Great American Road Trip: Travel books for the road-4 of 4: Are We There Yet?

by Jamie Rhein on

When on a road trip with family–i.e., spouse, kids and possibly in-laws or parents, a travel book that delves into similar situations is a welcome companion. There is an uplifting quality to being able to recognize aspects of the life you are living to what you are reading.

If any of you with children wonder if your best traveling days are over, pick up the 4th travel book I read on my road trip to Montana from Ohio and back. According to this one, your best days are at hand, but only if you grab your family and head out to points beyond the familiar.

#4 Are We There Yet? Perfect Family Vacations and Other Fantasies–Scott Haas

Laura and I knew if we got out and saw the countryside, everything would be fine. The mountains are filled with sanitariums and spas where for at least two centuries the wealthiest, most miserable, worried, and confused people in the world have come to look at the snow-capped Alps and listen to doctors and therapists tell them everything will be fine. Everything will be just fine. I would have liked to hear a doctor say those words to me. But how could we get into the mountains? We couldn’t even see them through the rain and fog.
Scott Haas, the author of this book is a writer commentator for NPR, public radio who I have heard on “The Splendid Table.” He also covers food and restaurants in “Here and Now.” Besides knowing great food and the people who make it, Haas knows how to capture the essence of family vacations in a way that makes you think you are with him where he is, like the Swiss Alps as described in the excerpt.

Of the four books I read, his is one that fits an any one person’s experience. I don’t mean that the book is mundane, but what Haas does is show how people can incorporate lovely travel experiences into their lives with a family. It’s the having a family in the experiences that actually make them grand.

The book starts off with his first vacation with his wife right after their daughter was born. The goal was to head off to Switzerland to stay in a cottage in order to enjoy their new family group. It ends with the children at ages 15 and 12 and the knowledge that life is shifting. The 12-year-old is a son.

Throughout the book, Haas makes observations about himself and his wife, children and the people who periodically join them –and of course the food they eat. This is not a how-to book, but more of a memoir that is engaging and funny. There are travel successes and travel nightmares, such as the time the fog set in in the alps and they had to crawl.

Instead of trotting between many places, the Haas family tends to go to one country and stay put. They stay several nights at once place in order to soak up the scene and blend in. Although, they take in sites, the notion is to not be tourists.

They also repeat places that they’ve been before–not all the time, but the places they like the best. Italy and Switzerland are the most favorite. Greece was not a hit because the food was so bad.

One aspect I really liked about this book is that squabbles are part of the deal when traveling with family, but the Haas family doesn’t let that stop them from heading out. Haas shares his experiences so it feels as if you’re sitting in the room watching and thinking, yep–I’ve been there.

He also illustrates how everyone does not have to be on the same page going at the same speed. One advantage of staying in a place for a length of time is that people can go at their own pace according to their own pattern.

Because Haas also is a psychologist, he has a certain way of making observations that are engaging. As I mentioned, he puts himself into the mix. As a person with a six-year-old son and a 15-year-old daughter, I could relate to much of this book, although spending more than $400 at The French Laundry, is not in my realm of travel jaunts. That’s where being a writer for “The Splendid Table” comes in handy.

I read this one through Iowa and Indiana.

Big in Japan: How to take a bath without losing your honor

by Matthew Firestone on

As I’ve said before, summer is in full effect here in Tokyo, which means that the temperature is soaring and the humidity is saturating. And, if your glands are anywhere near as prolific as mine are, this means that you’re probably sweating through pretty much everything that you’re wearing.

The Japanese are renowned for their admirable attention to hygiene and cleanliness, which presents a bit of a problem if your BO starts to act up in the long summers. While successive applications of a strong deodorant are certainly good measures to take before stepping on the subway, there is a uniquely Japanese way to stay so fresh and so clean.

Scattered throughout Tokyo are a good number of sent? (????), which are public and communal bath houses that you can seek refuge in if your sweat starts stink. Of course, taking a bath in Japan is a bit different than your home country, though fortunately it’s not too difficult to scrub down without losing your honor.

On that note, today’s posting is a quick and dirty (er, clean) guide to taking a bath the Japanese way…

As you might imagine, the most difficult part of taking a bath in Japan is sometimes finding a sentō, especially if you don’t read or speak Japanese. Fortunately for lost foreigners, bath houses are usually marked by a curtain containing the kanji 湯 (yu, hot water), or the corresponding hiragana, ゆ.

Once inside, remove your shoes and place them in the locker before paying your admission fee. Public sentōs usually cost only a few dollars, though you might have to pay a bit more to rent a ‘modesty towel’ as well as some soap, shampoo and conditioner.

After paying, keep in mind that bath houses are divided into male and female quarters, so be sure to choose the right side. Again, if you can’t read or speak Japanese, a good indicator is the color of the curtain marking each entrance: blue is for guys, pink is for gals.

