I’ve always appreciated city living, but after this weekend, I appreciate it a little bit more. I spent the weekend on Long Island with my parents and experienced the first Nor’Easter I have in a long time.

It was a weekend I wasn’t traveling and thought it would be a good idea to head out to the land of suburbia. I drove out Saturday looking forward to some overdue rest and relaxation, but that idea quickly disappeared on the Meadowbrook Parkway. The drive from the city was routine enough, with a lot of rain and extra strong winds, but that was to be expected from the weather report.

However, around Exit 16, traffic stopped abruptly, and I saw a tree topple over. I didn’t see any major damage to the cars nearby, but as traffic merged to go around it, another tree fell onto the highway. I couldn’t wait to get home and out of the car.

The next morning the neighborhood had an astounding number of trees down. Many of them blocked the entire street, and residents had to feel lucky the trees didn’t topple the opposite way and into the homes instead of the street. After seeing all the damage from the rain and wind, I realized I could not even begin to imagine what the recent natural disasters in Chile, Haiti and Turkey were like. I know I won’t take New York City living for granted again. Even when there is natural damage, apartment buildings rarely get affected and the residents are not responsible for the clean up. We can also get around town without a car and keep all of our basic needs at an arm’s reach. Our tax dollars may be out in use for the clean-up, and I’m happy to see them put to good use!

– Alex Young, vice president and associate publisher

It seems to be something one can count on at this time of year: a news story of individuals getting lost and/or stuck in a remote area after relying on their GPS system to navigate their way in unfamiliar territory. I’m guessing part of that may be due to a whole bunch of folks getting a Christmas gift of one of those nifty gadgets, and before they fully understand its shortcomings as well as its benefits, they head out to visit the relatives and then go astray.

Within just a few days of each other around December 25, two local incidents became national news stories, and both centered around GPS navigation systems. In the first, a couple traveling from Portland to Reno became stuck in snow on a remote Forest Service road in the mountains here in Southern Oregon. Their system had directed them onto the unmaintained road from a state highway, and by the time they got stuck, weather had closed in and made calling for help impossible. They were stuck for at least two days before the weather lifted and the same instrument that led them astray was able to send a weak signal containing its coordinates to 911. Luckily, the pair had proper clothing and extra food and water with them and were no worse for the experience.

The second story involved a young couple who had, indeed, just received a GPS system for Christmas. They left the Willamette Valley and headed over the Cascade Range on Christmas Eve to visit family in Eastern Oregon. Jeramie Griffin decided to follow the “shortest route” option the device offered him, which would supposedly cut 40 miles off the route he usually took. After spending a cold and frightening night stuck on a remote, snow-covered road with his girlfriend and their baby daughter, running low on formula and with no survival gear, they filmed a farewell video, thinking they would die before they were found. Luckily, a family member used a similar GPS device that duplicated the route Jeramie used, which led rescuers right to the stranded family less than a day after they were stuck.

Reading of such incidents, one has to wonder: What happened to common sense? Sheriff Tim Evinger, involved in the search for the first couple, said it quite plainly: “If there’s any lesson, it’s to understand what the GPS is telling you and not to follow it blindly.” It reminds me of an episode of The Office, where Michael returns to the office soaking wet after unquestioningly obeying the directions of his GPS system and driving right into a lake. Why take an unknown route in the dead of winter in the mountains, especially when it appears to be unmaintained or off the beaten track?

Law enforcement and travel experts offer sound and logical advice: use a paper map in addition to GPS, keep your gas tank full, check the weather forecast and your cell phone charge, keep a survival kit in the car in winter, configure your system for “highways only” or a similar setting. I note on my good old (free) AAA maps that they include notations for roads that are closed in winter, and one can readily see the entire area and detect which routes are “scenic” (meaning narrow and winding) and which are more heavily traveled. Unfortunately, GPS technology doesn’t contain information about seasonal roads or weather conditions. 

Happily, the two stories I mentioned here ended on a positive note, and the technology that got those folks lost also helped them be found. It doesn’t change the fact that a little common sense (and, maybe, a plain old paper map) would likely have kept both parties and their loved ones from enduring a very scary, uncomfortable experience.

– Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader

I don’t recall when or why the game we unimaginatively call “The Ornament Game” began, but I suspect it was created to distract our young daughters from grabbing ornaments on our Christmas tree while still encouraging them to enjoy its beauty. It’s basically an “I Spy” sort of game, where the person who is “It” gazes at one particular item on the tree, and the other tries to figure out exactly which ornament that is. Sounds fairly simple, but if you know that our trees for the last dozen or more years have all been 10 to 12 feet tall and that I have a ton of ornaments, then you realize that it can be challenging (at least enough so to occupy two girls who are impatient for Santa to arrive). “It” must never waver from her focus on the chosen ornament and must honestly answer a limited number of questions from the inquisitor: “Is it white?” “Is it an angel?” “Can you see all of it or just a part of it from where you are?” Once the right ornament is identified, the roles are reversed and the game continues until they tire of it.

I enjoy my own perusal of the tree and its decorations in my own way. As my eyes scan over the branches, I pick out first one and then another bauble and recall when and where I found it. It’s a pleasant way to review some of my travels, and I like the fact that my favorite holiday provides such a great way to bring together so many of my favorite memories.

There are a few that survive from my childhood, and others that I purchased back in college when I first had my own tree in my first apartment. Most, however, have come into my life since my marriage and are a chronicle of trips near and far that Harry and I and the girls have shared together or taken separately. The red basket-weave baby carriage came from a trip to Seaside, Oregon, when I was pregnant with Jenny. The wooden moose came from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on a summer family road trip that took us to Yellowstone and Glacier national parks, too. More recent journeys are chronicled as well: a ceramic Celtic knot from Edinburgh, Scotland, and brightly painted tin ornaments from our New Year’s trip to Rosarito Beach, Mexico, just last year.

There are a few decorations from destinations I have not visited but that family members have contributed. Sarah gave me a fleur-de-lis from her visit to New Orleans with then-fiance (now husband) Dan, and my brother-in-law’s family has sent us a few from their home in Texas. Rounding out the collection are the newest additions from travels this year. Over there is a tiny wooden Pinocchio from Capri, Italy, I picked up during the cruise with my sisters, whose jointed limbs jump and dance when you pull his string. And here is that lovely cloisonne articulated koi that we picked up at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago when we visited the girls just this October.

I look forward to adding to my store of memories and ornaments on my travels in the coming year. I wish you safe and fascinating journeys wherever in the world life takes you in 2010 as well.

– Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader

Have you ever met anyone who enjoys driving on the New Jersey Turnpike? If you have, I fear that person and myself might not agree on much in life. While I will admit the NJ Turnpike serves an important function — a function I suppose it serves successfully — I quiver any time I know I need to drive on that particular highway.

Anyone reading this blog who is not familiar with the NJ Turnpike, be thankful! In my opinion, that roadway alone gives New Jersey a bad reputation, but I do hear the state is quite beautiful. However, from girlhood through adulthood, the majority of my experiences in the state have been on the turnpike. Those experiences have consisted of wrong exits, lingering stenches from the garbage dumps located between New Jersey and New York and hours of endless traffic (particularly on car trips between New York and Washington, D.C. en route to visit relatives). Needless to say, New Jersey is not my favorite state.

During my time at Global Traveler, I have tended to use NJ Transit when traveling through New Jersey, either to Newark for flights or sales calls or to Trenton, on my way to headquarters in Yardley, Penn. Yesterday, instead of taking the train, I had the use of a car and opted to use it to get from Manhattan to Newark. This is typically a 20-25 minute drive. Getting out of the city was easy enough; I went right on through the Lincoln Tunnel. Then disaster struck. I did my best to follow the signs, but the distances between the signs never allowed me enough time to make my exit. Maybe it is the (sometimes) four to six lanes of traffic you have to traverse if you are unfamiliar with the road signs. So, in the end, a 25-minute trip ended up taking an hour. The return to Manhattan was, thankfully, much smoother, but I still missed my exit to the Lincoln Tunnel. The exit appeared immediately after the sign, so I opted for the Holland Tunnel. New York City never looked so good!

