Skyline Drive, Shenandoah, VA

The northern end of Skyline Drive is a straight 80 miles west of Washington D.C. along Route-66 (not the Route-66), and marks the start of Shenandoah National Park. We’re here to flirt with nature, reacquaint ourselves with some earth rhythms, and flood our senses with everything Fall. It’s been a while since we escaped the District, and Shenandoah is an easy bolt-hole.

Washington D.C. is a clean and spacious city.  The air drinks nicely, there’s no sooty, dirty nose to it like there can be in London; rarely do I see litter on the street, and even during peak hours the pavements feel empty.  Gathering together all of the open space in D.C. would need an area 9 times the size of New York’s Central Park–it has the nation’s highest ratio of parkland per resident.

“Ahh, fresh mountain air,” says Faizal, as if he’s been trapped breathing the toxic fumes of a smoggy city since his journey out here a few months ago.

It could be any number of things: the deep crimson maple leaves, the low slung white criss-cross fences, the red and white barns with their gambrel roofs.  I can’t help feeling I’m in New England.

“Do you want to stop?” says Faizal from the driver’s seat.

“No, let’s keeping going.  We have to come back this way.”

“Right!  Everyone’s stopping now.  The viewpoints should be quiet later.”

We didn’t come back this way, we took an alternative route home along Route-211, through Sperryville, but the thinking was good. Shenandoah sees around 15% of its visitors arrive in October for a glimpse of the tawny Fall colours, it’s always a busy time of year.

Signal Knob Overlook, Gooney Run Overlook, Compton Gap, we pass them all. It’s no big deal, there are 75 to choose from.  We decide our first stop will be around mile 20: Little Hogback Overlook–Fariza likes the name.

A 35 mph speed limit is in effect along the length of the road, so we settle in, roll down the windows and watch from the car as we snake our way along the ridge.  The hills look like the broccoli in the bottom of my fridge: a few pockets of green have survived the virulent yellow ageing effect, but they won’t hold out forever.  Red and gold leaves peel like rust from the hillside, or a bad case of wind burn from the cold gusts that whip across the ridge.  A few stark, empty, stick filled voids indicate where the landscape is headed in the next few weeks.

The sun is just catching on the top of Old Rag by the time we make our final stop.  I pull on my red hat, grab my camera, and for the first time wish I had some gloves.  The leaves have lost their brilliance in the shadows, colours are muted, the park is shutting down for the night.  Afternoons don’t last as long as they used to.

We pause long enough to survey the smooth granite summit of Old Rag in the distance and remember sitting up there in the summer sun a few months ago, munching peanut butter sandwiches.  Maybe we’ll return again next year, the leaves will. They always do.

Miami sunset / Flickr photo by Slack12

My guidebook noted it was a big area for Argentinian immigrants, yet still nothing prepared me for what I found.

Argentinians are patriotic at the best of times, but take them out of their homeland and it is a locura (madness). Every car had flags waving out the windows. There was celeste and white as far as the eye could see. There was a band beating drums. It was livelier than any world cup street scene I’ve experienced so far in BA.

Want proof? Above is a (very rough) video I took in Manolo’s, an Argentinian fast-food restaurant.

Continue reading this article @ Going Local Travel

Each state has its own environmental protection agency, but not all cities faithfully practice proper environmental practices. Such as recycling. I live in a mid-rise apartment building in downtown Miami where the recycling area on the first floor of the garage is like entering a deep scary cave. Each time I bring a bag of plastics I prepare myself to see rodents or giant insects.

The clean air in Minneapolis and St. Paul is partly attributable to the large amounts of farm land near by and Minnesota’s reputation for being a state of 10,000 lakes. As of June 2009, the population in Minnesota reached a little over 5 million compared to Florida’s over 18.5 million. For comparison’s sake, the city of New York has reached 8 million residents last year.

Minnesota Windmill

It’s not everyday you see a windmill in your average shopping center in Miami.

No matter what destination you’re visiting, whether it’s the crisp air of Minneapolis, or the humid beaches of Miami, travelling fairly with responsibility to the destination to sustain its environment and culture is essential. Placing yourself responsible for the future of the destination you’re visiting leads to minimal deterioration of the current environment, society and culture. For this weekend’s adventure I had a couple things in mind.

- Partake in typical events or activities of the destination. In Minnesota’s case we would have gone ice fishing if it was still freezing, but with the tulips in bloom the spring weather was perfect to admire the cherry blossoms and flowers blooming.

