Extreme seagull steals GoPro camera in Cannes, treats us to bird’s eye view

by Justin Delaney on

Seagulls are annoying bird brained creatures – beach vagrants with a tendency to pilfer picnics and poop on heads. This seagull in Cannes, France goes one step further, making off with some electronics and filming his proud heist. The enterprising seagull thieves a GoPro video camera and absconds with it to his secret hideout. The comedic shouts of an enraged human fades as the bird takes to the sky. Upon reaching his roost, the gull cackles like a madman, perhaps mocking the victims of this theft. And then…he tries to eat the camera, destroying his credibility as a filmmaker. Somehow the owner of the camera tracked down the displaced gadget and retrieved this strange video.

Boston Celebrates Its Bruins with a Massive Parade

by Paul Brady on
I wasn’t going to be in Boston on Saturday morning. But with the city planning to celebrate its sports heroes, who won the Stanley Cup after a drought of nearly 40 years, I tore up my road trip schedule and made a beeline for Beantown.

Riding on Boston’s famous Duck Boats, the team paraded through the streets, holding the cup aloft as hundreds of thousands cheered. Goodwill was everywhere, and it lasted through the weekend: On Sunday, the Bruins threw out ceremonial first pitches at Fenway Park as the baseball faithful gave a standing ovation. With the cup now in Boston, the city can safely brag that it is indeed Titletown, USA.

Traveling the American Road – Boston Bruins Celebration Parade


The Secret Lost World of New York’s Finger Lakes

by Paul Brady on

The funny thing about road trips is that you end up spending a lot of time behind the wheel of your car. There’s always another city to get to, asphalt to be consumed, another waypoint to hit. So by the time I pulled into Watkins Glen, a small town in New York’s Finger Lakes region, I was ready to get out and stretch my legs.

Fortunately, the village is home to one of the coolest state parks in New York, hidden in plain sight, right off the main drag.

Traveling the American Road – Watkins Glen State Park


Watkins Glen State Park is home to a “staircase of waterfalls” that cascade down through innumerable layers of shale and sandstone, guarded by towering cliff faces from which heavy drops of condensation fall, splashing on hikers’ heads. It’s a Lost World here, with electric green ferns dangling, water whooshing over ledges and swirling in natural Jacuzzis, mist hanging heavily in the air and amateur naturalists armed with telescoping aluminum walking sticks and floppy, broad-brimmed hats. (Another secret of the park is that the pathway along Glen Creek, while sometimes slippery, is hardly a technical hike.)

The park is a verdant escape, a place for a one-hour break from reality, planted right in the heart of a town best known as a car-racing capital, the home to Watkins Glen International, one of the country’s most storied road tracks. There’s no doubt the park gets crowded on the weekends, but during my Wednesday morning visit? I was happy to have my time outside the car to myself.

Video: Spring backcountry skiing – beware the bears!

by Kraig Becker on

It’s no secret that the western U.S. has had its fair share of snow this year. In fact, there has been so much powder that the skiing has continued well into the spring in some locations. Of course, late seasons skiing comes with its own unique perils, as the two skiers in the video below found out recently.

Shot on Mt. Tallac, a 9739-foot peak to the southwest of Lake Tahoe, in late May, the video shows two backcountry skiers out for a few late season runs. But if you watch closely, you’ll see that they ran into more than they had bargained for when the cameraman skis right past a bear.

Having no doubt just awoken from its winter slumber, the groggy bear was likely just as surprised to see the skiers. Fortunately, no one was hurt in this encounter, but I’m sure a few hearts skipped a beat.

Backcountry Surprise! from David Wonser on Vimeo.

Inside the WBEZ Studios in Chicago to Learn about the Rust Belt

by Paul Brady on

At the outset of my trip, I needed some guidance. A sort of Rust Belt Virgil, willing and able to orient me to the exciting and dynamic and tragic state of the Great Lakes region. With my route passing through Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland, there seemed no one better for the job than Micki Maynard, a journalist now spearheading a public radio project called Changing Gears.

More than just a radio show, Changing Gears is a multi-year, multimedia effort that aims to tell the stories of people in the Great Lakes, through radio, yes, but also online and in video, with reporters stationed around the region. The questions they’re asking: How are people in this part of the country reinventing their cities, their local economies and even themselves in the face of cataclysmic change? Those are the stories Changing Gears hopes to capture and some of which Micki shared with us in our video interview at the WBEZ studios on Chicago’s Navy Pier.

Traveling the American Road – Changing Gears’ Micki Maynard