Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Vegas Boondocks...

As promised the continuation of the misfortunate events that lead to a truly unforgettable adventure.

The streets were dark and the desert cactuses loomed like distorted characters all around our car that was soon to fail us. Dazed in a hung over stupor from the three debaucherous nights that had superseded this moment our awareness of the world outside the small, fast moving vehicle began to fade. Slowly, as though the car had entered the same Vegas haze as its passengers, smoke began to filter through the hood until the windows were swirling with the deadly smell of gas and an overheated car.

Half in hysterical tears and half in hysterical laughter, hours passed on the darkened street, hidden from any civilization that may have existed around us. The AAA toe truck bumbled its way up the road, bouncing and screeching over the pot holes on the desert track. Strapped wearily above the streets on the bed of a toe truck, five giggling, wide eyed girls crammed once again into the desert death trap. Before heading off for an unexpected evening in hotel beds, our apparently blazed truck driver gives us a glazed, blood-shot look and says, "Now be careful girl the brakes aren't too good."

Monday, March 1, 2010

Roadside Boondocks

My lust for the Boondocks was sparked when I received Jack Kerouac's On The Road on my 20th birthday. His obscure passion for people, adventure, and freedom were Kerouac's only traveling accoutrements.
In the 1950s when hitch hiking wouldn't get you stuck inside someone's refrigerator in a million pieces and doing the dishes at a truck stop dinner would get you a meal, travel without expectation was a way of life, now it may turn into a traveler's worst nightmare.

With the global internet connecting our traveling generation, there is an accessible family of similar travelers helping each other get from point A to point B and enjoy the time in between. Bed buged hostels and stenchy Greyhounds are the broke man's travels of the past.

This article is a list of different ridesharing websites, getting people together over gas, and a few hours of intimate conversation. Craig's List has their own rideshare listing, especially good for local travel.

The newest trend in backpacker's travel is couchsurfing. People all over the globe are opening up their living rooms for those vagabonders without a place to stay.

The global traveling community is once again opening its doors for strangers to become acquaintances and the regained freedom of the road.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Disastrous Boondocks

Boondocks travelers explore the deep crevasses of the earth searching for the world's secrets. Often ignored is the destruction of a land that offers so much beauty.

In January Haitian lives were shook to their core, by an earthquake that wiped through a population. Destruction shouldn't be a traveling deterrence, instead a traveling inspiration.

Organizations are banding together to pick up the rubble and puzzle piece the country back to a whole.

Trainings like the Disaster Volunteer Reserve prepare the courageous to face the high stress disasters they might encounter.

Alternative groups like the Burning Man bunch, known as a boisterous crew is turning up on the other end of their partying ways. Burners Without Borders is an extended group across the United States working on a number of projects reaching out to countries through volunteer work.

A number of Haiti volunteer groups have been compiled on www.haitivolunteer.org.