Now, I understand that if I drove more, I would be more familiar with the exits and my mistakes yesterday would be eliminated, but the road could be a bit more user-friendly for newcomers. And the endless hours of traffic and garbage odors will not be going away any time soon. Let’s just say, I thank my lucky stars for accessible trains and planes when traveling up and down the East Coast.

– Alex Young, vice president and associate publisher

A couple of weeks ago Harry and I finally visited one of Oregon’s well-known tourist attractions. We’ve been talking about stopping by ever since we moved here over a year ago but somehow just never took the time to do so. With the dry weather coming to an end and winter on its way, we knew if we were going to do it this year, we’d better get going. So, on a lovely, sunny afternoon we embarked . . . Crater Lake, you’re thinking? The Oregon Caves? The Shakespeare Festival? All good guesses, but no, we took a short trek up I-5 to Gold Hill and the amazing Oregon Vortex and its House of Mystery (cue eerie, ominous music)!

This roadside attraction has been drawing ‘em in and confounding folks since 1930, with an estimated 20 to 30 thousand visitors a year. I know there are such places all around the country, though since the advent of the interstate highway system, I imagine attendance has fallen off for many of those located along the old U.S. routes. (See the world’s largest ball of string! Alligator wrestling! The Corn Palace! And on and on.) The Vortex has found its way into Ripley’s Believe It or Not and Unsolved Mysteries, You Asked for It and even The X-Files. According to a pin-dotted map in the souvenir shop, just this year alone it’s drawn (magnetically/mystically/magically?) visitors in from as far away as Siberia, the Philippines and Rio de Janeiro.

What is the attraction? According to the proprietors and John Litster, the Scottish physicist who started studying the place in 1914 and first opened it up to tourists, it is centered on a 165-foot-diameter circle (or actually, a sphere) which creates some unusual phenomena “where the improbable is commonplace and everyday physical facts are reversed.” Golf balls roll uphill, people grow or shrink depending on where they are standing, and folks naturally tilt towards magnetic north seven degrees or so off of straight plumb. It is claimed that long before settlers and gold miners arrived, Native Americans called it “The Forbidden Ground” and their horses wouldn’t enter the area, and that birds and other critters don’t long remain there if they venture in.

We plunked down our nine dollars each and joined the 45-minute tour, bombarded by the rapid patter of our guide (it was amusing to see how, after her rehearsed speech was interrupted, she visibly rewound the track in her head until she found her spot and released the “pause” button and was off again) as she tried to explain what she told us was not yet explainable. We got theories and demonstrations using levels and surveyors’ rods and plumb bobs. We stood on level planks and noted how, moving from one end to the other, we “grew” on the south end and “shrunk” on the north end. We were invited to take pictures (still, only), and the guide addressed skeptics’ arguments (”It’s not just background angles creating an illusion; digitally ‘cut out’ the background and leave just the two figures, and you’ll still note the change in height!”) and sneered at “pretenders” at other attractions around the country who try to re-create the Vortex with such illusions.

I entered as a skeptic, but I was entertained and impressed with the demonstrations. I definitely felt some odd sensations in my head and stomach as I entered the House of Mystery, but I ascribed that less to the vortex’s mysterious powers and more to the visual confusion of so many odd and extreme angles and the steeply pitched floor. I’ve read through Litster’s Notes and Data, and though I am no science wiz, I can see some logical arguments against and big holes in his presentation of “facts.” A rather entertaining article by Oregonians for Science & Reason helped me understand a little of the smoke and mirrors used to play up the site, but in the end I didn’t mind. 

I really didn’t visit the Oregon Vortex to be convinced it represents some unusual, unexplained natural phenomena involving electromagnetic fields, or whatever. I went to be entertained, to see a little bit of Americana in a long-standing roadside attraction and to spend a lovely fall day outdoors. The site and its House of Mystery delivered on all counts.

– Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader