The well-known Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta is fast approaching, and one of our Gadling Flickr Pool members submitted a teaser shot of sorts, from a smaller festival in Louisiana. Have you ever encountered a balloon festival on your travels?
We’d love to feature your photos and videos on Gadling, so please add them to our Flickr Pool (with Creative Commons licensing!), tag @GadlingTravel on Instagram or email us at OfTheDay@gadling.com.
In his preface to a collection of stories called “The Kindness of Strangers,” His Holiness the Dalai Lama wrote, “Kindness and compassion are among the principal values that make our lives meaningful… At any given moment there must be hundreds of millions of acts of kindness taking place around the world.”
That theme infuses the five travelers’ tales Aol Travel is highlighting this week, all portraying acts of unexpected kindness in a globe-embracing spectrum of settings, from Syria and Liberia to India, Greece and Russia. These acts are not dramatic or headline commanding, but small, everyday kindnesses.
With the House Republicans and virtually everyone else in government refusing to play nice, it appears the U.S. might be headed toward another costly shutdown. How might this affect the travel industry?
First, if you’re planning to visit Yosemite or any other national park, start making other vacation plans. A government shutdown means all national parks, government-owned museums like the Smithsonian and other attractions will be closed. All employees considered non-essential –- which, if you’ve ever spent any time with a Park Ranger, you know that’s a complete lie -– will be furloughed and not paid during any shutdown.
This is a massive blow to not only travelers, but the folks whose livelihoods depend on those travelers, like the diner waitresses near the National Zoo or the hotel owners throughout Acadia National Park. According to the Christian Science Monitor, during the 26-day government shutdown in 1995 and 1996, the closure of those sites meant a net loss of 9 million visitors and untold millions in lost revenue to the surrounding communities.
While passport workers will likely remain on duty, expect rampant delays. During the last shutdown, more than 200,000 passport applications went unprocessed. Tens of thousands of entry visas for foreign travel also went unprocessed each day.
Air-traffic controllers and Homeland Security personnel should remain on the job, but it’s not known if a potential shutdown will affect their jobs in other ways.
This post references events from the series finale of Breaking Bad. If you haven’t yet seen the episode, don’t read any further.*****
During last night’s Breaking Bad series finale, Walter White drives a stolen Volvo nearly 3,000 miles from New Hampshire to New Mexico.
Although he’s estranged from nearly everyone in his life at this point, under different circumstances the cross-country trek would have made for an excellent family road trip, filled with fun for the whole extended White/Schrader clan. So gas up the RV and hit the road with this Breaking Bad-inspired road trip, bitch.
First up is a stop at the Herkimer Diamond Mine in Herkimer, New York, where Hank could search for rocks — ahem, I mean minerals — to his heart’s content. Alas, the mine’s name is a bit of a misnomer, you’re actually much more apt to find cheap quartz crystals than actual diamonds. Admission is $10 for adults and $8 for children.
Marie would love a visit to the Lambert Castle Museum in Paterson, New Jersey, where she can take in the world’s largest collection of antique and souvenir spoons. The 5,400 spoons come from as far away as Egypt and Holland and are extremely rare, so please refrain from slipping one discreetly in your purse.
No Breaking Bad-inspired cross-country trek would be complete without a visit to the Chemical Heritage Foundation’s museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Walter White could spend hours visiting the various exhibits, including the aptly titled Sensing Change and Making Modernity. Asking how to properly cook blue sky is frowned upon though. Admission is free.
Before entering the museum, be sure to swing by Hats in the Belfry on South Street to pick up your own black porkpie hat and shades.
By this time, Walt, Jr. would have probably worked himself up quite an appetite. Flynn, a true breakfast aficionado, would appreciate Papa’s Pancake House in Indianapolis. Order the eggs, hashbrowns and bacon, and if it’s your birthday, don’t forget to spell out your age with the fried pig meat.
(Papa’s fried chicken is pretty good as well, but perhaps not as tasty as Twisters in Alburqurque, which served as Los Pollos Hermanos’ stand-in.)
There can be such a thing as too much family time, so Skyler might want to get in some more pool time. The Joule Hotel in Dallas, Texas, features an incredible rooftop infinity pool that sticks out eight feet from the building’s exterior.
What would you add? Where do you think would Jesse go? Where would Saul want to visit? After the road trip, who would head straight to Belize?
Perhaps wanting to relive one of the most climatic moments from the movie “Speed,” a Texas man allegedly stole an airport bus and drove it around the tarmac this weekend.
Police say David Cooper Thurmond snuck onto the Easterwood Airport runway early Saturday morning, stole the 22-person passenger transport and drove it around for an undisclosed amount of time before he was confronted by airport staff. Homeland Security probably won’t be relieved to know Thurmond was apparently able to enter the airport through an unlocked pedestrian gate on the south side of the general aviation terminal.
Thurmond may have been attempting another sort of joyride; after police arrived, it was determined the seal on an American Eagle passenger plane had been broken, causing a three-hour delay later that day.
After his arrest, Thurmond was charged with assault, criminal trespassing and theft greater than $20,000 but less than $100,000.
News reports have yet to disclose if the 54-year-old Texan was intoxicated or otherwise under the influence at the time. Anyone willing to place a wager on this?