The Ghan
Real life painting
Really, really red
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The Ghan and the Outback

Entering the Red Centre: Beyond Color

When writing about our travels and experiences on our way to visit the Red Centre of Australia, I’ve referred to our arrival in our  jumping off point of Adelaide as a soft landing, at least in reference to the beginning of production for the documentary. As we prepared to depart for the heart of the Red Centre, I can’t say my opinion changed much. For a city of more than a million people, Adelaide seemed surprisingly… cozy. Dropping off the rental car on the way to the train station, we couldn’t help noticing that the car had remained parked at the hotel for almost the entirety of our stay. Between the public trams and the easily accessible markets and commercial areas, most of the essentials for the itinerant traveler are well within reach. I can’t say with complete authority a car is unnecessary for an extended stay, but for what was essentially a layover, a repeat trip would have us forego the rental car.

With that, the heart of the trip was looming. This was the onset of what The Palette Project is all about – exploring the world through color – and the Great Southern Rail was getting us there. We had reserved overnight seats on the Ghan – the north/south rail line from Continue reading “Entering the Red Centre: Beyond Color”

RFID Sleeve

Keeping Your Private Travel Materials Private

There are three ways to look at the mindset of a reporter. It’s either the life of a professional pessimist, a cynic for hire or… and this is the way I chose to look at it, the continuing adventures of a Boy Scout. Don’t get me wrong, while I was in fact a Boy Scout – kerchief, socks, merit badges and all – I’m of course referring to the motto of being prepared.

You can be working on the most harmless story about how to avoid buying a Christmas tree worthy of a Charlie Brown holiday special, and that will be the day the Colorado branch of the DEA has the raw nerve to raid a secret marijuana farm east of Pueblo (granted, not a major priority today, but in 1998…), so you have to be prepared to Continue reading “Keeping Your Private Travel Materials Private”

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Queen Victoria

Of Soft Landings and New Experiences… Traveling to Australia

I’ve been to just about every state in the country of my birth (and I have my eye on you, Delaware), so I know on an intellectual level that even though I was traveling to Australia and New Zealand… two countries where English is the primary language, most of what I would be experiencing would be well out of my comfort zone. Traveling to Australia and then traveling to New Zealand for the documentary, and squaring that circle with actual boots-on-the-ground experience was a never ceasing jolt, and a mostly pleasurable one at that.

I would recommend Australia to any first-time international traveler because the experience provided both a soft landing as well as almost two weeks of surprises. Those surprises actually began in Los Angeles, while still on the tarmac at LAX, with the complimentary tim-tams. Tim-tams are little chocolate biscuits – an Australian favorite, apparently – and my sweet tooth took every opportunity to assert itself whenever I encountered these treats. I just love the idea that even snacks are different somewhere else… although we may have a permanent gulf when it comes to vegemite, marmite and other —mite related spreads. However, for the flight to Adelaide via Melbourne, it was a fifteen hour introductory course in culture assimilation.

This must be said.  While I know that airlines like RyanAir and the like exist… airlines that seem to have adopted the Baron von Sacher-Masoch theory of travel and the Gordon Gecko theory of cost cutting… the Qantas flight was simply a revelation for me. I’ve flown every U.S. domestic carrier that exists, and quite a few that don’t exist any longer (oh, People’s Express, we hardly knew ye), mostly in economy class. Much like the tale of the man who accidentally kills himself in the bath because he increased the water temperature in such small increments that he didn’t realize how hot it was getting, airlines have successfully implemented this strategy at 35,000 feet with regard to our expectations. From reducing meals… first to sandwich packs and then to snack packs and then nothing at all, from removing magazines in favor of paid internet access (if you’re lucky), to charging for pillows, the strategy of turning an airplane into a bus with wings has long since been a success.

