Travel: More

Traveling With Living Gold Press and Adventuresome Women

We happened on The Living Gold Press library of history and travel books that highlight, among other landscapes and characters, some adventuresome women. The page, What Phillip Marlow Saw Along Highway 99, makes the introduction to one of them:

"Now oranges had been around since the mission days, but those were seedy and sour. In 1871, Eliza Tibbets, one of the very early colonists coming to Riverside, brought west with her (besides her husband Luther) cuttings of the Washington Navel orange. The navel orange came from Brazil by way of the US Dept. of Agriculture in Washington DC, hence its name. In their new home, the fruits of these cuttings were found to be meaty, sweet, and seedless. They were an immediate sensation."

And then we make the acquaintance of Mary Arnold and Mabel Reed In the Land of the Grasshopper Song: "A classic tale of two women school teachers in the early days of the rough and remote Klamath River country of northwestern California. Hired by the Indian Service to teach for the Karuk tribe in 1908, on arrival they found themselves to be the only white women in sixty miles."

Article

Ferida Wolff, Blending In: My husband and I went on vacation to a place both foreign and familiar to me — the Middle East. The foreign aspect was that I had not been in that part of the world before. The familiar part had to do with my paternal family. My grandfather came from Palestine and my grandmother from Syria. This set the stage for an adventure that both surprised and delighted me

Frederick Dellenbaugh and A Canyon Adventure Online

Project Gutenberg has provided an online version of author Frederick Dellenbaugh's A Canyon Adventure to be either read page by page or downloaded for reading. The adventure began when young Dellenbaugh joined John Wesley Powell on his second Colorado River expedition, and then accompanied the second in command, Almon Thompson, on a monthlong survey of the deserts of southern Utah.

We had with us a diary which Jack Sumner had kept on the former voyage, and the casual way in which he repeatedly referred to running through a "hell of foam" gave us an inkling, if nothing more, of what was coming. Our careful preparations gave us a feeling of security against disaster, or, at least, induced us to expect some degree of liberality from Fortune. We had done our best to insure success and could go forward in some confidence. A delay was caused by the non-arrival of some extra heavy oars ordered from Chicago, but at length they came, and it was well we waited, for the lighter ones were quickly found to be too frail. Our preparations had taken three weeks. Considering that we were obliged to provide against every contingency that might occur in descending this torrent so completely locked in from assistance and supplies, the time was not too long. Below Green River City, Wyoming, where we were to start, there was not a single settler, nor a settlement of any kind, on or near the river for a distance of more than a thousand miles. From the river out, a hundred miles in an air line westward, across a practically trackless region, would be required to measure the distance to the nearest Mormon settlements on the Sevier, while eastward it was more than twice as far to the few pioneers who had crossed the Backbone of the Continent. The Uinta Indian Agency was the nearest establishment to Green River. It was forty miles west of the mouth of the Uinta. In southern Utah the newly formed Mormon settlement of Kanab offered the next haven, but no one understood exactly its relationship to the topography of the Colorado, except from the vicinity of the Crossing of the Fathers. Thus the country through which we were to pass was then a real wilderness, while the river itself was walled in for almost the entire way by more or less unscalable cliffs of great height.

Womens' History and Historic Places

This National Park Service website, Places Where Women Made History, presents itineraries that highlight "74 historic properties in Massachusetts and New York that are listed in the National Register, America's official list of places important in our history and worthy of preservation. The itinerary includes interactive maps, descriptions of each place's significance in women's history, photographs, information on public accessibility, essays on women's achievements in American history, and links to other pertinent Web sites."

One of those places where women made history is the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City: "A spirit of solidarity grew throughout New York's clothing factories and when a general strike was called in the fall of 1909, over 20,000 workers — 4/5 of them women — walked off their jobs. What was once a strike limited to one company became the first large scale strike of women workers in American history. A settlement establishing a slight wage increase was reached, but union demands for increased fire safety were not addressed, a failure that had tragic consequences. When fire swept through the building in the spring of 1911, locked doors and missing fire escapes contributed to the deaths of 146 workers, most of them young women. Many leapt to their deaths in a vain effort to avoid the flames. Public outrage swept the city and women progressives led by Florence Kelley joined with Tammany Hall leaders to create the New York State Factory Investigation Committee (FIC). The FIC conducted hearings and inspections which led to a series of state laws that dramatically improved safety conditions within factories."

