On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good Morning All,
This weekday feature is for Balloon Juicers who are on the road, travelling, etc. and wish to share notes, links, pictures, stories, etc. from their escapades. As the US mainland begins the end of the Earth day as we measure it, many of us rise to read about our friends and their transient locales.
So, please, speak up and share some of your adventures, observations, and sights as you explore, no matter where you are. By concentrating travel updates here, it’s easier for all to keep up-to-date on the adventures of our fellow Commentariat. And it makes finding some travel tips or ideas from 6 months ago so much easier to find…
Have at ’em, and have a safe day of travels!
Should you have any pictures (tasteful, relevant, etc….) you can email them to [email protected] or just use this nifty link to start an email: Start an Email to send a Picture to Post on Balloon Juice
First up, from Raven:
Here’s a spanish mackerel sammy!
Yummy! That makes me want lunch, NOW!
Next up, from Nicole (occasional commenter and longtime reader):
I’m sending a few pictures from a trip to the Dominican Republic that my husband, son and I took in mid-March. We had a really
tough autumn, and I decided we needed to go someplace during the 1st grader’s spring break. We booked a resort, which goes against all of my sightseeing instincts, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. I wanted to see Santo Domingo, about 40 kilometers from the resort, but we couldn’t really justify $100 for a private car to take us there and back. Not to worry; helpful commenters on the internet suggested traveling like the locals- standing on the main road and waiting for a bus (all privately owned) to come by and when it stops in front of you, ask if it’s going to Santo Domingo. It’s about $2 for each person and an hour later drops you off in the main bus terminal (Parque Enriquillo). From there it was a short walk to Zona Colonia, founded in 1498 by Christopher Columbus.So a couple of pictures of Catedral Primera de America, the first cathedral built in North America, a Denny’s, because wherever you go, Denny’s is where you are, and a couple beach shots from Boca Chica and Juan Dolio- all featuring stray dogs, as there are a lot of them on the beach. They were all very gentle and shy.
Thank you so much Nicole. Historic and eye-opening! Do send more as you can.
I likely don’t have many pictures of them, but I’ve found local franchises of McDonald’s and Subway to be very, very welcome after a few days of 100% foreign cuisine for every meal! So I always notice them when I’m overseas. I haven’t seen too many Dennys, but there’s (or used to be) a great Sizzler near the Keio Plaza in Tokyo that I’ve eaten at, many a night after arriving from the US East coast and jetlagged to hell.
Next up, from RLinChina:
Where it was taken: Nanchang China
When: Oct. 7,8,9 2017
Other notes or info about the picture: huge pavillion area, old palaces and temples. Got a pic with the performers (one of these things is not like the others) and Communist Revolution Museum and greatest stay off the grass sign ever
As always, shie-shie.
To wrap up Monday, a little Poco from Quinerly!
Poco is catching some snooze time Friday night in the Charleston, W VA Motel 6. Long day of being chauffeured by his driver (Quinerly), and he is exhausted.
He’ll send some “action” shots from Pine Knoll Shores, NC in a few days. Poco loves him some long beach walks and sunsets at the pier. Plus, big tail wag going out to commenter “laura” for all her kind words. “Moar Poco!”
Have a great day!
Travel safely Quinerly and Poco!
Lots more tomorrow – travel safely and send in pictures!
rikyrah
Thanks for all the pictures. So glad to see Poco??
OzarkHillbilly
Thumbs up on the Spanish Mackeral.
Thumbs down on the Denny’s.
I never felt the need to eat “like we do at home”. If that was what I wanted, I would’ve stayed there.
Elizabelle
Love the dogs on the beach. Gentle and shy. I want one!
Good morning, Juicers.
Quinerly
@rikyrah: @Elizabelle: @OzarkHillbilly:
Good morning early risers! Great pictures! Thanks Alain! Starting my day shortly…loading up some donation stuff from the house I grew up in here in Pitt County, NC. My 4th trip back since my mother’s death and making headway in 50 plus years of memories. Each trip gets a little better emotion wise, I think. Will take a little break from this and head to the coast with Poco midweek. I’m lucky that I can do that and am so thankful. Love this little morning feature. The pictures and travels are always so diverse. Have a great day, everyone!
Quinerly
@rikyrah: @Elizabelle: @OzarkHillbilly:
Good morning early risers! Great pictures! Thanks Alain! Starting my day shortly…loading up some donation stuff from the house I grew up in here in Pitt County, NC. My 4th trip back since my mother’s death and making headway in 50 plus years of memories. Each trip gets a little better emotion wise, I think. Will take a little break from this and head to the coast with Poco midweek. I’m lucky that I can do that and am so thankful. Love this little morning feature. The pictures and travels are always so diverse. Have a great day, everyone!
Elizabelle
@Quinerly: Good luck with your work. Hope you and Poco have a great week in North Carolina (which could have done way better last November; suckers).
