Chicago named most mustache-friendly city in America

by Jessica Festa on

Chicago has recently been named the most “mustache-friendly” city in the United States by the American Mustache Institute (AMI). The research came in response to a “long-existing pattern of social and professional discrimination against Mustached Americans”.

Apparently, Chicago is leading the way in providing an ideal living and working environment for Mustached Americans. In fact, Dr. Aaron Xavier Perlut, chairman of AMI, claims, “Its vast pool of professional opportunities in first-responder fields and in the fishing industry centered around Lake Michigan, along with the heritage of retired Chicago Bears players who have continued to embrace a Mustached American lifestyle helped to set the Windy City Apart.”

Of course, with every achievement comes a celebration, which is why Chicago will be hosting a ‘Stache Bash on Friday, October 28, 2011, at Joe’s Bar on Weed Street. Tickets are $25 and include entertainment and beers. The event will serve as the opening for Movember, a world-wide mustache-growing charity campaign that works to raise awareness and contributions for the Prostate Cancer Foundation and LIVESTRONG, the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Photo of the day – Colorado hikers

by Alex Robertson Textor on

We’ve all been there, right? We’ve all embarked on a hike somewhat carelessly, having paid only distracted attention to the weather report, only to encounter the threat of really terrible weather ahead–and usually far too late to take normal precautions. Or we’ve done our weather forecast research with nerdy focus only to find that it was all wrong and the weather patterns have changed dramatically.

Usually, this sort of discovery happens during a tame weekend walk through some fields or over a hilly outcropping of rock on the outskirts of a city. In other words, the discovery of unwanted weather conditions happens only rarely in a natural setting as glorious as this one. This image was snapped by Flickr user AlphaTangoBravo in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado.

We’re always excited to add arresting images as Photos of the Day. Why not upload some of your favorite images to the Gadling Group pool on Flickr?

“Border Crisis” tour shows realities of life on Arizona-Mexico border

by Melanie Renzulli on


No matter what side of the fence you may be on regarding the U.S. immigration debate, there’s a tour in Arizona that wants to show you what migrant life is like along the U.S.-Mexico border. Gray Line Tours of Arizona now offers the tour Border Crisis: Fact or Fiction, which is designed to give travelers an apolitical look at a very sensitive subject.

Gray Line’s Border Crisis tour will take visitors to see the border fence, a pedestrian bridge connecting the United States and Mexico, and a working ranch that straddles the border. Travelers will get to watch Customs and Border Protection Agents in action and take a walk through the desert where hundreds of migrants try to cross into the U.S. each year. Another stop on the Border Crisis tour introduces travelers to 65-gallon plastic tanks installed by Humane Borders, a humanitarian organization whose “sole mission is to take death out of the immigration equation.” “It’s a hundred-and-something degrees out here. You’re dying of thirst. That’s what this is for, with or without a map, whether you found it on purpose or whether you stumbled across it,” says tour operator Bob Feinman in this CNN article about the tour.

Border Crisis: Fact or Fiction begins today and operates approximately every two weeks through next spring. The cost is $89 and it includes lunch.

Photo courtesy Gray Line Tours

Gawker’s Worst 50 States

by Elizabeth Seward on

I’ve been following Gawker’s newest series, The Worst 50 States. I’ve been enjoying following this series. In an effort to pin down not only the best states in the US of A, but, more importantly, the worst states, Gawker compiled a Gawker-invented rating system in order to rank our fair fifty. Granted, this rating system consists solely of the viewpoints of those on staff for Gawker, so the viewpoints are just about as biased as you would deem Gawker (Which might be not at all according to you!), but there’s some interesting stuff in there. Yes, they’re focusing on the bad more than the good, those damn pessimists, but all in all, fact or fiction, the commentary on the 50 states is makes me laugh. And, I’ll just throw this in there, I’ve been to 48 of the 50 states and much of every summary they make rings true to me. They’re not done wrapping up the states yet, but check out their analysis of most of the states here.

If you’re inflamed, saddened, or curling over with laughter after reading what’s so bad about your home state, come back here and tell us in the comments how Gawker made you feel.

The 5 ugliest states in the country

by Meg Nesterov on

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. San Francisco Examiner writer and occasional Gadling contributor Bob Ecker doesn’t behold much, at least for a few unlucky states. Ecker previously named the prettiest US states including coastal California, exotic Hawaii, diverse New York, historic Virginia, and verdant Washington. He’s now determined the unfortunate ugliest states, measured by landscape, not people:

  • Connecticut: the Constitution State is called a “suburban hell”
  • Delaware: small and boring
  • Kansas: land-locked and a “throwback,” in a bad way
  • Nevada: outside of Las Vegas, it’s a “desolate and forbidding wasteland” (what about Lake Tahoe, Bob?)
  • Oklahoma: another flat, hot, and boring state (don’t tell Lonely Planet’s Robert Reid, an OK native)

Obviously the article is tongue in cheek — there are beautiful corners in every great state in this country — but Ecker’s skewering provides a good starting point for thinking about vacation destinations. Do these places deserve to be called ugly? What do you think the ugliest states are?

Photo courtesy Flickr user Gage Skidmore