The Gage house "was the center of abolitionist and suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage’s human rights writing and activism for more than 40 years between 1854 and 1898. Gage, her husband Henry, and their four children lived here in the Erie Canal village of Fayetteville, near Syracuse. The Gages were abolitionists and offered their home as a stop on the Underground Railroad. As a top office holder in both the national and state woman suffrage associations, Gage worked closely with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who were frequent visitors to her home. Gage authored many of the important documents of the early women’s rights movement and edited the National Woman Suffrage Association newspaper, The National Citizen and Ballot Box, in this house."

Theo Ruggles Kitson, (1876 -1932), sculptor: "Two Massachusetts examples of Ruggles Kitson's sculptures are listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and both are featured in this itinerary. The first, pictured here, is a likeness of Thaddeus Kosciuszko in the Boston Public Gardens. Erected in 1927, the sculpture portrays the Polish hero of the American Revolution holding the plans for the future West Point. The second is one of a series of "Hikers" commemorating Spanish-American War veterans that are found throughout the United States. Erected in the 1920s in the Waltham Town Common and Statuary, the second example of Ruggles Kitson's work featured in this itinerary is a fine bronze-cast of these familiar foot soldiers. Ruggles Kitson’s allegorical and equestrian figures are found in many communities in Massachusetts.

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Kristin Nord, Alaska: "You don't land at the end of the road without a reason": Drifters, gamblers, adventurers, dreamers and an astonishing roster of wildlife. This is the last great frontier, to a great extent, and it lives up to that billing with its unfolding stories

Dozen Distinctive Destinations

The destinations selected in 2008 range from a French colonial village along the banks of the Mississippi River that captures the pioneer spirit of the early settlers, to a small Texas town that serves as a gateway to the unspoiled terrain of the 19th century western frontier, to a gorgeous Southern city with roots three centuries deep, and a coastal town renowned for its seafood and historic buildings.

For previous selections, consult their list of 108 chosen cities in 42 states where "residents have taken forceful action to protect their town’s character and sense of place."

Travel Article

Exhibit

Tourism and the American Landscape

The Cooper-Hewitt organized a 2006 exhibit with the focus on painters Frederic Church, Winslow Homer and Thomas Moran; the presentation has now moved onto the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford.

"As nineteenth-century America rapidly evolved into an urban, industrialized society, the natural beauty of the country’s vast untouched landscape became the chosen subject matter of many artists, including Frederic Edwin Church, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran. These painters recorded, romanticized, and sometimes embellished views of Niagara, Maine, the Catskills, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and other scenic locations, stimulating a burgeoning America to become a nation of tourists."

"During the decades following the Civil War, recreational travel became accessible and affordable for the middle class as well as the wealthy. To serve a rapidly growing tourist clientele, hoteliers, real-estate builders, and railroad entrepreneurs developed, and eventually threatened, the same regions chosen by the artists for their pristine, untouched beauty. Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape chronicles the ways in which the works of some of America’s most significant artists paralleled the evolving interest in and development of the American landscape while at the same time embedding icons of natural beauty in the nation’s collective consciousness."

The National Gallery of Art's essay on themes in landscape painting points out that "Landscapes, or views of nature, play a significant role in American art. The earliest American landscape paintings were topographic illustrations of farms, cities, and landmarks that were generally painted for local residents or for Europeans interested in the New World. In the colonial era, landscape views were found primarily in the backgrounds of portraits, usually to provide additional information about the sitter."

"Landscape painting came to dominate American art in the 1820s, when artists began to equate the country's unspoiled wilderness with the new nation's seemingly limitless potential. Foremost among those increasingly interested in the expressive power of landscape was the young artist Thomas Cole. Cole is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River school, a loosely knit group of American artists who actively painted landscapes between 1825 and 1875. Giving stylistic direction to a distinctly American understanding of nature, Hudson River school artists invested the land with a sense of national identity, the promise of prosperity, and the presence of God."

