It's been 15 months since my last post on this travel blog, and I'm just checking in to let folks know that the blog is still on vacation. Mike and I have a few more semesters of college tuition to pay, so I have to spend more time writing for money and less time writing for free. I started this blog years ago to make it easier for editors to find me on the Web, and it's served that purpose well.

But when I logged in today to take a peek at the blog's stats, I was blown away and wanted to post this quick thank-you. I'm proud of the travel stories and photos I've posted over the years and, despite the halt in adding new content, I'd hoped that folks would still visit and read the archived stories. That's happening. Thanks for taking the time to "travel" with me.

I know not all readers land on my blog because they were searching specifically for it, or for me. I know it's often because they were looking for something else, and Ribbons popped up in the search results. My blog stats tell me what people were searching for before they found me. The Lori Heins and Ribbons of Highways make me feel good, but it's searches like "was wampsutta's speech real?" and "pineapple overstayed welcome" that make me laugh.

May we all find what we're searching for. Cheers.

Power to transport

I love when mid-afternoon sun floods through my living room bay windows, lighting my eclectic collection of colorful curios from around the world. The other day the elegant shadows cast by two sculptures I bought in Jamaica transfixed me. The ladies, made of wood, wear gowns fashioned from dyed sand glued to their sultry frames. I often pick them up when I pass their perch atop the piano, but when they're bathed in amber sunlight, I just stare and let them take me for an instant back to the tropical brilliance and gentle, easy friendliness of the island where they were made.

www.LoriHein.com

My travel bucket list (and lots of links)

I feel blessed to have seen much of the world. My store of travel memories is so rich that if my traveling days ended today I'd be content with what I've been allowed to experience. Every moment, every sight, sound, taste, smell and sensation, was a gift.

But I hope, once Mike and I have paid the kids' way through college and wrested our finances from the clutches of heart-stopping tuition bills, that we'll be able to resume jetsetting. There was a time when we always had at least two sets of plane tickets paid for: tickets for an imminent trip and tickets for one a few months after that. I do miss those days, but putting two great kids through a great university is also a rewarding trip, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

But it'll be good to hit the tarmac again, traveling light and on the cheap, to amazing places we've still to see. Sometimes, when I consider where I have been, and what I have seen, I'm amazed. I really did that? I really went there?

So where in the world would I still like to go? Given health, time and resources, here are 30 places (I could think of more) I want to visit, in no particular order:

1. The kingdom of Bhutan
2. Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania
3. The rock churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia
4. Egypt (click on Egypt in the sidebar to read about our two thwarted visit attempts)
5. Rideau Canal Skateway, Ottawa, Canada
6. Cape Town and Kruger National Park, South Africa
7. Namibia
8. The Great Mosque of Djenne, Mali, the world's largest mud structure
9. Sydney and Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock), Australia. (No, I will not climb it.)
10. Angkor Wat, Cambodia
11. Mt. Fuji, Japan
12. The Amalfi Coast, Italy
13. Goa, India
14. Shanghai, China
15. Cartagena, Colombia
16. Poland
17. Vietnam
18. Stockholm, Sweden
19. Angel Falls, Venezuela
20. Cappadocia, Turkey
21. Victoria Falls, Zambia
22. Botswana
23. Darjeeling, India
24. Puglia, Italy
25. Dubrovnik and the Dalmatian Coast, Croatia
26. Pagan, Burma
27. The Pitons, Saint Lucia
28. Denali, Alaska
29. Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland
30. The Milford Track, New Zealand

Feel like packing.

www.LoriHein.com

Travel List Challenge challenged, or, how'd Anne Pippy Longstockin Lewis get into Mecca?

Maybe you've seen the Travel List Challenge app on Facebook: 100 places deemed by the app's marketing team to be cool, important or impressive enough to merit must-see status. I ticked off 65; according to the app's "Compare Results" tab, Average User clocks in at 23. It's a good list, and I agree with most of the destinations, but two things about the list bother me.

First, whoever wrote the list and was presumably paid for it misspelled a number of entries. There's no easier writing assignment than making a list, so an error-filled one causes this writer to shake her head at the appalling quality of so much that's published online. With a few keystrokes to check his or her work the list writer could have caught such gaffes as Colloseum, Devil's Tower, Macchu Picchu and Sistene Chapel. The Web's awash in bad writing and bad information. Gives me pain. Caveat lector.

