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| From instagr.am |
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” — Mark Twain
The only thing better than getting to see the world is getting to see it along with someone who means the world to me – thank you for everything…
… I can’t wait to see what comes next!
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Whether it’s halfway around the world or a few blocks down the street I live on, sometimes the smallest things can make a trip to the grocery store fresh again.
Luckily for me, I had my phone handy yesterday when these details included sugar Coke mixed in with corn syrup Coke, new brands of orange drink, several fruits & vegetables I’d never seen before and Hannah Montana piñatas…
It’s cool tonight – down to 102! – and Phoenicians on bikes, myself included, take to the streets to celebrate 🙂
Love that it’s cooler, that I think 102 is cooler now, and that there were more pedestrians and bikers in the street on the way home tonight than cars… I’ve said it before but there are beautiful sunsets here – they reflect in the glass on the office buildings – and I’m still not tired of palm trees.
We dropped our bikes off at the apartment and hit the road in the dusk and on the way to the car Steven caught up w me, kissed my neck, and said my sweat tastes good…
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Things here in Phoenix have been heating up lately, and not just because it’s May and the temperatures are steadily, inevitably climbing towards the 100’s. There’s this little thing called SB-1070 that has been in the news recently, and now this is the hotspot for politics as well as border crossing traffic. It’s the perfect summer to be in the newsroom looking at border issues – and having a bit of a travel budget is the icing on the cake.
Let’s take a quick rundown of last week, for example. On Monday, we rose early to be downtown in Phoenix by 4am to see Telemundo broadcast a live immigration special and the audience’s reaction. (they covered the issue in-depth again two days later)
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Next, my teammates and I made a run to Tucson, Arizona to interview several contacts there and sit in on Operation Streamline hearings. Operation Streamline started in Del Rio, Texas, but is now operational all along the border and making news and encouraging debate again along with SB-1070.
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Finally, while my team headed back to cover Saturday’s protest events, I spent one more day in Tucson to ride along on a Samaritan patrol. My classmates and I have been in talks to do a Border Patrol ride along too, as both are great ways to get out and see the landscape and understand what people are literally going through.
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11 little things a girl from Kansas loves about living in Phoenix…
– desert plants like cacti and palo verdes
– wearing my “summer clothes” year round
– amazing sunsets
– sounds of movement: traffic, light rail, and helicopters
– downtown is flat but surrounded by mountains
– biking to school
– seeing planes que up for landing at Sky Harbor
– the tunnel on the 10
– being about 5 hours from both LA and Nogales
– desert driving gives me the big sky feeling of my Flint Hills
– palm trees
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| From Phoenix (2010) |
Here’s the announcement – after a little bit of background information on the United Arab Emirates and, in particular, the emirate of Dubai.
Dubai has been in the news a bit this fall – like the rest of the world, the country’s finances are less ideal than they have been in the past. Recent coverage in US media includes Wall Street Journal‘s Dubai: A High Rise, Then a Steep Fall on Dec 4 and the New York Times‘ photo essay Dubai’s Improbably Tale.
This Monday, the BBC reported more mixed news, with Abu Dhabi gives Dubai $10bn to help pay debts and Gulf News had this article: Dubai issues new legal framework to deal with Dubai World disputes. All this may be especially relevant to Phoenix, given the relationship between the two cities.
As far as regular and background information, one of the best sites is Gulf News. More coverage can often be found through Al Jazeera English and the BBC’s regional coverage.
To finish the background information, you can’t talk about Dubai without talking about the construction…
So, why all the information about Dubai? Well, when I posted this October entry, I had just heard about an opportunity – I was in a hopeful mood, and now that it’s finalized, I can make a bit of an announcement…
I’ll be taking a trip over winter break through ASU Study Abroad. The program is called A Tale of Two Cities – Dubai and Phoenix. It’s led by Jamil AlShraiky who specializes in healthcare design industry at ASU’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. As for the troup, we’re an interdisciplinary bunch including students from design, healthcare, and journalism programs. The blog is already up here.
