Janelle Nanos: May 2009 Archives

Freda Moon gives us the scoop on some not-so-common forms of kinetic transportation.

You could imagine this past weekend's Kinetic Grand Championship as Tour de France meets Burning Man. But really this 3-day bicycle race in Humboldt County, California is an event all its own. In place of traditional bicycles, racers pedal "kinetic kontraptions"-- part sculpture, part bike. Instead of smooth road or velodrome, racers navigate land, sand, mud and water in people-powered art machines built to look like everything from Octomom (an octopus with a baby gripped in each tentacle) to a fire-breathing metallic dragon constructed from discarded aluminum, to a tie-dyed Hippy-Potamus with wiggling ears and batting eyelashes.  

The event, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this year, began when one local sculptor, Hobart Brown, challenged another to a race down the main drag of Ferndale, California. Forty years later, the route is 42 miles long, and takes racers across sand dunes (including one called "Deadman's Drop"), across a bay, up and down a mile-long hill with a seven percent incline and across a river. The race, which draws thousands of spectators each year, has spawned similar events across the country and as far away as Perth, Australia.  

As May draws to a close, there are only a few lingering days left of Bike Month, and some good news on the bike front. It turns out that in the first quarter of 2009, Americans bought more bikes than cars, about 2.6 million vs. 2.5 million, according to Dennis Markatos, founder of Sustainable Energy Transition, in a blog on the Huffington Post.

Markatos says that even though the economic downturn has also impacted bike sales (they're down 30 percent from last year) they're still doing better than car sales (which are currently down 35 percent). What does that mean for Americans? More exercise, less CO2 emissions, and more money in your pocket since you're not paying for gas. So if you haven't taken advantage of bike month to tune up your ride, why not try to do so before the month's end?

Events are still happening this weekend in Sacramento, New York City, Colorado, Austin, and Greenville, among other cities. Visit  the calendar available at the League of American Bicyclists to find events in your area.

To get you inspired, we gathered the bicycle photos from our Intelligent Travel Flickr group. Get riding!
 

A woman dips her toes in the sand of Hanalei Bay, the top beach on Dr. Beach's annual list.

With Memorial Day behind us (I do believe the smell of barbecue is still lingering in my nostrils) it's officially the start of beach season in the U.S., and the perfect time to check out the annual list of top ten beaches tallied by Dr. Beach (aka Dr. Stephen P. Leatherman, of Florida International University's Laboratory for Coastal Research).

Dr. Beach judges the beaches using 50 criteria, including water and sand quality, safety, facility availability and environmental management. And ranking number one this year was Hawaii's Hanalei Bay, on the island of Kauai. The two-mile crescent of white-sand beach is lined with palm trees and waterfalls, and has stayed off big developers, much to the relief of tourists and locals alike. Located on the island's North Shore, it's secluded, surrounded by 4,000-foot peaks, and the bay allows for safe swimming during the summer months. I visited the beach while in Kauai two summers ago, and have to agree with Dr. Beach that it's truly idyllic.

Not that you have to travel as far as Hawaii to find a great patch of sand. This list is well rounded, featuring beaches on both the east and west coasts, including two on Long Island (where I'm from, so I can attest to their charms).

You can check out the full list after the jump, and see a slideshow of each beach at National Geographic News. Want more beach tips? Be sure to check out NG's Green Guide Summer planner for great ideas on a smart and eco-savvy summer.

The corrugated tin roof of the House of Dance and Feathers slopes up like a jaunty cap over the glass-paneled building in Ronald K. Lewis' backyard. "Everything in this building has a story," says Lewis, as he pushed open the door to the museum he curates behind his Lower Ninth Ward home. Inside, the walls, ceiling, tables and floor are all lined with relics from the Mardi Gras Indian "tribes" that live in the area. There are intricately-beaded panels from Indian costumes, and huge fans and plumes of feathers dangling from the rafters. Photographs cover almost every available inch of wall space, and piles of books are stacked on the tables. You begin asking questions, and patiently, Lewis takes the time to share the stories inside.

House of Dance and Feathers has been Lewis' passion since 2000, when is started as a shed where he taught local children about the area's culture. A retired streetcar conductor, today Lewis is the president of the Big Nine Social and Pleasure Club and the former Council Chief of the Choctaw Hunters. His museum celebrates the history of the Mardi Gras Indians in the Lower Ninth Ward, and since Katrina, has become a small ray of hope within a community that is still struggling to recover. (When I arrived during my visit, the home next door to Lewis' was empty, and still bore the telltale cross that signified whether a body had been found by rescue crews).