My other beef with the Travel Challenge is that the challengers lie. The aforementioned "Compare Results" tab shows you where you stand in relation to other challengers/globetrotters, but, unless lots of people pulled a Sir-Richard-Burton-in-1853, the "results" are, for some if not all of 162 of the challengers as of today's date, fabrications.

Why do I suspect that 162 people, give or take, lied? Because 162 people claim to have been to 100 of the 100 destinations, and one of those is the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Non-Muslims aren't allowed in Mecca. We can all go to Saudi Arabia, but a special exit sign on the highway to the sacred city directs non-Muslims where to get off before they reach it. Potential penalty for slipping into Mecca, trying to pass oneself off as Muslim, and getting caught runs the spectrum from deportation to decapitation.

So, Jake Scott, Lance Harvey, Mark Frazer, Ian Merry and Elaine Menini, are you still attached to your heads? Did you really visit Mecca's Grand Mosque? Maybe you made it to the Mecca bus station, outside city limits and open to all, but did you stand before the Grand Mosque with its sacred Kaaba, site of the hajj? You saw that? Anne Pippy Longstockin Lewis, how about you? And the chick named Siobhan? Blarney.

Maybe you're documented converts to Islam. If so, let me know, and I'll write an I-was-wrong post. (Christian Duffield, you'll never convince me.)

www.LoriHein.com

Happy 2012, Ribbons of Highway

Hard to believe I've been blogging here since 2004. Five hundred and fifty-two posts: hundreds of travel stories about scores of countries and thousands of photos and links. When I wrote my first post, "Birth of a Blog," in 2004, I never imagined I'd still be at it eight years later.

There's lots of fun stuff in the archives. Click on a country in the right sidebar, and enjoy.

www.LoriHein.com

Talk about a captive audience

I was dismayed to find, on a recent US Airways flight across the United States, that all the tray tables in economy had been turned into flying advertisements.

For six hours I ate, drank, read and played with my iPod while staring at a sprawling message touting the speed of Verizon's 4G network. Since the same advertisement was affixed to every table in the cabin, it was literally in my face wherever I turned. I saw it 108 times on my 18-row walk to and from the bathroom.

Soon pilots will announce final approach with "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. We've begun our descent into Podunk Airport. To prepare for landing, please secure your seatbelts and return your billboards to the upright and locked position. Thank you."

www.LoriHein.com

Makes me wonder how well the planes are maintained...

I flew out of Boston's Logan Airport last weekend. The trip got off to an inauspicious start when I got into an elevator in Terminal B and noticed this "FAIL" certificate posted on the elevator wall. The word "FAIL" staring at me as I made my vertical journey was scary enough, but my anxiety heightened when I realized I was enclosed in this mechanically compromised box on October 21, eight days after the expiration of the 90 Day Temporary Certificate, issued on July 13.

www.LoriHein.com

Adam Belanger: He's going places

My son Adam will graduate from college in May, and he's already begun his job search -- no flies on this kid. Allow me to hijack my blog in order to post his resume. Adam's looking for a professional entry-level position in sales/marketing/promotion/business development/customer service/sales support. Feel free to share this post with anyone who might be looking to add a smart, hard-working, entrepreneurial people person to their team:

Adam Belanger

Belanger.ad@gmail.com; 508-269-5347; 278 Parker Hill Ave., Boston, MA 02120

EDUCATION

Northeastern University, Boston, MA expected May 2012

Candidate for Bachelor of Science in Music Industry, Business Administration minor

• Courses in marketing, organizational behavior, accounting, financial management, business law

• Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity: mentored new members as Sigma Coordinator; delegate to North American Inter-Fraternity Leadership Academy and Carlson Leadership Academy; organize and execute semi-annual retreats, Coach, Mission Hill Little League Cardinals; do fundraising/community service

WORK EXPERIENCE

Huntington Wine and Spirits/K & R Concessions, Boston, MA March 2009 – present

Sales Associate/part-time Manager

• Assist in all phases of operation for family-owned liquor store and catering enterprise

• Interact with and serve hundreds of customers, vendors and distributors on weekly basis

• Handle cash and credit transactions; make bank deposits; monitor/ensure ID compliance

• Secure and close store; handle supplier and distributor deliveries, inventory and stocking

• Recruit, train and supervise new employees; represent company at vendor events

Impact Relations Music Promotion, Boston, MA May 2009 - present

Founder, Director, Entrepreneur

• Own and run company promoting album releases and tours

• Have executed publicity campaigns for over 30 shows, resulting in capacity turnout

• Secured repeat business from satisfied clients and new business through client referrals

• Write and distribute hundreds of press releases to online, print and radio media, resulting in interviews and reviews for clients

