For Los Angeles artist Gayle Garner Roski, painting is a way of enhancing her travel experiences–a process that allows her to better see and appreciate the exciting locales she visits while traveling three months out of the year with her husband. “I paint anywhere,” Roski proclaims. “In the beginning, I would look for the perfect subject. Now I realize that wherever I am–whether it’s on top of a mountain or sitting in an airport waiting for a flight–there is always something interesting to paint.”

During her travels, Roski creates mainly sketches that she describes as noncommercial, something just for herself. “They’re not polished, not thought out,” she admits, “but they’re authentic. They express what I did, where I was. Travel has a lot of downtime, and I can fit in artwork while waiting. If I have one hour before the plane arrives I figure out what I can accomplish. Sometimes it’s just 10 minutes for a gesture drawing in ink, but one that may be the beginning of a future finished work.”

Besides heightening her travel experience, art is, for Roski, a way of extending herself beyond her limits–physically and mentally. “Painting, to me, is like climbing a mountain,” the artist says. “You put one foot in front of the other, look up, and say ‘that is where I’m going.’ It’s about getting over fear.” Describing one such experience she had climbing a mountain in the Himalayas, Roski relates, “My endurance was tested; I was strung out and afraid. My husband suggested I sit down and paint, so I took out the painting supplies I’d been carrying on my back. Suddenly I heard birds singing, saw a trickle of water next to me, and was aware of the intense greens. Time flew by as I painted. When I was done, I was able to get up and go on with the journey.”

In addition to offering interesting subject matter and inspiring challenges, travel also provides Roski with unique subjects for her vibrant series of paintings done in her studio. Antique calligraphy brushes she discovered at a flea market in Beijing were the inspiration for a recent series. The brushes were all different–wood, ivory, jade, bamboo, cloisonné, porcelain, iron–and all exquisite. Roski was so inspired by the story the old, ink-stained brushes could tell that she decided to paint them, starting with simple still lifes against her studio wall and resulting in more complex compositions. Over a six-month period her eclectic flea market finds inspired a series of 40 watercolors, which she rifled A Brush With History.

When working in her studio on images for this or other travel-inspired series, Roski works from both a still-life setup and photographs, as well as from ideas inspired by her on-site sketches. “Although I can see certain plays of light better in photos, the setup allows me to see details and color,” the artist explains. “You can get shapes from photos but not color or value. Everything is always darker in photos.” Generally, Roski does a thumbnail sketch to establish her composition first and then draws a few lines on the paper. “I only spend a few minutes on the drawing,” the artist admits. “Without color it doesn’t hold my interest. I like to get right into the color.

“I wet and work one section at a time, dropping watercolors onto the wet paper and allowing them to mingle,” she continues. “I don’t use a mixing palette because mixing creates grays and mud. It’s far more vibrant when you drop in three different colors. I always push things–darker, lighter, more colorful than they actually are–to make them more dramatic. As I work I think about the composition, the light, and how it’s all working together. I try to make the colors relate.”

Because of her love of bold, vibrant color, Roski often has a hard time drabbing down her palette of 50 watercolors. “I want everything to be more positive, more intense,” the artist explains. “Those school exercises using just a few colors? I couldn’t do them. Sometimes I see too times more colors than exist. There are no rules; I make up colors. In my series of brushes, you see bands of pink, blue, lavender, and green. I repeat colors to make a painting unified. I think about complements, too. I use color to create a pulse in a painting.”

When Roski wants texture she often chooses granulated colors such as cobalt blue, which is particularly effective in shadow areas. For glazing she likes quinacridone hues, especially gold and coral, for their nice glow. Another one of Roski’s favorite colors is Daniel Smith’s malachite green–a natural light blue-green that, although expensive, is “beautiful to work with.” Generally the artist mixes her greens with a little red. To create her darkest shade, she combines alizarin crimson and phthalocyanine green until she achieves a velvety black. She also uses lamp black, which, unlike the red and green combination, dries without sheen. Occasionally she will use a small amount of gouache as a final layer to make the darks glow.

Mistakes with color do happen, but Roski has found that “watercolors are fixable if you have good, heavy paper and a good scrub brush.” In fact, she admits, “I don’t think I’ve worked on a painting in which I didn’t fix something. I use a small Fritch scrubber, but you can also use a cut-down bristle brush or an old brush–as long as you have a nub. It’s also good for creating highlights.” The artist uses tissues to lift color and sponges to wash large areas. Sometimes she soaks the unsuccessful sections in the bathtub and starts fresh. Or she cuts up paintings into even smaller pieces to make note cards for new works. “There’s no reason to throw anything away,” she says. “Magic can always happen–the challenge in watercolor is figuring out how to make all the elements work together.”
About the Artist

A native Californian, Gayle Garner Roski studied fine arts at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles. Over the years she has studied with various artists but prefers those who, like Gerald F. Brommer, encourage students to look within themselves rather than impose their own style on their students. Roski is also heavily involved in creating opportunities for other artists and is the chairwoman of the fine arts committee for the new Los Angeles Cathedral, as well as a board member of the University of Southern California fine arts department, which bears her name. She has served as chairwoman of the Chinatown Paint Out, in Los Angeles, and the Public Art Angel Project and is a commissioner in cultural affairs for The City of Los Angeles. An artist-member of the California Art Club, Roski also serves on the Board of Advisors for the club and their California Art Academy and Museum. She is represented by the Tirage Art Gallery, in Pasadena, California, and Edenhurst Gallery, in Palm Desert, California, the latter of which will be exhibiting a one-woman show of her work on Italian pottery in February. To view more of Roski’s art, including sketchbooks of her travels, visit her website at www.gaylegarnerroski.com

By Linda Price, American Artist, Jan2007

Don’t look for Amtrak’s eighth president and chief executive officer to apologize for the carrier’s federal capital and operating grants of the past. No, he wants more!

“We should ask for big things — we shouldn’t haltingly ask for small things,” Alex Kummant told Sen. Dick Durbin and more than 25 Illinois mayors that the Illinois Democrat and Rep. Tim Johnson (R., Ill) convened at the multi-modal transportation center in Champaign, Ill., on Oct. 17.

