travel – Page 8 – Life In A Word

Living On The Edge

The state line between South Carolina (SC) and Georgia (GA) follows the twists and turns of the Savannah River. You know you’re heading into one state or the other whenever you cross the water. Driving from our part of South Carolina into nearby Augusta, GA is interesting. The interstate loops Augusta by starting in SC, touches a bit of GA, goes back to SC for a few miles, then continues into GA again as it follows the river. It’s an example of my life on the edge.

Growing up on the coast of California, it never occurred to me the geography of my younger days was limited to only three of the four cardinal directions. If I headed north I’d leave the urban stretches of Los Angeles for the more rural towns of the the central coast. Head south and I’d parallel the beaches all the way to San Diego. The only thing east of the city seemed to be the endless Mojave Desert. As for the last of the four directions? Not an option, at least not without a boat, plane, or a whole lot of swimming. Horace Greeley would’ve never told me to “Go West, young man”.

South Bend sits where the yellow and red come together at the very top of Indiana.

In my college years in South Bend, IN, I was a fifteen-minute drive from the line where the Central and Eastern time zones meet. Back then you didn’t touch your clock for Daylight Savings, so half the year you were the same time as Detroit while the other half you were Chicago. It was confusing, but not as confusing as someone who lived on one side of the line and worked on the other. Imagine leaving the house at 8:00am, driving an hour, and arriving at the office at… 8:00am? It’s a neat trick, pulled off by a lot of those who live on the edge of a time zone.

Raising our kids in Colorado Springs, we always knew which direction we were heading because the line of the Rocky Mountains lay immediately to the west. Those peaks rose up like the Great Wall of China, just daring you to push through. Sure, we drove the interstates into the Rockies for skiing, hiking, and such, but day-to-day we were down at the base, literally living on the edge. Like California, we had one less cardinal direction at our disposal.

Grays Peak, on Colorado’s Continental Divide

The Rockies conceal another important edge, known as the Continental Divide. The Divide is elevated terrain separating neighboring drainage basins. Plain English? The north-south line from which water flows either west to the Pacific Ocean or east to the Atlantic. I always wanted to stop somewhere flat on the Divide and pour out a bottle of water. Let’s see if it really flows both ways from the line, right? It’s an experiment that to this day remains unconducted.

Football, one of my favorite spectator sports, is all about lines and edges. One team faces the other, on an imaginary line defined by where the referee places the ball. Cross that line before the ball is snapped and you’ll be flagged with a penalty. Advance the ball ten yards past that line – to another imaginary line – and your team is awarded more play. The sidelines of the field might as well drop off to a bottomless void. Catching a pass outside of that edge is not allowed. Running the ball outside of that edge brings the game to a halt. But catching or running across the lines at end of the field? That rewards you with a score.

$50 gets you a spot on “The Edge” sky deck

For all this living and playing on thresholds, maybe I should visit one of New York City’s newest high-rise attractions. One hundred floors above the sidewalk, The Edge is billed as “the highest outdoor sky deck in the Western Hemisphere”. Jutting out from its host building, The Edge allows unparalleled views of the city below, because the surrounding walls are solid glass, as is a portion of the deck floor itself (yikes!) If Spider-Man is your thing, you can go even higher by scaling the outside of the remaining floors of the skyscraper. I have to say, this sort of thing draws a “fine line” between entertainment and, well, insanity.

I won’t be going to The Edge… ever. I’m not good with heights, so anything above a pedestrian Ferris Wheel just isn’t my cup of tea. Nope, leave me behind, comfortably grounded, where crossing the Savannah River from one state to another is plenty adventurous. That’s my definition of life on the edge.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

(Not far from) Madding Crowds

Last night, the University of Nebraska women’s volleyball team played the fourth match of their 2023 campaign. College volleyball doesn’t get much coverage sharing seasons with (American) football, but this match made the sports headlines for several reasons. One, it was played outdoors. Two, it was played in Nebraska’s massive Memorial Stadium (normally a football venue). And three – most notably – the Huskers brought home the straight-sets win in front of 90,000 riotous fans… at $25 a ticket.

I know what you’re thinking. How do you get 90,000 people to cough up $25 for a college volleyball match? Well, it helps to throw in a country music concert for starters. Then add a second match to double the volleyball (Nebraska-Kearney vs. Wayne State). Finally, most importantly, let fans know they just might break the regular-season attendance record for a women’s volleyball match… the same attendance record that volleyball rival Wisconsin stole from Nebraska just last season.

