Photo of the day (11.26.09)

by Kent Wien on

Today’s photo of the day was actually taken by me. I did a search on the Gadling Flickr page and this seemed most fitting for today. The only dilema was that I took the shot. How can I ‘award’ myself the Photo of the Day?

Oh, well. I just did. The turkey cloud just cracks me up.

Happy Thanksgiving for those of you in the U.S.A.

Are you a Flickr user who’d like to share a travel related picture or two for our consideration? Submit it to Gadling’s group right now! We just might use it for our Photo of the Day!

Eel, venison, and pumpkin pudding: where to get a really traditional Thanksgiving

by Sean McLachlan on

As we sit down to eat huge quantities of turkey, pumpkin pie, and cranberries, we might want to remember that this traditional Thanksgiving feast isn’t so traditional. Like all traditions, Thanksgiving dinner has changed over time and has little in common with the event that inspired it.

Most history books mark the first Thanksgiving as the feast the Pilgrims had at Plymouth Colony after their first harvest in 1621, even though there had been a Thanksgiving feast at Berkeley Plantation in 1619, and various Thanksgiving feasts by Spanish settlers in Florida and the Southwest decades beforehand. Inconvenient historical facts aside, let’s look at what everyone ate on that “first”, most famous Thanksgiving.

No exact menu exists, but several accounts of the feast let us make a good guess at what they served, and even come up with a list of recipes. The Wampanoag tribe had saved the Pilgrims from starvation by showing them how to catch eels and gather food from the forest, so we can imagine eel would have been included. There’s also specific mention of wild turkey (much smaller than today’s hormone-stuffed factory turkeys), venison, and cornbread. Pumpkin pudding was also on the table. Pumpkin pie wasn’t invented until years later.

If this is all sounding tasty, why not try it out yourself? Plymouth, MA, runs a series of events every November to celebrate the season. This year they sponsored National Indian Pudding Day (cornmeal with molasses, yum!) to showcase what they call “one of the ugliest, yet great tasting, bicultural culinary treats”. There’s also a series of dinners with traditional fare, some of which you can still catch. If you’re too full to eat another bite, don’t worry because they’ll do it all again next year. You may also want to check out these other historic Thanksgiving places for their events.

Pass the Indian pudding, please, but hold the eel. I tried it in Denmark and I can’t say I’m a fan.

Seven travel-related things to be thankful for

by Katie Hammel on

While travel as the act of discovering a new place can be exhilarating and exciting, travel as the act of being in transit can be annoying and exhausting. Long lines, delays, rude people and all the frustrations that go along with moving large amounts of people from A to B can make the physical movement involved with travel something to really complain about. But this Thanksgiving, I wanted to take a step back and think about all the travel-related things that we do have to be thankful for.

I’m thankful for the airlines.
I know, I know, we spend a lot of time griping about all the things the airlines are doing wrong. They run late, they lose our luggage and they charge us extra for everything, but without them, traveling would be a completely different experience. Thanks to the airlines, we can leave home and arrive on the other side of the world within a day – a single day. That kind of immediate access to a far off country was unfathomable just a few decades ago. Back then undertaking a long-distance journey meant days, if not weeks spent on a train or a trans-Oceanic boat ride. And for all but the rich, that kind of travel was cramped, uncomfortable, dirty, and often dangerous. So I’m thankful for the airlines, for making long-distance travel quick, affordable and safe, and for allowing us to travel the world with relative ease.
I’m thankful for hardworking airline and airport staff.
I’m very grateful to airline staff, especially to the good pilots (you know, the ones who aren’t too drunk, crazy or horny to do their jobs) who do everything in their power to get us all to our destinations safely. I’m thankful for mechanics, baggage handlers and ground crew who work hard and are rarely recognized for it (Seriously, just think about the massive coordination it must require to sort, load and unload all that luggage and you’ll be surprised more isn’t lost). And I am very, very thankful for the cheerful flight attendants who probably put up with far too much crap from stressed and cranky fliers, yet still manage to serve my vodka and cranberry drinks promptly and with a smile.
I’m thankful that booze is still served on flights.
Chris Elliot may think it’s time to get rid of the booze on flights, but as a nervous flier, this girl needs a cocktail or two to help stay calm during rough flights. I’m even more thankful for the handful of carriers that still offer free drinks on international flights. You guys get my business over an airline that charges for drinks, every time.
I’m thankful for a job that allows me to travel
It’s easy to lament the high cost of traveling or that fact that we never seem to have enough vacation time to fulfill all our travel dreams. But the truth is, for most middle-class workers, travel is very attainable. With a little bit of penny pinching and some attention to the budget, most people can scrape together enough money for at least one vacation per year.
But for the thousands of Americans who are supporting a family on an income that is at or below the poverty line, no amount of “cutting back” will allow them to afford a week in Spain, let alone a weekend in Florida. So I am thankful that my husband and I are able to earn an income that allows us to explore the world.
I’m thankful for the internet.
Before the internet, booking a trip was a difficult process, one best left to the professionals. But the invention of the internet and its easy access to nearly unlimited information has changed the way we plan trips. Now anyone can go online, search for the best flight fares, book tickets, search for a hotel, check the reviews, and make reservations all with a few clicks.
And even though we complain when wi-fi isn’t free at hotels and airports, I’m still just grateful that it exists at all. With wireless internet, I can stay connected and get important work done while I am waiting in the airport terminal, at my hotel, and even while I am 35,000 feet in the air! The idea of being “location independent”, of working from anywhere remotely, was unheard of 10-15 years ago. Now thousands of people are able to explore the world and stay connected to their careers.