“One of the reasons I took this job is that if you look at gas prices, highway congestion, and the challenges in air travel, the time really is now to have a national dialogue on passenger rail. What’s going on here today is the face of [Amtrak’s] future: sitting down with groups of state departments of transportation and freight railroads to look for public monies perhaps totaling in the billions in certain demonstration lanes of 300 to 600 miles in length.”

Kummant’s orientation to corridors — especially the Northeast Corridor — was evident in an interview with TRAINS aboard an inaugural special promoting four new Illinois-backed round trips out of Chicago [see page 30]. Careful to pepper his comments with “in my view” throughout the discussion, Kummant agreed with dismissed predecessor David Gunn when he rejected suggestions that the Corridor’s operations and infrastructure should be separated.

“You ride the head end and see all that catenary coming toward you, that’s one thing. Then imagine maintaining it. What you don’t see are the guys behind the power management desks monitoring how we interact with the electric utilities. The notion that you’re just going to peel that all away — is it possible? There are tremendous operational hurdles — and that doesn’t even begin to address the safety issues. I think to go for some sort of a “big bang’ structural shift today is unlikely to be successful. We’re on a pretty good trajectory for the last three or four years [implementing] state of good repair [initiatives].”

While Kummant knows rolling-stock needs have not been addressed, he chided critics who complain about a “deeply indebted Amtrak” when about 85 percent of the company’s $3.5 billion debt is in long-term leases and about $1 billion of that is in contracts “where the money has been put away and is earning interest.”

“We need an equipment strategy, no question about it. I’m no Wall Street wizard, but it seems to me you could create a separate structure, independent or an Amtrak subsidiary, which is basically an equipment leasing company. Obviously this would take legislation, and I’m under no illusion that this could be done quickly, but you could take these lease portfolios and structure something with loan guarantees to make this an entity that might even attract private capital, like Fannie Mae has, that would provide rolling stock for public transportation, maybe even beyond Amtrak to commuter agencies.”

The new chief executive declined to discuss “specific tactical issues” such as rehabilitating 24 Amfleet I cars for extra capacity, the Sunset Limited, belt-tightening provisions of reauthorization and appropriation proposals still pending in Congress, or the Amtrak board’s desire to have states pick up more of a route’s fully allocated costs tied to ridership increases. He stressed that he had no intention of starting a war over on-time performance with his former employer, the Union Pacific, or other freight railroads.

“While I was there [as a Kansas City-based regional vice president] I worked on the Texas Eagle real hard. I’ve had a lot of good conversations with the UP already, and we will meet again with their dispatching folks and talk through the issues. They are very committed to putting in capital to make slow orders go away — we’ve seen some real improvement in the Coast Starlight over the past month. But in the end, we have to look for some formula where public money can flow into those networks to help both freight and passenger.”

Kummant believes he can play three key roles: build partnerships with the states and freight railroads, push for financial and operating improvement while keeping after “the state-of-good-repair,” and “getting out the good news about what good operators we really are.”

Unlike Gunn, Kummant doesn’t come to the job with preconceptions about what a passenger train should be. Nor did he bring along much personal experience riding Amtrak other than the Ann Rutledge, Hiawathas, and Acela Express. Still, he instinctively waved to track crews as we clattered across UP diamonds at Kinmundy, Ill., and toured Amtrak’s Chicago maintenance base days before reporting for work in Washington.

“One thing I’ve learned [from previous employment experience] is that when you come in from the outside, you really do respect what’s been done in the past. And it certainly does seem that the farther away you get from headquarters, the more you learn.”

At Champaign he said, “A day like this is really energizing to see folks turn out along the way.” People who came to stations at Centralia, Effingham, and Mattoon weren’t the well-heeled business travelers Kummant and the Amtrak board envision when they talk about corridors — just potential riders. They and fellow Amtrak employees are counting on Kummant to keep the trains rolling.

By Bob Johnston, Trains

With the onslaught of global warming fundamentally changing the cultural environments of emerging nations, eco-tourism is vastly seen as a medium to preserve these countries’ natural elements. The eco-tourism movement seeks to create sustainable economic development through the tourist industry, and conserve the biological and cultural elements of rising nations.

Mention the word “Nigeria” to anyone and all political correctness is unfairly abandoned because of the nagging stereotype adopted by the unenlightened that some Nigerians are scammers who are constantly conducting “backdoor deals.” In developing a steady tourism market, Nigerian politicians and tourism agencies are faced with the task of successfully trying to shed the negative images some hold of Nigeria and its people.

The Nigerian government blames the foreign media for perpetuating the crude depiction of their country, so in trying to secure a viable tourism market, officials have created the News Agency of Nigeria where news about the country will be distributed to both national and international media organizations.

Tourism experts view the negative image of Nigeria and the lack of amenities — such as, poorly trained immigration officials, high airport departure taxes, and slow customer services in the private and public sector — as a major factor in slowing down the tourism boom in the country.

Just an infant in the tourism stages, Nigeria is still in the process of showing the vital role tourism plays in fortifying the country’s economy to its citizens, and many are grasping onto the idea to create social and economic change.

Atim Annette Oton, a Nigerian expatriate who lives in and owns a retail store in Brooklyn, quickly adapted to Nigeria’s tourism venture and has opened a tourist curio shop in Lagos. Oton understands the direct and indirect benefits of ecotourism to Nigeria, and hopes all Nigerians embrace tourism in order to advance the country’s economic policies.

Tourism advocates at the ecotourism conference are pushing for an “Afrocentic” tourism platform, where Nigerian expatriates and Africans from the Diaspora will return to their “motherland” for vacation or investment.

Nigerians living aboard are estimated to number over three million, and, according to Edward Bergman, executive president of the Africa Travel Association, “If 10% of this market enjoyed their annual vacation in Nigeria and spent an average of $3,000 per visit, this will represent a conservative $900,000,000,” for the country’s economy.

In Calabar, the Governor of the Cross River State, Donald Duke, has already begun to create cross-cultural linkages with the African Diaspora to advance the country’s tourism model.

Calabar has used music as a form of repatriation, and has sent Nigerian students to learn how to play the Steel Pan instrument for six months in Trinidad and Tobago. The Calabar Steel Pan ensemble diversifies Nigeria’s cultural landscape and has created a visible link between Continental and Diaspora Africans.

Paul, a Steep Pan player with the group explained, “We believe that there is a common trait between Calabar and Trinidad with the style and music. In [Trinidad] we were trying to discover some of our brothers, and we felt at home in the country.”

