from rscottjones

ID/passport, wallet, phone, and glasses—the only things you actually need to travel. You can solve most problems with those. We always remind ourselves of that when we have the inevitable “oh crap, did I pack the (insert nonessential item)??” moment.

Six random photos of bikes from my photo library

1 - Malawi (Africa) 2 - Mackinac Island (MI) 3 - Beatty (NV) 4 - Superstition Wilderness boundary (AZ) 5 - Amsterdam (Netherlands) 6 - Slab City (CA)

Waiting for the 24-hour mark to check in for my Southwest flight tomorrow—presumably the last time I’ll do this. I don’t fly Southwest very often these days, but back when I did, I absolutely loved them. Bummed they’re conforming and will just be yet another airline with the same crappy policies.

My local brewery just got in some new to-go cans for Oktoberfest… 😳🍻

🏕️ The REI Labor Day sale ends this weekend. If you’re camping curious, here’s a short list of what to buy at the sale. (Also, please feel free to hit me up with any questions)

→ What car camping stuff to buy at REI this year

One of our favorite travel purchases of the last year were several handheld fans. We bought them for our 100-day Adventure, figuring we might want them during our 24-day overlanding safari through Africa.

And boy did they come in handy—they were perhaps the best purchases we made for the trip. We used them constantly, not just in our overlanding truck (which lacked both AC and fans, even in 90+ degree humid weather), but also just for general air movement in tented camps and hotel rooms (even in fancy destinations like Singapore or Dubai).

Jen’s of the age that involves hot flashes (she old), and so they’ve also come in handy since our trip, for those random moments when things suddently get hot. We now bring at least a couple on every trip we take—whether for our tent or a hotel room—and I assume they’ll earn a weekly spot in our stadium bag at upcoming ASU football games.

I bought four different colors (and two sizes), mostly as a way to differentiate which ones might need to be charged. They’re all shaped like bears, so each become a different kind of bear: a brown bear, a black bear, a polar bear, and—because of its mint color—an Irish bear.

Anyway, we tried a whole slew of personal fans, from the handheld variety to the hanging neck variety, and returned everything else. These bears were the best ones, and by a wide margin, and also among the least expensive. Here’s the link to the larger and smaller varieties on Amazon, in case you’re interested.

We’re heading out this weekend for eight days in Ohio and Pennsylvania, with the primary goal of marking off 11 national park units for Jen. We fly into Cleveland, where we pick up a hybrid rental car and make our way to Dayton. From there, we pop down to Cincinnati for a MLB ballpark she needs, then make our way over to Western Pennsylvania. There are five national park units in the region, plus we’ll catch a game at the ballpark in Pittsburgh. From there it’s back towards Cleveland, where we fly out the following weekend.

What we hope to see, if things go as planned:

• Dayton Aviation Heritage NHP
• William Howard Taft NHS
• National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
• Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center
• Great American Ball Park (Cincinnati Reds)
• John Parker House
• Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers NM
• Hopewell Culture NHP
• Hocking Hills State Park
• Friendship Hill NHS
• Fort Necessity NB
• Flight 93 NMEM
• Johnstown Flood NMEM
• Allegheny Portage Railroad NHS
• Horseshoe Curve NHL
• Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater
• PNC Park (Pittsburgh Pirates)
• James A Garfield NHS
• Cuyahoga Valley NP

There’s not much on this list I haven’t already visited, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy my time nonetheless. This is a replacement trip for our canceled Canadian Rockies adventure, so it’s naturally going to underwhelm in comparison. But I love me a road trip and it’s hard not to enjoy exploring other parts of the country, so I’m still looking forward to the time away, especially with my favorite person.

Speaking of Jen, she’s starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel for her NPS quest, so we’ll likely prioritize park trips for her until she finishes. If we’re successful in this itinerary, she’ll have fewer than 40 units left (whoa!), within range to finish as soon as Labor Day 2027. In fact, she’s already plotted out a possible schedule that would get to the finish line by then.

But we also have plenty of other travel goals, so perhaps she’ll spend a bit more time on the quest. After all, it’s way more fun to have a quest you’re actively pursuing than to have finished a quest. It really is all about the journey, not the achievement—I can personally attest to that.

Flickr was one of my all-time favorite social networks. It wasn’t “social media,” but still part of that early period of social networking, before anyone tried to monetize their following or influence public debate. It was simply about connecting with others who shared your interests. I haven’t been active on Flickr for many, many years now, but apparently I hit the 20,000 photo and 500 album mark On This Day in 2014.

On this day in 2012, I visited…

the “Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota,” which is the World’s Largest rolled by a single person. The ball is within a locked pagoda and the museum was locked, but with some internet sleuthing and a public personal facebook account, I managed tracked down the phone number of someone who could help us. We managed to get an emergency personal tour of the museum, and even got to sneak inside the pagoda to check out the ball up close. I have now seen all three of the Worlds Largest Balls of Twine.

Of course I was going to visit this twine ball after hitting the other two (now three) competing ones. I mean, there was an entire Weird Al song devoted to it! And besides, one of my fav amateur videos on Youtube is:

a much more poorly produced family tribute video for Weird Al’s song “Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota."

As an official twine ball aficionado—yes, I’ve visited all four of them (each of which involves a fun story), and even owned BallsOfTwine.com for a while (a never-quite-launched project dedicated to fun Roadside Oddities)—I really loved that video.

It’s extremely amateurish, which is a critical component of its charm. The camera work is terrible, the “actors” aren’t exactly hitting their lines, and the husband clearly owes his wife immensely for putting up with the whole thing.

And of course, it’s an entire damn song, a seven-plus minute song, dedicated to a Twine Ball, so of course I’m in. Did I mention that it seemingly wasn’t even produced for distribution? Nope, this was a passion project, pure and simple. A “Great Family Adventure,” as they called it in the opening title. The only way we can watch it is because the sister of the protagonist uploaded it to her own Youtube account.

Circling back on our new foldable travel cooler, I’d like to report that it worked GREAT. It folds small, stays rigid in the car, and keeps drinks cold until the next morning’s ice refill. It also fits perfectly in those hotel ice machines. It’s earned a spot on “hotel” road trip packing list.