Last year about this time, I was in the Turks & Caicos, a lovely Caribbean nation just south of the Bahamas.  I had just returned from the wine region of Spain and was making preparations for a trip to Egypt.

This year, I’ve just returned from Amarillo Texas, and have recently been to Norfolk Nebraska and Muscatine Iowa. My next trip will take me to Fredericksburg Texas, which I really love, and then after the new year, to Lake Charles Louisiana for some pre-Mardi Gras stories.

So, I’m not getting as many frequent flyer miles, nor as many stamps on my passport, but I am making the house payment, for which I am very thankful, and for a fulltime freelance writer, that’s a lot tougher than it was a year ago. 

For anyone in the journalism and publishing business, 2009 has been excruciatingly painful.  While the US unemployment rate is hovering around 10 percent, the unemployment rate for journalists has jumped about 400 percent in the last two years.

But I’m not whining really. Fifteen years ago I was in a cubicle, and if I was still there, I wouldn’t be whining either.  I would be beating my head against the wall and relying on prescription drugs to get me through the day.

I love being self-employed (except for the health insurance thing).  This week of Thanksgiving and every day, I am extremely thankful for the opportunities my work has provided me and my family, for the people I meet, the places I go and the challenges it presents on a daily basis. 

So as we begin to immerse ourselves in holiday shopping, might I make a suggestion?  Consider a magazine or newspaper subscription for someone you love.  There’s no greater gift than knowledge, information and enlightenment. 

A number of my colleagues and I write for Midwest Living and AAA publications.  The travel editor at Southern Living is a hard-working colleague – that’s another good magazine.  I’ve written for Show-Me Missouri for years and a year’s subscription is just $14.36 (Nice round # there Gary)!

Books are always popular holiday gifts, so yes, head to a bookstore, preferably an independently-owned bookstore, but a bookstore nonetheless. While big box retail stores are great bargains for the consumer, those discounted prices are literally killing the publishing industry, which, in turn, is torturing the writer.

If you’re looking for some book ideas, here’re a few thoughts:

My friend Jackie Sheckler Finch wrote the Insider’s Guide to Nashville and Tennessee:  Off the Beaten Path.

My friend Amy Eckert contributes to a number of Frommer’s titles, including Europe by Rail.

My friend Mary Bergin does Sidetracked in Wisconsin and Hungry for Wisconsin.

Also in Wisconsin, my friend Jeanette Hurt is the author of The Cheeses of Wisconsin, a Culinary Travel Guide.

My friend Lori Erickson does The Joy of Pilgrimage and Iowa: Off the Beaten Path.

My friend Karen Berger does backpacking and hiking books.   Mary and Bill Burnham do kayaking books.

Elaine Warner has done a new guidebook to Tulsa, but I don’t think it’s out yet.  Lisa Waterman Gray is also working on a Kansas book, but it’s not out yet either.  I’ll let you know when they are, if you’re interested. Just about any destination you can mention, I can probably link you with a person a lot like me, who has done a book about the place.

Of course, for my friends in Kansas City, a purchase of the latest copy of Day Trips from Kansas City and A Kid’s Guide to Kansas City will help my bottom line.  I’m working on an update of Nebraska:  Off the Beaten Path, so next year you can stuff someone’s stocking with the new edition.

If each one of us continues to subscribe to a newspaper, renews a magazine subscription or buys a book by an independent writer, then the economic stimulus will really kick in gear and ooooh, next year.  Just think of the places it could take us.

   A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak at the Nebraska Travel and Tourism Conference about life as a freelance writer and how attractions in small towns and rural communities can gain the attention and favor of travel writers.

   I can’t speak for my austere colleagues, but I can always be bribed with Dr. Pepper and chocolate.

  The conference was held in Norfolk, Nebraska, which the folks there call “Norfork.”  I have no problem with odd local pronunciations since I grew up near places like Cairo, Illinois, pronounced Karo like the syrup, and Vienna Illinois, pronounced VI – anna.  It’s a part of what makes small towns and rural communities so much fun.

   But I was delighted to be in Norfolk for more reasons than Dr. Pepper and chocolate.  Some famous folk have called Norfolk home.  Among them, the Hall brothers who eventually created a little company called Hallmark Cards.  I’m working on a story about that as Hallmark Cards in Kansas City prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary.

And Johnny Carson, whom I think was most famous for the “Heeeere’s Johnny”  reference snarled by Jack Nicholson in The Shining.   

Johnny was a Norforkian.

   And, the voice of Tony the Tiger.  His real name was Thurl Ravenscroft, but he was Tony the Tiger and he was a Norfork folk.   How much fun is that!   That’s the kind of stuff I like to do stories about. 

