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Items to fit into your overhead compartment |
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Carrion Luggage  Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem. This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it. It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans. It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier." I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination. |
| This Bloomberg CityLab article is two years old, but climate change doesn't work that fast, so it's probably still relevant. While a fascinating exercise, the headline is a bit misleading. A Cross-Country Road Trip Where It's Always 70 Degrees  An updated map from climate scientist Brian Brettschneider provides year-long interior and coastal routes that span more than 7,000 miles. The misleading bit is the "always 70 degrees" thing (I'm giving the use of Fahrenheit a pass because the article is very clearly US-oriented). But there's no need to be too pedantic about it. For travelers in search of the perfect weather, a climate scientist in Anchorage, Alaska, has mapped out the ultimate US road trip where the temperature is always 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The maps included in the article clarify: the routes follow "70°F Normal High Temperature." His original trips span more than 9,000 miles coast to coast for the contiguous US and more than 13,000 with an Alaska stop — the latter also draws on data from Environment Canada. Why Hawaii was excluded is left as an exercise for the reader. Both of the new routes manage to stay below 8,000 miles, unless travelers opt for a “connector segment” that passes through Arkansas, Tennessee and Virginia in April. I'd recommend that segment. Nice scenery. As an avid mapmaker who has made thousands and thousands of maps typically focused on climate, he says it’s hard to know what part of his work will resonate with people. But the overlap between climate and the road trip caught fire. As I said above, it probably doesn't change much in two years. But over longer time frames, sure. Like the first time, Brettschneider says while making the map was a fun exercise, he won’t be making the trip, but he would be interested in hearing from anyone who is planning to do so. It sounds like something I'd do, even though I consider 70°F to be entirely too cold, but I have cats to take care of. |
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