Thin Green Line

by Erik Olsen on

I go on and on here about how much I love our country’s national parks. I don’t have a particular fondness for the National Park Service’s parent agency, The Department of the Interior (where I worked for two years and which, under the Bush administration has become, according to some, a wretched hive of scum and villainy). But the real people who make the National Park Service run are the rangers, the guys who are on the ground, taking care of the parks and making sure that visitors are both safe and educated about the value of the parks.

Well this may come as a surprise, but lots of other countries have national parks as well. And they have rangers too! Fancy that. And as you might imagine, each of these rangers has a story to tell. And what better way to bring that story to you, dear consumer of visual media, than through a movie.

And so, starting its grand unveiling today a new movie called The Thin Green Line is Out to tell the stories of rangers around the globe. From parks in Africa and Australia to those right here at home, the film is an epic document about how those people on the ground, are taking care of these vital resources. It’s an appropriate day to do this, by the way, because today is World Ranger Day, easily Yogi Bear’s most favorite day of the year…after World Honey Day, of course. Oh, and National Picnic Basket Day.

So take the time to head to a park this summer, and shake hands with a ranger.

Airplane! vs. Zero Hour!: A Comparison of Films

by Justin Glow on


Did you know that the 1980 Zucker brothers comedy, Airplane!, was a spoof-remake of Zero Hour!, a 1957 airplane disaster movie? I didn’t, and Airplane! was one of my favorite movies growing up. In fact, I credit this movie in a long list of influences that got me interested in travel as a child.

What’s especially funny is Zero Hour! wasn’t just inspiration for Airplane!, but an almost scene-by-scene remake. How could I have not known this? Fortunately, someone has done the legwork and compared the two movies side-by-side so it’s easy to see the similarities. Check out the first part above, and the second after the jump.

[via]

Toboggan Riding in Madeira

by Jamie Rhein on

A friend of mine is writing a fictional memoir of her mother’s life. It’s fictious because she is imagining the specific details, but the big picture events she is writing about, for the most part, happened. One big picture event was when her mother went to Madeira on a Canary Islands cruise as the personal maid of a wealthy woman. My writing group feasts on the details.

While doing research for the flavorful details she could add in to make the story about her mother’s trip more vivid and real, my friend came across information about wicker basket toboggan rides in Monte. This was a memory jog. Her mother told her about these when my friend was growing up. Even though my friend’s mother may have whizzed down the streets in a basket built for two years ago, you can still do this.

It took looking at this You Tube video for me to fully get the picture. This looks like a blast and funky enough that if you go here, you just have to do it. Here’s Louise Douglas’s account of her Canary islands travels. In her article, “Boatgirl,” she fills in details about her experiences that includes this ride.

Cycling in the Canary Islands

by Jamie Rhein on

While doing a bit of research on the Canary Islands for the post that was inspired by my friend’s story of her mother’s life as a lady’s maid on a cruise ship, I found this video on You Tube. Tenerife looks like a cyclist’s dream which is one reason why quintessentquirk posted this video. Quintssentquirk owns a cycling shop on the island. There’s an informative write up about the process of making this video and the song choice–“Kalifornia” by Kashmir.

Tenerife is one of those places where strong legs and lungs is an asset when bike riding. Watching this might entice you to hop on a bike.

LP Vids

by Erik Olsen on

With the explosion in video on the Internet, it has always seemed a no-brainer to me that travel would be a hot sector. I mean, cameras are so cheap these days and they are easy to carry with you (we might even have “watch” cameras one of these days). Editing tools can be found for free download, assuming you don’t already have imovie of Final Cut Pro. And the young traveler types who are most likely to have the time and freedom to explore the media-saturated world are also likely to have the skills to put together something and put it up online.

And so it goes.

Now, that said, there’s one company out there for which having a travel-related video Web site also seems a no-brainer. The travel guidebook company Lonely Planet. Well, if you haven’t seen the LP video site urge you to click on over and check it out. Like YouTube and so many other Web 2.0 sites, they allow users to upload video from their travels, some of which are good and some of which are, well, rather awful. This one from Thailand, for example, is, well, pretty horrible. But then there are the vids from the Bluelist series that are rather good. Take this one from Antarctica. I mean, if that doesn’t make you want to go, I don’t know what will.

If you have a camera and a way to digitize the footage, you can easy contribute to the Lonely Planet website. It’s very Web 2.0/YouTube in that way. And while they don’t have the vast number of vids like YouTube, there are plenty there to keep you entertained and to inspire you to plan your next trip. And if they pick your video for the LP “pick” seems they’ll even send you $50. Sweet!