Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

People are weird.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

In after Baud. Damn.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Our messy unity will be our strength.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

In my day, never was longer.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

He really is that stupid.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road / On The Road

On The Road

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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.

Submit Your Photos

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

 

That’s what it’s all about.

Lots of catch-up today and Thursday from Le Comte de Monte Cristo:

 

When – October 2016
Where-In the line to enter the Forbidden City, Beijing PRC

 

 

When: October 2016
Where: Great Wall of China

Like a movie set…

 

When: October 2016
Where: Great Wall

These photos give an idea of the topography of the climb.  It was, in a word, strenuous.

It was exhilarating.

 

May 2016

Where: Home in Kentucky

We always try to bring home a bit of the places we go. The evening this was taken, we were enjoying some items we brought home with us from Italy. Some porcelain, chianti, quality olive oil.

We were pretty damned happy!

 

May 2016
Siena, Italy

This photo is one of the biggest punches to the gut I ever got.

It is nondescript.  I asked what this was supposed to be. My guide noncahalantly stated “this was to be the largest cathedral in all Christendom.”

I asked what happened to it.

She responded “have you ever heard of the Black Plague? It was never completed.”

 

When: December 2015
Where:Key West

This was an awesome few days – we dove on the USAF Vandenburg, a missile tracking boat, deliberately sunk to be an artificial reef. Keel is perfectly set at about 140 feet, in sand. Her deck is at about 100 feet, and she’s huge, and can be penetrated in several places. We had this badass jeep to drive, which made me feel cooler than anybody on the street.

 

October 2015

Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo, MX

This was a dive trip that I took by myself.  Weather broke down on reefs, so I spent the week diving in cenotes (warm water caves with mixed freshwater and seawater, akin to sinkholes). This was the harbor, all backed up.

 

Wow, such an amazing variety! You travel to places so many of us can only dream of – thank you for sharing and keep sending them in!

Have a great day everyone, and do keep submitting pictures. I’m trying to pick up the pace a bit and hope that some new site enhancements make this feature even better. Coming later today hopefully will be a image slider plugin to show one picture at a time and in doing so, greatly reduce the one-time download and memory hit that so many nice pictures in one web page creates.

Reader Interactions

33Comments

  1. 1.

    raven

    My colleague returns from two weeks in China today, can’t wait to hear her tails and see her pics!

  2. 2.

    Elizabelle

    Comte/Botsplainer: Wonderful photos. The Great Wall goes on the bucket list. The cathedral in Sienna and its reason for not being completed: it is stunning.

    Loved opiejeanne’s photos yesterday.

    WRT olive oil: noticed that some of the Valencian olive oil had a pronounced fishy taste, that was not pleasant to this diner. A friend took some home; is now dedicating it to fish salads.

  3. 3.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Elizabelle: The section of wall we were on is some distance from the usual stretch Beijing visitors see – it is unimproved, a bit hazardous and not generally open to the public.

  5. 5.

    Elizabelle

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Ah. Thanks. How did you come to be hiking it? The fog just makes it.

    Quintana Roo is possibly on the 1-year bucket list, but to see.

    And Louisville too, sometime in the next few months; got to visit my ailing aunt in HoosierLand when I get back. While she still remembers me. Do we have any other Bluegrass State Juicers?

    ETA: You are up early. Are you generally a lark?

  8. 8.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Elizabelle:

    Misfortune – drives my wife nuts. Storm woke the dog and cats about 2:30 – never really could fall back down.

  9. 9.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Elizabelle:

    We took a set of motorcycles with sidecar out from Beijing – we stayed there a long weekend in a park last year.I

    That was one wildassed ride.

    ETA – I spent about a month in Puerto Morelos last year, one week at a time, four trips. Great town, cheap hotels, clean, $2 beach beers. Great food there, too.

  11. 11.

    Elizabelle

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Thank you. Looking at Mexico to work on my Spanish and live affordably for a while. All tips welcome.

    I cannot stand what is happening in my country. We have to fight this, and break the fever. Gonna do some street protesting and office protesting when back.

