Many people these days have begun to look at the travel industry with a critical eye. With gas prices rising and the dollar struggling, people are beginning to see that things in the world are not status quo anymore – things are changing. With that, mindsets are changing and people are starting to travel in a different way. A way that benefits other people who are in need, helps the environment or for cultural exchange. These are not new concepts for me. I took a year after high school to travel to Norway as an exchange student. It was a life changing experience. It changed the way I looked at the world, and helped me to see that people all over the world have ways of life that are unique to them and that I feel should be preserved. That fascinated me and still does. This is one of the reasons that I write this blog – it is because I believe that through travel and cultural experiences we can learn so much – not just about the world, but about ourselves.

After my Norwegian experience, I officially came down with the Travel Bug. Not just to see other places, but to really experience them. Being an outsider has its lessons. So while in college, studying anthropology and contemporary Native American issues, I found out about Black Mesa and Big Mountain – part of the Navajo Reservation in NE Arizona and their struggle for survival. To read more about the history and my experiences there, please read this.

I have stayed in touch with some of the people I met there and try to keep myself up to date with what is going on there on Black Mesa. These elders that live there, have a very hard life and they always need volunteers, people to go out to their homesteads, do a home stay, help with sheep herding, carding and spinning wool, cooking, chopping wood, cleaning and doing just about anything and everything to do with traditional Navajo life. I spent 6 months with a family there and it truly was a life changing experience (yep, that is me in the jeans and gray sweatshirt hanging with my Navajo grandparents and their children during a family reunion). Without that time in my life, I would not be the person I am today. I am so thankful for that experience, because even though I was there to help them, I think in so many ways they helped me more.

Black Mesa Indigenous Support Group - the group that arranged my home stay, is now calling for volunteers to go out to the land and stay with families. They are a small grass-roots all-volunteer group organized to work with and support the issues of traditional, indigenous peoples of Black Mesa who are impacted by the coal mining and forced relocation policies of the US government. There is a lot going on that you can participate in that will help immeasurably. There are people all over the world, struggling and living in third world conditions who face human rights violations all the time. It saddens me deeply, but what saddens me even more is the fact that we have a similar situation going on here in America, and so few people even know about it!

Continue reading to learn more about how your next vacation can be one that helps people in need.

*On a personal note, I will be getting married very soon, so posts/ updating comments will be more sporadic than usual with gaps – don’t worry I will be back with more travel articles and Saint Augustine Resturant Reviews!* Read the rest of this entry »

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This is a picture of me and my best friend, Jen. Notice anything? Well we are both named Jennifer, we both have dark brown hair that we both cut short this past year, we both have glasses. And for some unknown reason, we both have a thing for octopuses. It is one of those weird things in life – friend soul mates. We used to see each other every single day and it made sense back then that we would sort of rub off on each other. But now, living far apart and not seeing each other over the past year, we still on are the same wave length. We used to work together in a Doctor’s office for years and people thought we were the same person. Funny, huh?

Anyway, Jen has a baby, her name is Alina Rose and she is just adorable. Her favorite toy? An octopus.

So Jen and Alina took Roberto and I to McCray’s Farm in South Hadley, Mass.

It is full of Bunnies, Sheep, Cows, Horses, Piglets, and birds of many kinds. It is a hot spot for little ones and children of any age (I am definitely one of those people! ). McCray’s has hayrides in the fall and they also have their own creamy where you can get ice cream and pancake breakfasts during maple harvest season. It is a great place to go when you are in Western MA for a taste of real New England life!

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Here is the latest on the situation in Black Mesa/ Big Mountain. To read more about it read my article My Time With The Navajo Elders here.

Greetings supporters, friends, & relatives of Big Mountain, Black Mesa, AZ.
Here are our fall updates. Details are below.

* ANNUAL BLACK MESA FALL FOOD & SUPPLY RUN BY CLANDYKEN IS STILL MOVING FORWARD DESPITE ONE
OF THE MAIN ORGANIZERS HAVING HAD A MAJOR HEAD-ON CAR COLLISION. YOUR SUPPORT IS ESPECIALLY
NEEDED THIS YEAR!
* 30th ANNIVERSARY OF BIG MOUNTAIN RESISTANCE: A SUCCESS!
* A CALL-OUT FOR SHEEPHERDERS & SUPPORTERS FROM BLACK MESA FAMILIES TO COME & STAY AS THEIR
GUESTS.
* BLACK MESA MINE UPDATE:
* DOODA DESERT ROCK- FOUR DAYS OF SPIRITUAL GATHERING NOVEMBER 8 – 11, 2007:
* RISING TIDE NORTH AMERICA (RTNA) ANNOUNCES FOUR NEW CAMPAIGNS. (Including so called ‘Clean
Coal’)