It fascinates me to read about sports competitions played in front of massive sold-out stadiums, weekend after weekend. Nebraska has filled those same 90,000 seats for every Husker football game for the past sixty years (making the venue the “third-largest city in Nebraska” for several hours each Saturday). Michigan’s Wolverines compete in the largest college stadium in America – 108,000 seats – with every seat taken more often than not. And like Nebraska’s volleyball match last night, my fascination is not just with the number of fans but also with how much they’re willing to pay. I’m in the market for tickets for my beloved Notre Dame; the football team headed to nearby Clemson later this season. Unless I’m looking for a nosebleed I’ll be paying north of $450 no matter where I sit.

My weekends are busy so I’m lucky to watch a football game on TV, let alone attend one in person. Yet every Saturday (and Sunday with the NFL) you have tens of thousands of fans gladly opening their wallets and purses to do just that. It’s a loud, colorful thread (rope?) in the fabric of American society.

Major League Baseball (MLB), with an average of 45,000 seats per stadium, is even more confounding to me. In an endless spring-summer season of 162 games, half are played at the team’s home stadium. The majority of those seats are taken by season ticket-holders. With an average ticket price of $36 you’re handing over $3,000 for the season before you’ve even seen the first game. Besides, who has the time to watch so many baseball games (mostly at night)? Do what my friends back in Colorado do: split the season ticket in half with another fan and sell most of the tickets to family and friends. You’ll make a small profit and still go to as many baseball games as you can stomach.

My appetite for baseball games is about two a season; that’s it. Frankly I enjoy sitting outside in the summer air beside a friend as much as I do the game itself. Otherwise, keep me far from those madding crowds. The investment of time, money, effort (and sometimes hassle) to watch a game in person is almost always won over by the convenience, commentary, and cameras of television.

Of course, this is sports we’re talking about. If the topic was music and concerts, my post would take on a decidedly different “tone” (heh). Tempt me with a chart-topper from the 1980s – Billy Joel comes to mind – and I’d give up the time and money to see a live performance. Even better, dangle classical concert tickets in front of me, such as the San Diego Symphony at its cozy waterfront bandshell, or a summer concert in the outdoor gardens of Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace (see below video). Classical concert crowds are not nearly as madding as those for sports.

Nebraska is a five-time national volleyball champion

About that regular-season attendance record for a women’s volleyball match. Wisconsin set the bar with an impressive 16,833 fans last season by filling its basketball arena. Nebraska’s official tally last night was 92,003 fans… more than five times as many (on a Wednesday night, no less). Way to crush those rival Badgers, Husker Nation. That’s what I call a madding crowd.

Some content sourced from the ESPN article, “How Nebraska volleyball plans to pack Memorial Stadium”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Concourses or Golf Courses?

Whenever flying is a part of my travel plans, I wear my most comfortable pair of walking shoes. Long gone are the days of the coat-and-tie-to-fly dress code, in favor of sneakers (and jeans). My reason for rubber-soled kicks used to be, “What if we’re in some kind of accident and I need to get off in a hurry?” Today I go with a wholly different reason. The long, long walk I can expect from curb to concourse to airplane cabin simply demands something easy on the feet.

Here’s a startling comparison. If you play golf and skip the cart, you’re going to walk over four miles to finish your round. By almost the same token, if you’re connecting through Dallas-Ft. Worth or Atlanta and choose to walk from Terminal B to Terminal E, you’re going to walk over two miles. Add in the inevitable search for food, a stop or two at retail, and a visit to the restroom and you’re closer to three miles. And none of that includes the distance from the curb to the ticket counter, from the counter through security, and from your gate down the jetway to your seat on the plane.

Now for the bad news. Airports are only getting bigger, and not for the reasons you might think. Sure, more people fly than ever before, which adds more planes, more gates, and even more airports. But behind the scenes a couple of stronger forces are at work. One, airlines are shifting to larger aircraft, which translates to more space between parked planes. Two, airport parking revenue is down (thanks to Uber, Lyft, and more mass transit), which translates to the airport’s need to find revenue elsewhere. Where? Retail, bars, and restaurants.

From recent trips through airports, I’ve noticed the following. In Denver International, remodeled Concourse B is already labeled “Gates 1-100”, even though there aren’t a hundred gates. It’s a straight-line concourse and it’s only going to get longer. In Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson, the concourses are so long and narrow (and so crowded), that last gate is farther than you can see without binoculars. And in San Diego’s Lindbergh Field, when you’re processed into Terminal 2 from security, you can’t see a single gate, because you have to pass through a veritable shopping mall first.