"When Katrina came, I wanted to rebuild and become a beacon within my community," says Lewis. "It gave me a venue to tell the world what happened to us. Three and a half years later we're pushing forward. We're trying to do anything we can do to keep the glue within our community."

I'm on a bus to New York City right now, so I thought this might be the perfect time to pen a quick blog about the new site BusJunction.com, which serves as a Kayak.com for buses. It's one of those sites that you didn't realize how much you needed until it existed, and now that it exists I'm pretty sure I'm hooked. In essence, it works to aggregate all the available bus times from 13 different budget bus companies and it tells you which ones have wifi, power outlets, and the kicker, helps you find those $1 fares that are always so elusive. They're currently serving 31 cities in the East and Midwest; you just pick your ticket, and BusJunction will redirect you to the bus company's individual site.

Now if they could only help alleviate this traffic I'm currently sitting in along 95...

Israel is in the news nonstop this week, with the pope's visit making headlines and today being Israeli Independence Day. Inspired, IT Editor Janelle Nanos is revisiting some of her favorite holy sites from her recent trip.

I don't tend to do much heavy reading while on vacation, but I quickly learned that along with the numerous guidebooks I brought with me to Israel, it probably would not have been a bad idea to toss a Bible into my suitcase. Luckily, my tour guide, Ziv Cohen, had one with him at all times. The heavily dog-eared tome provided us with a handy, albeit ancient, reference point which underlined the significance of the sites we visited, and spurred a favorite quote from the trip: "In Israel, the Bible is our GPS."

Driving in the van between destinations, I'd grab the book and thumb through its thin, onion-skin-like pages. And like an onion, Israel's history enfolds layer-upon-layer, which explains the fact that sites like the tomb of David is housed in the same building where it is said the Last Supper took place. (The tomb is on the first floor, the "upper room" as it is known, is just upstairs). As you can see from the many tabs Ziv uses as a reference, Israel's role in the Bible can't be covered in a mere blog post. But after the jump, I share some travel highlights from the Biblical stops along my trip. 

This month's issue of National Geographic (or the "yellow mag" as we call it around the office) has a fascinating map that translates the Native American placenames from sites throughout the U.S. After poking around, we learned that Missouri translates to 'Dugout Canoe,' while Manhattan means 'where one gathers wood for bows.' So how did they put the map together?

Press play to watch the design evolve

Luckily our friend Oliver over at The Process, the new NG blog which explains how they design the art for the "yellow magazine," has a cool video and story about how they created the map for this month's issue:

In the spring of 2008, one of our editors read that the U.S. Board on Geographical Names had renamed 16 valleys, creeks, and other sites employing the term "squaw" because, as it turns out, many Native Americans consider "the S word" a profane term for female genitalia. Intrigued, we wondered what other placenames really mean.

By July, an eager intern had assembled a few pages of Native American placenames--and what seemed like their translations. But we soon learned that finding an accurate translation isn't easy. Centuries worth of conflicting theories abound.

Suffice it to say that some serious scholarship had to go into the making of the map and it took almost a full year to actually assemble this "typographic puzzle." Check out NG Blog Central for more. 

Video: Oliver Uberti

I spent last weekend wandering through Europe. Ok, so it wasn't really Europe, but it was easy to pretend while visiting the many EU embassies that opened their doors this past Saturday for Europe in D.C. week, which extends through May 16. One of the best parts about living in (and visiting) D.C. are the infinite ways to engage in the city's international culture, and this week-long event is one of my favorites. I toured the Czech ambassador's home, nibbled on Polish perogies, and happened upon a delicious pastry during my stop in Hungary (or the Hungarian embassy, if you will). Naturally, it was the pastry that rose to the top of the things that screamed out "this must be blogged."

The Kürtöskalács, or chimney cake, is a traditional Hungarian pastry that is wrapped around a wooden spool and slowly turned over an open fire. Its origins are from Transylvania, but they're now celebrated as the oldest pastry in Hungary, and they're often served as street food. The dough is coated with oil and sugar, and when baked it creates a crunchy, sugary outside crust, not unlike a hot pretzel, with a soft doughy inside. City Life editor Amy Alipio tells me that, "you can find them at folk fairs and festivals, they're kind of like the Hungarian equivalent of funnel cakes or corn dogs. They are best when they are just hot off the fire." I definitely have to agree. Delicious.

