There are so many things I admire about this shot that my sister took recently at Norman, Oklahoma’s Duck Pond. For starters, the look on the expression of the central figure’s face. The duck has clearly just been attacked and physically pushed to the side. But it couldn’t care less. It just ignores it, looks forward, steadfast and true. Don’t you wish we … Read on
So the Rolling Stones are 50 years old, some of them have been remarkably great years, though most mediocre. Still they are the greatest rock’n’roll band in the world for all time, for creating that bag-o-bones sound that stutters to keep standing then gels into something so obvious and simple yet beyond what any other band could possibly do. The Stones changed my … Read on
Researching Lonely Planet guidebooks, you end up seeing dozens and dozens of museums no one would really bother with. Some of them I loved. The Romanian Peasant Museum in Bucharest, for example, has hand-written signs and an arrow leading to a makeshift “grandma” room. It’s filled with various knick-knacks once belonging to various grandmas, with the gentle suggestion that “life is busy, but … Read on
When Chris Christensen of the Amateur Traveler asks if you want to talk about Oklahoma, you ask ‘how high?’ It was a pleasure to record this podcast: Amateur Traveler Episode 295 – Travel to Oklahoma with Robert Reid from Lonely Planet For more Oklahoma, here’s my Top 22 list for Lonely Planet.
Boley! I never knew about Boley for years, not until going back home after 10 years as an expat Okie in places like New York, London, Melbourne and Saigon. I wrote more on Boley for Lonely Planet. Meanwhile, this happened: That’s right, Lonely Planet is leading with Oklahoma. (And my article on Oklahoma’s Top 22.) It’s a very unusual week. In all the … Read on
Oklahoma is known as ‘Native America’ — at least per its license plates. No state has, per capita, more Native Americans than our 46th state, whose name means ‘red people’ in Choctaw language. That’s only part of the picture. Around the time of statehood in 1907, Oklahoma had over 40 ‘black towns,’ settled largely from African Americans, chiefly freed slaves, migrating from the … Read on