In the ultimate insult to long walks to planes, some airports have left the moving walkways out of their concourse remodels. Those walkways discourage you from passing directly in front of the food and retail the airport so desperately needs you to patronize. And intentional or not, the airlines encourage these purchases by offering less food onboard. You, weary traveler, are a captive audience to more than one performer.

Let’s not forget the rental cars. Avis’s slogan is “We try harder”. Maybe it should be, “We try harder… to take more of your money“. I just reviewed my receipt from a recent San Diego rental for a full-size standard Kia sedan. Right there below the actual daily rate: “11.11% Concession Recovery Fee”; essentially the cost of doing business at the airport. Add in Vehicle License Recoup fee, Customer Facility Charge (another airport fee), California Tourism Fee, and a final flourish of “tax”, and the rate increased by 32%. All so I can walk further to get to my rental car?

An early chapter of my career was in airport planning. We’re the people who figure out how to get the planes from the runways to the taxiways to the gates without hitting each other. We also design the terminal buildings to include enough gates, concessions and restrooms (yeah, yeah, bring on the heat with that last item). Concourse design used to be “spoke and hub”, meaning you walked down the spoke to a circular boarding hub of several gates. It made the airplane taxiing a little trickier outside, but it significantly reduced a passenger’s walk to the gate. Today, airports no longer favor the design (er, traveler) because it reduces the square footage for concessions.

For those of you who live and die by your 10,000 steps, take heart; airports are helping you accomplish your daily goal. Phoenix Sky Harbor even disguised the long walk through the concourses by calling it a “Fitness Trail”. Be sure to allow enough time to get in a (seriously overpriced) shopping trip at all those concessions. But don’t forget, the airlines only allow one reasonably sized carry-on these days. Any others will cost you a checked bag fee… because the airport isn’t making enough money already.

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “Why you have to walk so far to your gate at the airport”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

The Times of Sand

I’ve often thought the airport is the best place to people-watch. With downtime while you wait for your flight and the close proximity to others, it’s inevitable you’re going to look around. Every kind of person can be found at the airport (sporting every size, shape, fashion statement, stress level, and age). Travelers are unknowingly entertaining to those who watch them. But today let’s explore perhaps an even better venue where people do their thing: the beach.

As I type today, a sweeping look at the sandy shore beyond my patio shows me (in no particular order): A mother and daughter in animated conversation with a lifeguard; a group of teenagers (male) playing an aggressive form of beach four-square called Spikeball; another group of teenagers (female) sprawled on beach towels in giggly conversation; a father dragging his young son through the shallow waves on a boogie-board; a surfer wiping out in the not-so-shallow waves further out; and an ambitious child shoveling dirt out of a divot of sand as if digging to China.

I look away for a second and then look again: A pack of aggressive seagulls pecking away at someone’s leftovers aside their abandoned beach chair; that same lifeguard sprinting into the water to rescue a struggling swimmer; an older couple having a (clearly) not-so-happy conversation at the water’s edge; a jogger attempting to put in the miles while dodging the less active in his way; and a paused beach volleyball game where the players can’t determine if the ball hit the (sand) line or not.

It’s a rare treat when I can create a blog post from the goings-on on right in front of me, but the beach allows me to do just that. More to today’s point, an active beach like this one changes character throughout the day. In other words, there are the sands of time and then there are the times of sand:

Dawn: Seagulls, sand, and surf. The beach at its most peaceful and pristine.
Early morning: Serious runners at the shore (unlike the casual joggers later in the day); an Asian elder performing a standing form of meditative yoga; a surf camp for pre-teens to the north; a lifeguard training camp for teens to the south; a pickup truck clearing the trash from the evenly-spaced cans.
Mid-morning: The gradual arrival of the masses (and all they bring with them). Also the arrival of the lifeguards, with bright cones marking the “no-man’s land” for emergency vehicles, flags indicating the adjacent street number so people know where to find you, and more flags to mark the beach’s “surf zone” versus “swim zone”.
Midday: Everything I observed at the start of this post (and so much more).
Mid-afternoon: The gradual departure of the masses, and (hopefully) all they brought with them. Also the departure of the lifeguards, signing off with a megaphone farewell to those who remain behind.
Early evening: The ritual of the sun-worshippers, who simply must remain behind to witness the (West Coast) sunset. There’s nothing like a setting sun to bring a person to a focused standstill.
Dark: An umbrella of stars, a rhythmic ribbon of white foam as the waves crash to shore, and an occasional party of two out for a romantic stroll at the water’s edge.

