Greetings… Ahoj! Aloha! Bom dia! Bonjour! Bună! Ciao! G’day! Geia sas! Günaydın,صبح بخیر, בוקר טוב 你好! Hi! Hei! Hello! Hallo! Hola! Halō! Kamusta! Kia Orana! Kon’nichiwa! Mabuhay! Namaste! Ni Hao! Neih hou! Pagi! Sawasdee! 😄

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If we’ve missed you on this serendipitous who’s who list of active Plusporans and #CHECKIN visitors, just yell! 💕

Yee-Hee!!! first! 😁

@David Calderon You are indeed! 🥇

Cloudcroft NM population 700, high in the Sacramento Mountains. gives respite from the desert below. In winter we can toboggan on snow and then toboggan at White Sands on the way home..Waitress at the pizzaria moved from Timberon because the latter was too quiet.

Since it is somewhat less practical to travel, in the outwardly sense, these days. How about, as an alternative, traveling inwardly??? Anyone into self-discovery? Maybe achieve an epiphany or two!?! Has your mind been going places without you, lately? Do some self-care? Contemplate the Muli-Verse? Go for it :-)

Believe it or not, that is a very young Ted Nugent on guitar, in this 1968 video.

Journey To The Center Of The Mind ~ Amboy Dukes

We went to Artland, SK for Fred to check meal detecting shows. It was important enough back in the in the day that King George and Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother stopped there on a cross Canada tour. Now it's some lumps of foundation and a wrought iron arch with the name. Artland.

Su Ann - you offer a link to the “TransCanada Trial.” Let us know the verdict as soon as the jury rules! 😉
Just kidding, it sounds like a wonderful place you are describing!!

👏👏👏 Hurray! @doug t @The Lazy Fox @Cass M thank you for getting the momentum going on virtual travel. I love hearing about places I never knew existed and following up your and other mentions of places to explore much further using the following maps, images, news, videos functions when in Chrome (other browsers have functions too.)

@David Calderon but of course travelling inwardly is as interesting and invaluable. Love the early Ted Nugent version of Journey to the Center of the Mind!

@Brian Arbenz lol.

@Su Ann Lim

😀

Doug t... that Cloudcroft pic looks dreamy and, in its own way, warm. There’s nothing better than hunkering together with lively folk in a cozy eat and drink place when it’s dark and inclement outdoors.

I won’t be posting many pics or links for a few days. I’m operating with solely an iPhone. I had to dispose of my laptop for two reasons - physical wear and tear, and (freak out alert) bedbugs living in it. I mean a whole bedbug civilization was inside it and as bedbugs will do, they learned my routine. I’d use the laptop in, of course, bed. So my laptop was to them a cruise ship to paradise. I couldn’t in good faith sell or give away the computer, so I triple-wrapped it and gave it and an eco-unwise disposal. What else could I do? Bed is free of bedbugs for one week now (obligatory knock on wood).

Cambria, California (just south of San Luis Obispo) was a small, quiet community where you couldn't get cell service unless you were standing in just the right place and able to catch a tower further north.

Then they put a repeater in the bell tower of the local church.

Suddenly, the town got noisier, as people now walk down the streets either glued to their phones or talking at the top of their lungs.

Good morning! Travel is a good topic. Interesting story about the Canadian half desert! Naramata seems cosy even for city dwellers. Small places are mostly unique.

A thought that I had: go north, about 400km to drive from here. In the German north, a stone's throw away from Denmark: Flensburg, the town where my grandparents settled after WWII. It's hilly in part because it sits on a fjord tip, the Danish and German shared heritage means many people there are bilingual, and it has a vast history spanning over centuries - once was part of the Hanse empire which ruled all the Baltic Sea and beyond, held a de facto monopoly for the overseas rum trade, was strong in shipbuilding and today is a nice enough place to make me want to go there every now and then. Even now without my grandparents around. Aerial view like this, click the pic:

Going there always had almost always been connected to a holiday - visiting grandparents, taking care of them or other parts of the family, or on the way to Denmark holidays. Fun fact: go for a swim at the beach, walk to the same beach's north end or swim a left curve) and you've crossed the border! Also, saw the coolest of punk rock concerts there ever - culturally, place is big enough for sizable leftist hotspots. The Polytechnic turned university and has enough students now to subvert and spur things up a little (and give at least some international flair). As far as small time travel goes these days, maybe an option for this fall.