Jake Otanka ObetsebiLamptey, Minister of Tourism, encouraged Africans living on the continent to embrace Afrcans in the Diaspora. He said, “We have to really unite African people and make them start to think about this as their home. If we truly embrace them as brothers and sisters, they will come back again, and start to make a long term investment to the continent.”

The current African tourism marketing strategy is changing from selectively advertising to white westerners to catering to Africans abroad by selling the concept of “developing the motherland.”

In South Africa, the Just African Heritage organization, a collection of tourism agencies around the country, will launch their first ever Black History Jazz Festival, aimed at Diaspora Africans to share the collective histories of Africans everywhere and encourage more Black tourist presence in the country.

Nigeria is using the ecotourism front to preserve its culture and promote the rich diversity of its people. One way they are doing this is by creating sustainable cultural institutions for both its citizens and outsiders to partake. The Abuja carnival, which kicks off every November, is a bilateral investment — the festival is seen as bringing all Nigerians together, but also contributing to the tourist market.

By putting on these cultural festivities, Nigeria hopes outsiders will understand the country’s groove, and experience the nation beyond its western media promoted mis-representation.
By Leslie Ann Murray, New York Amsterdam News, 12/7/2006

Located within casting distance of the South Fork of the Snake River, the Lodge at Palisades Creek, in Irwin, Idaho, adds an irresistible bit of luxury to an incomparable flyfishing experience.

Opened in 1989, the lodge offers first-class accommodations and European-style service in a beautiful, secluded setting. The 22-acre property includes nine luxuriously rustic log cabins that accommodate up to two guests each. The tenth cabin is a two-story, two-bedroom A-frame, with wraparound deck, perched right at the river’s edge. In addition, there’s an Orris tackle shop on the premises that serves as the headquarters for a staff of 16 Orvis-approved guides. You simply amble over there after breakfast to meet your guide for the day and are driven to a chosen put-in spot, drift boat and gourmet lunch in tow.

Species include brown, rainbow and Yellowstone cutthroat trout and Rocky Mountain whitefish. A good day on the river can bring 50-plus fish to the boat; the average catch rate is 15 to 30. The typical size ranges from 12 to 20 inches, though fish over 20 inches are caught throughout the year.

In the evening, guests gather around the fireplace in the main lodge for single-malts and martinis, then move to the small, comfortable dining room for gourmet dinners prepared by internationally trained chef Peter Berglund. After dinner, you can retire to the Liar’s Den, an inviting lounge with a well-stocked bar and library, a pool table and the only television on the premises.

AVAILABLE SPECIES: Brown, rainbow and Yellowstone cutthroat trout and Rocky Mountain whites.

BEST MONTHS: June through October.

ACCESS: One-hour drive from Idaho Falls airport; one and a half hours from Jackson, Wyo., airport.

COST: Cabins, $380 single/$550 double per night; A-frame, $550-$1,000 per night, depending on occupancy (rates include all meals and open bar).

OTHER AMENITIES: Whitewater rafting, hiking, horseback riding.

CONTACT: 208-483-2222; http://www.tlapc.com/

Fly Baggage Free

Passengers who want to avoid long waits at the luggage carousel can ship their suitcases ahead. Companies such as Virtual Bellhop, Sports Express and the Luggage Co. will pick up your bags from your home and have them waiting at your hotel. Expect to spend $50 to $150 for the convenience. Willing to wait? For a bit less, you can ship your bags via FedEx or UPS ground.

Leave the Driving to Them

Travel by bus has long been the least glamorous transit option. But with no advance check-in times, no baggage check and reasonable walk-up fares, bus travel could be just the ticket for short-hop trips. Hip new lines, budget carriers and luxury services offer riders looking to avoid airport hassles an alternative at several price points.

Chinatown Bus These buses, created to carry Asians from one ethnic enclave to another, offer no frills and irregular schedules. But the price is hard to beat: fares start at $15 from Boston to New York City and $20 from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

Megabus This U.S. version of a popular British bus line models itself after low-fare airlines, with colorful vehicles and hip styling. Eight Midwestern cities are linked to its Chicago hub with ticket prices as low as $1. More typical fares are $5 to Milwaukee, Wis., and $20 to St. Louis, Mo.

Luxury Lines Travelers who prefer a deluxe ride may be more comfortable on buses like the LimoLiner, with its 28 roomy recliners, free wi-fi and meal service between New York City and Boston for $79.

What You CAN and CANNOT Carry On

Confused? Here’s the latest on what’s safe to take onboard and what’s better off checked in.

CORKSCREW               YES
LAPTOP                  YES
FORMULA/BREAST MILK     YES
SHAMPOO                 NO
GEL SHOE INSERTS        NO
SAFETY RAZOR            YES
TOY WEAPONS             YES
IPOD                    YES
MOUTHWASH               NO
SOLID DEODORANT         YES
SUNSCREEN               NO
CELL PHONE              YES
PERFUME                 NO
SOLID LIPSTICK          YES
LIP GLOSS               NO
KNITTING NEEDLES        YES
PRESCRIPTION MEDICINE   YES
MASCARA                 NO
TOOTHPASTE              NO

By Lisa McLaughlin, Time

Airport operators and the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are turning to new technologies and old-fashioned strategies in an effort to thwart future terrorist attacks on airliners.

One strategy, begun last December by Edmund (Kip) Hawley, assistant secretary of the TSA, seeks unpredictability to keep terrorists off-balance and uncertain about whether any given airport on any given day will require travelers to remove their coats and shoes or open their laptop computers when they pass through security checkpoints.

“We do them [terrorists] a great service if we follow the same procedures everywhere, every time,” says Hawley. “If, on the other hand, we build a measure of unpredictability into our operations, terrorists cannot use our consistency to their advantage in planning an attack.”

Supplementing that effort, the TSA is testing cutting-edge technologies from “puffer” machines that detect tiny traces of explosives on travelers and their clothing to shoe scanners that could allow passengers to pass through checkpoints without having to remove their footwear.

All these efforts are part of Hawley’s layered security strategy, designed to make airport security “less checkpoint-centric.” Components of the layered approach include deploying canine teams in the cargo and passenger areas, cooperating more closely with local police and using behavior pattern recognition techniques to target suspicious individuals.

“I’ve charged every federal security director with implementing unpredictable security measures in their airport,” Hawley says.