- Support the local economy. For most of the year the weather in Minnesota supports ice freezing rather than flip flop wearing. So I bought my very own pair of Minnetonka moccasins.

My very own pair of Minnetonka moccasins

My next visit to Minnesota has a much bigger list of to dos, such as seeing the Musinger/Clemens Gardens in St. Cloud. Explore Minnesota has ten of the best places to explore in Minnesota, one of them being the gardens, and another being the touring of the caves in northern Minnesota.

The arts and culture crowd has exploded in Minnesota, especially in the Twin Cities where art crawls and gastronomy hops have replaced the Mall of America. The heritage in Minnesota is also taken with extreme pride as traveller’s are welcomed to explore and discover the Scandinavian and Native American heritage left behind to descendants. There are enough cultural festivals to last the year, ranging from Cinco de Mayo to the Finnish American Summer Festival to the Festival of Nations.

What I loved about Minnesota is exactly what I miss about living in the north east – the seasons. In winter you can ski or go ice fishing, in the summer you can go sailing on Lake Minnetonka or water ski. With so many activities and events happening, you would hardly realise you were standing in sub zero weather in January and warm breezes a few months later in July.

Southern states involved in the civil rights movement: Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Louisiana, The Carolinas, Florida.

In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court declared school segregation unconstitutional after a Kansas school board refused to let a black child attend a nearby school for whites. The following year Rosa Parks, a black seamstress from Alabama refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white rider. Her subsequent conviction under Alabama’s segregation laws was overturned in 1956 by the Supreme Court, which asserted that the segregation of public transportation was as unconstitutional as school segregation. These cases led ultimately to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which criminalized segregation in virtually every aspect of American society. The Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama was dedicated in 1989, honoring 40 people who gave their lives between 1954 and 1968 in the fight for racial equality.

1. Jim Crow Laws: Racial segregation and discrimination laws (1876 to 1965 )

   Jim Crow Laws and Customs enforced racial segregation and discrimination across the south of the United States between 1876 and 1965. They gave African Americans separate but ‘equal’ status. The most important laws required that public schools and most public places have separate facilities for whites and blacks. After 1945 the Civil Rights Movement gained momentum and used federal courts to attack Jim Crow. In 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act, annulling all Jim Crow Laws.

   The term ‘Jim Crow Laws’ is thought to originate from a popular minstrel show song written in 1828 called Jump Jim Crow, a blackface song which made derogatory references to the character of coloured people. As a result of this song, the term ‘Jim Crow’ became a pejorative or mocking term for coloured people.

2. Jackie Robinson: Entered Major League Baseball in 1947

   In 1947 Jackie Robinson became the first African American Major League Baseball player. Jackie played baseball in 1944 for the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro American League where he was noticed by Clyde Sukeforth, a scout working for Branch Rickey, club president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Two years after his debut in the Major League, Jackie won the award for Most Valuable Player.

   Jackie Robinson is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame and a member of the All-Century Team. He once said:
   

   “I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me… all I ask is that you respect me as a human being.”

3. Brown vs Board: The end to racial segregation in public education (1954)

   School desegregation was a major part of the Civil Rights Movement. The first legal challenge to segregated schools was in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. A landmark desicion was taken by the United States Supreme Court to outlaw the racial segregation of public education facilities. It was a giant step forward for the civil rights movement, placing the weight of the Federal Judiciary squarely behind the forces of desegregation.

   The case of Brown v. Board was not solely about Linda Brown and whether or not she should be able to attend the school nearest her home but a consolidation of five different cases, from four states, all of which dealt with the same issue.

4. The Freedom Riders: Rode interstate buses into the segregated south (Summer of 1961)

   In 1961 The Freedom Riders (black and white) rode interstate buses into the segregated South from Washington, D.C., to Jackson, Mississippi. The purpose was to test the 1960 United States Supreme Court decision on Boynton v. Virginia which outlawed racial segregation in interstate transportation facilities, including bus stations and railroad terminals. A total of 436 Freedom Riders, many of whom were college students were arrested and imprisoned for violating state and local Jim Crow Laws.

