farlands | traveling near and far

Getting ready for the road trip to visit family down south (for the twentieth year and umpteenth time), I decided it was time to switch the route up a bit. After spending some time mapping different paths and good places to stay over, Hannibal, Missouri won out.  It was the right stopping point, looked like it would be scenic, and gave me the opportunity to share Mark Twain's classic story with our son, John. Required summer reading!  For some reason I was more excited about this plan than he was. This was a mom/son road trip, and as we set out with him in the passenger seat I started playing the final quarter of the book on our iPod, so that I could refresh my memory, and, honestly, be sure that he 'read' some of it - our informal quizzes on 'what happened in the last chapter?' had pretty vague answers. My plans were put on hold as we headed into Iowa and John fell asleep after 15 minutes.  For almost 3 hours. We rolled through the gentle Iowa scenery - it...

Okay, here is my first post featuring family and friends. Normally I plan to feature the travels of a family member or friend, so I hope to have something like that soon. This post is a little different than what I originally had in mind, because I am writing it about a friend, and we are going to see family.  I have a good friend, Terry, who does an amazing amount of traveling.  Most recently he has been to Alaska, Mexico, Dubai, on a ghost tour of the northeast, just to name a few of his adventures.  He travels constantly.  I am hoping to ply him with more sushi lunches so I can post some of his travel narratives and photos on this blog. But for now, I'm excited about a road trip to Arkansas we are planning to take.  Terry's travel schedule for 2015 was almost booked, but we decided I would show him around my adopted home state for a week, and get the opportunity to visit my parents as well as revisit some of the places I love.  I've been bugging him ...

Wausau, Wisconsin is a 2.5 hour drive from where we live in Madison. We went there last weekend to have a ski day.  We've gone before for a couple of nights, so the guys can go skiing for two days straight and I ski one day, then snowshoe the next. Last year we left early because Sunday was going to be way too cold to have any fun skiing (in the single digit Fahrenheit before wind chill). This year we learned that it is definitely a viable one-day trip.  We left at 6:30 a.m., and we were on the slopes by 10:00 a.m.  The ski hill is Granite Peak at Rib Mountain, and its 700 foot mountain has more than enough runs to keep us going all day, including challenging ones for John and Jeff (pictured here), and easier runs for me in the afternoon. There are a lot of options for good, hearty food a the bottom of the hill, and their cheese curds in the dining hall are delicious. I especially liked the new lockers that could be reserved using credit cards, not quarters, than...

About a year ago, my husband and I had a conversation where the end result was crystal clear:  we want to go on a round-the-world trip at some point in our lives. The journey to this realization was subtle, but signs were there - it just took a while to clue into them. I have a friend who traveled to India for three weeks.  I learned a colleague and her husband had lived traveling across the world, working for their keep.  And, as a family we watched "The Amazing Race" every season - each place the contestants went to I wanted to see, but it never really translated into 'we can/could/should/need to' do that, until that discussion last year. So, of course I turned to the internets to learn more.  I had no idea the kind of rabid traveling community that was out there.  I read and re-read posts, blogs, tweets, just soaking it in.  Some of my favorites are:      1) Nomadic Matt  http://www.nomadicmatt.com/   Wide-ranging advice. ...

Starting your own travel blog can be a bit daunting. Thinking about Twitter handles, story ideas, and finding the time makes it a challenge to begin.  Here's what I have found out so far: 1) Share your idea with someone:  I started by sharing my (seemingly crazy) idea with my husband Jeff.  He immediately gave some helpful hints and was positive, which got me over the hump a bit.  It doesn't hurt that he is tech savvy, so I know I'll depend on him to get things going. 2)  Sketch it out:  The idea originally came to me on a bike ride home from a looong day at the office. By the end of the ride, I was coming up with pithy categories, so I sat down and did a mock sketch with pencil and paper: It looked like a third grader had done it, but I could see what I was thinking of in between the lines. 3)  Outline stories:  Watching my son's baseball game, I took time during lulls in the action to jot down ideas as they occurred to me. (Okay, I m...