• Write and publish artist promotion blog: received work from and promoted over 300 artists

• Use social media extensively to discover, promote and communicate with artists, press and public

Nimbit, Inc., Framingham, MA January - June 2011

Marketing Intern at company providing promotional services to musicians

• Maintained marketing databases and executed direct marketing campaigns

• Tracked website performance, updated web pages, improved SEO, wrote HTML newsletters

• Contributed to company’s social media and blog

• Researched competitors and potential new business models and services

Victaulic Company, Mansfield, MA May - August 2008 & Jan. - July 2010

Office and Warehouse Intern at New England distribution center of world's leading manufacturer of mechanical pipe-joining products

• Managed high volume, time-sensitive distribution of materials between branch, corporate office, customers and sales staff

• Handled inventory control, database management, billing and sales support

• Worked in warehouse on shipping and delivery; earned forklift operator certification

Planetary Group, Boston, MA January - July 2009

Press Department Intern at music marketing company

• Assisted with publicity campaigns for artists' albums and tours, wrote press releases, managed press clips.

• Interviewed artists and wrote posts for company blog and interacted with media writers and editors

Other: Employed since age 13 at retail stores, marina, restaurants, band manager; world travel - have visited over 25 countries and 27 U.S. states; basic Spanish skills; licensed boat operator, enjoy basketball, snowboarding, golf; hard-working, responsible, reliable, self-starter, entrepreneurial, people and results-oriented

www.LoriHein.com

Park it

Wherever I travel, I seek out parks. They're places to rest between sightseeing sorties, eat the lunch food in your backpack, and, especially, people watch. Because parks are open to all and because all people need places to relax, reflect, recreate and regroup, parks are truly windows onto a place's diversity. There are few better ways to sense the depth, richness and variety of a place's inhabitants than to spend an hour in one of its parks. Here, some people I enjoyed watching one sunny afternoon in Paris's Parc des Buttes Chaumont, a gorgeous green space whose centerpiece is a lookout belvedere atop a rocky, 100-foot-high hillock (click the images to enlarge) :









www.LoriHein.com

Remembering where we were

On this 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks many of us will reflect on where we were as the horror of that day unfolded.

In this excerpt from my book, "Ribbons of Highway: A Mother-Child Journey Across America," I share how my family took that terrible day and transformed it into an enriching odyssey:


Although my kids and I didn't climb into the van and drive off until nine months later, our 12,000-mile American road odyssey began on September 11, 2001.

Where I was and what I was doing when the planes ripped through New York are part of my life's fabric. I was outside painting the fence brown, telling my neighbor Donna that I had plenty of time now to do the job my 13-year-old son was supposed to have finished because I'd just been laid off. We groused about the economy's sorry state and mused over whether things could get any worse.

In the next instant, they did. The kitchen phone rang. It was my husband calling from the car to tell me one of the Twin Towers had been hit. Mike was on the road, making sales calls, and hadn't seen any pictures yet. He'd only heard the radio reports.

The paintbrush hardened outside in the sun, pieces of cut grass sticking up like spikes in the brown mess.

When Adam and Dana came home from school we gathered around the table on the deck and began, as a family, to sort through facts and feelings and fears. The kids' teachers had done a good job dispensing comfort and assurance before sending them home. By the time they got to us, we'd decided we had three things to communicate: they were safe and loved; America was strong; the world's people were good.

To our family, this last point was as important as the others, because our kids have been traveling the world since they were babies. Respect for the world's people is part of their upbringing. This is a gift, and we'd allow no senseless act, however brutal, nor any retaliatory distrust or intolerance, to steal it.

My mind's eye called up images: two Turkish teenagers kicking a soccer ball with a five-year-old Adam on the grounds of Topkapi Palace; Adam joining a group of Bolivian boys in tabletop foosball during recess at Copacabana's school, Lake Titicaca shining at the end of the street; the kids building sand castles with Javier and Daniel, two Belizean brothers who'd pass our hotel each day on their way to class; Dana setting off for a bird walk, in the shadow of Kilimanjaro, with Mike and Masai chief Zapati. These experiences enrich life and must continue.

As the painful, numbing slowness of the weeks immediately following September 11 yielded to something approximating normalcy, I regained enough focus to give the future some thought. That future had us traveling again, but this time, we'd get to know our America.

www.LoriHein.com

Milkin' it

I know I've been milking this summer vacation thing. Gonna milk it a bit longer. Will be back with travel stories mid-September. The weather turned cool in New England the day the calendar turned to September 1, so I'll be blogging in long-sleeved, long-legged cold weather clothes. Damn. Hate the thought of it.