5. James Meredith: Attended the all-white University of Mississippi in 1962

   James Meredith was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi of Native American (Choctaw) and African American heritage. In September 1962 Meredith applied for admission to the all-white University of Mississippi following a nine year stint in the U.S. Air Force and two years at Jackson State College. A federal court ordered the university to desegregate, but the governor of Mississippi defied the order and tried to prevent the man from enrolling. On 1st October he became the first black student at the University. His enrollment sparked riots on the Oxford campus and required President John F. Kennedy to send federal troops and marshals. James Meredith graduated in the summer of 1963.

   Meredith once said:
   

   “Nothing could be more insulting to me than the concept of civil rights. It means perpetual second-class citizenship for me and my kind”.

   He views himself as an individual American citizen who demanded and got the rights properly extended to any American, not as a participant in the US Civil Rights Movement.

6. Bloody Sunday: 3 marches from Selma to Montgomery, AL (Sunday, 7th March 1965)

   Many events during the Civil Rights Movement turned violent and it was Bloody Sunday that marked its political and emotional peak. Three marches were organised from Selma, Alabama to the state capital of Montgomery to bring notice to the violations of civil rights. Only the third and final march made it successfully into Montgomery. During the first attempt on Sunday, 7th March 1965 600 marchers were attacked by state and local police with billy clubs, tear gas and bull whips. The following Tuesday Martin Luther King organised a second march but it could not continue to Montgomery due to the delayed issuing of a court order that had been sort to prohibit the police from interfering. Two weeks later the federal judge granted the court order, preventing the State from blocking the marchers and on 24th March 1965 they reached Montgomery.

   Within five months of the third march, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The route is memorialized as the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail.

7. Henry David Thoreau: American author and philosopher

   Henry David Thoreau was one of the first people to set forth the basic tenets of civil disobedience. He is best known for Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.

   Thoreau’s philosophy of nonviolent resistance influenced the political thoughts and actions of the pacifist Leo Tolstoy, the separatist Mohandas K. Gandhi, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.. Thoreau is regarded today as one of the foremost American writers, both for the modern clarity of his prose style and the prescience of his views on nature and politics. His memory is honored by the international Thoreau Society, the oldest and largest society devoted to an American author.

8. The Kerner Report: The riot commission (1968)

   In 1967 President Lyndon Johnson appointed the National Commission on Civil Disorders and charged it with investigating urban riots in the United States. In 1968 the commission released its report and its finding were that the riots resulted from black frustration at lack of economic opportunity. It warned:
   

   ”Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white–separate and unequal.”

9. Martin Luther King: January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968

   Martin Luther King was a political activist, a baptist minister and leader of the American civil rights movement. He won the Nobel Peace prize in 1964 and following his assasination in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4th, 1968 he was awarded the Presidential medal of Freedom. January 15th has been a Federal holiday in the United States since 1986 in his honour.

   The Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee where Martin Luther King was shot now houses the National Civil Rights Museum. Two months after King’s death James Earl Ray was captured at London Heathrow Airport and charged with the assasination. Ever since his capture, controversy and conspiracy theories have surrounded the assasination, some even attributing it to the FBI who had the Lorraine Motel under surveillance at the time and who were first on the scene. King was in Memphis to support striking black garbage workers.

   Martin Luther King was originally born Michael King but informally changed his name in honour of ‘Martin Luther’ when he became a minister. Martin Luther inspired the Reformation in 1517.

Belfast, Northern Ireland

His father is from Kenya, his mother from middle america, he spent four years living in Indonesia as a child. Obama has been criticized for his lack of foreign policy experience, but with such a finely tuned inner compass for world issues it seems likely that his inherent judgement and morality will more than match his opposing candidate John McCain – a 71 year old ex prisoner-of-war.  With conflicts ongoing throughout the middle east, the prospect of having a president who has actually lived in a muslim country and can tell you the difference between Shia and Sunni seems like a huge asset to the U.S. given the current crisis’. The sociological landscape of America has changed dramatically over the last ten years and reports suggest that white americans will be a minority in 2042.  The spanish language seems ever more prevalent across the country and with an african american running for president it appears this change has permeated to the very top.

Taking a step away from a white American lead vision for america sounds like a huge step forward, not just for the U.S. but for the rest of the world. A much needed transistion to take the White House back into the real world and to let everyone know that America isn’t opposed to change but is embracing it and looking forward.  A quick glance at Google trends shows that worldwide and U.S. search traffic for Obama has been consistently higher than for McCain.  The new Facebook lexicon shows that Obama gets a mention in more walls posts than McCain, and a greater number relate to positive comments.  News and blog articles seem to favour Obama everywhere you look (unless you watch FOX News).  Based on these factors it seems as though Obama is clear winner for the presidency, but who would have predicted that Bush would be able to win a second term 4 years ago. I guess middle america will decide once again.

