It's a Lonely, Lonely Planet

After lambasting (yes, I used that word, just a tiny bit incorrectly, but this is still why Tom Skilling should propose to me) Lonely Planet for their weird-but-thanks-for-the-publicity-anyway report on the Las Vegas Springs Preserve, I later tweeted how happy I was that I had ridden on one of Lonely Planet's top 5 epic train journeys, the California Zephyr.

My lambasting is here.
Lonely Planet's story on the Springs Preserve is here.
The California Zephyr route is here.

Mere hours after that tweet, I was disappointed to find that I have stayed at ZERO of Lonely Planet's top 10 world airports. I had been confident that O'Hare would be on the list, but it wasn't. The airports are mostly in Asia, which is one of the four continents that I have yet to visit.

I have only been to one of their top 10 European train stations, too. I am disappointed that Barcelona Sants did not show up. The extremely expensive hotel there is where I stayed in the wake of September 11, 2001. Madrid Atocha didn't make the list, either. Neither did Zoo Station, and come on, when an entire U2 album is named after a train station, that station does deserve a mention.

This is why I should write for Lonely Planet. I judge them harshly now, but if they hired me, I wouldn't. Although...Oakland? OK, maybe not.

Admittedly, I am a collector of places (and things, but I'll talk more about things later in the summer). I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with it, although it's not advisable to compare your place-count (or your thing count) to that of other people, because we all have our own unique styles and experiences.

Top 10 lists, "best of" articles, and "1,000 things to do before you die" books are interesting because they are someone else's idea of what has value, and it is worthwhile for me to see whether I agree with the writers. It's fun to complain when I don't, and even more fun to congratulate myself when I do. More than that, however, they are motivational. For example, I have enjoyed both Venice Beach and the Mediterranean coast in southern France. If neither of them are on the list but the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare made it, exactly how amazing are those cliffs? And I resolve that one day, I will see them for myself.

Since I've only had five of Lonely Planet's 40 Amazing Experiences in Europe (requires a PDF download), I decided to turn my attention to National Geographic's "The World's Most Beautiful Places."

There are 100 of them on the list. I have been to 15, but two don't count, because they are the Mojave Desert and the Midwestern Plains. So, I have been to 13. The way I figure it, I have just a little more than half my life left. I should get to steppin'.

And I can.

Because check out what I took yesterday.

That's my INDEX finger, you cynics! 

And that, my lovely readers, is also The Chain. We have come a long way. Next stop (well, there may be some before then, but a stop that's coming soon): the Wigwams on route 66 in Holbrook. Watch for updates. xoxo

News of the Weird, Kevetching About Lonely Planet, and Being Appreciated

1. News of the weird: a zombie outbreak has affected my middle school. No, I don't mean the normal designation of young teenagers as "zombies." This time, the students are literally writing a "z" on their neighbor's arm, and then saying that they are a zombie. I learned about this two days ago, when a student asked if they could put a "z" on my arm and make me a zombie. Um...no. But I am intrigued by this situation. I wonder how it started, how quickly it has spread, and whether anyone is doing any research or keeping statistics on it. In the future, I might make this an actual classroom activity. "If you have a 'z' at the top of your paper, congratulations, you are now a zombie! I am your zombie overlord. Your mission is to infect the entire school building. Each day I will give you ten z papers. Give them out to whomever you contact. Give me a full report tomorrow and receive ten more z papers." Then we see how long the experiment takes, and we graph the results. I can hear the students now: "Ugghhh! We already did this, it's so last year. And we did it ourselves and we didn't have to make a graph." Then I will claim it is a longitudinal study. Just for fun.

2. The article that I posted earlier on Facebook: "Discover Life in the Nevada Desert." When I saw the link to this Lonely Planet article in my twitter feed, I expected to see a piece on the Extraterrestrial Highway, Beatty, the entrance to Death Valley, or similar. But no, it's about Las Vegas. It talks about how Las Vegas is "an artificial playground" where "tourists outnumber visitors 20 to 1" and predicts that our entire water supply will be used up by 2021. Yeah, we already knew that.

Then it talks about the Springs Preserve. I have been a fan of the Springs Preserve for quite some time. I even posted photos of it to the dead blog on July 1, 2007. That's how long I've been a fan. I attended a teacher appreciation event there in 2011 and I haven't been back since. I highly recommend the flash flood exhibit the article mentions.

