Tagged With "running track"
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Re: Edinburgh, Scotland for 2.5 days....help!
Thank you for the suggestions! I wanted to mainly see if we needed fast track tickets anywhere there could be a line. With all we want to see, I don't want to waste time standing in line anywhere. Yes, I should have added the royal yacht to the things we want to do.
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Re: Gumbo's Pic of the Day, Jan. 20, 2014: The Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California
I would recommend renting a bicycle at Fishermans Wharf. Take your time crossing the Bridge Stop at Sausalito - Starbucks - Take in the beautiful surrounds. Watch the Fishing Boats. Take the Cycle track and head for the Ferry at Tiburon. Come back to SF on the Ferry and watch as the City rises from the fog. Great day !
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Re: "Spotted On the Road": Everglades City, Florida
Look at what I discovered this afternoon! Adler-Trumpf, Germany, made 1933-1939 Citroen Half Track, France, pre WWII Claveau, France, 1956 Panhard Dynamic, France, 1936-1939 More to follow!!
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Re: Safe to fly on New Years?
Yes, the co-workers are jealous. When you return, unless you bring really good swag, they will not want to hear one word about your trip. Spoil sports. The best strategy is to pick out of the ordinary destinations. When I tell them where I am going and the response is " Where ??? What ? Where is that ? ", I know that I am on the right track.
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Re: The Worst Train in the World
If I live it won't be my last. Just prior to that one, same trip, I'd gone from Guilin to Nanning, then after lunch got on another, overnight to Hanoi. Later overnight again, Hanoi to Hoi An. Now that I think about it I realize they got progressively worse as I went along, culminating in The Worst. I hadn't thought about it until just this minute, hindsight is a wonderful thing that way. A great disappointment to me several years ago was the apparently permanent cancellation of the Hanoi to...
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Re: Finishing college. Need help planning trip to U.K,
Hi guys, hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. It was good to be with my family again. Visiting and catching up with everyone took longer than I'd thought, but did do a little research into the trip and came out with this plan. Basically, with GarryRF's advice, I think I'll focus my time in the north to save money cause my budget is limited. After that I'll finish my vacation in London and Paris. I need to find places to stay but more important now just to frame the trip. The details I...
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Re: Greenland from six miles high!
I agree it's a spectacular sight not to be missed and that there's more to Greenland that just the ice sheet. 2014 will see me on my 7th month-long visit in the last 9 years. I will again hike alone from Sisimiut on the west coast to a location north east of Kangerlussuaq (something like 110 - 120 miles) and then join colleagues doing wild goose research. By all means aim to set foot on the ground there and enjoy camping in the remote arctic landscape - being alone out there is a unique...
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Re: Italy: Giant tour bus, tiny street
Yay ! One up for bus drivers ! I drove a 10m DAF bus 20 times from Oslo to North Cape and back. One place in the Lofotens required me to reverse down a winding dirt track with rock on one side and sea on the other with about 2ft of clearance on either side. Thank the lord for power steering and BIG mirrors. Bus drivers deserve all the tips they get !
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Re: Sept. 27, 2017: Balloon Man Running, Denver
That's a fun piece, Sam! I do love finding an interesting piece of street art.
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Re: Terry Fox Monument, Thunder Bay, Ontario
What a great story! That guy is an inspiration to all.
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Re: Terry Fox Monument, Thunder Bay, Ontario
Thanks for sharing this story with our audience, Ottoman. I remember Terry Fox well. His run across Canada became an important news story, and the image of him hoping on his good leg before stepping with his prosthesis has always remained with me. He was a remarkable brave young man, and it's sad that he didn't live to see the profound influence that one life can have. A reminder how how cancer can strike anyone. No age, no sex, no race, no social class is immune from its reach. I really...
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Re: Terry Fox Monument, Thunder Bay, Ontario
Thank you Travel Rob, Travel Luver and DrFumblefinger for taking the time to share your thoughts. I appreciate it, and am happy that you all enjoyed this blog.
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Re: Where in the World is Gumbo (#38)
Perhaps clutching at straws would not be a bad idea...since proverbially you can't make a brick (station) without straw! No, you're definitely on the track, and so is the station...but which one?
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Re: Where in the World is TravelGumbo? (#71)
There are a lot of similarities between this station and Atlanta's Brookwood Amtrak Station at 1688 Peachtree St NW, as viewed from the south, including tracks too close together, narrow platforms, long steep stairs, iron fence, the pitch of the roof (which at one time was red spanish clay tile), the brackets supporting the roof, the windows overlooking the track, the weeds, the general condition, the congested neighborhood, and of course the lack of parking.
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Re: Where in the World is Travelgumbo? #57
Well Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was filmed in Bavaria. Tell us, Oh Mighty Gumbo, are we on the right track?