 If I could combine Tony the Tiger and “here’s Johnny” with the little town in Iowa I was in a few weeks before that was made healthy again by Viagra, well, that would be the Pulitzer Prize winning combination every travel journalist dreams of.

  But I also enjoy writing about creative people, particularly craft artisans.  I think I connect with their “road less traveled” mentality.  So I’m delighted that more than two years after meeting Chris Gustin, a former newspaper person turned self-employed weaver, that I’ve finally published a story about her and the wonderful area in southern Indiana she calls home.  Here’s a link to the site:  http://tinyurl.com/ydvtfp2

  And then, I’ve got another story out in cyberspace about the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.   I loved that trip, I think in part, because in the rural area where I grew up in southern Illinois, where they pronounce Cairo Karo and Vienna VIanna, the Cherokee people passed through on the northern route of the Trail of Tears.

  Here’s a link to that story:  http://tinyurl.com/yh2uyuj

And folks, you know, when I give you these links, it’s a nice thing for you to click on them, right?  Not only does it make me happy, it makes my editors happy, and when my editors are happy, we’re all happy.

OK, packing a bag now for Amarillo Texas.  Texas – that’s a place filled with weird people, small town and odd customs.  It’s kinda like a whole ‘nother country.  Can’t wait to report on the strange things I’ll encounter there.  Beam me up Scottie!

    I was cleaning out my purse the other day and came across not one, not two, but three key cards from three different hotel rooms in three different parts of the country.  OOOPS . People like me are one reason the hotel industry went to electronic cards rather than keys in the first place.

  So my purse is the metaphor for today’s post, a potpourri of sorts of travel destinations.

  A couple of times, I’ve referenced stories that I was working on about the fall of the Berlin Wall. Another one is now in print, but if you’re not a AAA member in Oklahoma, you won’t get this story, so here’s a link via my website.  I really like it and am thinking about entering it into an SATW competition for best story from a recent convention site. 

The Berlin Wall exhibit in Rapid City South Dakota.

We were in Rapid City last spring (but that was not one of the hotel room cards I still had).

 I did find a key card, however, from the Hard Rock Hotel in Tulsa, which is where I stayed while visiting the Cherokee Nation a few weeks ago.  If I haven’t said a zillion times how wonderful that destination was, well it was. 

 Here are two stories and I’m feverishly working on others.

http://tinyurl.com/ygob3na

 http://tinyurl.com/yhqtfvy

     Sometimes it takes longer than I like to tell a story about a great destination, and that is the case about the Rancho de San Juan, a fabulous B&B between Santa Fe and Taos, NM.  It was a couple of years ago I was there, so it would be a sad commentary on the condition of my purse if I found that room key card.  But the place is fabulous.  I could live there.  And here’s my story:  http://tinyurl.com/yfcl7xw

And since it’s almost Halloween, you should be hysterical at this point that you haven’t finished your holiday shopping.  For those with appreciation for global cultures, I remind you of a place I visited in Indianapolis in July (don’t have that room key either).

It’s a shop called Global Gifts, a non-profit store that carries the work of  artisans in developing countries.  The store guarantees to the consumer that the products have been made in an ethical manner and the purchase truly benefits the individual artisan.   Global Gifts carries hand-made products from about 50 countries. 

And this shopping opportunity really satisfies those with a travel bug.  It’s the annual fundraising auction for the Society of American Travel Writers.  Bruce and I are both members.  As nice as it would be to say that monies from these auctions off-set costs for Bruce and I to travel to the ends of the earth, the purpose is much more substantial. 

   When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, our organization sent several thousand dollars to help the tourism industry rebuild.  When the Tsunami ripped apart Phuket, Thailand, we sent more relief money.  And 9/11, well…  But we also help with college scholarships of journalism students, professional development for folks like Bruce and me, and other such things.

   So check out the auction site.  There are dozens of travel gifts there, many of them hotel rooms  around the world at great bargains.  You, too, can begin a collection of room key cards.

 There’s a coffee mug on a shelf in my office that says “Iowa  Life/Changing.”  That’s the state’s tourism slogan, which beats the previous one “Iowa:  A State of Mind.”  I like giving my husband grief about that one.

   I think I got the coffee mug after speaking at an Iowa tourism conference one time.  And even though I don’t drink coffee and said mug doesn’t hold enough Dr. Pepper to make itself useful on this planet, I keep it displayed in my office to remind me of how Iowa has changed my life.

