Carnage report: Travelocity’s Roaming Gnome visits the Gadling Labs

As our hangovers from this long holiday weekend begin to wane, more and more details from our time with Travelocity’s Roaming Gnome are coming forth.

It’s true, we got a little bit of flack from our peers when the little guy came out to visit the Gadling Labs, but our original hunch turned out to be true: irrespective of cross-promotional PR, live blogging, tweeting and hit sharing, people love to drink and take pictures with gnomes. That’s all there is to it, and that’s all we set out to do when we headed out this weekend. What a wild success.

To the best of our recollection, here’s how things unfolded:

Friday night: The gnome heads out in Ann Arbor, Michigan with Gadling’s Editor in Chief, Grant Martin on a bar crawl across the city, compelete with sangria, photo booths, skateboarders, shuffleboard, and no small share of whiskey.

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Saturday: The team barely makes it to Detroit Metro for a hop through Cincinnati into St. Louis, where Editor at Large Justin Glow is to be married. After an evening full or more gin than tonic with Gadling’s producer, Willy Volk, they turn in early for tomorrow’s activities.

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Sunday: Bound for New York City, the team flies from St. Louis to Newark and settles down on the Lower East Side of Manhattan where blogger Mike Barish has volunteered his digs. Into the city they careen, where the gnome meets a wide spectrum of personalities from the affable to the intoxicated to the downright creepy, with the crew finally ending up near Katz Deli at 4AM.

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Thanks to all who came out and had their photo taken, it was a once in a lifetime experience.

The Travelocity Gnome visits Gadling

As the summer of 2009 winds to a close, Travelocity’s Roaming Gnome is wrapping up his tour of America. He’s been across the country, visiting Pat O’Brien’s in New Orleans, the beaches of San Diego and the narrow streets of Philadelphia, bringing joy, affection and gnominess to all those around him.

There’s only one stop left: The Gadling Labs.

This weekend, the 300 year old Travelocity Gnome will be joining us in a whirlwind tour of the Midwest and Northeast. Starting tonight in Ann Arbor, Michigan, we’ll be hosting a bar crawl throughout the sleepy college town, after which you might see us anywhere between Cincinnati, St. Louis, Newark, or New York as we plow through this Labor Day weekend head on.

If you happen to be in the Wolverine State this evening, stop by Dominick’s in Ann Arbor at 8PM to join in the festivites and get your picture taken with the gnome. Otherwise, keep an eye on the @gadling, or @RoamingGnome Twitter feeds to get updates on all of the action.

We’ll be posting your photos with the gnome on Gadling and on the Roaming Gnome’s Twitter and Facebook sites early next week, so make sure that you take this opportunity to grab your slice of fame!

Gnome bandit reignites French-German hostilities

The French and the Germans have a long, complicated diplomatic history. Aside from the fierce hostilities that took place during World War I and World War II, the two countries frequently bicker over disputed boundaries, in particular the Alsace-Lorraine region. Though tensions have cooled noticeably in recent years, it looks as though a new “international incident” involving garden gnomes (?!) is once again stirring tensions.

According to Metro UK, a sneaky gentleman from France has been charged with stealing around 170 of the statues on both sides of the French-German border. Although the motivation for the crime has puzzled French authorities, some have speculated that it may be part of the work of a shadowy organization known as the Garden Gnome Liberation Front. At the very least, it seems to be only one in a long string of gnome-targeted attacks.

Could this be part of some vast international gnome conspiracy to topple the world order? I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure, though I have my suspicions that Travelocity’s annoying gnome mascot (or at least a clever marketing department) is somehow involved. Stay tuned.

Breaking News! Travelocity Gnome terrorizes South American town! Eats chickens! Steals babies!

Video from The Sun surfaced this morning showing an alleged gnome running around an Argentinian town, scaring the living daylights out of local teens. My thoughts are that this is either a hoax or a clever viral marketing campaign courtesy of Travelocity. Watch the video below and just try to fight the urge to book a three day two night cruise to Cancun and Belize. But it’s such a good deal!

Be sure to check out the Sun Article here.