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Maps, Quizzes and an Exhibit

A free game on the Web, Traveler IQ Challenge, does what all those geography classes we wished we had paid more attention to, couldn't. It confirms our poor showing in geographic matters. Even though we consider ourselves well-traveled, our score was embarrassing.

1. Are there any countries where you can you see lions and tigers and bears in the wild?

2. What is the only U.S. state to allow its residents to cast absentee ballots from outer space?

3. If you could somehow hover at a point in space just above the equator, roughly how fast would the ground below be moving relative to you?

4. It was originally named the Flavian Amphitheater, but nobody calls it that today. What is its more common name?

5. Every nation whose name begins with "A" also ends with "a" - with two exceptions. What are they?

6. What are the only two nations to have coastlines on three of the world's five oceans?

9. In 1947, Castroville crowned its first "Artichoke Queen." But the young woman eventually found something else to put on her resume. Who was she?

11. Which U.S. state has the highest densities of people, shopping malls and toxic waste sites?

Finally, the Field Museum in Chicago is presenting an exhibit, Maps: Finding Our Place in the World. Explore the exhibit online through the highlights pages: From clay tablets to sea charts, from satellite navigation systems to sketches of worlds real and imagined — maps are much more than wayfinding. Travel through landscapes of time and space, science and imagination, in a rare exhibition of more than 100 of the world's greatest maps. Explore high-tech interactive displays, and see original works by Ptolemy, Leonardo da Vinci, J.R.R. Tolkien, and many others. You'll learn how early maps were made, see how the technology changed over centuries, and discover the latest advances in digital map-making.

Cruise Ship Security Practices and Procedures

"My name is Angela Orlich and I am from Springfield, Massachusetts. Thank you for providing me the opportunity to tell the ordeal that I encountered during a Royal Caribbean cruise with several of my friends."

"I am Susan DiPiero of Canfield, Ohio. My son Daniel was lost at sea from Royal Caribbean's Mariner of the Sea on May 15, 2006. This was a horrible loss to my family but we have chosen instead of remaining victims, to become survivors and to fight for a change in the way that cruise lines do business and demand that safety on their ships is improved for all passengers."

Lynette Hudson, Bear, Delaware: "I am here today on behalf of my father, Richard Liffridge, who died on March 23, 2006 while taking what he believed to be a safe and enjoyable vacation on the Star Princess. I am also representing the International Cruise Victims Association (ICV), which is an organization formed by grieving family members and victims who have unfortunately experienced preventable family tragedies while on cruise ships."

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Ferida Wolff, Beach Combing: We took a vacation later that year. It wasn’t to the shore. We went to Africa on safari. We had two glorious weeks of connecting with nature in its wild state. It was only two weeks. We traded year-round beach combing for this? we asked ourselves. Yes, we did. Had we bought the property, we probably would have stayed home and bought furnishings for the new house. It would have been fun but we would not have watched cheetahs on the hill stalking a lone impala. Or drank champagne ten feet away from lounging lions. There would have been no elephant charging us in our backyard either, and no incredible African sunsets