   Yes, yes.  I met my hubby there, 27-plus years ago, as well as some great people who have remained lifelong friends.  And nine months after a night spent watching the Iowa caucus returns in the 1988 elections from our hotel room in the Cayman Islands, I gave birth to a bouncing baby boy. 

   The last few days, I’ve been in the State of Mind (that just cracks me up) working on stories about all of the quirky things that make Iowa so lovable.  I visited:

• a town made healthy again by Viagra sales
• a town proud to be the ugliest in Iowa
• Radar O’Reilly’s hometown
• the future birthplace of Capt. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise
• the home that inspired Grant Wood to paint American Gothic
• a button museum
• and made plans to return to a mousetrap manufacturing plant.

  Oh, and I stayed at the wonderful new Honey Creek Resort.  Stories about all to come.

The lobby at Honey Creek Resort.

   While doing all of that, I was also dealing with life changing events.  Just this week, my parents moved off the farm in southern Illinois where I was raised.  It’s the place where my dreams are rooted, where my passions first found a voice and where I was given the courage and confidence to do what I do.  It’s home, and hopefully we all have such a place that enriches our being. 

    Of course, I’ve been mad at my parents about all of this – about running away from the home where I grew up, about kicking me out of the nest in my fifth decade of life, about expecting me to be a grown up.  How dare they make a decision of their own free will and in their best interests rather than pacify the immature emotional needs of their middle child. 

   And it’s not like the farm is leaving the family.  My brother and nephews live and work there, but still…. wwaaaaahh.

   However, as I drove along the backroads and through the small towns of Iowa these last few days, past thousands of acres of corn and soybeans ready for harvest, past picture perfect farm homes, and while passing farmers in pick-up trucks driving too slow for my tastes, I came to grips with the changes in my life and in my parents’ lives.

   The pastoral settings of rural Iowa fed my soul.  The simplicity of it all responded to my basic need for wide open spaces.  The honest encounters with those whose points of reference are similar to mine answered my questions about these life changes.

   I guess it’s gonna be OK.  I guess I’m gonna be a grown up after all.

  As a child I never felt the desire to run away and join the circus. Does that make me weird?

 I did however dream about running away to see where the elephants and tigers come from, to see how trapeze artists learn their daring, to see where the circus had been and to where it was going.

   So when I had the opportunity to write about the family who owns Ringling Brothers’ Barnum & Bailey Circus, I jumped on a plane as quickly as I could and flew to Washington, DC.  Vienna Virginia is the home of Feld Family Entertainment, the folks who own the circus, as well as Disney On Ice and a whole bunch of other things.

   The result was the cover story recently in American Profile magazine.

   And just about the same time, I had the opportunity to visit a real circus school in St. Louis.  You can learn to swing on the trapeze and juggle and walk a high wire.  Darn this titanium rod in my neck.  It prevented me from doing the trapeze thing, but it was so much fun cheering on my friends Amy, Lisa and Melanie

  I was able to walk along for a while on the high wire, which was only 4 inches above the ground, and I balanced myself on one of those big balls for a few minutes – with the help of about 20 spotters.  And I was able to write about it, which is always a blast.  You wanna learn more - click here.

So the next time you are tempted to run away and join the circus, perhaps head to St. Louis first to develop some skills and then get on out to Virginia to check in with the Feld Family.

      I haven’t accomplished much this past week, and I blame Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan.  You may better recognize their names as the co-producers, directors, writers and communicators extraordinaire of the PBS series called The National Parks:  America’s Best Idea.

   Bruce and I have been in love with the national parks since before we were in love with each other.  My first visit was on a fabulous family vacation when I think I was 11.  I think it was the summer of 1970.  I know if I called my parents they would remember immediately.  Mother kept a detailed journal that I saw in the top of the closet on my last visit home.

  It was one of the highlights of our childhood.  I remember for months ahead of time, my sister and I kept a calendar on the bulletin board in our bedroom with the countdown to the anticipated start date of July 1.  Each night before we went to bed, our dad often came in to say good night and then my brother would scamper in from down the hall and sooner or later Mother would come in checking on the commotion.  We were there together talking about the things we would see and do, and together we would mark another day off the calendar and then have a hard time falling to sleep from the excitement.

   The Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Little Big Horn, Yellowstone, Crater Lake, Redwood, Yosemite, Death Valley, Grand Canyon.  We checked them all off of our list that summer.  We had been so disappointed not to see a bear in Yellowstone, and now Ken Burns reminds us why.  But we did see one in Yosemite.  I remember my dad stopping the car, grabbing the movie camera and running after him into the woods.

   No, that wasn’t stupid at all. 