Trust me, it’s easy to be mesmerized by the times of sand if you watch them long enough. They’re the reason I never make progress with my latest “summer read”, and the reason I can abandon my electronic devices for hours at a time. Frankly, it’s a wonder I was able to turn away from the sands long enough to bring you this blog post today.

Rocket Men (and Women)

A year from today, we’ll all be glued to our televisions and tablets watching the Olympic Games in Paris. I will be glued, at least. The Summer Games get me all fired up, especially the track and field events. Especially especially the field events. I mean, c’mon, you can watch running all year long, but how often do you get to see a javelin thrown, a discus tossed, or a shot “put”? (and how often do you even say “javelin” or “discus”?) But one field event tops all others. There’s simply nothing more gawky-entertaining than a human launched into space by a pole.

If you live in a two-story place with a fairly flat roof, it might be a little unnerving to learn Swedish-American pole vaulter Armand Duplantis can jump over your house. While the rest of us have to walk around at ground level to get to your backyard, Armand will simply sprint up your front path, plant his pole in your rose bushes, launch himself past the bedroom windows and between the chimneys, and make a splash landing in your swimming pool. Armand can do this because he can pole vault 20.4 feet, a world record he set last February. It’s the fifth time this twenty-something has broken his own world record.

Pole vaulting is a truly bizarre sequence of movements constituting an Olympic event. The vaulter balances a long fiberglass pole in one hand while sprinting down a rubber-surfaced runway. Just before running out of runway he or she raises the pole overhead with both hands, stabs the leading end into a boxed area on the ground, and pushes… hard. The ensuing bend of the pole and a whole lot of momentum hoists the vaulter into the air, feet first. With gymnastic flair, the vaulter then rotates his or her body around to be facing a high horizontal bar, just as gravity counters flight. The final flop back to Earth (and onto a giant cushion) is typically punctuated with a mid-air fist pump if the bar is successfully cleared.

Imagine that exhilarating feeling when a pole vaulter is at peak height, pointing skyward, feet above body, pole released, practically cruising into the earth’s atmosphere. As Elton John sings “… it’s gonna be a long, long time ’til touchdown brings me round again…”

Four Olympic field events involve jumping: 1) pole vault, 2) long jump, 3) high jump, and 4) triple jump (the ol’ “hop, skip, and jump”). None of the last three hold my interest because they’re easy to do. But not pole vaulting, not even close. Launching my body even a few feet off the ground with a bendy pole? Let’s just agree, I am no Rocket Man.

Pole vaulting brings to mind two questions (or three if you include Why in heaven’s name does anyone do this?). First question: What happens if the pole breaks? Seriously, sports equipment fails. Golf clubs break in two with enough swings. Tennis racket strings get loose. At some point a pole vault pole will bend one too many times. Yikes. Second question: How does the pole translate horizontal energy into vertical energy? It’s a physics problem akin to the catapult, but I’d have to go back to high school to solve it. No thanks.

The origin of pole vaulting is a bit of a letdown. My too-many-movies imagination pictured a medieval war, with soldiers clearing castle walls on long pieces of bamboo. Instead, pole vaulting is a rough translation of an old technique used to scale narrow natural obstacles, like watery marshes. Get a running start, plant the pole, and sail from one side of the marsh to the other. But those poles don’t bend, and nobody cares how high you go as long as you make it over. So you see, even the origin of pole vaulting is gawky.

The pole vaulting world record was eighteen feet in 1970. Fifty years later it’s been pushed two feet higher. Do the math; maybe we’ll be clearing one hundred feet by the year 2773. But we’ll probably have flying cars by then as well, so any interest in humans launched by poles will be gone. My advice: watch the Paris Games, especially the pole vault. These rocket men and women won’t be around forever.

Some content sourced from the CNN article, “Olympic champion Armand Duplantis…”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Sphere Delight

My wife’s sister and her husband just wrapped up a visit here in South Carolina. On the drive down from Colorado they made several sightseeing detours, but the trip back was pedal-to-the-metal… with the exception of one stop: the Moon Marble Company in Bonner Springs, Kansas. Moon Marbles stocks beautiful handmade wooden games and toys but c’mon, who braves the barren wastelands of Kansas for those? Marbles on the other hand, would draw me in like a bee to nectar.

A marble is the perfect example of a sphere, isn’t it? I love spheres (including the word itself; much more elegant than “ball” or “orb”). Take a semicircle, revolve it a full loop around its diameter and voila! – a sphere. Calculating the volume of a sphere involves cubing its radius but let’s stop right there with the math lesson. Cubes and spheres just don’t belong in the same conversation.