About 400 TSA-certified explosives-detection canine teams are stationed at 77 airports, which are among the nation’s largest. Most recently, they were deployed at Philadelphia; Dayton, Ohio; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Baltimore; San Antonio; Phoenix and Boise, Idaho. Several times a day, on an unpredictable schedule, they search aircraft and terminals, suspect bags and cargo. Each team, consisting of one dog and one handler, undergoes 10-week training at TSA’s Explosive Detection Canine Handler course at Lackland AFB, San Antonio, as well as follow-up proficiency training.

In December, TSA began a pilot project testing behavior pattern recognition techniques, pioneered by Israeli security forces, at 10 U.S. airports. Passengers exhibiting behavior indicative of fear, stress and/or deception are either referred for additional screening, or an evaluation interview with a law enforcement officer to determine whether they are just a nervous flyer or a potential threat. Boston’s Logan International Airport began utilizing security personnel trained in behavior pattern recognition in 2002.

In addition, TSA is studying the usefulness of a Registered Traveler program (see p. 53) that would allow participating frequent fliers to skip some security hassles, such as removing coats or shoes. Proponents say it will eliminate proven trustworthy travelers from the security mix, allowing airport screeners to focus on passengers who remain an unknown quantity. The goal is shorter checkpoint lines for all air travelers.

“But even as we focus on secure areas, we have to work together to protect the entire airport,” says Hawley. In July, the TSA released its 333-page security guidelines for airport planning, design and construction, which note that after fences, gates and patrols, the second line of defense–and perhaps the most important–is interior, such as access control and checkpoints.

One technology getting a second look is a ground-based defense umbrella against shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, known as man portable air defense systems (Manpads).

After four years and $100 million spent on testing airborne versions of laser-based counter-Manpads technology, TSA’s parent, the Homeland Security Dept., plans to test non-laser and non-airborne defense technologies against Manpads, which the State Dept. says poses a serious threat to commercial air traffic.

The policy shift stems in part from a recent Homeland Security report to Congress that finds the airborne laser jamming systems effective against the missile threat. But the technology, developed for military aircraft, might be too costly or impractical for use by the still-struggling U.S. airline industry, the report concludes. Because both counter-Manpads teams are using electro-optical missile detection and laser-based technology, known as directed infrared countermeasures, there are also arms export and technology transfer issues to tackle (AW&ST July 17, p. 100).

In the meantime, Homeland Security plans to award contracts for a total of $10 million to study alternatives to the airborne laser projects. One system vying for that money comes from Northrop Grumman–which also heads an airborne-laser development team. The company’s high-energy laser system, called Skyguard, can destroy a number of projectiles, from mortar rounds to rockets. Skyguard was developed from THEL, the tactical high energy laser used by Israel (AW&ST Aug. 7, p. 30). The large, chemical-fueled laser physically destroys the incoming threat, unlike the directed infrared countermeasures used by the airborne teams and Raytheon, which is also offering a ground-based protective shield.

Raytheon’s Vigilant Eagle system hits an incoming missile with a high-energy pulse that confuses the attacker’s guidance system and drives it away from the target. It uses a ring of infrared sensors linked with a command-and-control center and two large radar-like emitters, each offering almost 180 deg. of coverage.

Northrop Grumman estimates it can deliver its system within two years for about $30 million. Raytheon says its system could cost as low as $25 million, provided that a minimum of 25 airports acquire it.

Former Israeli Military Industries CEO Ehud Ganani, who heads the company Defensoft that makes software to design perimeter security systems, says the best defense against Manpads is probably from the ground because aircraft are most vulnerable on takeoffs and landings. “If you’re over 1,000 ft., then you’re safe,” he says.

But perimeter security isn’t all high-tech these days. Some airports with difficult topography to patrol have taken some offbeat steps by enlisting community groups–horseback riders in Houston, clam diggers in Boston–as an added security layer (see p. 52).

Even smaller general aviation airports have beefed up their physical security with more fences and fewer gates, like Danbury Municipal Airport in Connecticut, which made national headlines last year after a man hopped the fence and stole a single-engine plane.

TSA and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Assn. have developed a nationwide Airport Watch Program utilizing more than 650,000 pilots as eyes and ears for reporting suspicious activity. The watch program includes warning signs for airports, informational literature and a training video to teach pilots and airport employees how to enhance security at their airports.

At the Lake Hood Seaplane Base, next to Alaska’s Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, pilots are creating a community watch program that involves residents of the areas surrounding the unfenced lakeshore.

Northrop Grumman hopes to snare funding from the Homeland Security Dept. for its redesigned chemical-fueled laser system, Skyguard, to protect commercial aircraft from shoulder-fired missiles. NORTHROP GRUMMAN ARTIST’S CONCEPT

Raytheon’s Vigilant Eagle system uses infrared sensors linked with a command-and-control center and two large radar-like emitters to direct a high-energy pulse against heat-seeking missiles. RAYTHEON (AT) ARTIST’S CONCEPT

By: Doyle, John M., Aviation Week & Space Technology, 8/14/2006
 

Today the most difficult decision I have to make is whether I should sit on the alabaster beach and watch the tide crash over a colony of corral reef that I discovered on an earlier dive, or join a group of rowdy tourists on a short boat ride out to the middle of the ocean for the sole purpose of jumping into lukewarm water with hundreds of wild stingrays.  I sip my coffee, thinking about my choices until Malik, my resident waiter for the morning, makes an appearance to take my order.  His broad shoulders block the morning sun from my eyes.  Tall and muscular, he moves with an easy grace, handling the small coffee pot and cup as if they were an extension of his large hands.   I ask his thoughts on my conundrum. 

“You are in Cayman, Mon.” He replies in a soft Jamaican accent, although Britain was still the ruling empire of the island.  “In Cayman we do what we want.  You go see stingrays or watch the tide come in, it’s all ‘da same.  They both be here tomorrow.”  I have to smile at his carefree attitude, the “live and die by the clock” mentality of the states now becoming a distant memory.  He leans towards me conspiratorially, “But Malik recommends the stingrays, Mon. It ‘tis an adventure!” He smiles, his teeth bright against his dark skin, and then disappears into the tall palm trees. 

And how could it not be an adventure?  A person could be here for a year, and although the island can be driven across in less than two hours, never really see everything.  Cayman is a cacophony of sounds and a collection of cultures that is rarely seen in one place.