The Venice of Henry James

You are tired of your gondola (or you think you are) and you have seen all the principal pictures and heard the names of the palaces announced a dozen times by your gondolier, who brings them out almost as impressively as if he were an English butler bawling titles into a drawing-room. You have walked several hundred times round the Piazza and bought several bushels of photographs. You have visited the antiquity mongers whose horrible sign-boards dishonour some of the grandest vistas in the Grand Canal; you have tried the opera and found it very bad; you have bathed at the Lido and found the water flat. You have begun to have a shipboard-feeling — to regard the Piazza as an enormous saloon and the Riva degli Schiavoni as a promenade-deck. You are obstructed and encaged; your desire for space is unsatisfied; you miss your usual exercise. You try to take a walk and you fail, and meantime, as I say, you have come to regard your gondola as a sort of magnified baby's cradle. You have no desire to be rocked to sleep, though you are sufficiently kept awake by the irritation produced, as you gaze across the shallow lagoon, by the attitude of the perpetual gondolier, with his turned-out toes, his protruded chin, his absurdly unscientific stroke. The canals have a horrible smell, and the everlasting Piazza, where you have looked repeatedly at every article in every shop-window and found them all rubbish, where the young Venetians who sell bead bracelets and "panoramas" are perpetually thrusting their wares at you, where the same tightly-buttoned officers are for ever sucking the same black weeds, at the same empty tables, in front of the same cafés — the Piazza, as I say, has resolved itself into a magnificent tread-mill. This is the state of mind of those shallow inquirers who find Venice all very well for a week; and if in such a state of mind you take your departure you act with fatal rashness. The loss is your own, moreover; it is not — with all deference to your personal attractions — that of your companions who remain behind; for though there are some disagreeable things in Venice there is nothing so disagreeable as the visitors. The conditions are peculiar, but your intolerance of them evaporates before it has had time to become a prejudice. When you have called for the bill to go, pay it and remain, and you will find on the morrow that you are deeply attached to Venice. It is by living there from day to day that you feel the fulness of her charm; that you invite her exquisite influence to sink into your spirit. The creature varies like a nervous woman, whom you know only when you know all the aspects of her beauty.

Article

Rose Mula, The Travel Bug Will Bite You If You Don't Watch Out: When you’re on vacation, do you really want to hear that your son flunked his finals ... your daughter is thinking of moving in with that loser she’s been dating … the nursing home is threatening to expel your grandfather because he was streaking through the halls again?

Passport to Adventure Travel Reading

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia
West, Rebecca (1942)
The author’s travels through Yugoslavia are intriguing, delightful and overshadowed with the inevitability of the Second World War. This book is considered West’s most distinguished work of nonfiction.

Eat, Love, Pray: 108 Tales About One Woman’s Search for Pleasure, Devotion and Balance Across Italy, India and Indonesia
Gilbert, Elizabeth (2006)
910.4 G46Z
What happens when you take responsibility for your own happiness? If you’re the author you eat your fill of gelato, find spiritual guidance in an ashram and an esteem-boosting love affair in Bali.

Vanished Kingdoms: A Woman Explorer in Tibet, China and Mongolia 1921-1925
Cabot, Mabel (2003)
951 C11V
During the last great age of modern world explorers, one woman packed up her life and, with husband in tow, journeyed to the far reaches of China, Tibet and Outer Mongolia in search of new communities, plants and animals. The photographs of Janet and Frederick Wulsin are extraordinary.

A Thousand Miles Up the Nile
Edwards, Ann Blanford (1888)
This is the author’s account of her journey up the Nile in a wooden boat. Her travelers inspired her to become an Egyptologist and the inspiration for Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody mystery series.

Tales of a Female Nomad
Gelman, Rita Golden
On the verge of divorce and 50, the author abandons her luxurious life in Los Angeles to wander the world in search of new cultures and connections with new people.

The White Masai
Hoffman, Corinne (2006)
305.896 H71Z
An incredible love story between a European woman and an African warrior.

The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton
Smiley, Jane (1998)
FICTION
Kansas in 1855 was a land of boiling passions and murky uncertainties. With the Civil War on the horizon, Lidie and hew new husband continue their journey and crusade to bring freedom to the state’s slaves.

Water for Elephants
Gruen, Sara (2006)
FICTION
Travel back and forth in time with Jacob as he reminisces about his days with a 1930s era circus as an animal caretaker. Historical photographs bring the story added depth.

Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living
Tiffany, Carrie. (2006)
FICTION
In an Australia wracked by the Great Depression the author captures the frailty of the human condition in a harsh and unforgiving land.

Travel With Frontline World's Women Reporters

BHUTAN: Reporter's Notebook: Journey to the Hidden Kingdom
"When I heard the news that the tube had fizzed to life in Bhutan," writes Alexis Bloom, co-producer of "The Last Place," "I knew the kingdom was on the verge of irrevocable change. Could MTV and Buddhism make comfortable bedfellows?"