Global Voices: Bookmark this

Dana's heading into the final weeks of her summer semester in Peru, and the group is scheduled to head to Puno for a few days of Lake Titicaca exploration. Whether they'll be able to go -- or get out if they get in -- is in doubt, as Aymara miners have been protesting a mining concession granted to a Canadian company. The protests, put on hold for a week to allow Puno residents to vote in Peru's June 5 presidential election, which placed socialist Ollanta Humala in power, were at times violent, and had effectively shut down and cut off Puno. Hundreds of tourists were stranded but did manage to get out. The road between Cusco and Puno, the road Dana's group will travel on, was blocked. Two days ago, the protesters resumed their demonstrations.

Dana's university isn't giving the students much information, so I've been trying to find current, reliable reports. A lot of what I've found are old stories reposted with new dates -- very confusing when you're trying to figure out what's happening right now. I've been reading Peruvian newspapers online, but my Spanish isn't honed enough to pick up tone and nuance, and nuance counts here, along with fact.

A few minutes ago I stumbled upon Global Voices, and I recommend that anyone with an interest in knowing what's going on in places large and small, known and obscure, all over the world, bookmark this site. I'll be visiting at least weekly.

Using a team of volunteer bloggers and translators, Global Voices aggregates news and blogs from citizen journalists worldwide. The number of countries covered is staggering, and the posts are translated into many languages, increasing the accessibility of the information. I spent an illuminating half-hour cruising the site and decided to use it as a trusted news source after I clicked on the "Sponsors" tab and saw the many respected organizations that help keep Global Voices going.

I sent Dana the Global Voices link to share with her trip leaders, as I think the site's Peruvian bloggers have their ears closer to the ground than Dana's college officials.

www.LoriHein.com

Ames Free Library book reading to celebrate NaNoWriMo

If you're in the area, join me at 6:30 this Thursday evening, November 18, for a book reading at the Ames Free Library in Easton, Massachusetts.

To celebrate National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a zany writing marathon in which aspiring authors worldwide each try to complete a 50,000-word novel in 30 days, the library's hosting me and two other authors from this area. We'll read from our books and share insights on getting published.

I'm always delighted at an invitation to read from Ribbons of Highway: A Mother-Child Journey Across America, but this reading has the extra bonus of taking place inside one of 19th-century architect H.H. Richardson's masterpieces.

I hope you'll enjoy the reading, but I guarantee you'll enjoy the building.

www.LoriHein.com

Flotsam, jetsam, seaglass and shards

There's a mosaic in my future.

All around my house, in glass vases, copper boxes and bowls that once belonged to Bedouins and Buddhist monks, are bits and pieces of flotsam and jetsam from bodies of water, sidewalks and trash piles around the world, and I value these as highly as any travel souvenirs I've collected.

Someday, when I have nothing to do, I'll gather in one place these intriguing chunks of detritus, along with my scores of stones and seashells spirited from dozens of beaches, and I'll design a mosaic that gives each nugget a special spot in some big, bold picture.

Each piece brings me back to the place where I acquired it: water-worn teacup handles and porcelain dinnerware shards washed up on Lake Como's rocky shore; a hunk of marble paving stone from an old Lisbon sidewalk; pieces of painted wall tile from a junk heap beside an 18th-century Porto home undergoing renovation; black rocks with white circles in their middles -- eyeball rocks, I call them -- found on the French shore of Lake Geneva; charms that once hung from strands of Mardi Gras beads thrown from floats navigating the streets of New Orleans; shells and coral from the Red Sea; shells and salty stones from the Dead Sea; fragments of pottery and pavement from Petra and ancient Argos; cooled lava from an ancient eruption of Chile's Mount Osorno; and green, white, blue, amber and yellow seaglass from oceans and lakes around the globe.

I'm thinking my mosaic will be a map of the world.

www.LoriHein.com

Radio Easton: I've been podcast

I was a recent guest on Radio Easton, an audio blog published by my friend, Bill Ames. Bill interviews folks from our little Boston-area burg who've done interesting things and shares their stories through podcasts. Bill is a very interesting guy himself -- a renaissance man with a broad spectrum of talents and activities -- so I'm honored to have been invited to speak to his listeners, both local and farther afield.

We talked about travel, the act and the essence; my Ribbons of Highway cross-country journey after 9/11 and the book born from it; this Ribbons of Highway blog; travel writing; travel with children.