    Porfessionally, the national parks have been our favorite destinations as travel journalists.  As we watched PBS all this week, Bruce and I kept  scrutinizing the calendar and the bank account to see when we could getaway and hit a few more of the parks:  Zion, Bryce Canyon…oh so many more.

   What I loved so much about Ken Burns’ narrative was his expression of the spiritual connection between the parks and the people.  Or John Muir’s words “Man needs both bread and beauty to survive.”

  So two things I want to share with you on this blog post:  First, a new blog from our friend and colleague Lori Erickson.  An Iowa girl who shares the spiritual connection to the land that most everyone who grew up on a farm can understand, Lori has recently launched a blog:  www.holyrover.wordpress.com.  In a gentle and sometimes comical manner that is Lori, she helps us all explore within ourselves how exploring the world around us can enrich our spiritual selves.

   Then, because Bruce and I have done so much with the parks, I want to send you to a number of sites to see stories we’ve done.  But I don’t think cyberspace is capable of the many links I would need to share our love of the national parks.  If you have just one bookmarked spot in cyberspace, make it www.nps.gov.  It will take you everywhere you want to be in this great land of America.

   And to see some of the stories from the parks by Bruce and I, click around here:

Great Smoky Mountains      Rocky Mountain

Devils Tower          Glacier Bay

 We hope that you, too, will find a pleasant memory, a connection to a power greater than yourself and a reason to give thanks for the places that Harry Karsten, the first superintendent of Denali, called “The Great Silent Places.”

   And find a way to visit and support our national parks.  They really are a very good idea.

Walking Olde World Third Street in Milwaukee is about as close to experiencing authentic German culture as you can get while living in the land of red, white and blue.  The lovely Wisconsin city is now recovering from this past week’s invasion by the Midwest Travel Writers Association. 

Yes, we imbibed on cheese and wursts and dark beer.  We toured Frederick and Maria Pabst’s home and poked around in Miller Park where the Brewers do their thing (not very well this season).  We had our pictures made with the Bronze Fonze (Italian not German) and more pictures made at the Harley Davidson Museum.

Autumn is the season for experiencing German culture, and Milwaukee is a great place to do so.

Another great place, if you can’t get to Germany itself, is Fredericksburg, Texas.  Like Milwaukee, it was founded by German immigrants and has a high degree of authenticity in its cultural offerings.

   This November, we’ll probably receive another healthy dose of German culture as the world commemorates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  I was working on stories about sections of the Berlin Wall in Fulton Missouri the week that Walter Cronkite died and referenced it in my blog post of July 28.

I promised to let you know when the story appeared in print, which it has now done as the cover story in the fall issue of Show Me Missouri.  The issue is particularly insightful, highlighting numerous contributions Missourians have made, for better or worse, to the current state of the world.

I don’t speak German and am not even 100% sure I’ve spelled those three German words in the blog title correctly.  There was a time that both Bruce and Bradley studied it, and we hosted a German foreign exchange student.  But, we must answer “nein” when the question of Sprechen sie Deutsch is posed.

However, we’ve got a year to brush up on our deutch, because next fall the Society of American Travel Writers is meeting in Saxony.  If it’s half as much fun and produces as many story opportunities as Milwaukee, then all the more reasons to lift our steins and celebrate.

   A colleague of mine posted on our SATW bulletin board recently that holidays are a non-existent commodity for freelancers.  So I know that many people who do what I do for a living did what I did most of the weekend – sat in front of the computer and wrote.

   But I’m not complaining, believe me.   Lots of people spent their Labor Day holiday laboring, and in our current job market, I’m sure very few people who were working were complaining.

   But before another traditional work week begins, I feel the need to explain why I haven’t been better at posting on my blog.

   Cause I’ve been Laboring!!!!   It’s been a crazy summer of short driving trips here and there for just a few days at a time.  In many ways, these short trips are more tiring and difficult than destinations that require hours on a plane, multiple airports, time zones and the like. 

   But I’m not complaining, because I’m getting work.  And all of a sudden, many of my stories from the past months have finally surfaced.

From our trip to Costa Rica, click here.    I like this story and for all of my MTWA friends, “watch out.  This one is gonna be an award winner in Baton Rouge.”

I’ve done some volunteer work for the MTWA website.  Check out the “Travel Tips” section for ideas of where to go, what to do, via the lenses and stories of my MTWA colleagues. 

Another thing that is taking up a lot of time is our teddy bears.  Yes, you read that right – teddy bears.

   Bruce and I are very involved in a geography education program with SATW where we connect teddy bears with writers with classrooms around North America.  It’s kind of a Flat Stanley thing, but ours is so much better. 