Most of you readers are tuned in from the Northern Hemisphere, the half of our planet above the Equator. I find it cool to think of Earth as a sphere (with “big blue marble” a close second). It’s the biggest sphere we humans know (or have you been to Jupiter?) At your next party, wow your friends by telling them Earth is actually an oblate spheroid: flattened at both poles and bulging at the Equator. Ewwwww. Not a very pretty sphere, now is it?

Here’s the paragraph where I cop out and simply list a bunch of spheres, like oranges, Christmas ornaments, eyeballs, pearls, and the moon, but that’s just so three-hundred-blog-posts ago. Spheres can be much cooler. For instance, picture an atom (I’ll pause for those who need a microscope). An atom is a spherical cluster of neutrons and protons (which are also spheres) encircled by whizzing electrons (more spheres). Did you know your body is made up of over 7 octillion atoms? That’s a lot of spheres. You might want to lose a little weight.

Glinda traveled to Oz in a sphere (photo courtesy of MGM)

Soap bubbles are spheres. Sure, you aim to create those giant wibbly-wobbly monsters but for the most part you generate a cloud of perfectly spherical transparent globes, born on a whisper of air and extinguished seconds later. I’m guessing soap bubbles have the shortest lifespans of all spheres.

When a college buddy visited several years ago, he brought a paperweight made by an artist near his hometown in New Jersey. It’s a glass sphere with just the slightest bit of the bottom lopped off so it doesn’t roll off my desk. I’ve picked up a lot of tchochkes over the years but I’m not letting this one go. Did I mention spheres are cool?

Three years before he wrote Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton authored a novel called Sphere. It’s about a group of scientists exploring a giant spacecraft sunk to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. In the spacecraft’s cargo hold: a mysterious sphere, determined to be extraterrestrial and literally mind-blowing. Mark my words; spheres can be as terrifying as dinosaurs. Read it.

Star Wars focused on a giant spherical colony – the Empire’s “Death Star” – but the air went out of my perfectly round balloon as soon as I saw the giant divot on its side, not to mention all those channels and openings pierced by the X-wing starfighters. In other words, the Death Star was a decidedly less-than-perfect orb. So I applauded alongside everybody else when Luke Skywalker blew this sphere to kingdom come.

Here’s a place you wouldn’t expect to find a sphere: a Christian hymn. In the first verse of This Is My Father’s World we have, “All nature sings and round me rings, the music of the spheres”. The plural throws me off, because more than one sphere suggests more than just Earth (the entire solar system?) Or maybe we aren’t singing about the planets at all. A quote from August Rush seems relevant; the final line in the movie: “The music is all around us… all you have to do, is listen.”

We’re starting to go round and round here (heh) so let’s conclude with the world’s largest sphere. The Guinness Book writers will deem it so once the “MSG Sphere” opens in Las Vegas in a few months. At 300 feet tall and 500 feet wide, the Sphere will dramatically change a skyline that’s already pretty dramatic, especially with 1.2 million LEDs on its surface generating all sorts of images and animation. For concerts, sports, and the like, the Sphere can seat up to 18,000 spectators. I plan to be one of them… just as soon as I make it to Moon Marbles in Kansas.

Some content sourced from the CNN Travel article, “This futuristic entertainment venue is the world’s largest spherical structure”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Cream of the (Dessert) Crop

A week ago last Tuesday, Salt Lake City hosted its first ever drone show of “fireworks”, replacing the traditional explosives residents have come to expect over the downtown park. The drones create colorful shapes and animations in the sky – even giant words – as well as a pretty good impression of the blooms and starbursts of fireworks. But let’s be honest: drones don’t replace fireworks. The same can be said for the frozen treats aiming to be more popular than, say, a simple serving of ice cream.

On the heels of Independence Day, America has another celebration coming up. National Ice Cream Day is the third Sunday of July in our country (and July itself National Ice Cream Month!) The “holiday” was signed into public law in the mid-1980s when Congress apparently had nothing better to do. So how do you and I “celebrate” ice cream? No clue, other than a Google search to figure out where to get a free scoop. And if you think ice cream is a poor excuse for a holiday, consider, the first Saturday in February is Ice Cream for Breakfast Day… which pretty much confirms every day of the year is some sort of “Day”.

A stroll past the freezers of ice cream in any grocery store boasts an impressive variety of spins, including cones, sandwiches, pies, and bites. Ice cream is split by bananas, cherry-topped into sundaes, blended into shakes, cloaked as “gelato”, and even fried into crispy-covered bites. I ask you, who buys all this stuff? Sure, as a kid I had a thing for Eskimo Pies (because my mom bought them) and later on I ate my share of Dove Bars (because my dad loved them). But feet to the fire, I’d rather spend my pennies on the best version of plain ol’ ice cream. I have my favorite brand (and you have yours) and time and again it ends up in my grocery cart instead of any of those other treats.

