Sunday Quote: November 5, 2011
“People who cannot find time for recreation are obliged sooner or later to find time for illness.” ~ John Wanamaker, 1838-1922, considered by many to be the father of modern advertising. Also a merchant and the 35th U.S. Postmaster General
The New Apple iPod Nano (vs. Motorola’s MotoACTV)
Recreati wouldn’t normally review consumer electronics, but we’re making an exception for the new Apple iPod Nano. (Close readers will note that we’re capitalizing Nano even though Apple doesn’t. In English, the proper name of a thing is capitalized. We’ll bend on the intra-capitalization of iPod, but we have...
Car-bike battle continues, this time in print ads. Advantage: bikes.
Cars and bikes need to share the road. It’s the law, and it matters for our health and well-being. And we need both. Sorry, until we figure out something better (sun-powered hover-cars!), we need four wheels and a chassis to plow through the drifts on those frigid dark...
Your National Park Service announces fee-free days for 2012
If you are 62 (or older) and sane, this won’t apply to you, because you already have your $10 lifetime pass for the most astonishing collection of natural wonders on the planet.* For everyone else, the National Park Service has announced a deal that is not quite as unbeatable but...
Sunday Quote: October 16, 2011
“The good of going into the mountains is that life is reconsidered. “ ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (We snatched this quote from the blog of Tom Ryan, a middle-aged Massachusetts journalist who hiked all 48 of the 4,000-foot peaks in the White Mountains....
Less blonde, less bushy bushy, still out there
We’re admittedly over-charmed by the notion of old surfers. Look around and you realize they are common, with their own blogs and their own competitions, like the San Diego Senior Olympics’ first Masters and Legends surf competition, held last week near the Oceanside Municipal Pier. Some have surfed so...
Worst state for retirees?
The San Francisco Chronicle has published its list of the five worst states to retire in, based on “taxes, crime, cost of living, weather and quality healthcare”—an eminently reasonable set of criteria. The list of losers includes a couple of surprises, including Nevada (heat,...
Welcome to the democratization of adventure
For many years, older adventure travelers all seemed to come from the same slice of humanity: they were all from developed nations that had given them the life savings and pensions that can fund an excursion to New Guinea or Cameroon. (Obviously, they weren’t all...
Sunday quote: October 2, 2011
“Wander a whole summer if you can. Thousands of God’s blessings will search you and soak you as if you were a sponge, and the big days will go by uncounted. If you are business-tangled and so burdened by duty that only weeks can be...
Today’s John Muir Trail video suggests it’s a lark to hike 230 miles
Almost There – The Muir Project Given the number of people who hike California’s John Muir Trail, which runs along the backbone of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, and given the number of talented cinematographers in that part of the world, you would think that the internet would be awash with breathtaking videos of the...
Glory is fleeting, as is not quite achieving glory
After three attempts to swim the 103-mile span between Cuba and Key West, and after multiple stings from jelly fish—correct that, make it Portuguese-men-of-war, a profoundly wicked animal that made her face and lips swell up like a collagen injection from Satan—Diana Nyad has announced that she’s packing it...
Sunday quote: September 25, 2011
Our latest feature, the Sunday quote, debuts a day late. This is an inauspicious start. But let us not be distracted by minor glitches and human failings. Instead, consider this, which we found in Robert Penn’s wonderful It’s All About the Bike, about which more...