   Anyway, one of our bears is taking off very soon on a five week driving adventure across the United States, and what makes this little bear special is that she is in a wheelchair, sharing with physically disabled children the concept that they can indeed go anywhere and do anything they want.

   The bear’s name is Cherrie and you can follow her travels here.

So I’ve been busy, but so have a number of my colleagues, who I’m sure are just as grateful as I to do the work we do on Labor Day or any other day.

   One of the fun perks of my job, besides those stamps on my passport and all of the frequent flyer miles, is hearing from people I’ve lost touch with over the years.

  Yes, you think that’s so much easier with things like Facebook, LinkedIn and Classmates.com, but sometimes it’s just good old fashioned, old school media that does the trick.

   Last year about this time, I was doing a weekly gig on KMBZ Radio in Kansas City about the book Day Trips from Kansas City.  And out of the blue, I get an e-mail (Ok, not exactly an old fashioned medium) from a woman who heard me on the radio.  Our work brought us together back when we both had “real” jobs. 

   So we had lunch and caught up on things.  She now has two babies and my baby is almost an adult.  So when I needed to visit the Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead in Overland Park for an assignment and needed little children who could offer their opinions – guess who I called? 

   Yes, Janelle’s kids unwittingly modeled for photos while feeding baby goats, geese, ducks, more goats and all of the critters you can feed and touch at the farmstead.

 And that’s what my day of work was today – feeding baby goats, going for a hayride, and attempting to milk a plastic cow.

  Last week, I get another surprise e-mail (yes I know, not really an old-fashioned medium), but it came from a woman affectionately known as The Marble Lady who lives near me and whom I’ve done stories on in the past, but I haven’t seen in a while.

   Her real name is Cathy Runyan-Svacina and she is the world’s leading expert on marbles.  She was contacting me not because of another story I did on her, but because she was flying Midwest Airlines in July and a story in the airlines’ in-flight magazine made her go “ooh” and “aaah.”

   The story is on Kansas City’s Toy and Miniature Museum and prominently mentioned in the article is the collection of more than one million marbles Cathy and her husband donated to the museum.

   Of course, the link here is that I wrote the story, including the line about the room with the marbles getting the most “oohs” and “aaahs” from visitors. Cathy liked that line.

   So hearing from Cathy and making her go “ooh” and “aah” and spending the day with Janelle and her kids petting the goats – and that people still gather information for their lives from old-fashioned print and radio - that’s a perk of the job right up there with a new stamp on the passport.

   Something must be missing in one of my X chromosomes.  I’m a female, yet I don’t really like to shop.    I don’t believe that’s the cause of our current economic challenges – there are plenty of women who make up for my lack of purchasing passion.

  But I do admire writers who incorporate their passion for shopping with a passion for writing.  My gal pal Sally Walker Davies does.  She writes a column in the Memphis Commerical Appeal called “Great Finds.”  It’s a shopping column of sorts, but she successfully weaves in her travel as well.  And it’s a good fit.  The Travel Industry Association tells us that shopping and eating are the top two activities we participate in while traveling.

   When we were in Spain last November, Sally bought red toilet paper and some wool scarves that, when placed next to the light bulb in the trunk, nearly caught the vehicle on fire. But the story was linked around the world and red toilet paper sales soared.  

   When we were at Mount Rushmore, she bought a vintage cafeteria tray.  I’m not sure I understand the purpose of that one, but she says it has a great home in her bathroom.

   And when we were in Indianapolis last week, Sally bought a number of unmentionables that I’m sure she will mention in her column.  We shopped on Mass Avenue, a really cool, trendy district with lots of independently owned boutiques and gift shops.  While I was purchasing wrapping paper that looks like maps of the world’s great cities at Mass Avenue Toys, she was carried away with farting fingers.  Shall we say, the store appeals to a diverse group?

  But I most enjoyed a shop called Global Gifts, a non-profit store that carries the work of improverished artisans in developing countries.  The store guarantees to the consumer that the products have been made in an ethical manner and the purchase truly benefits the individual artisan.  Employees do a great job of educating the public about the culture and traditions of the country represented by the product.

   Global Gifts carries hand-made products from about 50 countries, but it changes seasonally.  They say Christmas is crazy because this is where you can find authentic ornaments and nativities from all of these countries.

Anyway, I loved Global Gifts, so now I’m pitching stories about it and hoping an editor will love the idea as much as I do.  But the first rule of writing is “write what you know,” so I might be handicapped by pitching this as a shopping story.

   It’s just a good story,  a great find, looking for a home.

Little penguin ornaments carved from a Tagua nut in Equador.