Last night saw the first in a series of presidential candidate debates, both men were poised behind their podiums for over an hour and a half. Without even listening to their retorts the differences between the two of them is striking, and presents a rather accuarate portrayal of their contrasting approach to the presidency – McCain’s short, stocky, arrogantly lethargic Bush-like appearance brings back painful memories of republican cries for “four more years!”. Obama’s tall, composed, animated and engaging manner inspires a new era for America with fresh insight and progressive policies.  Listening to them speak gives a similar impression, and McCain’s unwavering similarities to the current president both in appearance and voice make it easy for him to be perceived as another Bush ready to continue digging the same hole.

The U.S. Presidential election has always gripped the globe, and it’s fascinating to find that across the world everyone seems to have an opinion on these candidates – Malaysia and Indonesia both seem impressively up-to-date on the presidential race and Obama is held in high regard by many.  Global interest in American politics is not merely a fleeting observation of another country’s current affairs, but driven by a much more genuine sense of involvement and concern for how impending policies and leadership will impact us all.  The recent effect of catastrophic economic collapse in the U.S. on UK finances is a great example of how concerned we should all be about what goes on across the Atlantic.

The Chesapeake Bay area today

The English, Italians and Spanish all sailed up the North American coast countless times at the end of the 15th Century and during the 16th Century, but no real effort was ever made to colonise it until 1585.

The first inhabitants of North America were nomadic hunter-gatherers who lived in small bands across the continent. Most of them migrated with the seasons in search of food and temperate locales. They built few permanent structures and tended to own land communally. At the time of European contact, many native people lived at the waters edge around cornfields and gardens of squash, beans and potatoes. For generations they prophesised that strangers from across the sea would come and destroy their people.

The first European colony was established on Roanoke Island just south of the Chesapeake in modern North Carolina, however it vanished mysteriously several years later. The Jamestown colony was founded in 1607 and local tribes under the powerful chief Powhatan warned the colonists that they would need to plant corn to sustain them through the cold months, when hunting and fishing were difficult. Few settlers had the inclination or skill to plant, tend, and harvest corn and as a result they verged on starvation for many winters. Low on funds and without direction or initiative, Jamestown was close to collapse.

At this time the British were paying big money for tobacco that ship captains purchased from planters in the West Indies. The Native Indians were already smoking tobacco, but it was not the same variety that was fetching high prices in Europe. An enterprising Englishman named John Rolfe joined the colony in 1609 and married Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas five years later. Rolfe managed to obtain some seeds of the West Indian plants and cultivated them in the rich tidewater soil of the Chesapeake Bay. This was the beginning of a new cash crop for the colonists.

Beginnings Of The Slave Trade

Once the Indians had been driven off prospective plantation land and seeds had been planted, tobacco supply was limitless, but the labour supply was not. In the early colonial period, Europeans tried enslaving the Native Indians as a cheap source of labour, but many escaped back into familiar terrain. Some of the colonists eventually returned to England offering to pay passage for anyone willing to work on the tobacco plantations for several years (typically 5-7), in exchange for room and board. Tobacco plantations began to spread all along the shores of the southern Chesapeake and its tributaries. Thousands left England for Virginia seeking fortune and a new life, but the influx of people still did not meet the demand for plantation labour. The slave trade began.

In 1619 a Dutch merchant ship sailed into Jamestown full of indentured English servants to “sell” to local plantation owners striving to produce more tobacco. Onboard the ship were 20 Africans the captain had picked up on his travels. The Virginians bought these Africans together with the English. Due to their distinctive appearance and unfamiliarity with local language and terrain the Africans found it nearly impossible to escape their servitude, and planters soon realised that the Africans could be ruthlessly exploited beyond their agreed years of labour. As oversupply of tobacco began to lower prices and cut into profits, ruthless planters conspired to keep servants in bondage. From here the transistion to outright slavery was swift.

The slave trade reached its height in the 18th Century; yet its legacy continues to shape contemporary society throughout the Americas.

• Visit the Jamestown website and plan your visit, or make a virtual visit on The National Geographic website.
• Survival International has downloadable education packs on the ‘Jamestown Landings: 400 years on’.