Not the Hell It Might Seem - Even with a Broken Air Conditioner
Posted by Ryn Gargulinski on Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 9:03 AM
- Photo Ryn Gargulinski
- Dehydrating dogs find shade beneath a monster truck in Yuma.
Word has it you haven’t been to hell until you’ve been to Yuma. This is simply not true.
You haven’t been to hell unless you’ve been to Yuma and your car’s air conditioner breaks down.
Actually, we were about 16 miles west of Yuma on our sizzling late-August road trip from Tucson to San Diego when the car’s air conditioner went kaput.
Our options were continuing onward through the upcoming boulders and dust in the 119-degree heat, stopping immediately and playing with the car’s fuse box in the hopes of getting the air conditioner to work or turning around and heading back to Yuma to find a mechanic. When playing with the fuses didn’t work, and continuing onward in the sweltering car would have killed my two dogs in the backseat, we opted to turn back.
By the time we reached Yuma city limits, our faces were bright red and slippery, our hair and clothes were drenched in sweat, and the two big dogs in the back were hyperventilating. One had a white and black tongue.
Hot car, hot air, hot tempers and dying dogs — yes, this must be hell. Our first stop was the first car repair garage we spotted. The three mechanic-looking men hanging around beneath an attached car port did have a giant fan the dogs enjoyed, but they didn’t have the means to help us. They instead sent us down the road to a place they said specialized in air conditioning.
We trudged into a sweltering front office where a scared-looking man apologized the place’s air conditioning was broken and no, he couldn’t help us either. The mechanic was out for the day and they only fixed radiators, anyway.
At this point a little demon man slipped into the hell scenario, advising a quick fix on the car that involved hooking up wires to bypass the switches. The man at the auto supply my beau then visited said sure, the quick fix would work — until it blew up the engine.
All the while my dogs and I crouched in sliver of shade atop hot concrete until they thought it looked cooler beneath a monster truck and proceeded to half-drag me beneath it.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Travel If You're Going to San...Carlos?
Posted by Janice Biancavilla on Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 12:30 PM
The Southern Arizona Logistics Education Organization (SALEO) has launched a Tucson-Mexico Air Passenger Demand Survey to measure market demand for international service between Tucson and Mexico.
The data will be provided to potential air service providers to detail which dates and destinations are in highest demand.
People traveling from Tucson to Mexico are highly encouraged to take part in the survey which will be online through September 30 at http://www.saleo.org/aviation-survey/
The data results will be announced on Nov. 16 at SALEO's dinner meeting. For more information or to learn the results of the survey send a request to aviation@saleo.org.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Media / Travel / News Q&A with Laura Milkins, Power Walker
Posted by Allie Leach on Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 10:33 AM
Performance artist Laura Milkins is walking from her home in Tucson, Arizona to her Mom's home in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And she's half-through her journey! What's more, she has a 24-hour live streaming of her walk that you can watch, too. She graciously chatted with me on her Bluetooth headset while she was mid-stride in small-town Kansas.
How are you feeling?
My feet hurt; I'm getting a new blister. That’s fine, but I thought I’d be done with blisters. That's just not true. On a humid day, wearing two pairs of wicking socks, I have a feeling that they’re pretty damp and I'm getting new blisters.
Where are you? How many miles have you walked so far?
I'm on country road, outside Salinas, Kansas. I have traveled over 1,000 miles, and have 900 or so to go. The walk is 2,000 miles total.
What inspired this project?
Other than going home, it’s really about community. I feel like we have a lot of ways of being connected to each other, but people are starting to be afraid of change and are not opening their hearts to the people around them. And yes there are bad people out there, but most people are good. And most of the creeps are not gonna talk to some girl with a webcam on her head. Everyone has a good story. I've been enjoying getting to know people. Our culture is to stay in your home; some of us don’t even get to know our neighbors. We have to reach out to those around us and ask for help. I'm finding that community is out there. There's nothing wrong with electronic social connection; if it can bring you together, good; if you’re on Facebook and not hanging out with friends, then you should probably be talking to your neighbor instead.