CAMBODIA: Reporter's Diary: In Search of Justice
Go behind the scenes with Amanda Pike in this interactive journey. See slide shows of Phnom Penh, visit Tuol Sleng Museum and meet Brother Number Two.

ISRAEL/PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Patricia Naylor: When Journalists Become Targets
Patricia Naylor says that reporting this story was "the most dangerous thing she's ever done." Read about her background in the region and her take on the people and events profiled.

NEPAL: Sapana Sakya: The Long Climb Up
Co-producer Sapana Sakya, who accompanied the Sherpa women's team, talks about ambition, altitude sickness and the changing role of women in Nepal.

HONG KONG: Renata Simone: On the Trail of a Killer
Reporter Renata Simone has covered the spread of AIDS around the world. That turned out to be exactly the right preparation for covering SARS.

MOSCOW: Examining the Young and the Restless
Read two of Sabrina Tavernise's New York Times articles: "Russia's New Rich Are Living It Up, but Oligarchs' Children Wonder: How Long Will it Last" and "To Young, a Russian Enclave Is Too Much the Old Country," as well as an interview with her about Moscow life, money and corruption.

PAKISTAN: Sharmeen Obaid, The Brink of Peace
Sharmeen Obaid talks about growing up progressive and Muslim, talking cricket with fundamentalists, and interviewing an underground fighter by candlelight.

INDIA: Raney Aronson: Red-Light Reporting
Reporter Raney Aronson's thoughts on filming The Sex Workers story at night in brothels and on the streets of Calcutta.

MEXICO: Claudine LoMonaco and Mary Spicuzza: A Desperate Journey
Producer/reporters for A Death in the Desert talk about the underground economy of migrant workers, the border police and their own encounters with smugglers whose contraband is human beings.

SUDAN: Amy Costello: Witness to a Crisis
Reporter Amy Costello talks about the frustrations of aid workers, reporters and the international community — and why she feels compelled to tell the story of Darfur's tragedy.

CHINA: Serene Fang: Secret Meetings and an Unexpected Arrest
Reporter Serene Fang found herself covering the arrest of a Uighur citizen when she traveled to the remote northwest Xinjiang province in China. Read more about the background of Uighur nationalism, their meeting — and his disappearance.

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush

Even though we now regard Afghanistan as a place largely off-limits to most tourism, a 1958 book by Eric Newby (with introduction by the famed late author Evelyn Waugh), A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, offered a view by an author ill-prepared for the challenge of the mountains. This is from Chapter 13, "Coming Round the Mountain", and describes part of Newby's travels with fellow Englishman Hugh Carle:

"Down by the river the Pathan women, beautiful savage-looking creatures, were washing clothes. Now as Hugh had predicted he vanished into the tents on one pretext or another, ostensibly to gather information, having first warned the laundresses to veil themselves.

"The Chamar was a wide glen, more colourful than the Darra Samir, with grass of many different shades of green and full of tall hollyhocks in flower. The nomad tents were everywhere and there were sheep high on the mountains. At seven we rested at a small hamlet of bothies, Dal Liazi. Behind us, above Parian, we could see the way to the Nawak Pass with Orsaqao, the big brown mountain which it crossed, with a serpent of snow wriggling across it.
It was an interrupted journey. At the instigation of Abdullah we had stopped at seven, at eight we stopped again and this time everyone disappeared into the tents for half an hour, leaving Hugh and myself outside with the horses, fuming and sizzling in the heat. But when he wanted to stop at nine, even Abdul Ghiyas protested.

"As we climbed, the country became more and more wild, the tents of the Chanzai Pathans, in which the drivers had been assuaging themselves, less frequent. From the rocks on either side marmots whistled at us officiously like ginger-headed referees. Here the horses stopped continuously to eat wormwood, artemisia absinthium, a root for which they had a morbid claiming.

"After five hours on the road we came to the mouth of a great cloud-filled glen stretching to the west.