For a few years there I got caught up in the Cold Stone Creamery concept, where your serving of ice cream is placed on a marble slab and combined with “mix-in’s”. It was (still is) a trendy take on ice cream. But after just a few visits I realized the draw was the mix-in’s more than the ice cream. Safe to say Cold Stone doesn’t use a brand of ice cream anyone would consider “gourmet”. They know what brings people through the doors: marble slabs and mix-in’s. Cold Stone’s rival is even named Marble Slab.

For anyone growing up on the West Coast in the 1970s, the one-on-every-corner ice cream parlor was Baskin-Robbins. Their ever-changing selection of thirty-one flavors guaranteed slow perusing, even if the final choice was vanilla or rocky road nine times out of ten (okay, I’ll grant you peanut-butter-and-chocolate too). Today, Baskin-Robbins is still going strong, but I think most people prefer the flavors of whatever local parlor is closest to their house. And let it be said for the millionth time: Vanilla is and will always be the king of ice cream flavors. Simple, delicious, and versatile.

As for the commercial brands in grocery store freezers, Dreyer’s “Grand Ice Cream” is trying very hard to make its offerings your favorite. They smartly purchased www.icecream.com and dressed up the website as a tribute to ice cream, but let’s be real: they’re just pushing their own products here. My favorite brand is still Haagen-Dazs but get this: Haagen-Dazs is now a subsidiary of Dreyer’s. Whoa. Give it a few more years and Dreyer’s may turn into the Amazon of ice cream.

If you like to spend big on ice cream like I do (Haagen-Dazs is not inexpensive!) you might consider Cellato, a brand from Japan. Cellato makes particularly fragrant gelatos, mixing in white and black truffles from Italy, champagne, and caviar. Their “white night” flavor is topped with an edible gold leaf, two exquisite cheeses, and a sake-like paste. The price of a single serving? $6,380 USD, making it the most expensive ice cream in the world. Might as well make the airplane seat to Japan first-class for a dessert like that.

In closing, a very happy National Ice Cream Day to you! However you choose to celebrate this Sunday, you don’t need Cellato. You don’t need Coldstone Creamery either. For me, the entire ice cream aisle at the grocery store might as well be reduced to the Haagen-Dazs flavors. Those, and the choices at my local ice cream parlor satisfy my craving. In other words, forget about the drones. Traditional fireworks will always be better.

Some content sourced from the CNN Travel article, “Don’t drop it: World’s most expensive ice cream costs $6,400”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Once in a Red Moon

I try to keep my blog topics timely, inspired by the come-hither headlines of my news feed, shouting, Click me! or No, click ME! But it’s not often – once in a blue moon, in fact – where I talk about what happened last week and what happens next week inside of the same topic. The calendar positions us perfectly today to do just that. So let’s talk rubies.

My first introduction to the four “precious gems” was probably when I started going to the movies. Diamonds Are Forever was as much about the title jewels as it was about James Bond. Romancing the Stone – the first movie my wife and I ever saw together – was a swashbuckling pursuit of a giant emerald in South America. The “Heart of the Ocean” pendant from Titanic was the biggest sapphire I’d ever seen (until someone reminded me it was actually a blue diamond). And rubies, of course, became something magical through Dorothy’s red slippers in The Wizard of Oz.

Last week, the largest ruby ever mined – 55.22 carats – came to the auction block at Sotheby’s. For a cool $35 million it could’ve been yours. Named the Estrela de Fura – Portuguese for the Mozambique mine where it was discovered – the “Star of Fura” was twice as big in its native form a year ago, then cut down and polished to the glistening red rock you see here.

Rubies aren’t made to be broken but world records are, and this one was shattered. The previous largest ruby, known as The Sunrise, was “only” half as big (25.59 carats). To me, The Sunrise looks about as big as a red M&M. The Estrela de Fura looks like a strawberry. The most expensive strawberry in the world, that is.

If rubies are your thing, keep an eye on Mozambique. Ruby mining is relatively new to this country in the south of Africa, with the first significant discovery of the gems made in 2009. Less than fifteen years later we have the record-setting Estrela de Fura. Surely an even bigger ruby can’t be far behind.

Moving on. This week begins the month of July (and the second half of 2023) which means we have several reasons to see red. America’s Independence Day includes a lot of red, whether the flag or the fireworks. Sunbathers will see the color on their skin more often than they’d care to. Strawberries are ripe and in abundance. The month’s zodiac sign is cancer (the crab) and crabs are often red. And July’s birthstone is, of course, the ruby.