Splashes of color from deep magenta orchids and white ginger lilies are naturally infused amongst the tall, lanky palm trees.  A faint ocean breeze wafts through the air bringing with it the sweet smell of saltwater infused with jasmine, reminding me that I was in the same Caribbean waters where pirates once raided, back in a time when rum flowed as free as water.

Walking through Georgetown, I am hailed with friendly greetings.  A larger-than-life statue of a pirate, complete with parrot and eye patch, stands formidably in a shopping center as tourists take turns taking their picture with him.  Next to the statue is a rum cake store known internationally for their delectable sweets, and I pass it by, determined not to order anything until the last day of my vacation (a promise I already know will be broken by morning.) 

At the end of a long dock, a small cruiser is waiting to take us out to Stingray City, a strand of sand bars that run from Morgan Harbor to Rum Point.  The dock itself seems ready to fall into the crystal clear water at any moment.  Standing at the edge, I watch the brightly colored black and yellow Angelfish swirl beneath my feet. 

A baby-faced, blonde man in his twenties who introduces himself as “Diver Dan” helps me aboard, and I choke back a laugh.  Glaring, he seats me at the back of the boat, and treats us to a short history lesson as we launch.

“We’re headed out to the bar, where ships used to clean fish before making their way into port. You, my friends, are able to reap the rewards of hundreds of years of conditioning.”  Holding up a diagram, he shows us the parts of a stingray to avoid.  I take careful note of the long stinger at the base of the tale.  “One last thing,” Diver Dan continues. “Rays hunt by smell. If you smell like squid, it will eat.  So no squid fights are allowed.”

I make a mental note not to get hit by the inevitable squid fight that would break out, as there are a number of young kids on the boat, and put on my snorkel gear.  We have arrived at the sand bar and stare into the crystal clear water only a few feet in depth, and there is not a ray in sight.  But as the water is baited with buckets of squid, I see the rays moving in like a dark shadow over the water. 

“Who’s going in first?” Diver Dan asks.

The back of the boat is open and I jump.  I’d rather be the first one in to the clear water than chance landing on one of the hundreds of rays quickly approaching.  The water is warm, and I’m waiting nervously for the others to join me as the rays begin to swarm. 

“Uh, guys….” I stutter nervously. 

Marcos, another guide who is much more level-headed than “Diver Dan”, jumps in near me as the large rays begin flowing effortlessly through the water around us.  He hands me one of the small bait squid, teaching me how to hold it.  I offer it to the nearest 300-pound monster of the deep, and it reacts like a puppy, swimming up near me to be petted.  Marcos lets it swim up on his chest, alternately moving his arms up and down to accommodate the beasts’ constantly swimming body.  He hands the creature off to me, “Now you.” 

And I take it custody, realizing I have befriended a 300-pound Manta ray.  I am holding in my arms a magnificent sea creature, and I am quickly overcome by knowing what it is to be in Paradise. 

The experience is all too short.  We could have stayed on that sand bar forever, swimming with the rays, staking an imaginary claim in the Caribbean Sea as if it were our own.  It’s an experience that will last a lifetime, though one that I feel may need to be repeated on the morrow. 

The sun is setting when we return, and although I missed the tide coming in, I’m not too late to watch it recede.  Either way, it doesn’t matter; it will still be there tomorrow…  

Ravenna grew out of the Adriatic marshes, as Venice one day would, built on pilings and tufts of land. It eventually became a major port, and a base for the Roman Empire’s fleet. Julius Caesar gathered his forces at Ravenna as he prepared to cross the Rubicon. Because the city — surrounded by swamps — was so easy to defend, the capital of the Western Empire was moved there from Rome by the emperor Honorius early in the fifth century.

Ravenna was thus the scene of the Roman Empire’s final act, or at least its final act in the West. The man regarded as the last in the long imperial line, Romulus Augustus, spent the few months of his reign, in A.D. 475-476, in Ravenna. He was, in fact, not a man but a boy of thirteen or fourteen. Because he was so young, people gave the name Augustus a diminutive twist — Augustutus, the emperor was called: “little Augustus.” And because he was a usurper, installed by his father, a general named Orestes, people gave the name Romulus a pejorative cast — Momyllus, they said: “little disgrace.” There was time enough in his reign to mint money — barely — but his name was so long it was hard to fit it onto coins. (Zeno, the emperor of the East at the time, did not have this problem.) But then Orestes fell afoul of barbarian mercenaries in his army and was killed. Romulus lost his throne, and a barbarian named Odoacer made himself king of Italy.

I had long been intrigued by Romulus Augustulus, in part because very little is known about him. The best source I’ve come across is a monograph titled “The Last Emperor,” by Geoffrey Nathan, published in the journal Classica et Mediaevalia in 1992. It seems fitting, almost suspicious, that someone with the same name as Rome’s founder, Romulus, should preside over the empire’s end. (Imagine if the demise of America were to occur under a president named George.) I had also long wondered about Ravenna’s surprisingly low profile. I’ve frequently heard friends talk about visiting relatively small cities in Italy — Lucca, Siena, Ferrara, Assisi — but had never heard anyone mention even a toe touch in Ravenna. Was there something wrong with it? In resolving earlier this year to undertake a “Fall of Rome Tour,” I was fully prepared to enter Ravenna and come to a grim understanding: “Oh. I see. The oil refineries.” Or the hog farms. Or the paper mills.

Not to worry! Stepping off the train at Ravenna in June, I was engulfed by the fragrance of honeysuckle, which hung over the entire city, and still seems to linger in my clothes. The ride from Bologna had taken an hour, across flat open country, a Mediterranean East Anglia. The swamps are mostly gone now, the land drained and reclaimed, crisscrossed with channels and weirs. The train had been filled mainly with young people carrying towels and knapsacks. Ravenna’s centro storico is no longer a port — it’s all dry land — but a string of fine beaches lies along what is now the coast, a twenty-minute bus ride away.