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Re: Help with mobile phone for Morocco
I have a Mobell (same company as Mobal) UK sim that I got years ago, very convenient, phone bills charged to my credit card, rather than having to keep track of the balance and "top up". However, calls are relatively expensive although I don't mind for the convenience and limited use when I'm in the UK. Knowing full well it would cost me, about a £ a minute because I was in Italy, I allowed a British friend who was meeting me in Italy to call me when she arrived using her UK phone and my UK...
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Re: Marriott to offer free wi-fi to all its Rewards member
When you have a high-speed data plan on the phone, it can get eaten quickly when used as a hotspot, especially when the whole family is on devices! But if these chains want to be viewed by their customers the way many people view Spirit Airlines...they're on the right track!
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Re: GPS v. Sicily = WTF
Since I downloaded the US Maps to my UK TomTom I've had great fun ! I love exploring the single track roads through villages and one horse towns! Exploring is great fun - getting lost is a pain. GPS opens up a whole new world to the Tourist !
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Re: Where in the World is TravelGumbo? (#39)
Ah ha! Either an interesting camera technique or it is indeed a wonderfully detailed model train set, I suspect the latter. Oh, but where?? There are many big boys out there in the world who would love to have a Union Pacific loco running around in the loft. I have seen reports of some fantastic layouts in Germany but it could be anywhere methinks.... I tried to take a photo of just such a loco coming towards me in Canada and stood by the track in readiness. Thinking to be friendly, I was...
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Re: Gumbo's Pic of the Day, March 25, 2015: A Moment in Rural India
Just part of the life that many locals have on our travels. Something we often miss by doing the tourist spots. It's good to get off the "beaten track".
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Re: GPS: 'Your destination will be...very wet.'
On our recent trip to Sicily, our GPS took us down a farm road that dead-ended, except for a rugged dirt tract that was unsafe to drive in a car (doable in a 4 wheel drive vehicle). The GPS instructed me to continue down the dirt track, but as a human being I declined the machine's advice. Good thing I did, because as we looped back we could see that even the dirt track dead-ended in a mile or so. Somehow we made it to our next destination, although it's easy and expected to get lost a...
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Re: On your marks, get set, get on board!
I just find it hard to envision the reserved Japanese jogging down this airport track....but I, too, like the idea!
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Re: On your marks, get set, get on board!
Sometimes getting to your gate involves walking half a mile. Walkways - when they are working - are a necessity to our ageing parents and less mobile neighbours. I just hope distances in this airport are not extreme.
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Re: The newest, biggest, bestest airport: Aren't they all?
I confess to a preference for developing world airports - small, simple, friendly places, like the towns they get us to when we choose to fly at all. I realize that I'll likely need to go through one or 2 of these urban behemoths to get to them, and then I'm reminded I'm on the right track again when baggage claim is a few steps into the building and it's a couple of guys who just pushed a cart to an opening in the wall and I can still see the plane.
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Re: Safety tip: Hold that Instagram!
Another angle to this came to the front of my mind recently. A female friend is doing a solo walk along a long distance trail through very unpopulated areas. She attracted a lot of followers from her Instagram prepping, but soon became aware of a group of supportive women hikers advising her about known unwanted followers. In particular she was advised not to post locations until they were long past so it would be more difficult to track her movements. This could equally apply to any form of...
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Re: Left Hand Drive Vs Right Hand Drive Countries
When two moving Stagecoaches were facing each other on a narrow track the driver would crack the whip - using his right hand - and cause the Horses to shy to the left and away from the noise it made. So they passed each other without hindrance.
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Re: Walking the Buffalo
Pheymont, it was the iconic landscape that attracted me to the area. The tulou in Fujian were the impetus for the trip and when I realized that the area I'd admired for so long, originally in scroll paintings, was relatively close to Xiamen and between there and another intended destination, the cross-border overnight train from Nanning to Hanoi, it was on. As you've likely surmised, my trips tend to be longer than the average tour-traveling visitor and my curiosity such that packages are...
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Re: La Dolce Vita (Part 6) Murano and Burano
Dr. Fumblefinger, Nice slideshow with great pics. We were in Venice in 2012 for 6 or 7 days and made an excursion to Burano as a day trip. The first thing we noticed was that tourism has reached the tiny island. There was a new docking station for the vaporetti and all sorts of kiosks selling the usual stuff. The first time we were there was in 2008 and it was a sleepy island that time seemed to forget. In fact, we came across four elderly ladies sitting on a bench gabbing and knitting. I...
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Re: New Hope for the Jet-Lagged?