Read more: Check out the recipe here to make the cakes yourself at home, or order some online here. Read Don George's online Trip Lit column about book of the month, Valeria's Last Stand, which takes place in part in Hungarian markets. Or watch a video of bakers making the cakes and try to contain your appetite afterward. It's called Hungary for a reason.

Photo: Janelle Nanos

Need another reason to come visit us here at National Geographic? Well here's one more: tickets are now on sale for the upcoming Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit at the National Geographic Museum. The exhibit will open in November, and it's expected to be a tremendous hit. Here are the details from the museum:

Soldiers. Charioteers. Archers. Musicians. Generals. Acrobats. Nearly 2,000 years ago, thousands of life-size clay figures were buried in massive underground pits to accompany China's first emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, into the afterlife. Their discovery outside the city of Xi'an in 1974 is one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century.

Now, you can stand face-to-face with these terra cotta warriors. In November 2009, National Geographic Museum will host Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China's First Emperor, an exhibition featuring treasures from the tomb complex including 15 life-size figures, weapons, armor, coins, and more. Don't miss this chance to see the largest collection of significant artifacts from China ever to travel to the United States.

Today there's an event going on in our courtyard to announce the opening, and one man, Chi Chang, will be dressed as a warrior and making appearances throughout D.C. over the next few days. Here's the schedule of where you can find him, (just so you have a little warning, as Jeannette just saw him on her way through the basement, and was a bit freaked out). For more on the warriors visit www.warriorsdc.org.

Update: Above is a photo from today's press event, featuring local schoolchildren, the majority of whom sported warrior masks. By Kate Baylor.

Wilo Benet is a busy man. He's the chef and owner of three restaurants in Puerto Rico: his flagship, Picayo, which bridges the gap between traditional Puerto Rican dishes and high end cuisine; Payá, a casual spot in the business district of Guaynabo; and Varita, the new rotisserie-style restaurant which opened a few months ago, and which happens to be where I met him last week. His other passions go far beyond food -- he's a drummer, photographer, and saxophonist in what little spare time he can muster -- but fortunately, I was able to see him at his best, serving up mouth-watering dishes and delightful Puerto Rican hospitality. "Puerto Rican food is all about the intensity of flavor," he said. "Things are well-seasoned, but not a single dish is intended to be spicy." With this well-seasoned chef helming these spots, you know you're in good hands.

Varita is Benet's latest venture, and here he says he's trying to serve the "comfort food of Puerto Rico -- roasted pork cooked on a spit over wood." The spit -- or varita -- in fact, inspired the name of the restaurant, but that's not the only down-home touch. Benet explained that the meals that you'd find in the small towns in Puerto Rico influenced everything from dishes to the design of the restaurant, pointing out the pressed tin walls that evoke the roofs of the food kiosks scattered along the beaches, the mustard and amber floor tiles that are reminiscent of a country house, and the recovered wood and coconut shells that have been refurbished into the tables and walls.

I've been meaning to blog about my visit to Ray's Hell-Burger (get it?), a fantastic burger joint in Arlington, Virginia, which I visited the weekend before last. So imagine my surprise to hear that I missed spotting President Obama by just a few days! Turns out the POTUS and VPOTUS went out for lunch to the local eatery yesterday afternoon, surprising a long line of patrons who had turned up to grab a juicy burger and got a glimpse of the commander in chief instead. How's that for a burger endorsement?

It's obvious that Barack has good taste when it comes to burgers, and these are some of the best I've found in the D.C. area. The shop, which opened last fall, is a no-frills local spot decorated with B-movie posters; paper towel rolls stand in for napkin holders on the tables. The admittedly huge portions come laden with toppings, which range from the standard applewood smoked bacon and cheddar cheese, to highbrow selections like foie gras and truffle oil. The burgers themselves are made of the trimmings from the proprietor's other restaurant, Ray's the Steaks, which is just down the block from the shop, and all of them come served on a brioche roll, which does get a tad soggy if you're a slow eater. Best to grab it with both hands and dig in. No fries are served (apparently, the owner believes they detract from the burger experience) but you can get a side of cole slaw or potato salad, both of which are top-notch. Finish it off with a root beer and you might mistake Ray's Hell-Burger for heaven. 

Plan Ahead: If you're in the Washington area, you can check out Ray's by trekking across the river from D.C. to the Courthouse Metro stop in Virginia. If you arrive on a weekend, be sure to check out the flea market that pops up in a large parking lot nearby.

Ray's Hell-Burger: 1713 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA 22209; +1 703 841 0001.