So it was a surprise to find that the good folks at Qantas economy not only provided seats that allowed us to sleep with a degree of comfit I was completely unfamiliar with in economy class, each seat had a pillow and blanket on it when we sat down.Tthey further astounded me by… feeding us. Yes, for the love of all hat is good and holy, they fed us. Often. Osso Bucco and grilled baramundi… in economy? Food at all? Snacks on demand? We had escaped the surly bonds of earth and touched the face of God… in tim-tam form.

It’s not even that they fed us on the long haul segment. This was perhaps somewhat expected. although the frequency and generosity surprised me. It was that they even fed us… twice (!) on the flight from Melbourne to Adelaide. Domestic flights serving food. I never got over that.

The surprises kept coming from there. I’m a baseball fan. I have been since almost as far back as I can remember, and rather than wax rhapsodic, I would simply refer you to anything anyone says in any episode of the Ken Burns documentary… I can’t top that. It, like football, is the background soundtrack of my life. So, wandering to the departure in Melbourne for the connecting flight to Adelaide and hearing excited voices talking about the world cricket finals was an absolutely new experience. I don’t know how cricket is played, even after almost a month of hearing about it on every radio and television station in Australia and New Zealand, but I love that there is a different and pervasive way of loving sport that contrasts with everything Iv’e ever known.

Of course, the driving on the left… I was the passenger for this journey, but I kept leaning forward in my seat expecting to hit the steering wheel. After all, I was sitting on the left side of the car. There should be a steerage wheel there.. Looking out the window and seeing cars driving opposite us on the right was thrilling, just for the novelty of it to an American eye.

And this was just the first three hours.

Those first few hours on the ground in a new and unexplored… to me… country are just a feast for all the senses. You hear words you don’t hear every day, even in English. The lift, the petrol station, the bonnet and the boot, and the phrase “no worries” repeated over and over in the actual Australian accent. Wandering in Veale Gardens near our hotel, you’re not just seeing flowers and plants you’ve never seen before, your’e smelling fragrances that are completely new to this particular nose, and while I now know that spinifex is just the plague of agriculture in the outback and everywhere else it manages to take root, the feel of these little silica tipped grasses from something that looks completely harmless was something I’ll never forge… even if it was kind of painful.

There is, of course a long discussion that needs to be had when it comes to ice, or the lack thereof, but I believe I’ll save that for another day, because this post is about optimism and adventure. It’s also about finding adventure in the ordinary. In the park that is built around a statue of Queen Victoria or Captain Cook. About the idea that your hiking shoes, and the microbes they might contain, are of far more concern to the customs official than the thousands of dollars of camera gear you’re importing into the country. Of the use of words you know well, like dollar, that still make you do math in your head all day to figure out what that cup of coffee is actually costs, or what 250ml actually gets you.

Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria in Adelaide’s Victoria Square

It’s a feast of revelations that you don’t need 20/20 vision to see, and as the first stop on our filming journey, Adelaide did not disappoint.

Don’t forge hat Monday will have more practical travel tips! Plus, next Thursday – Adelaide in a hurry, and why you should go there.

New and Improved, News You Can Use

News you can use. USA Today created the phrase, and I am hereby appropriating it. Starting this Monday, the Palette Project blog is adding an exciting new series of posts as a result of not only the first completed legs of the documentary, but also from  years of experience on the road in news and production.

Every Monday, The Crayon Box blog will have useful travel tips that  can help make your own adventures more fun, more meaningful, and more enjoyable. I also want to make sure to add tips that will make your travel safer, and I can tell you… there is no shortage of information in any of these areas.

The Thursday blog postings will remain dedicated to the more personal aspects of this journey. This blog began as a way of communicating what it’s like to be living through this kind of a challenge… the prospect of losing my sight, but maintaining a vision… and that hasn’t changed. I’m dedicated to living a life of urgency expressed through action, of outreach accomplished through awareness and of creating results from this work. It’s all about changing perspectives, raising expectations and telling stories that matter. That won’t change. Ever.

So while you’re reading this, glance to the right of the screen. There’s a “Susbscribe via Email” button that you can use to make sure you get valuable information and personal insights. It’s all happening here, and I need your help to spread the message of our mission.

Onwards!