The next room you enter will be a changing room, where you should strip down completely. While spas in the West allow you to wear a bathing suit, in Japan the preferred costume is your birthday suit. If you’re feeling a bit shy, the previously mentioned modesty towel is usually big enough to cover your sensitive bits and pieces.

From here, it’s time to enter the bathing area, though don’t lose your honor by jumping straight into the pool. On the contrary, you need to scrub down everything (and I mean everything) at the line of shower stalls along the wall. The principle idea here is that you will be completely clean before entering the bath water, so when in doubt, keep scrubbing.

Once you’re sufficiently clean, and you’ve removed all of the soap (this is important!), you can now enter the bath water. Generally speaking, it’s considered bad form to dunk your head, enter the tub with your modesty towel or wash yourself vigorously in the bath. However, assuming you avoid these pitfalls, you can pretty much sprawl out and soak your cares away.

While you can stay as long as you’d like, a good hour or two is generally enough time to give yourself a good cleaning. On the way out, be sure to top up with a bottle of ice cold green tea, or if it’s a bit later in the day, a frothy pint of draft beer. And, while there is a good chance that you’ll start to sweat immediately upon leaving the onsen, at least you’ve washed away any potentially offending bacteria.

** All images courtesy of the WikiCommons Media Project **

Branson Claims It’s Easy to be Green

by Josh Lew on

After he sends people into space, Richard Branson will have his eyes on something a little closer to earth. Pond scum.

A well-publicized Virgin Airlines test flight earlier this year proved that a plane could stay aloft powered by a mixture of gas and bio-fuel made from coconut. Since then, Branson has been reminding naysayers that bio-fuel is a reasonable alternative and is the future of air travel.

Of course, some people are skeptical. If a new type of fuel gums up a car’s engine, that’s one thing. But if it happens to an airplane’s engine in mid-air….

Still, high gasoline prices have made it hard to ignore the eccentric Englishman’s ideas. But will corn or coconut prove a long-term source of fuel?

A study at the University of Minnesota has found a new source that is much cheaper: common algae. According to Reuters, the study shows that algae produces as much as 5,000 gallons of usable oil per acre. Corn, the crop currently championed to produce bio-fuel for cars, produces a mere 18 gallons per acre.

Clearly the future for algae as a bio-fuel is promising. Using it will not affect the price of food the way corn, coconut or soy-based gases do. But the reality is that algae fuels are a long way off.

Product review – iFrogz Audiowrapz for the iPod Nano

by Scott Carmichael on

If you have been keeping up with my reviews, you’ll have realized that I love taking my music with me on the road. Previous reviews have looked at a portable speaker, an iPod battery pack and a pair of noise canceling iPhone headphones. Clearly, you will have seen the trend by now; I love gadgets like this.

My review today is no different. The iFrogz Audiowrapz are the first iPod case with built in passive speakers.

The Audiowrapz are made for the newest generation iPod Nano, and provide a dual function; they protect the iPod, and they turn your little Nano into what we used to call “a ghetto blaster”. The audiowrapz case is made of silicone rubber, but it has been treated with a non-stick coating to prevent dust and other debris sticking to it.

To use the case, you simply fold the back down, and slide your iPod Nano into it. The case connects to the headphone jack on the bottom of your iPod. If you want to listen to your headphones, you can use the “pass through” jack on the bottom of the case, when you insert your headphones, the speakers turn off. When your iPod is in the Audiowrapz case, you will not have access to the dock connector on the bottom, so you will need to remove it for charging or syncing.

The speakers in the audiowrapz case are “passive”, which means they don’t require batteries. Of course, with passive speakers, you won’t get the same volume as a set of powered speakers (yeah, I was just joking by comparing it to a ghetto blaster), but the sound is more than enough to provide some nice background music, or even to wake you up in the morning if you use the alarm setting on your iPod.

Included in the package is of course the case, but you also get an iPod screen protector. The iFrogz Audiowrapz are currently on sale for just $14.99, and you can select one of 8 colors, varying from boring gray, to bright pink. The Audiowrapz were the only case to be voted “best of show” at the 2008 Macworld and CES trade shows by iLounge and iProng magazine, so don’t just take my word for it; this case rocks!

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Actor on NWA plane strikes a flight attendant and hits an officer

by Iva Skoch on

After the issue with the wife of Joel Osteen, here comes another anger management case from the pressurized cabin.

A veteran character actor, E.D. Nixon Jr., was arrested for allegedly assaulting a flight attendant and a police officer at Memphis International Airport on Tuesday.

The 80-year-old actor, the son of a leading organizer in the Montgomery bus boycotts, is accused of striking a flight attendant on a Northwest Airlines plane and then hitting an officer.

Nixon was taken to the local hospital for treatment of high blood pressure and elevated blood sugar before being transported to jail in Memphis.

(He is being held on $1,000 bond, in case anyone is interested in bailing him out.)

Other crazy tales from the sky …