"'East glacier,' said Hugh, 'we're nearly there. Pity about the cloud.'
As we stood there peering, it began to lift. Soon we could see most of the north face of the mountain as far as the rock wall, and the summit, a snow-covered cone with what seemed a possible route along the ridge to it. Our spirits rose. 'If we can only get to the ridge we can make it,' we said.

"With the cloud breaking up and lifting fast, the whole mountain seemed on fire; the cloud swirled like smoke about the lower slopes and drove over the ridge clinging to the pinnacles. From out of the glen came a chill wind and the rumble of falling rock. It was like a battlefield stripped of corpses by Valkyries. In spite of the heat of the valley we shivered."

Nicola Slade's Literary Tourism

Literary Tourism: After reading the Greek poets Roman tourists went travelling, and Regency poetry lovers flocked to the haunts of Byron, Keats and Shelley. The Slade family holidays have tended to be aimed at a much more low-brow level. Much lower

Tracking Flights

When part of our family flew to visit other inlaws this holiday season we tracked their flight on the way back through a site, Flyte.com. There we could enter the flight and airline information and watch their virtual progress across the country.

We also were tipped off to another service called FlightAware which differs in that there's an animated portrayal of all the flights currently in the air over the US. At the time we were at the site, there were 5600 airbourne aircraft over US territory with 35,325,027 total flights in the database. " FlightAware has tracked 43,260 arrivals in the last 24 hours." Private aircraft can also be tracked using this site.

Women in History at National Trust Historic Sites and Partner Places

The following sites (all of which are open to the public) were the homes or studios of women who influenced our history, or were preserved thanks to the generosity and vision of preservationist-minded women.

Belle Grove Plantation in Middletown, VA is an 18th century grain and livestock farm, which, in its prime (circa 1815), encompassed about 7500 acres of land. This was the home of Nelly Conway Madison, sister of the future President James Madison, and her husband Major Isaac Hite Jr. It is located 90 miles from Nelly's family home of Montpelier in VA, and a National Trust site.

Brucemore in Cedar Rapids, IA, is a Queen Anne style mansion that was completed in 1886 by Caroline Sinclair, widow of pioneer industrialist T. M. Sinclair. The house was donated to the National Trust by its last owner, Mrs. Margaret Hall, for use as a historic site and community cultural center.

Chesterwood in Stockbridge, MA is the studio of the sculptor Daniel Chester French, which was designed by Henry Bacon, architect of the Lincoln Memorial, which features one of French’s most famous works, the Seated Lincoln. The studio was a gift to the National Trust from the Daniel Chester French Foundation, formed by French’s daughter, Margaret French Cresson.

Articles

Joan James Rapp: Seniors on Safari — Don and I looked back at the previous sixteen days and marveled at the trip that had taken us from the elegantly sophisticated Cape Town to the awesome wilderness areas of Botswana. We asked each other “How do we top this?”

Jane Shortall, A quiet life in rural France? C’est pas possible... A tremendous feast in the garden went on until one in the morning. We tucked into baskets of crusty bread, tomato and mozzarella salads, roasted peppers and asparagus spears, hard-boiled eggs — free range, naturally, another gift, and a splendid homemade Foie Gras which Madame Morere had given us weeks before, but we hadn’t got around to eating. We finished with a selection of cheese and more wine, a thing always in stock here.

And for that ultimate traveler, Sonja Christopher of CBS' Survivor fame, read Margaret Cullison's interview, Sonja, Survivor.

Travel: More

Traveling With Living Gold Press and Adventuresome Women

Article

Frederick Dellenbaugh and A Canyon Adventure Online

Womens' History and Historic Places

Article

Dozen Distinctive Destinations

Travel Article

Exhibit

Tourism and the American Landscape

Article

Maps, Quizzes and an Exhibit

Cruise Ship Security Practices and Procedures

Article

The Venice of Henry James

Article

Passport to Adventure Travel Reading

Travel With Frontline World's Women Reporters

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush

Nicola Slade's Literary Tourism

Tracking Flights

Women in History at National Trust Historic Sites and Partner Places

Articles

**Travel With Frontline World's Women Reporters**