Traveling Fool

  P.S. I managed to publish this before I finished it, but it's finished now. Because the Moai and related sites are protected, you can't wander around most of the areas on your own, you need to be in the company of a guide and always bring your national park ticket (except in the Tahai). The cool thing is the ticket gets stamped and it's a nice souvenir. We saw so many things and I'm sure I'm not going to get everything right or identify everything, but I'll try. We first went to a site with some recreated dwellings and even a chicken coop and learned how they were created and how building materials were repurposed when necessary.  At Akahanga we saw many toppled Moai and some topple top knots (those are the red stones). In some cases, Moai were toppled because the people lost faith in their gods, in other cases it was because of fights between the different clans. They were originally built between 1200 and 1500, give or take a hundred years or so.  toppled Mo...

 I've always been intrigued by the mysteries of Rapa Nui or Easter Island as most people know it - how did they carve and move those huge statues and what happened to the people of the island? And probably questions I didn't know that I had. Rapa Nui is so far away I didn't think I would ever get there. Well never say never. After a couple of days in Santiago and a roughly five hour flight, I landed on Rapa Nui to be greeted by the tour operator and was whisked away to Takarua Lodge ; okay, maybe not whisked but transported over some bumpy roads and given a little rout of the island as we dropped other visitors off at their lodgings. The lodge had a view of the ocean and several Moai in a configuration known as Tahai, which I could walk along any time I wanted, or just sit on my little patio and stare dreamily, or listen to the flock of chickens, or is it a gaggle, clucking and crowing,  breakfast delivered every morning The lodge is a twenty minute walk or so from town, an...

I’ve been planning my trip to Easter Island and Punta Arenas for about a year. I hadn’t given much thought to my time in Santiago. I really thought I would be too tired to do much, but I guess the benefit of only a two hour time difference is I wasn’t too exhausted. I couldn’t check into the hotel until three so I had about four hours to wander around. Lucky for me Sky Costanera was a five minute walk. Sky Costanera is the tallest building in South America and has some amazing views of the Andes, Cerra San Cristóbal and all over Santiago. I just walked to Cenco Costanera which is a massive shopping center, went to the lower level, bought my ticket and ten minutes later was heading up to the 61st floor and then the 62nd floor which was open on the top. I love my tall buildings, and I loved it that it was not crowded at all. There is a restaurant and a little gift shop, but not a lot else.  A view of San Cristobal On day two I took the hop on hop off bus which was an easy way to navi...

I've been driving home to Cleveland by myself for over 15 years, and with only some slight variations, it's been the same drive I94 to I90/I80. It's fine, it gets me from Minnesota to Ohio and back again, but this spring/summer I really wanted to mix it up and just do some different things. It's a challenge because most of the time, I just want to get home and that's the basically straight line noted above, so going off piste is going to add time, maybe money to the journey. But you only live once, and since I only have to answer to myself, I made a few different journeys. In April I came home via Springfield, Illinois, the one-time home and final resting place of Abraham Lincoln. There are a couple of things to do in Springfield that are Lincoln-related, but I could only muster the energy and patience to stop by the tomb. It is in Oak Ridge Cemetery, which has rolling hills and was beautifully peaceful on the Saturday I visited. The tomb is free to visit, and it...