That’s not what should bring you to Ravenna, though. The real draw is the sixth-century architecture and mosaics. In its prime, when Ravenna was the capital of the Western Empire and then of the Ostrogothic kingdom of Theodoric (who unseated Odoacer), the city straddled Eastern and Western sensibilities. It’s part Roman, part Byzantine. Its dozen or so major churches and monuments from this period are wonderfully preserved and situated within easy strolls of one another. (And among them is a real surprise: the tomb of Dante, who died here while in exile from Florence.) Strolling is what you want to do. Ravenna has some of the lazy flavor of a Newport or an Annapolis, a compact, residential town of pastel homes and fine small hotels and enticing shops, and the elegant public buildings, Roman and Renaissance, are built to human scale. In June the cafés in and around the Piazza del Popolo had set up televisions outdoors to broadcast the World Cup, and no matter where yon walked you were always within earshot of phonic fireworks — the cheers and groans of the crowd.

The courses of two ancient Roman roads, presumably traveled by Romulus Augustus

Romulus Augustulus would certainly have known the octagonal Neonian Baptistery at Ravenna, with its extraordinary ceiling mosaic of John the Baptist pouring water over the head of a naked and beardless Jesus; one wonders if the beardless Romulus, himself recently anointed, saw in the image anything ironic about his circumstances. (The sources do not indicate if he was even remotely self-aware.) He would also have known the small, cross-shaped Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. Daughter of one emperor, half sister of another, Calla Placidia played the role of the colored cloth in a game of diplomatic and matrimonial Capture the Flag that ranged over two continents and four decades, ending with her death in A.D. 450. The mausoleum is plain brick on the outside: nothing prepares you for the mosaics on every surface inside, illuminated by windows of translucent marble. On the same property is the Basilica of San Vitale, built a century later and Ravenna’s greatest glory. Mosaics again, but imagine the setting as the interior of a delicate octagonal wedding cake that rises in four pillared layers, narrowing to a brilliant dome.

One of the most charming features of Ravenna is that the English translations on the explanatory text in all the churches and museums seem to come from a single practiced hand, itself a blend of East and West: “The clothing was covered by rich coiffures, closed in silk hairnet with golden threads, and by precious footwear in black leather with baked golden decorations.” And: “After Athalaric’s death Amalasuntha married her cousin Theodahad, who killed her, being inspired from the conservative Gothic wing.” There are shady nooks in parks all over the city, and the book to have with you is Peter Brown’s World of Late Antiquity, a work of historical prose in the high style that explains what the Fall of Rome was and wasn’t. It certainly wasn’t the cataclysm of popular imagination, with fur-clad Teutons putting Rome to the torch. Leadership changed, but for most people in the empire, life in 477 was the same as life in 475.

Not for Romulus Augustulus, though. His life was spared, but he was exiled to the far coast, to modern Naples. As far as Professor Nathan can tell, Romulus left Ravenna with his mother, and probably a large retinue. The natural way to go would have been to take the great Via Flaminia — roughly the path of the current Strada Statale 3 — south to Rome, and continue from there to Naples on the oldest of Rome’s major roads, the Via Appia, which even then had been in place for 700 years.

Had Romulus Augustulus been to Rome before? We don’t know. Because their capitals lay elsewhere, many of the later emperors spent little or no time in the Eternal City, (Diocletian had been emperor for twenty years before he visited Rome.) The first sight of the city, with its massive wall, would have impressed even a jaded teenager. Rome (like other cities in the empire) was not fully fortified until late in the third century A.D., when the security situation, in the form of barbarian incursions, turned ominous. Starting in 270 the emperor Aurelian encircled Rome with a wall; it is as much as thirteen feet thick and thirty-five feet high, and runs for more than twelve miles. Most of it is still intact.

The Aurelian Wall greeted Alaric the Visigoth when he approached Rome with his forces, in A.D. 408. Breaching it was beyond the barbarians’ capabilities. Cities really were safe behind their walls, though they might have to endure what Alaric had in store — a protracted siege. Partly to see how Rome may have looked to the Visigoths, and partly in the spirit of Sir Edmund Hillary (”Quia est!”), I decided to walk the whole perimeter of the wall. Given the weather (Rome can make you wilt in a day) and the fact that I served as my own Tenzing Norgay, I conducted the assault over the course of three very long mornings. The first took me past the Via Salaria. Alaric finally entered through this gate, in 410, after the Romans had had enough and agreed to let the Visigoths in for a relatively controlled sack, lasting three days, (When the Romans asked what they could keep for themselves, Alaric replied: “Your lives”) Rome was sacked once more, in 455, now by the Vandals, and again it opened itself up for controlled pillage, this time for two weeks. A vulnerable feature were the eleven aqueducts leading into the city, hard to miss on their high arches and easily cut. But one of the eleven, the Aqua Virgo, was almost entirely underground, and flows to this day. Its terminus is the Trevi Fountain; you can see (and hear) part of the ancient aqueduct below the Sala Trevi cinema in an alley nearby.

The last leg — in every sense — of my circumambulation took in the Porta San Sebastiane, where the Via Appia begins its 350-mile journey to the heel of Italy’s boot. Parts of the Via Appia Antica are closed to traffic on Sundays, and the stretch running south from the Tomb of Cecilia Metella, lined with crumbling graves and tall umbrella pines, and parallel to an aqueduct, is one of the finer archaeological walks in the world.

One hundred and twenty miles along that journey, on the Bay of Naples, stood the great estates of Lucullus, the general and statesman of the late republican period — estates described by Plutarch and supporting a way of life so opulent as to give rise to our own terra lucullan. Modern Naples is dense, hardscrabble, chaotic, and unrelaxing, but redeemed by what’s around it (Pompeii, Vesuvius, the coastal towns). In imperial days the bay area was a vacation spot for wealthy Romans. The naturalist Pliny the Elder had a villa here, in what is now the beach town of Miseno; it was from Miseno that he sailed to get closer to the eruption of Vesuvius. (Very had idea.) You can still walk the sprawling remains of the emperors’ villa on a hillside at Baiae, nearby; and you’ll be virtually alone when you do. (For reading, bring Robert Harris’s excellent historical novel Pompeii.) But no domains rivaled those of Lucullus. Gardens cascaded luxuriantly down terraces to the shore. Sluice gates brought the renewing sea into teeming fish ponds. Offshore follies floated on the waves. The quality and plenitude of food and drink were renowned, and served not merely to impress others. Once, when Lucullus was dining alone, a servant prepared a simple meal and was told by his master to go back and bring forth a sumptuous repast, as if there were guests: “Did you not know that tonight Lucullus is dining with Lucullus?”