It was great fun recording the interview, and I thought you might be interested in the finished product. To listen, click the link below and scroll to the September 25, 2010 entry:

http://northeastonma.typepad.com/manwho

www.LoriHein.com

Time travel: Free weekend on ancestry.com

You might want to spend part of the upcoming Labor Day weekend traveling back in time: ancestry.com is offering a "Free Access Weekend" September 2-6th.

You'll be able to search millions of immigration records, including ship passenger lists, petitions for citizenship and a host of other documents, at no charge. Ancestry.com is no doubt betting that lots of folks will get hooked on exploring the past and sign up for a paid subscription after the free weekend ends.

I look forward to discovering more about forebears like my grandparents, pictured here on their wedding day. Just cruising the documents and piecing together bits of people's stories should be fascinating. Says an ancestry.com ad, "You don't have to know what you're looking for, you just have to start looking."

www.LoriHein.com

Bella Tucker: please help

This post has nothing to do with travel but everything to do with a journey, the long and difficult journey ahead for an 8-year-old girl name Bella Tucker.

Please visit the Bella Tucker Fund and consider making a donation. On Easter Sunday, Bella contracted an infection that caused such extensive tissue damage that she recently had to have her four limbs amputated.

She and her family need all the support, including financial, that they can get.

I learned of Bella from my sister, whose nieces and nephews ran a lemonade stand today to raise money for Bella.

www.LoriHein.com

10 things I will never do on vacation

It's a phenomenon I think would make good fodder for some psychology student's doctoral thesis: why people on vacation do dangerous or scary things.

There's a whole travel industry niche out there that provides travelers with adrenaline-pumping, fear-inducing adventures. People pay big bucks and stand in long lines to do things that could make them panic, vomit, faint, crash or fall. And they take their kids.

Here are 10 terrifying tourist activities you'll never catch me doing. I will not:

1. Bungee jump

2. Ride, like these nuts at Iguacu Falls on the Brazil/Argentina border, in a rubber raft under giant, foaming walls of water. (If you assume I will never white water raft, either, you are correct.)


3. Rock climb

4. Stand on the clear platform that juts from the side of the skyscraper formerly known as Sears Tower
5. Stand on the clear platform that juts from the side of the Grand Canyon

6. Take a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon

7. Take a helicopter ride over Manhattan

8. Para-sail

9. Hang-glide

10. Take a cruise (Perhaps you've noted a pattern running through some of my won't-dos: fear of water, consequence of a near-drowning incident at Maine's Sebago Lake when I was 13. Cruising's out: I'd be the passenger wearing a life jacket 24/7.)

www.LoriHein.com

Christo and crutches: A trip to the deck

I took a little trip today -- from the kitchen, where I've pretty much been living for the past month, to the deck. (For those keeping tabs on my progress getting my Egypt trip money refunded, Intrepid and Orbitz/Egypt Air have come through, as I reported a few posts ago, but Nationwide/TruTravel Claims has been less customer-friendly. Despite my having sent a claim package with everything needed to prove loss, they're making me jump through redundant paperwork hoops and really work to get what's owed me.)

It was nice to be outside. I thought of Christo as I looked up into our big deck umbrella, set against a cerulean sky and backlit by the sun, its light diffused by the orange-beige fabric.

I was a deckchair traveler -- two dozen crutch-hops from the kitchen had transported me to New York City in 2005 and a gorgeously crisp February day spent wandering Christo's joyful orange installation, The Gates.

Click here to read an old post, Christo redux: A little joy . You'll find some photos of happy, gargantuan drapes, set against a cerulean Central Park sky and backlit by the sun, its light diffused by the orange fabric.

www.LoriHein.com

The longest trip...

I apologize for not posting in a while.

Last week I was running through the woods, caught a root, and came down hard and horrible on my left ankle. It started blowing up in front of my eyes, so I hobbled to a main road where a police officer directing traffic helped me to his car and drove me home. ER x-rays confirmed a second-degree ankle sprain and two broken metatarsal bones. I'm on crutches and in a boot cast.

To get to my travel photos and notes and to the scanner I use to get pix onto this blog, I have to bounce my way up a long staircase on my butt to my office, a place that right now seems very far away.

Everything seems very far away to me right now... my coffee cup over there on the counter, the mailbox on my front porch, the lamp that I'd really like to turn on but can't reach.

Not being fully ambulatory gives one a new perspective. Right now, the longest trip my brain can consider is the journey from my kitchen table to the bathroom.

www.LoriHein.com