That is totally intriguing, Carsten!

My hometown of Baltimore is ~500km from where I live now.

@Brian Arbenz, they'll welcome you for sure! 😏

Some of the rum places are still around, if only by name and old inscripts on houses from the 16th century, and typically today cater for culinary needs, i.e. restaurants with proper German cuisine, without the Michelin star hassle. Good to spend a couple of days, with beaches within easy reach.

Heh, virtual travel by news: as a frequent newstral.com user I like the regional news feature: pick the two-digit shortform for Canada ca, and the URL becomes newstral.com/en/ca, or pick by language es via newstral.com/es and gives you whatever their aggregator finds.

The suggestion @David Calderon gave is fine as well, am now pondering the Mule-Verse (intently translating and understanding the typo en verbatim): a world in which horses never really existed, but only mules did. Cars are benchmarked in mulepower, and zorses are taken to be the real thing at the races. @Clarice Boomshakalaka Bouvier is that what auslan is all about? 😜

Checking in.... but kinda brain dead right now on the topic. Maybe after coffee....

@Su Ann Lim
Hi :)

The reefs off northeastern Panama, the land of the Guna Yala people; I traveled there by sailboat for three years. The broken line of reefs occur 4 -8 miles from shore along much of the coast and the shallow water behind the reefs (rarely more than 20 feet deep, perfect for anchoring a sailboat) is dotted with sand islands covered with coconut palms. The Guna keep these islands well-tended because they harvest coconut, so the ground under the palms is low grass.
Coral heads become frequent nearer the reef, because there are numerous narrow breaks in the reef that admit tidal flow. These reef breaks are favorite locations for all sorts of fish that feed on whatever has been washed across the reef and is flowing back out to sea through the cut; large congregations of Schoolmaster snapper (coppery with bright yellow fins), Nassau groupers (light and dark grayish-brown patterns), Barracuda (silver), and accompanying swarms of smaller reef fish in various shades and sometimes-improbable combinations of blues, greens, reds, yellows, purples, and silver. Drifting through such a cut on the current became a favorite pastime, and I would swim in and out such cuts eight hours daily for months at a time. I never tired of it - the sunlight streaming through the almost-clear water, the constantly changing patterns of brightly colored fish swimming on the brightly colored corals, the constant tensions of predator-prey and territoriality playing on many levels, including myself as I was generally packing speargun and casually hunting dinner. After 15 years, it is a collage of memories that is never far from recollection.

If you'd like to visit there via Google Earth, try 9.51N, 78.62W - close to four little coconut islands called the Coco Banderos.

@doug t I have been to CloudCroft!, it was during the autumn and before snow. i loved it there. We found a place where we could see down into the desert . we had a wonderful vacation that year(was our last too so it had to be in 1989!

Good morning. I like to virtual travel now. Since being on the no fly list( unjustly BTW took some time to get off) I decided traveling was not worth my effort. Last Sunday we did a trip to Mount Katahdin....it was just 120 miles away but Maine has crappy roads. We like scenery and good geologic stuff. Circumstances being what they are for us we have no kith nor kin.... I like to explore on the internet. @Brian Arbenz OY bedbugs in your lap top....OY!!!

OH MY! What a collection of must-explore destinations to visit, virtually for now.

Hello @Cristóbal 明日照! Thanks for the reminder, I've been meaning to further (virtually) explore Isla Grande de Chiloé!

So far, the places I'm going to visit and get to know very soon are:
- Cloudcroft
- National Park of Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise
- Cambria, California
- Artland
- Flensburg
- Baltimore
- 9.51N, 78.62W - close to four little coconut islands called the Coco Banderos
- Mount Katahdin
- Isla Grande de Chiloé

I'm adding the very recently recognized UNESCO geoparks of the Cliffs of Fundy and Labrador's Bonavista Peninsula Discovery Global Geopark. I saw the news but haven't explored yet!