So, the article is pretty cool, except that they haven't told you the price. I consider it my civic duty to correct this oversight. Of course, the last time I went there was free because I was being appreciated. You can also see that I get a hefty discount for being outnumbered 20 to 1. This is one reason why the title of the Lonely Planet article is misleading. You cannot discover life in the Nevada desert without knowing about the hidden menu.

After they don't tell you how much you'll pay to get in, Lonely Planet goes on to close their article with a list of blatant falsehoods. It says that there are no other green spaces in Las Vegas. The LVNV Parks and Recreation park finder page lists at least 68 parks, not including the dog parks, skate parks, golf courses, or state parks, and also not including North Las Vegas or Henderson. Also not including the 50 miles of trails like the one on which I took the photo seen here, which has a hunk of the Stardust (I saw that place implode!) at the Lamb Wayside trailhead, and these markers every 1/4 mile of the trail.

Oops, it's sideways. It says, "Neon to Nature," and that's my left foot there on the bottom right. 

The very last thing that the article says about town is...ride the Monorail. This is why the people who write these articles should be residents with no vested interest in any given businesses because DO NOT RIDE THE MONORAIL! It crashes. It's also no good for getting anywhere unless the only place you plan to go is someplace between the MGM Grand and the former-Sahara. (Oh for another implosion! But no, the Sahara is being renovated. Darn the stupid tanked economy and the responsible repurposing of buildings!) The Monorail doesn't go anywhere at all near the Springs Preserve. Boo, Lonely Planet. Boo. 

I mentioned that long-ago teacher appreciation dinner at the Springs Preserve. Even now, I still recall the purple lettuce and how delicious it was. Speaking of being appreciated, I would like to share with you this year's piece de resistance, Popsicle Stick Ms. Hendrix. The beginning art student who made this masterpiece  is an anonymous 6th grader who has likely never seen me. They totally nailed it: notice the messy orangeish-red hair, the googly eyes, the shocked O of a mouth, and my favorite blue jacket! I raved about Popsicle Stick Ms. Hendrix for about 5 minutes with each of my classes. The note, if you can read it, was from one of my 8th graders. 

It says, "Thank you for making geography worth learning. It's really boring but you seem to make it a little less boring haha. -Unknown :)"

These were not the only appreciations I received this year, but they were the ones that made my day. 

Into Each Blogger's Life...

...a little distraction must fall. I will specifically say two things.
1) I am less of a fruit ninja and more of a fruit smasher.
2) After shoving the English, French, and Industrial Revolutions into 20 slides with 4 short video clips and one really cool game called Who Wants to Be a Cotton Millionaire, I decided to push Russia's slides to another day.

Since I got distracted and cheated you out of a post, I am also shoving my blog posts this week to Monday, Wednesday and Friday before returning you next week to your regularly scheduled memoir.

Right. My magazine problem.

The editor-in-chief of one of my favorites, Sunset magazine, had this to say in the February issue:
"Long, meticulously planned vacations to far-off places are enormous but rare pleasures. It's the short trip, maybe just one night, that keeps us sane."

I totally agree with her, and I am happy to say that this past weekend, I was able to ride along on an overnight trip to see my favorite baseball team, the Cubs, lose to the San Francisco Giants in a spring training game.

Here it is:

You can see that the stadium is small and intimate, therefore completely making up for my annually neglecting to go see any Cubs games.

I was surrounded by happy Giants fans wearing sunglasses. I bought a totally-neutral t-shirt. I celebrated having survived the apocalypse by doing something ostensibly non-zombie-related, and hopefully, my sanity will reward me by sticking around to fight for another day.

On the way to Arizona, I flipped through my recently acquired copy of Cooks, Clowns, and Cowboys, but I made quick work of it. It's filled with full-page glossy photos of "101 skills and experiences to discover on your travels." I give it a thumb-to-the-side, which is my way of being noncommittal. There is no way we can ever do all 101 things. The skills are interesting and include survival classes in Utah, cheese-making workshops in various countries, dance lessons, etc. They are the kinds of adventures that are "enormous and rare." If I ever go on one of the suggested journeys, I will share the full report.

In the meantime, what short trips have you recently enjoyed that helped keep you sane?