Yes, I’m REALLY excited, and yes, I’ll be writing about it. How much will be posted live from on-site will depend on internet access, which has been described as “really good dial-up…we’re sure it will work if your computers are right.” But there will definitely be somethings as the trip unfolds, as well as (probably tons of) pictures by mid-January when we get back.
This year, winter break means two trips. The second I’ll be describing shortly, but the first (the one I’m on at the moment, actually, is about family, and friends (or fronds, as my phone would prefer me to type) and holidays. From start to finish, we’ll be in six states but I bet that our first day drive from Phoenix, AZ to Elk City, OK will be a tough record to beat.
A few short notes from the road:
On a roadtrip long, long ago, my mother mentioned that those blue shipping trucks with the yellow Werner logos remind her of her cousin. Now, whenever I see them I think of family, and they’re everywhere.
Here are the lights of Albuquerque, New Mexico. This was our first goal – we wanted to get at least this far. While it wasn’t that late when we passed through – maybe around 7pm – it had been this dark for at least an hour. Stopping was really, really tempting! But we pushed on…
When on a roadtrip one of the most important things is keeping your car in top gear. In our case we’ve been considering new tires for a little while now, so we’ve Steven’s been keeping a close eye on them. We started day 2 by topping off the air pressure in Elk City after a major breakfast lunch.
And finally, don’t forget to enjoy the stops along the way. While the goal is technically to end up where we began – a full circuit – we wouldn’t be making the trip in the first place if it wasn’t for the people we’ll be seeing along the way. At my aunt and uncle’s house, we frosted a large tray of tiny cookies before my cousins and their kids arrived for dinner. We had a really lovely stay (thank you!) and it was great to see everyone. For our route, see the Google map below, which may need to be zoomed out a bit.
Now we’re in Lawrence, where it was nearly snowing when we pulled in through a wintry haze, and after the dentist on Tuesday afternoon – the 6th state and holidays at Steven’s family. So… until the next entry, I’ll be focused on staying warm – and collecting road trip stories from you! Please hit the comments button and tell me about a road trip you’ve taken – it can be your last one, favorite one, or worst one, as long as you share!
“Pictures of pictures” is my attempt at a catchy name for photos of artwork. In other words, any image I’m taking a picture of – a painting, a sculpture, a document, stained glass – sometimes even another photo. One reason to do this is to remember the information, though usually it’s to remember the image itself. This is probably the one I plan the least – often, I don’t realize what I’ve done till afterward. Plus, it’s not quite as clear cut a category as, say, people, or planes. At the time, I’m thinking, “Oh, wow – I want to see this again!” or “That is so cool, I want to remember it!” Some trips generate crazy amounts of “pix of pix” or POP photos; other trips, just a handful or none at all. Museums are great for this, and also graffiti, billboards, and even advertisements.
Surprisingly, I’ve already turned up a number of pictures from Phoenix, partly due to my summer photography class and partly to researching historical neighborhoods for class. There was even enough for a whole post just on Rosita’s. Many of the remaining POP photos fell into two categories – ones I’d taken for my summer photography class and ones I’d taken for class assignments in the journalism program.
Photography class
First, playing with a borrowed DSLR at night. I took an awesome online photography class from Karen Russell. I needed a DSLR to take the class, difficult on a student budget. In a deeply generous move that made taking the class possible, I was loaned a Canon Rebel. The experience was amazing. I learned so much from the class, the camera, and the combination. There’s a whole new photographic world out there I knew nothing about which now fascinates me! This is a downtown building, Trinity Cathedral, which lights up nearly every evening for at least a few hours. I wanted to try to capture the windows.
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Another lesson of photography class (which also bled neatly into journalism) was to notice the details. That lesson had me taking a few pictures like these before I knew our first photo assignment for our media class.
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Now, for me, photography’s a learning experience, one I’ve far from mastered! But that’s the thing about learning – it’s a journey itself, and for this case, the picture to remember it by are built right in.
The Air is Full of Spices 