—————————-

* ANNUAL CLANDYKEN FALL FOOD & SUPPLY RUN TO BLACK MESA IS STILL MOVING FORWARD EVEN AFTER
ONE OF THE ORGANIZERS HAD A MAJOR HEAD-ON CAR COLLISION. YOUR SUPPORT IS NEEDED –ESPECIALLY
THIS YEAR!
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The comment I got from Diana last week really got me thinking about the word home. Why do any of us live where we do and when we move somewhere new, how do we make this new place a place of our own? There are so many phrases when it comes to the meaning of the word: “Home is where the heart is”, “My Home away from Home”, “There is no place like Home”, just to mention a few. When you really think about the word in these contexts Home is not just a location, it is a place in your heart, a feeling, a sense of being in the right place.

For those of us who have wanderlust and the travel bug and the need to go and see the world, does this mean that we don’t have a sense of home, or that we are looking for home? Are we are more nomadic than people who are born, raised, live and die in the same town, or even the same state? Why is it that some people move all the time and some are content to stay where they are?
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This is the premise for the article I wrote for online travel magazine: Brave New Traveler!

Check it out!

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Here you can read my latest article for Brave New Traveler on my thoughts about The Travel Bug and where it comes from! Click Here to read the article!

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As many of you know, the situation on Black Mesa, is something near and dear to my heart. This is primarily a travel website, so I thought I’d pass this along to any interested parties! This is how I got involved with the situation in Northern Arizona and this is how I helped. If you are looking to travel to Arizona and want to combine travel with human rights relief work, this may be the post you needed to see most! The experience changed my life and is one of the best things I have ever done with my life!

Summer 2007
CALLS FOR SUPPORT AT BLACK MESA, ARIZONA.

Greetings from Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS),

We have several calls for support that we want to relay on behalf of The People on ‘The
Land’ (Black Mesa). You may have heard that the decades-long ‘Land Dispute’ has been
resolved. Indeed, there have been messages coming from the political establishment that are quite a bit different from the daily life of the People on The Land but this is nothing new. The Dine’ (Navajo) families that we work with are still struggling under Federally backed Hopi/Bureau of Indian Affairs jurisdiction.

Native peoples in the Black Mesa area have been living under relocation laws that
have devastated their community for over 30 years. Dine’ homesites and camps are
subjected to a “Property Dismantaling and Disposal Project,” where families’ property and
physical history are hauled away to “return the land to its original condition, protect
natural resources, environment, and interests of the Hopi Tribe and the Hopi People” (Office
of Hopi Lands website). These “interests” include the expansion of Peabody Western Coal
company’s 100+ sq. mile strip mine.

Dine’ communities have refused and resisted repeated orders from the federal government to
vacate their ancestral homelands of Black Mesa. Elder resisters have been acknowledeged as
heroic and their efforts have generated worldwide support. But the Dine struggle for autonomy
on Black Mesa is not over. Even with all the increasing awareness about man-made climate
change and advocacy for environmentally friendly living that ‘leaders’ such as Al Gore are
raising globally, coal-mining continues to threaten the people, their ancestral homeland, and
culture.
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This is my submission for the
W is for Writing Challenge Jeff has put forth on C is for Cooking

Isn’t it amazing how a taste of something can bring you back to the past? One minute you are sitting enjoying a sweet treat at the end of a pizza and pasta dinner wondering what your angle should be for yet another Italian restaurant review and in the next moment you are an eight year old child sitting in the Italian hall enjoying the same sweet treat with your Pap-Pap. Sometimes, it has been so long since you had that particular taste that you forgot that it even existed. In that same moment that you are tasting this long-forgotten delight, moments in your life you had also forgotten come flooding back – now full of emotion because they had been forgotten for so long you did not realize how much you missed those simple, wonderful moments that you had no idea you would miss so much later at the original time you experienced them.
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I am happy to report that I am the newest freelance travel and food writer for a local newspaper here in Ocala. I have to thank all the loyal readers of this blog for getting me to this point. All the support and comments have really helped me to keep pursuing my dreams!
If you dream big, you will recieve big! … and I am still dreaming.

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My girl Rachael Ray has been getting a lot of flack lately, and I may get a lot of flack for writing this, but o’well, I am going to say it anyway! Seems that yet another talented, tough, hard working girl just got too famous for where some say she is supposed to be – she’s in the top of the cooking industry and she’s not even a real trained chef at that – blasphemy! Well I can admit that sometimes she is too hyper for my taste and perhaps she is a bit gruff and speaks her own language of abbreviations and short cuts which can annoy and confuse, but honestly, when I think about it, those personality quirks are outweighed by the many things I like about her.
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