Category: Travel

In order to be a writer or creative or just be happy, I believe it’s essential to travel and experience new worlds, meet different people, and uncover new ways of living. Here you will see some of my personal journeys.

Travel

Thoughts from the Rose Parade and Bowl

This last weekend my family flew into San Diego from Massachusetts to visit, and we were planning on heading to the Rose Bowl to watch Florida State take on the Oregon Ducks. Before the game, we watched the Rose Parade in Pasadena. This has been my Dad’s dream since he was a kid, growing up in a row home in Philadelphia and watching the parade and the game on television.

I picture him sitting there in my grandmother’s house, a young man who was then working at Franklin Field, cleaning up after the fans in the stands, sitting on the green carpet my grandmother had, observing the bands and the floats moving through the streets on an old RCA television with rabbit ears. He told me that he never imagined that he would be there in Pasadena.

So that made the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl more important than it could have been without him. I have some photos below that I took with my Samsung, and I wish I had my DSLR to take better pictures.

The parade was by far the best parade that I had ever attended, and I’ve been in a marching band. There were bands from Florida State, the University of Oregon, and Midland High School. Plus, the floats were monstrously big, and it was hard to imagine they were constructed out of flowers. Probably the funniest aspect of the parade was that the pooper scoopers who followed the horses were receiving some of the biggest applauses.

But the parades struck me in a strange way, because I was a member of the Clinton High School marching band. I was a drummer, and yes I wore the goofy hats and the strange jackets. I looked at these other bands, and I just realized how terrible of a band we were comparatively. We had a great band leader and excellent teacher, but our lines were out of proportion, our brass section was out of tune, and our drum corps would get tired and hold the drums as if they were sacks of water and they were traveling through the desert.

So what is so special about the Rose Parade? After the parade is over, everyone found their cars and started weaving through the traffic, except for my family, who went walking down Colorado in search of food or a place to sit — anything to avoid the traffic. On the way out, there was trash all over the streets: an unopened red Gatorade bottle, soda cups, silly string, and countless containers of food. It was a mess. Sometimes I wonder what all the fuss is about.

But then I saw an RV — they were all over the place in parking lots to watch the parade — with posters and streamers ushering in the new year. I guess that’s what it’s all really about: ushering in a new year with a celebration, with an over the top and celebrated walk through the streets of Pasadena in order for us all to stay positive about the future. I think about the parades where governments march tanks and warheads down the street — here we cheer on floats made out of flowers and applaud military members on horseback.

That’s what this post is really about: welcoming the new year. Over the next year, this blog will follow my travels as well as my 2015 goals: publish more stories and poems; finish a draft of my new novel; and master the Creative Cloud. Thanks to everyone for making 2014 a great year. Your comments are always welcomed.

(As for the Rose Bowl game, for the sake of my FSU friends, I won’t bring up any of the details.)

Travel

Chili Cook Off in North Park

If you’ve ever seen my project Rockwell’s Camera Phone, then you know how much I love Americana, especially Norman Rockwell. His paintings capture something innocent and profound about our daily lives, as if every moment has the potential for wonder and surprise. It’s fun to think that the everyday is an adventure. This is part of the reason I really enjoy American events like baseball games, Thanksgiving, and, well, chili cook offs. A couple of weeks ago I went to a chili cook off in North Park, San Diego, and I snapped some pictures.

Credit Joseph Lapin
Credit Joseph Lapin
Credit Joseph Lapin
Credit Joseph Lapin
Credit Joseph Lapin
Photo Credit Joseph Lapin
Travel

White Oak: Photos of Tigers, Rhinos, Cheetahs

This weekend, I was lucky enough to visit the incredible White Oak Conservation in North Florida located on the banks of the St. Mary’s River, where my sister (I hate using “in law”) and her boyfriend work. They are so passionate about their job, and their mission in life is to conserve and protect birds, big cats, and other animals. At White Oak, they’re trying to presevere the future by protecting endangered species. I was able to see animals I would never have had the chance to photograph, and during tours, visitors are allowed to touch rhinos and have unprecedented access, while never invading the animal’s space.

Black and white photo of a tiger.
Photo Credit Joseph Lapin

I’m happy to share with you the photos from my time at White Oak, braving the rain and mud. Below you will see pics of cheetahs, rhinos, tigers, and cassowaries. There are so many different types of animals; I wish I could have taken photos of all of them. “White Oak is well-known in the conservation and zoo communities for their rhinoceros, cheetah, antelope, and okapi (a rare giraffe relative) programs, and for their support of conservation in Africa, Asia, and the United States,” according to their homepage. 

Credit Joseph Lapin
Photo Credit Joseph Lapin
Credit Joseph Lapin
Credit Joseph Lapin
Credit Joseph Lapin
Credit Joseph Lapin
Credit Joseph Lapin

My sister works with the cheetahs, and she has actually hand reared some of them. When she approaches the cheetahs, you can see how much they love her. I swear, they think of her as their mother. It’s incredible how much space the cheetahs have to run, and they are so elegant when they walk. As you can see in one of the photos, they have a dog, an Anatolian Shepherd, mixed in with the cheetahs. The dog is there to help calm the cheetahs down, and it’s a tactic widely employed.

