cat’s out of the bag!

Awards for me? Really?

Thanks to Morgan Mussel at The First Gates for nominating therootsystems for The Versatile Blogger Award, and to Robert Santafede at Robert Santafede Photography for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award.

I’m honored, especially as these are two of my favorite blogs.

The nice thing about blog awards, is that they give you an opportunity to nominate blogs that you admire and that others might not be aware of.  (A side note: if you have already received awards, or would rather not, my apologies – feel free to accept or ignore)

So here are my nominations for the Versatile Blogger Award and the Very Inspiring Blogger Award.

These are all great blogs – I hope you’ll check them out!

The Versatile Blogger Award:
HundredPics
Photography by CJP
Shootabout
Emerald Pie
Lens and Pens by Sally
Photo Nature Blog

The Very Inspiring Blogger Award:
DianaJHale
The Word Hoarder
Cornwall – A Photographic Journey
Claire Atkinson
Remember
Pieces of Me and Other Sundry Things
TimeNexus

The joy of maps

so many places, so little time…

Maps. I can get lost in them.

My first encounter with maps was through TripTiks – Triple A’s wonderful little travel guides that our family always took along on road trips. From age 8 – 12 or so, being the only kid at home, I got the role of navigator. Or at least I assumed that role. For the uninitiated, the TripTik was a vertical spiral bound booklet that followed your road plan – address to address – with tips along the way, places to stop for dinner or lodging. They are still available from AAA, online and interactive of course. (and you can find the old ones on eBay.)

I loved following the road, flipping the page, looking for the town signs coming up, watching for the rivers, train tracks, any sites of historical importance along the way. We should have had a bumper sticker that said, “this car stops for historical markers.”

Flat maps, globes (spin it and you’ll go where your finger lands) and huge atlases you could only read on the floor – all promising adventure for the taking. They were the stuff of imagination and the inspiration for travel-lust.