What an exciting travel itinerary!

🎉🎆🎇

One of my favourite bits of Bristol is Nightingale Valley:

It's surrounded by city, but because of the topography, none of the noise gets in so it feels like the countryside.

There is so much and so many different cultures within a short flight from here. I've been to Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Macau and each is different and worth seeing - cross Hong Kong and Macau off that list now, though. I'm going to limit my explorations to this country in the future: there are over 7,600 islands and I've only seen a dozen of them.

@David Calderon +1 for inner journeys.

I’ve often wondered why any location other than where you live seems more exciting. When I take visitors around my home town (before the pandemic obviously), they view everything with a wonder that I only have for other places.

If that’s human nature, then it’s robbing me of potential wonder in every moment of my life. I can’t accept that.

I like to see how others live and earn a living. So much variety and everyone has a good idea or two.

@Brian Arbenz - you probably don't want to hear this now that the laptop is gone, but in general, insects do not survive freezing. When my wife collects an insect speciment for a scientific collection, standard procedure is to put it in the freezer for a day. I don't know the lifecycle timing of your particular insects, but if eggs happened to survive, a second round of freezer treatment when juveniles emerge might be necessary.

For example, a five minute walk from my home, a great escape that I too easily take for granted.

@pianomad the fact that you realize that where you are is special, you're demonstrating the ability to appreciate what you see around you.

Oh, you know what's fun, coming across local places recommended by people who've travelled from far away. Something that took me too long to learn, I enjoy exploring more when I have the opportunity to do it through the eyes of many others as well as through mine.

@Dave Higgins you are close to many magical places!

@Whuffo one can spend a lifetime exploring the Phillipine islands, let alone, all the countries near by!

Another peek at Naramata... from a family-run vineyard - the excellent wine is only available here because they don't produce enough to distribute elsewhere! N is a curious place - it is arid, hot (I saw comparisons to southern California or southern Italy) but it's next to an enormous, pristine, freshwater lake. The altitude is 364m/1197ft. The only store in the village that sells clothing has the perfect togs for this place - light, fast wicking tees and shorts. One can run around and then go swimming in them but dry out within a short spell, no towel necessary!

of course I'd like to go back to
Aotearoa

Instead of somewhere nearby, I'll tell you of where I was supposed to be, had the global crisis not intervened. Every year I was in Boulder, I was a "paid volunteer" part of the recording crew for The Conference On World Affairs (https://www.colorado.edu/cwa/), a lovely event which hosts folks from all over to talk about global concerns and culture.

One of the regular attendees is Irish Storyteller Liz Weir (https://www.lizweir.org) who spends a great deal of time travelling and telling stories, as well as teaching effective storytelling. When she's not doing that, she administers a small music and storytelling venue, the Ballyeamon Storytelling Barn (https://www.ballyeamonbarn.com), near Antrim, and this was to be my venue in Northern Ireland (I now know I've also a venue in Belfast, which I just found out about yesterday). So I invite you to go to their website, look at the pictures, and visualize me being there in late 2021 or Summer of 2022. I hope I survive long enough to go.

"Five Hundred Miles" was in my playlist yesterday. And I realized it was was true. I am about 500 miles from my home. Alamogordo, NM became my home although I no longer live there. Cloudcroft is 16 miles away and about 5000 ft. higher elevation @doug t. I've had many a beer with friends at the Western.

More fun in the area can be had at other nearby places such as Ruidoso and Ruidoso Downs, home of the world's richest horserace. There is a ton of local history being Billy the Kid's running ground. In Carizo, you can see the jail cell Billy escaped from and the Smokey the Bear museum. The real bear was rescued from a fire nearby.

And then there is White Sands National Park and White Sands Missile Range. I did a lot of work on the range when I worked construction. Many, top secret under armed guard. I got to see a rocket sled take off once. They test engines on a sled on a 7 mile long track. It was a slow one was told even though it was nearly out of sight as fast as I could turn my head. I got to touch an F-117 stealth fighter while working in a hanger. I got to cuss out a Colonel that told us not to drop anything on his $26million airplane. I told him to get it the F out of our way then.