Can you elaborate on the equipment you use/wear as you're walking?
I have a MacBook Air laptop suspended, a webcam velcroed to my head, a Novacell battery plugged into the Mac, and a G4 HotSpot from Verizon to give me internet. Most of the time, the livefeed works; it tends to cut out on and off, but it’s worked remarkably well.
Are there some days when you just want to shut the camera off?
I do mute it. Today I was having a personal conversation with a good friend of mine; I mute it, but I don’t turn it off, so you can still see the things I see, but not everything. You don’t want a stranger to know about your friend's personal life, so I end up muting it. I try to have it on 24-hours a day. I don’t care about my privacy, but I do care about other people's privacy. Though I do get tired of being a public spectacle; I look like a Cyborg.
I read that you stay with host families each night. Are those pre-arranged or do you make friends along the way that you stay with?
It's all old-school social networking. My host called around town and found somebody; everybody knows somebody in these small towns. If I arrive into town and don’t have somebody, it just works out. Sometimes my Mom will call a church to find hosts. In exchange, I cook dinner and breakfast for them, and they tell me their stories.
What kinds of stories have you heard so far?
My last host had cancer, and she talked about all the different ways of living and dealing with her sickness. There are themes of ailments, themes of drought. In one town I walked through, they had the worst drought in 100 years, and this guy lost almost all of his cattle. There are also beautiful, happy stories. I stayed with a woman in Moscow, Kansas, and she was saying that her family has just been blessed. Several years ago, her husband started growing cotton, instead of corn, and they've been very successful. This last year, they had to sell their cattle, which was a good idea because of the drought.
Do you intend to enter this project into a festival?
Yes, I'm going to enter it into ArtPrize, which is in Grand Rapids this September. I've timed it out so that I can be there in time for the festival.
At ArtPrize, there’s going to be one large screen that plays the live feed with a banner over it that says, "Live From the Road: Laura Milkins is Walking Home." I'll also have two kiosks with small mounted monitors and keyboards and a headset. So if someone wants to watch the edited tv show on the website, they can watch those. They’re will be 40 beautifully, edited videos that my video guys have done along the way for each week, which includes a Skype interview and edited bits from the feed, video and photographs.
What's your next project?
It will look less like art, but don’t know exactly what it will be. I need to take breaks. I tend to work in a series, like I just did the walking series. This project is the culmination of that series. After this, I'll want to spend time with my family, but the next project will be something quiet.
For more information on Laura Milkins and her project, click here.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Travel / Chow / News Bless the Cupcakes Down in Africa
Posted by Allie Leach on Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 10:16 AM
We're pretty darn impressed by UA senior Kelsey McKinney, who's set to open the first cupcake bakery and coffee shop in Tanzania by August of 2012:
Kelsey McKinney is fulfilling the dream of a lifetime by establishing the first and only gourmet cupcake bakery and coffee shop in Tanzania.It took acceptance into the Arizona Assurance scholarship program, two years of college, a scholarship to study abroad and a positive reflection on a childhood that might lead others to despair for University of Arizona senior Kelsey McKinney to find her passion.
That passion has led her to Tanzania, where she will finish her UA studies online and graduate in May along with the first cohort of Arizona Assurance scholars. There, she plans to fulfill a lifetime dream and open up a cupcake bakery and coffee shop.
Read more of Kelsey's story on UANews.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Travel A Future Resident?
Posted by Irene Messina on Wed, May 18, 2011 at 8:24 PM
We recently received a letter from a student in Maine. She asked us to publish her request for information. Maybe one day, she'll blog and let us know she is retiring in Arizona.
Dear Reader,I am a 6th grader in Maine and have chosen the great state of Arizona to research. I would very much appreciate any information that you could send me about your state. Thank you for your help.
Sincerely,
Keristin Grant
Benton Elementary School
68 School Drive
Benton, ME 04901