Now’s a good time for some ruby trivia, the fun facts you most likely don’t already know. The first one is my favorite for your next social gathering:

Rubies are actually sapphires by definition (all mined from the same crystalline form of aluminum oxide known as “corundum”). In other words, rubies are simply rarer, red-colored sapphires.
Don’t touch!
Rubies have symbolized power and protection throughout human history, as with decorated warriors in battle (or slippered Dorothy in the Land of Oz).
“The Hope”
You’ve heard of the (blue) Hope Diamond but how about the (red) Hope Ruby? The Hope is 32 carats, cradled in a ring and highlighted with just a few diamonds. Same name, yes, but different gem, color, and setting.
The most desirable (read: costly) rubies have a hint of blue in them, which contributes to the rich deep color known as “pigeon’s blood” red.
A 10-carat ruby is typically more expensive than a comparably sized diamond. Why? Supply (and demand). You just don’t find as many large rubies as you do diamonds.

So there you have it: everything you need to know about rubies just in time for the month we celebrate them. I’d be remiss (translation: “in trouble”) if I didn’t mention my wife’s birthday, which is next week as well. Yes, her birthstone is the ruby, and “darn it all” I had the perfect gift idea if I’d only known about last week’s Estrela de Fura auction sooner. These opportunities come along but once in a red moon. Sorry honey, I need to be a little more on the ball. Guess I’ll hang onto our $35M for next year’s birthday present.

Some content sourced from the CNN.com article, “Largest ruby ever to come to auction sells…”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Rolling in the Isles

With the world “opening up” again, my wife and I often talk about places we’d like to visit. Some of them are more accessible now that we live near the East Coast. One in particular is further away. But coincidence or not, the five locales tempting the travel bug in me have one thing in common. Every one of them is an island.

Let’s get my first choice out of the conversation straight away, because it kind of stretches the definition of “destination” and “island”. I want to go see a round of The Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia. If you’re not into golf you won’t understand the fuss, but trust me, when you’ve watched this competition on television every April since you were a kid, the place becomes a shrine of sorts. The Masters never played into our decision to move to South Carolina, but the course is suddenly only forty-five minutes from my new front door. So why is it an “island”? Have you been to Augusta? The Masters is like finding a bright green emerald in a bowl of gravel. Let’s just say it would be complimentary to describe the rest of Augusta as “plain vanilla”.

Now for the real islands. The first two fall on a lot of must-see lists: Hawaii and Ireland. Hawaii is no less appealing even though South Carolina makes it three hours further than from where I used to live. I’ve only seen “The Islands” on my honeymoon and on family trips (decades ago) so I know this time around would be decidedly more adventurous. Not that I want to bungee-jump into a volcano or anything; rather just take a closer look at all Hawaii has to offer.

As for Ireland, it feels a lot closer when you live up against the East Coast. If I had x-ray vision I might see the Blarney Stone from these parts. My wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary with our first trip to the Emerald Isle, where we saw a lot of Dublin and only a wee bit of everything else. We tossed a coin into the Trevi Fountain to be sure we’d go back, and… oh wait, right… that’s Rome. Anyway, something we did in Ireland back then – whatever it was – instilled the yearning to go back someday. And we will.

Island #4 – Mackinac – sits neatly between the two peninsulas of the state of Michigan. The “Crown Jewel of the Great Lakes” has been on my must-see list ever since I watched Somewhere in Time in college in the 1980s. Yeah the movie’s a little corny, but it’s utterly romantic and it stars Jane Seymour, so cut me some slack. More importantly, Somewhere in Time shows off Mackinac’s Grand Hotel in all of its past/present glory. No, I can’t afford the stay at the Grand (rooms start at $500/night) but I’ll settle for one of the B&B’s on the island and spend my money on other stuff instead. Like a horse-drawn carriage tour with my wife (Mackinac has no cars). Or a round of golf on the only course in the country where the trek between the front nine and the back is, again, by horse-drawn carriage. Or a brick of Mackinac’s famous fudge. Whatever the draw, I’ll endure two connecting flights, a couple hours of driving, and a quick ferry ride, just to experience Mackinac’s throwback delights.

I’ve saved the best for last (well, at least, I think it’s the best). If I ever make it to France, I’m heading straight to Mont-Saint-Michel. “St. Michael’s Mountain”, which I’ve blogged about here, first captured my imagination when professional sandcastle builders (yes, there are such people) built a replica on the beach where I grew up, and again when I studied architecture in college.