I’m thankful for my American passport.
As an American, I am free to go almost anywhere in the world knowing that in most cases (with the exceptions of North Korea, Cuba….and maybe Paris), I’ll be welcomed with open arms. People in many other countries aren’t so lucky. For people of many other countries the Visa process is a long, complicated and expensive one, one that usually ends in rejection. Would-be visitors are turned away from our (and other) borders every day. Because we fear they may be terrorists or because we wonder if they might not plan on ever leaving, we refuse to let them in. But it’s very rare that we ever hear of an American tourist being denied entry to another country. It’s one thing I take for granted, but I’m very thankful that I have the freedom to travel the world as I please.

I’m thankful for my husband and my home.
I enjoy traveling by myself and with friends, but I love traveling with my husband the most. So I am thankful that I not only have a person in my life who loves me and supports my travel habit, but who also loves to travel as a couple with me. And I am thankful that after I venture out into the world, I have a loving home to return to.

So today, and everyday, let’s remember all the little things we have to be thankful for!

5 Places to See Wild Turkeys

by Andrew Evans on

The quintessential American bird is typically spotted on your dining room table, naked and headless, with a plastic thermometer thingy stuck in its butt–but, such was not the case with our early pilgrim ancestors who first laid eyes on these magnificent fowl in 17th-century Massachusetts. Real wild turkeys are truly a site to behold, so this Thanksgiving, why not step away from the TV and go find some actual live turkeys doing real turkey things? Honestly, it’s not as hard as you think (New Jersey Turnpike, anyone?). Here are five destinations to get you started:

1. Long Island, New York Who would have thunk it? But yeah, New York state is home to around 300,000 turkeys, of which approximately one percent thrive in the backyards of Long Island. Do the locals embrace this living emblem of American heritage? No, all they do is complain about the mess. Sigh.

2. Edgefield, South Carolina Not only was the Palmetto State the first to secede from the Union, it’s also the world headquarters for the National Wild Turkey Federation. Yes America, we have a theme park for everything, including a Wild Turkey Center dedicated to preserving turkeys so that hunters can keep shooting them. Activities include learning to stalk turkeys and classes in making turkey calls.

3. Western Oklahoma
There are A LOT of wild turkeys in Oklahoma, especially in the western counties along the Texas border. Forget making hand turkeys this year. Instead, print up this nifty, informative practice target and pretend you’re a really hungry pilgrim.

4. Big Island, Hawaii Back in 1961, an intrepid farmer imported 400 wild turkeys from Texas to his ranch on the Big Island. He must have had a lousy fence, because an estimated 30,000 wild turkeys now roam the volcanic highlands of Hawaii, about half of them on the Big Island.

5. Pennsylvania After wild turkey populations dwindled nationwide, it was the good old birds of Pennsylvania that helped repopulate the rest of the country. Today, the state is home to nearly half a million wild turkeys who hang out in the back hills and hollows, eluding hunters and reproducing even more. The thing about Pennsylvania is that basically, if you go sit in the woods and wait long enough, you’re pretty much gonna see a turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving then, and may all your turkey searching be as successful as the first time Americans went into the woods.

Get out and go: Events around the world (November 25-30)

by Brenda Yun on

If you’re living in America, you know what’s happening this Thursday. For those of you who aren’t in New York to catch the Thanksgiving Day Parade, there are other awesome activities going on this weekend. If you’re close and have time, then you have no excuse to get out and go!

  • Charlotte – The Carolinas Thanksgiving Day Parade will be held this Thursday, November 26. This 62th annual parade is one of the largest get togethers of Carolinians that takes place during the year.
  • Brunei – Brunei’s annual Festival of Sacrifice will be held this Friday, November 27. This is also known as Hari Raya Korban or Hari Raya Aidiladha. Goats and cows are sacrificed to commemorate the actions of the Islamic Prophet Ibrahim. The meat is then distributed among relatives, friends and the less fortunate.
  • England – The Draught for Drought Winter Beer Festival will be held at the New Inn in Witney from November 26-29. The festival will have an extensive selection of ales, traditional cuisine, and live entertainment. The event is a benefit for the African Children’s Fund’s “Draught for Drought” program. The proceeds help East African communities to find sustainable ways of capturing and storing water.

If you make it to one of these events, let us know how it was, or if you know of an event that’s coming up, please let us know and we’ll be sure to include it in the next “Get out and go” round-up.