@Bob Lai I miss Southern California coastal areas. I attended a stone sculpting workshop in Cambria a few years back and remember sitting on the beach collecting a jar full of tiny little moonstone pebbles on the beach. Here's an old blog post with pictures of the area: https://billbrayman.wordpress.com/2014/04/30/cambria-moonstone-beach-and-the-california-sculptors-symposium/

A few hours drive south of there I spent some time in Ventura and Santa Barbara, California if you care to check out a couple more blog posts. Ventura is a strange and fascinating place. Near downtown where i was is a sort of an industrial area and home to a very large homeless population, just a 30 minute coastal drive from the small city of Santa Barbara, home of unimaginably affluent people living in a beautiful area.

Ha ha! more places to add to the itinerary!

• Nightingale Valley
• @pianomad, care to mention your homebase (optional of course)
• the Phillipines
• New Zealand
• Antrim, Ireland
• Ventura, Santa Barbara, both in California

N. again.

Mars
Afternoon all

@Su Ann Lim Madison, the state capital of Wisconsin. We have the largest capitol building outside of the one in D.C., and it’s been used for exterior shots in films to represent the nation’s capitol building.

Hmm, finally some time to relax and read the actual places.

I can imagine one place as my favorite one. In the middle of the Ocean or other huge water spaces where there is not one cloud and thousands of stars seen in de middle of the night. No light pollution what so ever.

@Bill Brayman Cambria was wonderful for a number of reasons - quiet, good restaurants, a nice beach to walk along. But the 'quiet' was the big one for me, a chance to unplug from life in news.

Stopped in Ventura for lunch and browse in a bookstore, but that's it. Didn't get as far south as SB; my wife and I were headed to our honeymoon at the World Science Fiction Convention in Anaheim.

I have ancestors on my mother's side from Antrim. I'd like to visit some day.

A few minute's drive from here is an old growth forest that was saved from logging called Cathedral Grove. I love to walk through it when tourist season is over and there are few people there. It's as close to a spiritual experience as I've come, I believe. No wonder our native people were so humbled and honoured by nature.
https://www.theoutbound.com/canada/photography/explore-cathedral-grove-in-macmillan-provincial-park

@Dave Higgins you are close to many magical places!

This is why I've remained in Bristol over the decades since university.

Some great places. But New Mexico isn't called "The Land of Enchantment" for nothing. There are many many interesting places and miles upon miles of wonderful mountain roads best experienced on a motorcycle.

@UnclePirate (Stan McCann) Loved my few visits to the Santa Fe and Albuquerque areas. Wouldn't mind hanging out there for a while, but i'd go SUV to get off road to explore. Everyone should read some Hillerman mysteries to get a sense of the area.

@Don Little your mention of "tourist season" reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw a few years ago:
"It's CALLED 'Tourist Season', so why can't we shoot them?"

@(((David "Kahomono" Frier))) LOL!

@(((David "Kahomono" Frier))) That reminds me of a tour of York I was on years ago. The man giving the tour told us that there's a law still on the books that if you came upon a Scotsman within the city walls after 9:00 pm, you could shoot him, but only with a bow and arrow.

@UnclePirate (Stan McCann) I can't believe I overlooked New Mexico, because it is already high on my list to physically visit. I've taken down the details you provided!

More additions to the virtual travel list:
- New Mexico
- Mars
- Madison
- Cathedral Grove (I've been there several times and I absolutely agree with you @Don Little CG is a spiritual place!)
- middle of the Pacific Ocean
- Sante Fe
- Alburqueque
- York

😆😎

Cathedral Grove, BC. It's not unlike the Redwood Forests not far from @Karl Auerbach. :)

Thank you for all the cool mentions of destinations to explore. Happy virtual travels, everyone.

@Su Ann Lim That Cathedral Grove in BC looks dreamlike! Thank you for sharing.