  14. 14.

    opiejeanne

    Wow! Those are great photos. Great that you got photos of the Great Wall with no people in sight.

  15. 15.

    opiejeanne

    @Elizabelle: Thank you. I missed the post with my pictures until just now. Duh. Misunderstood Alain’s note to me about when they’d run.

  17. 17.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @opiejeanne: The kid has decided to take her early Sept. vacation up in your neck of the woods. She’s looking for things to do.

    ETA: I suggested: Victoria, a drive to Hurricane Ridge and a few other things.

  18. 18.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @opiejeanne:

    Not so much a sandwich as it is a glorious late fall-early winter plate of comfort food.

  22. 22.

    debbie

    Wow, I’ve never seen pictures of the Wall from the viewpoint of actually being on it! That foggy shot is really impressive.

  23. 23.

    Alain the site fixer

    @opiejeanne: my fault, I’m sure! Some nights I say “tomorrow”, some I mention the day, I’ll tighten that up! Sorry, but you’ll just have to submit more awesome pictures!

  26. 26.

    Darkrose

    Very excited: on a shuttle to McCormick Place to see Hillary Clinton address the closing session of the American Library Association conference.

    It’s been a great week; next time I have a reliable internet connection I’ll try to write more.

  27. 27.

    opiejeanne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Not knowing what she’s interested in, I’d suggest some things like: Rainier National Park.
    The EMP has changed its name to MoPOP. Museum of POP Culture It’s in Seattle Center, near the Space Needle.
    Pike Place Market (the obvious tourist attraction). Have lunch at the Athenian, inside the market. There are plaques on the corner of the counter where Tom Hanks and Rob Reiner sat while filming Sleepless in Seattle.
    If she wants to visit Victoria on Vancouver Island she’ll need her passport but you know that.
    If she remembers “Northern Exposure” she could take a drive east on I-90 to the town of Roslyn where it was shot, but she should check the map first because it’s not a short drive.
    If she’s a fan of “Twin Peaks” she could visit Twede’s in North Bend for a piece of cherry pie, then continue to Snoqualmie Falls and visit the Salish Lodge at the top of the falls. The lodge was used in the original series, called The Great Northern Hotel. There are hiking trails.
    She could go to a Mariners game if she likes baseball. Seattle has one of the greatest ballparks in the country and the food is not your standard stuff.
    I could go on, but it would be easier if you contact me through one of the Front Page people and I can give you more ideas.

  29. 29.

    opiejeanne

    @Alain the site fixer: We did Italy 3 years ago. It’s impossible to take a bad picture in Venice and saw some things that probably aren’t in the guide books, like the place where they build and repair the gondolas.I have SOOOO MANY PICTURES from that trip, and most of them are awesome.
    You have no idea what you are dealing with here. Mwahahaha!

    We are heading to Wyoming soon and will be posting photos on Facebook and Flickr. I will sort them and send you any that seem worthwhile. I’ll try to limit the batches of photos.

  30. 30.

    Just One More Canuck

    @opiejeanne: the last time we came out west (2014 – we live near Toronto but I grew up in Victoria), we drove to Mt. St. Helens – an awe inspiring sight, even 37 years later. My daughter (9 years old then) has always been fascinated with volcanoes, and she had to take a couple of days to process what she saw

  32. 32.

    Mnemosyne

    @Darkrose:

    Cool! I almost don’t want to tell G since he’ll be even more disappointed he missed the conference. One of my coworkers is there right now, so I’ll get to hear how the speech was at one degree of separation.

  33. 33.

    opiejeanne

    l@Just One More Canuck: We accidentally found ourselves just inside the “red line” in the Fall of 1980. We missed the information center and realized where we were when we noticed a couple of buildings, houses maybe, sticking out of the muddy Toutle River. Logging trucks were rushing down the road the other direction and there was mud and ash halfway up the trees next to the river. We got out of there quickly.
    The campground where we stayed that night had a lot of volcanic ash on the ground and in the trees. Our son who was 9 used his hands to scoop some into an empty jar and we had to treat him for many tiny cuts.

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