I always am fine coming home. What gets me is those early arrivals when we go to Europe. I have to struggle that first day to stay awake or I never get on track .I like arriving in the afternoon or evening and then I'm ok. As shift workers learn quickly,light and darkness does play a big part in good sleep A lot of factories now try to keep workers from seeing the night to fool the body into thinking it's day
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Re: The Architecture of Old Sana'a, Yemen
Indeed, confusion is especially common in societies where cultural homogeneity is encouraged or even required. I found it to be true, even though I wore local dress, in Pakistan. Again, skin color seemed to be the issue, the only clue, and while not hostile, men in particular seemed completely at a loss about what to do when they encountered me, even though I was in the company of local friends, in essence my bodyguards. Both Pakistan and Yemen have been off the tourist track for years now...
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U.S. on track to record for overseas visitors
With 50.3 million visitors in the first 2/3 of the year, and more to come, the U.S. is on track for a record tourism year. The numbers through August show an 8% increase over 2013. Travel industry site Skift analyzed figures from the Federal...
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Update: Loyalty Programs and Credit Cards
For some of us, credit cards are more than a convenient way to pay—they are the lifeline to free travel through loyalty programs. Between points for purchases and bonuses for opening or upgrading credit card accounts, it's possible to get quite...
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Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart
My good friends took me to the Mercedes-Benz Museum this past June and I was quite impressed. Not only are the cars great and in superb condition, but the design of the building is pretty cool. It overlooks their factory and test track which was in...
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Visiting Western Greenland. Part I – Three Towns
In July 2006 I gave in to curiosity and realized my ambition to visit West Greenland. I returned 6 times in the next 8 years! I knew that about 10% of the world’s freshwater was sitting on Greenland with the capacity to raise...
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Not much progress yet on Universal Airline Tracking
After the disappearance nearly a year ago of Malaysian Airlines MH370, nearly everyone agreed how important it would be for better technology to track all airliners in real time. But that appears to be the last agreement on the issue, as some airlines...
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Road Trip, Day 1: City of Ten Thousand Buddhas and The Skunk
Gateway to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas March 9, 2015 In the late ‘80s, I lived in L.A. for a couple of years. My S.O. knew lots of cool L.A. stuff. One of those was something he’d read that...
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Airbnb's plans for business travelers
Airbnb has become so pervasive in the leisure travel market, you just know there must be business travelers using it, too. And not surprisingly, Airbnb would like to encourage that. In an interview with Business Travel News, Marc McCabe, the company's...
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Marriott on track to reduce water consumption by 2020
Marriott hotels has set a corporate goal to reduce it's water consumption significantly. Year 2014 over 2013 saw the giant hotelier reduce water use by 5.3%, and 16% since 2007. The company set a target in 2007 to reduce its water...
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Brooklyn's Spectacular Botanic Garden (Where Gumbo Was #112)
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, a pint-size treasure that always seems bigger than it is (and which occupies an outsize place in botanical research) was this week's answer to Where in the World is TravelGumbo? Because the Garden presents an array...
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Gold Country, California: The Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum
I thought this series about Gold Country was done. But I realize now that may not be true for some time. About 6 months ago, wanting to replace the wood stove in my house that was installed when the house was built in 1978, I called...
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How do you see Airbnb? The Times keeps track.
Everyone knows Airbnb, though what people think of it, or think it is, varies widely. And, over its world-conquering and controversial history, a lot of minds have changed. As a barometer, a staff writer at Skift, a travel-industry news site, has...
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Skedans, Haida Gwaii, British Colombia (Where Gumbo was #106)
Gumbo was visiting the "misty isles", Haida Gwaii, in British Columbia. Specifically, the remnants of the Haida village of Skedans. Sadly, not much remains of the village, captured at its prime in the above image (1878), rich...
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NY to DC in 40 minutes by train? Maybe!
A US rail promoter is trying to get funds and approval to build a maglev (magnetic levitation) train line between NYC and DC. TNEM, the company, has already applied for permits to build on an old right-of-way between DC and Baltimore. Magnetic...
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Capella Palatina, Palermo, Sicily (Where Gumbo Was, #102)
I've visited dozens of wonderful churches in my life, some vaste and grand like St. Paul's in Rome or Westminister Abbey in London, others smaller and with a more intimate feel. As a rule, I'm partially to smaller chapels and...
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3 Alternatives To b&b Accommodation In France
With reliably warm weather, beautiful scenery and gastronomic delights; France is a very popular holiday destination. As parts of the country are only hours away, it is a hit with both those looking for long summer vacations or short weekends away. France offers a huge variety of holiday and accommodation options, so there is something for everyone. While hotels and B&B’s are a very popular choice, if you’re after something a little different on your holiday to France then here are three...
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Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour of Seattle
Seattle's Pioneer Square is only the icing on the cake of Seattle's early history, preserved below. Samantha takes us along on a tour.
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October 18, 2017: Reclining Buddha near Karandeniya, Sri Lanka
Professor Abe shares images of a visit to a rarely visited statue of the reclining Buddha, said to be the largest in South Asia.