OzarkHillbilly
They’ve upgraded all the flood forecasts. Not much travel happening in Misery this week. I-44 is closed from Lebanon to Rolla and will later today be closed from 109 to 270. We personally are cut off to the west and north by the Meramec (gonna set a new record while drowning HWY 185 for the first time) and to the east and south by the Big River.
Took a little drive yester eve. Pretty dawgdamned impressive. Will do another runabout today again.
Unsure when the roads will reopen.
OzarkHillbilly
Heh. The MoDOT Traveler map.
JPL
Raven, Beautiful sandwich! Yum
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s suppose to rain this morning, but most of the storms have missed us. Stay dry.
I just looked at the map, and it doesn’t look good.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: We’re supposed to get more rain Wednesday. Doesn’t appear to be a major event tho.
Quinerly
@Elizabelle:
Thanks!
Alain the site fixer
@OzarkHillbilly: send flood pix!
OzarkHillbilly
@Alain the site fixer: If I get any that are worth the trouble. Most such shots need flood/non-flood counter shots. I took some yesterday, will take more today.
Nicole
How fun to see my pix up! Thanks, Alain. Your mention of Sizzler made me laugh- literally, last night a friend of mine, originally from Brazil, mentioned the popularity of Sizzler outside of the continental US.
OzarkHillbilly, I’m with you on preferring to eat like a local, although now that we travel with a grade-schooler, I confess, we visited KFC at a mall in Santo Domingo (the mall had an aquarium, ergo why we went, also at the request of the grade-schooler). I get it; evolutionarily speaking, kids are wired to want the same thing because they know, on some lizard-brain level, it’s safe. ;)
But my stepmom loves to tell the story of the trip she and I took to Cambodia to visit her family in 2002, when she asked me, on a stroll through Phenom Penh, if I wanted to stop at a western-style burger place for lunch, and I snapped at her, “Mom, I’m in CAMBODIA. I don’t want a cheeseburger.”
laura
@rikyrah: Me too! The Poco sleeping bun is a truly happy sight to wake up to.
And thus begins another week.
Good morning Rikyrah and all.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@OzarkHillbilly: I grew up in Rolla–I don’t think I-44 (or old US 66) was ever closed by flooding in that 18 years, even at Devil’s Elbow.
The Meramec, on the other hand–it’s always ready to flood, even if it’s just backwater from the Mississippi. I wonder what the flow is at Maramec Springs right now.
Good luck staying dry and safe.
Major Major Major Major
Wow, that sandwich.
Origuy
When you’ve been on the road for more than a week dealing with restaurants and foreign languages, something familiar can be comforting. And sometimes you just want a quick meal because you’d rather spend your day other than waiting for a meal. I had McDonalds in Moscow so that I could spend more time at the Pushkin Museum, and made up for it by having dinner at a Georgian restaurant. During Soviet days, the best restaurants were Georgian. And I craved pizza in Barcelona my third week in Spain so I went to Pizza Hut. Still different from the US version.
J R in WV
@OzarkHillbilly:
We ate at an Indian restaurant in Toulouse, France, once. It was on a narrow alley in the old town behind our hotel, which was a brand new (inside) hotel in a very old group of buildings in the central historic district. I guess delivery vehicles must have fit in there somewhere, to get food in and waste out, but it had zero traffic when we were there/
Very good, too. Very eclectic bunch of customers there, too. Toulouse is an odd combination of brand new – the aerospace center of Europe – and really old, Roman old. All wound up with intracity trains, canals on bridges up in the air, etc.
ETA: Anyway, my point was that we ate food we have had at home, away, differently but the same, in France, it was foreign food, but familiar because we have had Indian food even here in WV for decades now.
Never mind, there’s a point there, take my word for it. Even if I can’t make it. The point, I mean.
Juju
@Quinerly: Approximately where in Pitt county are you? I live in the area as well. I am near the hospital. Poco is so very cute and all snuggley in bed. If you need to leave him in a safe place while you take care of things, you can leave him with me. I need a dog fix.
Juju
I’d be curious to know if the Denny’s in the Dominican Republic is as bad as every Denny’s I’ve been to in the U.S. The pictures are beautiful, even the one of the Denny’s.
MomSense
Raven’s fish Sammy looks so good- much better than my lunch. I’m envious of Poco’s napping and the photos of DR and China are amazing.
Ok back to the grind.
Nicole
@Juju: Ha! We didn’t eat in it, so I’m not sure how the Denny’s was (I was frantic to get walking the 2 miles to Aqua Mundo, so I didn’t let us stop to eat lunch. And thus we ended up eating in a food court at the mall after Aqua Mundo). I did see the menu was a bit more Caribbean than it would be in Hershey, PA.
There was also a Hard Rock Cafe in Zona Colonia, but the Denny’s tickled my funny bone much more.
Juju
@Nicole: It tickled my funny bone as well. I think the only thing that would tickle it more oils be a Shoney’s.
Quinerly
@Juju:
Thread be dead….but if you come back to it, I’m in Grifton. Grew up here. Went to ECU in undergrad. I’ll try to catch you on another thread. This is so cool. Heading to the beach place shortly.