Category Archives: Uncategorized

Yellowstone wildlife photos . . .

www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm 

“They built it & we came”: Jo, Craig, Rigby visit the Field of Dreams

Well, we are in Iowa.

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The Field of Dreams movie site is a little off the beaten track but well worth the trip if you are a baseball fan or a movie fan. It’s just a few kilometres outside Dyersville, Iowa (home of the National Farm Toy Museum!). Iowa is a beautiful state, often overlooked (it is part of “flyover country”). Think corn fields. Great swaths of them. But the land gently rolls, is spotted with neat and tidy farms, the roadways are great and the vistas beautiful. That being said . . . there are a lot of miles of corn fields!

We arrived on a picture-perfect September 1st: sunshine, lush green grass, corn high and thriving. For Jo it was a trip down memory lane – a previous visit with her family in the late 1990s; both boys are big baseball fans and both have found successful careers working in athletics.

The family that owns the spot (corn farm, farmhouse, baseball diamond) have stayed true to their commitment to keep commercialization to a minimum. They see approximately 55,000 visitors a year from all over the world. Admission is free and there is a modest gift stand. Visitors come to play a little pick up on the field, walk out from the rows of corn, sit on the bleachers or have a picnic lunch. They want people to revel in “the magic” of the place.

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The scene is supernaturally serene. A combination of dads and daughters or sons playing catch on the field, the absolute quiet, the unaltered landscape.

A few fun facts:

  • The film is based on the book Shoeless Joe by Canadian writer W.P. Kinsella (born in Edmonton).
  • Filming took 15 weeks in the summer of 1988. Cast included Kevin Costner, Burt Lancaster, James Earl Jones and Timothy Busfield.
  • Kevin Costner (who played Ray Kinsella) carved a heart with “Ray loves Annie” into the top wooden bleacher. It’s still there.
  • The corn was an issue during the film shoot schedule. The scenes were filmed in late June and the corn needed to be high but it was much too early in the season. So, water was taken from the creek to irrigate the crops and the corn grew taller than needed. For the scenes where Ray walks through the field of corn, a 12”-high wooden platform was built for the actor to walk along so he’d be above the tall stalks.

www.fodmoviesite.com

www.visittheusa.ca

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Jo talks travel on CBC’s Candy Palmater Show

P7190240Wow … that was fun!

This afternoon I got to sit in the studio and talk about my favourite Canadian destinations on The Candy Palmater Show on CBC Radio.

It was tough to whittle the list down (I could have gone on – and on – for an hour rather than the 12 minute time slot I had).

You can find the link here to the CBC spot and the audio: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/candy/the-candy-palmater-show-for-june-30-2016-1.3659588/workin-for-the-weekend-getaway-travel-writer-shares-her-favourite-canadian-destinations-1.3659697

Thanks CBC. And Happy Canada Day!

The 2016 Yukon Quest has begun!!

To say I was “taken” with the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race would be an understatement. I had the pleasure of being in Whitehorse and Dawson City, Yukon to follow the 2015 race. The 2016 start date (from Fairbanks, Alaska) is Sat. February 6 … that would be today!

One of the article I wrote on the YQ has just been published on the website www.roadstories.ca, a wonderful site about travel in Canada. Here is the link to the story – please pass it on:

Beautiful Yukon winter: resistance is futile 

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Cape Hatteras National Seashore: Where land and sea meet

It would have been a mistake to look at a map of the stretch of barrier islands to the south, turn around and head back north to the comforts of the Outer Banks’ “larger” communities, like Nags Head, Kitty Hawk and Manteo. As lovely as these villages are – and they are great places to visit – things got really interesting the further we drove south into the heart of Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

First, a little geography: Cape Hatteras National Seashore is a long, pencil-thin stretch of barrier islands (Bodie, Hatteras, Ocracoke) with the dunes of the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the water of Pamlico Sound on the other. It’s largely land under the watch of the National Park Service, so gets a high level of environmental protection. There are several historic villages scattered along the way (not part of the NPS land) with large beachfront homes and all the amenities of a smaller town.

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We’ve already written about the shifting sand and the close watch residents keep through hurricane season (June – November) but the real highlight is what’s not along long stretches of this pristine coast. The NPS has preserved wetlands for migratory birds (hike along a boardwalk at Pea island National Wildlife Refuge), historic lighthouses and miles of remote sand beach.

In the water, dolphins played. On the shoreline, a few fishermen planted their long rods to cast from the surf and the occasional walker doffed footwear and strolled barefoot along the sand. No shops. No go-carts or mini-golf. Not even a single vending machine. In the NPS campgrounds? No electrical hook-ups and cold water showers. Ink-black skies at night. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but it sure is ours.

The Outer Banks are infamous as the Graveyard of the Atlantic – a testament to the dangerous shoals that claimed many a passing ship (the estimate is the waters off the banks holds more than 600 shipwrecks dating back centuries).

Craig took the ranger-guided hike up the black and white striped Bodie Island Light Station. The view from the top was great over the long dunes and the salt marshes that are a perfect stopover point for birds migrating north-south along the Atlantic Flyway. Bodie Island Lighthouse was built in 1871, is 214 steps and on a clear day you can see 30 km (18 mi) from the top. Its flash pattern is 2.5 on, 2.5 off, 2.5 on, 22.5 off (just in case you were wondering) and it still uses an original Fresnel lens. The grounds of the lighthouse are dog friendly (but not a climb to the top).

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A little further down the road we stopped at the candy-cane striped lighthouse that most people associate with the Outer Banks: Cape Hatteras Light Station. The National Historic Landmark is the continent’s tallest brick lighthouse (a climb up Hatteras is 248 steps, equivalent to a 12-storey building). The grounds of the lighthouse are dog friendly (but not a climb to the top).

The iconic lighthouse also made it to many a newspaper front page in 1999 when the National Park Service moved the entire brick structure 460 m (1,500 ft) back from an encroaching sea. The sands continue to shift but they say the move should keep the tall building safe for a good long time.

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In Hatteras Village we ate dinner overlooking a dock filled with fishing boats and had a seafood meal that set the bar high for the remainder of our trip. The chef at the Breakwater Restaurant buys local: shrimp, scallops, grouper, flounder, tuna and it shows in the taste on the plate. We ate our fill of steamed shrimp the size of a toddler’s fist that were flavour-packed, meaty and didn’t suffer a bit from being dipped in melted butter. On a quest to embrace grits, Jo ate a delicious main of Shrimp & Grits (and yes, it did the trick – now a convert) and Craig had spicy, blackened chunks of yellowfin tuna (the catch of the day) wrapped in soft wheat tortillas and served with sides of black beans, rice and a pineapple chutney. Dessert was one slice/two forks of Peanut Butter Pie – a rich and creamy PB centre topped with dark, chocolate ganache.

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Like we said, the bar is set high.

They call it OBX: North Carolina’s Outer Banks

We’re looking for the places that smack of coastline life. The Outer Banks certainly fill that bill – from the northern tip at the beach at Corolla, to the secluded village of Ocracoke 190 km (118 mi) away. By secluded, here’s what we overheard: “Honey, if the world ended tomorrow, Ocracoke would find out about it next week.” We’ll be there in a few days and will report in.

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Look at a map of the Outer Banks and it seems like the long barrier islands could be blown away by a stiff hurricane. It turns out, they are slowly moving southwest – gale-force winds and the constant pounding of the ocean are shifting the tenuous landscape, one grain of sand at a time. Inch by inch, century by century, the sandbar moves closer to the mainland as wind and tempestuous storms re-arrange the dunes, reshaping the map. When hurricanes come roaring up the Atlantic seaboard, the Outer Banks are in the bull’s eye. But when the weather is lovely – like it has been this early October 2014 – it’s hard to imagine a more beautiful stretch of sand and sun. Kiteboarders, windsurfers, parasailors and sailors love the wind.

We started at the top: Corolla, home to the Colonial Spanish Mustangs, a herd of 100 that are direct descendants of horses shipwrecked centuries ago. Fast forward to the 21st century and these wild horses freely range the beaches, dunes and scrub brush of the narrow sandbar between the Atlantic Ocean and Currituck Sound, protected by the non-profit Corolla Wild Horse Fund.

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We loaded into the back of a 4WD truck, and setout with Corolla Outback Adventures to follow hoof prints in the sand. After driving between the dunes and into the maritime forest, we finally spotted one harem of six down by the ocean’s edge catching a little sea breeze to stay cool.

OBX – in particular, Kitty Hawk – is known for wind and for the “12 seconds that changed history.” This is where two bicycle-building brothers – Wilbur and Orville Wright – came to take advantage of the constant winds and the area’s seclusion to test their homemade flying machine. The year was 1903, and on a chilly December day they ran four successful flights – the shortest was 12 seconds and the longest 59 seconds. It was the first successful power-driven flight in world history and it cemented the Outer Banks as the Birthplace of Aviation. We saw it, walked it and soaked it up at the excellent Wright Brothers National Monument. Markers in the field show the exact start and stopping points of each flight, and indoor displays include reproductions of the brothers’ first wind tunnel machine and lightweight flying contraptions.

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Just a few miles down the road, Jockey’s Ridge State Park protects the tallest natural sand dune on the eastern seaboard (at 100 ft above sea level it’s not exactly nosebleed territory, but it is a very impressive sweep of sand). We took a long walk to the top of the dune for great views over the beachfront. We visited too late in the afternoon, but Wright-wannabes can sign up for hang gliding classes with the dune top as a take-off point.

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Part two of our OBX mission is to try as much fresh seafood as possible. Our favourite stop was an Outer Banks’ institution: Sam & Omie’s. Even in the off season, the place was hopping, packed with entrants in a women’s sportfishing tournament who knew where to find the best seafood meals. Sam & Omie’s began as an early breakfast hangout for local fisherman back in the late 1930s. These days, they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner and are known for the shrimp burger (a delicious pile of shrimp on a coleslaw-lined bun that is impossibly messy to eat) and the catch of the day (always right off the boat). We shared a Broiled Seafood Combo of shrimp and scallops with steamed collards on the side (got to get our iron-rich veggies for the day).

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Getting started . . .

Our plan is to blog from the road – short bits and pieces of what we love along the way (music, food, pet travel, history). Often we’re unable to squeeze these gems into our published writing (word count restrictions and all that), so the blog is a great way to make sure we get to include more detail.

Stay tuned for our first posts through October/November 2014, when we’re Hugging the Atlantic Coastline and then moving inland, in search of luscious seafood, long stretches of sand, a little history and lots of music.