In some diminished manner the Lucullan estate must have still been extant in 476, because Romulus Augustulus apparently passed the rest of his days there. The site is occupied now by the medieval fortress Castel dell’Ovo, on a headland, nearly an island, that effectively separates the tourist waterfront of Naples to the north from the gritty seaport to the south. Castel dell’ Ovo means “Castle of the Egg” (or, as they call it in Ravenna, “Acropolis of the Female Garmete”). According to legend, the poet Virgil placed a sacred egg in a secret room underneath, and said that if the egg ever broke, Naples would be destroyed. Looking at Naples today, it’s hard to say whether the egg is intact.

The Lucullan villa at some point gave way to a monastery, enshrining the bones of Saint Severinus: circumstantial evidence suggests that Romulus and his mother may have founded it. If this is the same “Romulus” to whom the Ostrogothic king Theodoric wrote in 510, then Romulus Augustulus lived for a good long while after being removed from his throne. He didn’t have to worry about money: in a rare act, the barbarians who kicked him out gave him a large annual pension.

Sitting across from the Castel dell’Ovo in the breeze late one afternoon, eating a granita al limone, I wondered what Romulus Augustulus thought about during his thirty-five years on the Bay of Naples. I know what I would have been thinking: I’d sooner lose an empire than Ravenna.

It seems fitting that someone with the same name as Rome’s founder, Romulus, presided over the empire’s end. (Imagine if America’s demise were to occur under a president named George.)

Romulus Augustulus lived for a long time after being dethroned. He didn’t have to worry about money: the barbarians who kicked him out gave him a large annual pension.
Cullen Murphy is an editor of large of Vanity Fair and was for many years the managing editor of The Atlantic. He is at work on a book titled Are We Rome?, to be published next spring
THE TRAVEL ADVISORY
Highlights of a “Fall of Rome Tour”

Two days is enough to see Ravenna, whose historic center is compact and well suited to walking. Time a longer visit to coincide with the Ravenna Festival, which for seventeen years has brought music, theater, opera, and dance to this former imperial city. The festival runs for several weeks in June and July and offers concerts and acts in venues that are as mesmerizing as the groups the festival attracts. Past performances have included Oscar Wilde’s Salome and an appearance by the Martha Graham Dance Company.

Ravenna Festival
Via Dante Alighieri, 1
48100 Ravenna, Italy
011-39-054-424-9211
http://www.ravennafestival.org/festival.php

The idea for the Appian Way Archaeological Park (Parco Regionale dell’Appia Antica) originated in the late 1800s, when development began encroaching on the remains of the Via Appia, In 1988, after decades of pressure from conservationists, the park opened as an archeological and wildlife preserve. Be sure to visit the San Sebastiano catacombs, which once held the remains of the apostles Peter and Paul, and the imposing circular mausoleum of Cecilia Metella, the daughter-in-law of one of Caesar’s triumvirate.

Appian Way
Archaeological Park
Via Appia Antica, 42
00179 Rome, Italy
011-39-06-512-6314
http://www.parcoappiaantica.org/

Visit the Aurelian Wall Museum (Museo delle Mura) to learn more about the history of the Aurelian Wall, built to keep the barbarians out of Rome. The museum makes a good Starting point for a walk along one of the longest contiguous sections of this ancient structure. It is temporarily closed for renovations, so be sure to call in advance.

Aurelian Wall Museum
Via di Porta San Sebastiano
Rome, Italy
011-39-067-047-5284
By: Murphy, Cullen, Atlantic, Sep2006

IF BACKPACKING WERE A VIDEO GAME, you’d need a cheat code to get to a level this exciting. You’ll slosh through miles of marshland and tramp across rocky beaches and tidal zones teeming with sea life. Then you’ll cross swollen rivers on shoulder-straining cable cars and “boonie-bash” (localese for bushwhack) through miles of undergrowth. This new 36-mile trek in Cape Scott Provincial Park hugs Vancouver Island’s rugged northern shore and seems engineered to test your mettle and delight your senses. The epic (and fun as hell) gauntlet of challenges also rewards you with some of the island’s finest beach camping.

For years, up-island hiking paled in comparison to the West Coast Trail, that famous 45-mile stretch of boardwalk in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. Now, however, after 2 years of development, Cape Scott has its own fledgling backcountry prize: a 4-day trek through wildlife-packed coastal boreal forests with camping on pocket beaches, each more beautiful than the last. The trail officially opens this month, even though some sections are a tad behind schedule. Fortunately, instead of delaying the entire route, BC park officials have simply issued warnings to watch your ass through the dicey sections. God love the Canadians.

From the San Josef trailhead. go north on an old road that parallels St, Mary’s Creek. Four miles in, the trail passes a cluster of old homesteads littered with pioneer relics: rusted wheels, saws, a bed frame. Follow the trail 5 more miles to camp in Nissen Bight, a sandy bay where spectacular sea stars and anemones lurk in nearby tidal pools. In the morning, strap on gaiters and muck through 4 unmarked miles of the Nahwitti Lowland Bog until you reach the beach again at Laura Creek.

This is no Jimmy Buffett beach; the canted shoreline is chock-full of rocks that knock like cue balls with every step of this 7-mile stretch. Thankfully, a mile-long boardwalk cuts overland to the Stranby River, where the first of two cable-car crossings puts your pecs to the test. Two hikers and their gear can fit onto a platform that hangs by pulleys from a cable. Let go, and gravity takes you to mid-river: from there, you pull yourself to the other side. The payoff: camping at peaceful Shuttleworth Bight, where playful black bears may stop in at Irony Creek for a drink.

After breakfast on day 3, set off for 4 miles of boonie-bashing as you continue northeast. Solid compass skills are critical; the vinelike salal is sanity-testing thick. The open ground of second-growth forest is a welcome sight as you tromp a mile across Cape Sutil to another beachfront campsite, where you’ll harvest mussels from the shoreline and steam them over an open fire.

Plan your final day around low tide, so you can scamper over boulders in the tidal zone and avoid some bushwhacking. Before the last cape, ascend into the forest and head east until you drop to the mouth of the Nahwitti River. Follow the shoreline south around a small lagoon, then take an abandoned road to another cable car across the swift, silty Nahwitti. From the eastern shore, it’s a quick mile back to the ocean, and 2 more miles along the beach to Skinner Creek, where your water taxi awaits.

