Travelcraft Journal – Page 88 – Championing the makers, artists, and wanderers in all of us.

April 13, 2015August 24, 2015

Valleys Run through the Mountains

Life can be such an off-balance mix of highs and lows, beautiful moments and heartbreaking ones all scrambled together.

A week ago, I was feeling a little sunburned from an Easter picnic with my cousins. I was checking in with my mom about RSVPs for her and my dad’s fast-approaching 60th birthday celebration. I was also helping my brother and sister-in-law in Seattle plan to come into town secretly and make a surprise appearance at the party. I was getting ready for our Anaheim trip.

Then, Thursday evening, I got a text that made the world stop. My cousin was in the ICU, and it didn’t look like she’d make it. My mom picked me up on the way to the hospital, and we joined the family that was already there, hugging and crying and saying goodbye. She passed later that night. It feels heavy and unjust and unreal.

She had already let her adult children know her wishes, including the fact she didn’t want her memorial service to be gloomy. Everyone is supposed to wear purple. Since it’s not scheduled for this week, we decided to go ahead with our convention plans. Not going wouldn’t bring her back, and a change of scenery could be really good right now.

So we’ll go – with these heavy hearts, this mix of emotions – to just outside the happiest place on earth.

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April 6, 2015March 5, 2020

Star Wars Geeks Unite!

Yes, we are really going to the Star Wars Celebration convention.

It’s held every 2-3 years-ish (bi-triennial? quasi-triennial?) This time it’s at the Anaheim Convention Center, so we’ll be right across from Disneyland without time to actually go to Disneyland. Maybe we’ll catch the fireworks.

I will, of course, be focusing on the makers. And there are a lot of them. (At the Re:Make Conference, Chris Taylor said that most of the Star Wars fan community makes something.)

Anyway, we may sneak in a tiny bit of sightseeing on the way there or back. Either way, I’m sure we’ll have interesting stories to tell you.

April 1, 2015April 1, 2015

Drinks at a desert dive

After a long flight, we wanted to work in some sightseeing during our layover. The suns’ heat was so intense that we ended up just ducking into the first place we found that was open. It turned out to be this dimly lit, somewhat sketchy bar. It was packed full of pilots and travelers, drinking or smoking hookah pipes. They even had live music, which seemed odd at midday.

It was gritty, but actually not too bad for a dive bar in the middle of the desert. The drink menu included local favorites like the Desert Bloom and the Meltdown. I ordered a vegan Juri Juice, which came in a cool collectible jar. Phillip stuck with Blue Milk. I later found out some pretty intense fights had broken out there in the past. But that was a long time ago, and we didn’t have any problems.

One Yelp review called the cantina “a wretched hive of scum and villainy,” which just goes to show, you shouldn’t believe everything you read.

PS For more out-of-this world cocktail ideas, check out this post on Getting Hammered in a Galaxy Far, Far Away.

Disclosure: We did not receive any compensation from the Mos Eisley Cantina for this review. In fact, I can’t even confirm that we ever left our home planet. While April 1st is the only day you’ll hear about our layover on Tatooine, we are actually
headed to Star Wars Celebration in a couple weeks, and we’ll be sure to tell you all about that.

Posted on March 30, 2015January 9, 2018
Open to creativity

About a dozen people of all ages showed up for my workshop at Southwest Maker Fest Saturday.

I talked a little about making minimalist travel journals that you can start during your trip. Then I gave everyone an envelope with odds and ends to represent what you might pick up on your travels — attraction flyers, paper scraps, coffee sleeves, Travelcraft Journal stickers, etc. Then I set them loose to create something that told the story of their day.

Because the room I was assigned to was in a children’s museum, some of the parents assumed it was a “kid thing” and were surprised when I handed them an envelope to create one too. Also, the open-endedness of the project freaked a few people out a bit at first.

But, by the end, everyone — kids and adults — really got creative and made some fabulous things. They journaled, they drew, some of them went outside the booklet format and got architectural, building things with their materials.

I love seeing people open up to creativity.

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Posted on March 26, 2015
Wildflower hunt

Phillip and I went out looking for wildflowers. We found lots along the roadside and just a few sprinkled beyond that.

We also found the Picket Post trailhead.

We spotted some cactus wrens, some beat up old Saguaros, and the Silly Mountain Botanical Walk. Yes, there’s a Silly Mountain. With its own botanical walk. My state has some of the most ridiculous place names. (Why, Arizona)

Anyway, it was a nice little path with some wildflowers and blooming prickly pear cactus.

It wasn’t what we’d expected, but I’d still call it a success.

PS The latest edition of the newsletter went out today. If you didn’t get it, let me know.

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