The whole island setup is just so remarkable: nothing but a walled village of shops, restaurants, and other structures, connected by cobblestone streets ascending up, up, up to the Romanesque church and abbey at the pinnacle. Only 29 residents at last count. The surrounding tides ebb and flow, so at times Mont-Saint Michel is an island and at other times not so much. And about that abbey on top. The first cornerstone was laid in 1023, making Le Mont 1,000 years old this year. All that time and I’ve never ever seen it? Mon dieu.

If I make it to my five “islands”, I might have to add just one more. Ireland is paying people almost $100k for the “gift” of an island off the western coast of the country. There are twenty such islands. The catch: you have to refurbish whatever structures you find and you have to live there. Shelter yes, but food, water, power, and fellow humans are maybe’s. Yeah, I won’t be rolling with any of those isles. Let’s just start with that golf course down the street from me, shall we?

Some content sourced from the CNN Travel article, “Ireland will pay you $90,000 to move to a beautiful island home”

Boundaries

My wife and I took a “triangle trip” last week to see her family and then our son, flying from Augusta (GA) to Denver to Dallas, before returning to Augusta again. There’s nothing round-trip about an itinerary like that; just three one-way flights in a row. Like any other frolic in the friendly skies however, the journey served up easy fodder for a blog post. Hectic airports? Uncomfortable turbulence? Delayed flights? Yes, yes, and yes. But for today’s post, step up to the podium my fellow passengers, for it is you who have earned my writing wrath.

We’re in familiar territory here. I’ve written about my flying annoyances in Sitting in the Catbird Seat and First Class is now un-American (among others). But those musings focused on airplane seats and airplane sections. Today is about airplane occupants. Some of them are making the national headlines for their ridiculous antics. The others all seem to have ended up on my flights. Allow me to introduce my new “friends”.

On the flight from Augusta to Denver, a family of three filed into the row directly in front of us; wife on the aisle, young child in the middle, husband on the window. As they settled into their seats, the kiddo started rapid-firing questions: Dad, when are we going to take off? Mom, where do I put my jacket? Dad, I can’t get my seat belt on! Do we get snacks? Dad? Hey, DAD!!!

Kids are loud. I remember my first flight too, and the drive-you-crazy curiosity of a six year old. But I certainly didn’t expect the parents to answer in baby talk. Oh Stevie, the biggy wiggy pilot way up in the fwont of the plane decides when we get to fly up, up, up in the sky! Maybe if you’re a weely weely good boy he’ll give you a wittle pair of wings to put on your backpack!

Or how about… Now Stevie, yelling at Mr. Seat Belt isn’t very nice. Look, there’s a wittle buckle and a wittle other end! Let’s make it a game! See if you can snap those bad boys together!

This is why I never leave home without noise-cancelling headphones.

On the flight from Denver to Dallas, we had our choice of “uncomfortable”. First, we trudged to the back of the plane, in front of and back of a large group of men who a) chose to be loud and laughy, and b) chose to speak across the aisle/rows in Spanish (even though the smattering of English made it clear they were fluent in both). At first I thought my nearby amigos were just being a little obnoxious. But the longer they kept it up, the more I thought I probably ought to know what they’re saying just in case…

This is why I never leave home without Google Translate.

Also on Denver to Dallas, a small child several rows forward spent the whole flight wailing I want Mommy! I want Mommy! I want Mommy! We were too far behind to see or hear what her traveling companion was doing (if anything) to make her feel better, but eventually some kind of alarm went off in my head. What if this child was being abducted? After all we were heading to Dallas, which could be considered a gateway to the world for that sort of thing. I alerted the flight attendant, who assured me everything was okay. And it was. Turns out the child belonged to one very overwhelmed father, solo-parenting (or not) a total of three kids.

This is why I never leave home without my wife.

I haven’t even mentioned the usual annoyance. Since my wife prefers the window seat I graciously accept the middle. So why is it my neighbor in the aisle seat always takes the armrest? Doesn’t he or she realize I’m squeezed between two bodies? Over the last two decades the average airline seat width has shrunk from 18.5″ to 17″. If the passenger on either side of the middle takes the armrests that means I’m reduced to 15″, while each of them gets 18″.

This is why I never leave home without my elbows.

If you ever fly with me, I’m the guy with his head down reading his Kindle. I’ll be polite and, for the most part, leave you alone. But don’t be fooled. I’ll only have one eye on my e-reader. The other – and both ears – will be tuned into whatever you’re up to in your seat. Please respect your boundaries.