Credit Joseph Lapin
Credit Joseph Lapin
Credit Joseph Lapin
Credit Joseph Lapin
Credit Joseph Lapin

Space is what makes White Oak so special. It’s hard to imagine another facility where animals have the room to wadner and feel somewhat like they’re in their natural habitat. White Oak sits on 7,400 acres, and that’s why I’m able to shoot photographs of such amazing animals like those you see above. Rhinos are so important to conserve because of the popularity of their horn, which is valued as a type of medicine and aphrodisiac by many. According to The Guardian, over 1,000 rhinos were killed in South Africa in 2013.

Credit Joseph Lapin
Credit Joseph Lapin
Credit Joseph Lapin

Finally, I’m grouping the tigers and the cassowaries together because I’m not sure what animal scares me more. Most people are aware that tigers can be deadly predators, but I’m not sure how many people know how terrifying a cassowary can be. According to White Oak, “Cassowaries are found in Northern Australia, New Guinea, Ceram and Aru Island … They can weigh up to 165 lbs. and grow to be 5 ft tall at top of head.” Cassowaries are pretty fast, and they can run up to 30 m.p.h., but they might not have much of a reason to run, because they’re one of the toughest fighters in the animal kingdom. 

Here is why cassowaries are so scary to humans, according to White Oak’s website:

“A kick is capable of delivering a crushing blow, none more so than that delivered by a cassowary, a bird to which more human fatalities have been attributed than to any other. The inner of the three toes of each of the cassowary’s feet bears a long, dagger-like claw. Cassowaries are among the shortest – tempered of birds and will go on the defensive with very little provocation. The adult’s coarse plumage serves well in damp jungle undergrowth.” 

This is what I admire most about White Oak and conservationism in general: It doesn’t matter how dangerous an animal is or what potential threat they can cause to a human; conservationism is about protecting endangered species. Because from what I can tell, humans are still the most dangerous species, and we wreck more homes for animals than we’ll ever know. Your comments are always appreciated.

Travel

A weekend in San Francisco for Litquake
Photo Credit: Joseph Lapin
Photo Credit: Joseph Lapin

This weekend my wife and I flew up to San Francisco for Litquake, the literary festival/pub crawl where writers from all over the country come to share their work and join a community of scribes who usually only communicate over social media.  We stayed with Joe and Justine Clifford, and I read at their event Lip Service West, which tells real and gritty stories. I told a story about trying to find a way to convince a mental patient to willingly enter an ambulance in order to find  a higher level of care, but I think next time I read in a bar I’m going to tell the story of how I got in a fight with a little person in St. Petersburg, Florida, or how I almost got in a fight during a community theater presentation of Macbeth in South Beach. Of course, when you read in a bar, you have to expect anything, and I’ll tell that story a bit later.

Photo Credit: Joseph Lapin
Photo Credit: Joseph Lapin

This was my second reading in San Francisco, and the last time I drove up the coast I wrote about trying to rediscover the California Dream for the LA Weekly and then read at Lip Service in the Tenderloin. San Francisco has always been one of those cities I’ve felt at home in — a sort of Boston transposed to the West Coast. The landscapes are stunning, and there is just so much water everywhere. I was able to shoot some solid pictures, and the Cliffords took us to Telegraph in Berkley, where I was able to find some colorful moments. It was cool to hang out with Joe, who is the author of books like Junkie Love, Wake the Undertake, and the newly released Lamentation. Continue reading “A weekend in San Francisco for Litquake” →

Travel

Wine and Photography in Walla Walla, Washington

Walla Walla farm house 2

This weekend, I fled Los Angeles, work, and all my responsibilities and jumped on a jet plane to Walla Walla, Washington. I have never been to Walla Walla — or really ever heard about the place — but my family, who do enjoy wine tastings, raved about the town that is five hours outside of Seattle and closer to the Oregon border than you might expect. Honestly, I needed to get away. I’ve been anxious, trying to find the balance between my professional and creative life, and I thought spending time in a town where the only thing to do was farm or drink wine would provide the cure. So I went there with the idea that I would eat, drink, and take photographs. You’ll see some shots below.

Photo Credit Joseph Lapin
Photo Credit Joseph Lapin

We stayed at a winery called Abeja, and we had the most fantastic rooms and the most incredible breakfast. I remember the last breakfast most distinctly. They brought over a baked egg seasoned with a bit of thyme, parmesan cheese, sea salt, and some light cream. Then they brought out bacon with sourdough waffles covered in fresh apples with a dollop of whipped cream. We drank their wine, too, which was good, but I have to be honest with you: I don’t know anything about wine. I wish that I did, but when I taste four or five different wines it’s really hard for me to tell the difference. I’m trying to learn and respect the craft, but one thing that I have learned from my family and friends is that all you have to do is say something descriptive like “minerality,” “apricot,” or any other floral or fruit taste, and people might actually think you know what you’re talking about. The people I was with knew wine, and it was fun to learn, but I was more interested in the sights in Walla Walla. And of course, the company.

Photo credit Joseph Lapin
Photo credit Joseph Lapin

What I loved most about Walla Walla was that everywhere I looked there was a different landscape photo opportunity. It was close to the high plains desert, and every piece of land was used to grow crops. It reminded me of a place Jack Kerouac would have loved to wander through, and he would have written about the people who worked the land. Because it was farmlands and they were growing different crops, the colors of the Earth altered as much as the contours of the landscape. Continue reading “Wine and Photography in Walla Walla, Washington” →