The Way Turn west onto Holberg Road 3 miles south of Port Hardy on BC 19A; drive 30 miles, following signs to the Cape Scott Trail. Theft has been a problem, so don’t leave valuables in a vehicle.

Permits None required.

Shuttle Arrange a pickup at Skinner Creek through the water taxi service in Port Hardy (http://porthardywatertaxi.net/).

Map and Guide http://northernvancouverislandtrailssociety.com/

By: Villano, Matt, Backpacker, Sep2006

California has represented the bright future of This Great Nation of Ours ever since young men were told, “Go West, young man.” Pure Land Buddhists in China also say El Dorado is in the West; they take a short cut and go East to get to California. Now it appears that a Chinese navigator arrived in California long before a Caucasian barbarian set foot there, and he did not say “Eureka!”

Go West, young man, indeed! Today pundits say, “As California goes, so goes the nation.” The Golden State of course goes for the gold, as we can see in its golden state mineral, golden gate bridge, golden poppy, golden trout, and golden-orange garibaldi. Fortunately, by way of contrast, the Golden State has the California redwood, gray whale, and brown grizzly.

The prospect of going West for the gold alone is not so alluring to those who prize their integrity during the great American pursuit of happiness - all that glitters in the moral sphere is not golden. To begin with, the Golden State is a stolen state.  To make a long story short, it is the most bizarre state in the union.

I have been to California several times. I was a young man back East when kids were dropping California Sunshine, hence I always thought of California, not Florida, as the Sunshine State. By golly, I would up in San Francisco, where hippies were eating out of garbage cans in front of St. Francis church, as the bishop, wearing a gold Rolex, got into his stretch limousine - I nearly starved because I was a finicky eater. I wound up selling Collier’s Encyclopedia door to door, and riding horses between gigantic redwood trees up north of the city.

Gary, our sales manager, was a Hells Angel. Carol was our top producer. Carol came back to our Volkswagen van one night and reported that she had sold 24 sets because she had put her foot in a minister’s door and he introduced her to his congregation, to whom she put her pitch. As for me, I had sold a record of one set that week, to a thirteen-year-old married boy with one kid; his father made us cancel the order on the grounds the youth was a minor, depriving his boy of an encyclopedic education.

Carol always wore mini-skirts and high heels, and she used tons of makeup, so when she hustled encyclopedias around the smaller towns, supposedly protected from the likes of us by the Green Law, concerned housewives who saw her hoofing along the sidewalks mistook her for a hooker and called the law. When she did not show up at the van, we would drive around looking for her, then head to the police station.

That’s precisely where we found her one night in Eureka. We vouched for her, then headed for a motel. Just as we pulled into the parking lot, we were surrounded by cops with big guns drawn; we had to get down on our bellies and clasp our hands behind our necks - I got some greasy dirt in my mouth and scraped my chin. There had been an armed robbery; we were suspected of being the culprits. After a gun battle ensued with the real gang of outlaws across the street, we were let go. We got some beer and went to our adjoining rooms. I drank my share, read some of Gibran’s The Prophet, fell asleep and had some crazy dreams. I will never forgot Eureka.

As strange as it may seem, such weird events were par for the course during our sales expeditions, especially given the nature of our sales manager; he liked to unscrew the ‘No Solicitors’ signs and present them to the residents; he was not beyond seducing prospects providing they were not married - a shotgun blast turned him off of married women. He certainly was a slick character when not riding with the Angels. To this day I cannot figure out how he closed so many sales. It was not just the canned pitch; we were not supposed to vary from it, but I varied after a man took a swing at me because I said, “Would you deprive your kids of food? No, you would not. Would you deprive them of food for the mind?” By the way, the encyclopedias were free to qualified people - the ones who qualified to pay for the updates.

I’ll never forget the nice fellow who came to the door of the Bahai center in Berkeley. He loved our books so much that he just had to show us the center’s collection of Bahai literature for sale. The bookcase was locked for the night; no problem: he got a crowbar and enthusiastically pried it open.

Back in San Francisco, I could not stand it. I liked the big pine cones on Angel Island, but the city was too rough for me. I was as poor as Texas dirt, yet I was constantly harassed by panhandlers, and I got mugged in Chinatown for three dollars I had won shooting pool. Plus I was often groped by men in restaurants and bars. Prostitution of both sexes was running rampant. The acid- and pot-heads were no problem, but people were reacting violently to other mind-benders. A regular job was hard for newcomers to get. I finally managed to raise enough money to get back to civilization - the Upper West Side of Manhattan. As the bus went over the bridge, I dared not look back at San Francisco lest I be turned into a pillar of salt. I returned on a business trip a few years later - the city gave me the creeps. Maybe I would like it now, but I don’t think so.

There are other parts of California that I liked, like San Jose - so what’s wrong with San Jose? Why are people shaking their heads? Never mind. All in all, I think California is a very weird state. Just observe what goes on there; Arnold Schwarzenneger won the Mr. Governor of California title - can you believe it?

Please mistake me not, I love you, California. You’re the greatest state of all. I love you in the winter, summer, spring and in the fall, but sometimes I think that a gigantic electric fence should be erected around the most populous state in hopes that enough juice might be found on the grid to keep the weirdos inside. But that would not work, for people would watch the show on jingo cable television and be freaked out anyway. Normal Americans would not even know what hit them; abnormality would become the norm.

For instance, a recent media study reported that seventy percent of jingo cable “news” viewers still believe that the three major lies propagated to justify Bush War on Iraq II. The administration fessed up but is still spinning in the same direction; if you prevaricate long enough you begin to believe your prevarications, so keep a positive mental attitude out there folks! The seventy percent of viewers who believe jingo cable propaganda coincides with the seventy percent who usually agree with any recognized authoritarian figure whatsoever, whether he is right or wrong.

Anyway, who cares about substance when maya is everything? Fools. Why does the word ‘hypocrite’ still have a negative connotation?  It only meant ‘actor’ to the Greeks. Let the actors speak for us from behind their masks. Still a few censorious diehards believe that the unwitting moral majority of the United States are being transformed into the immoral majority by Californians! If I were not such a great fan of Goddess Liberty and so terribly afraid of the dark, I would suggest that California be blacked out altogether. That being said to talk myself out of it, maybe I will check out California again ’cause I’m getting bored.