oneGirloneRide
May 31, 2008 at 7:00 am | In Person of Interest | Leave a Comment
E’leese Madgett-Manrique is a 12 year-old girl that is doing something really cool.
She is riding her horse (and Arabian named Chip) in a loop through the state of Minnesota.
It’s going to take her entire summer to do. Her big departure date is June 7. She leaves from the town of Buffalo, Minnesota. As her map stands right now, she won’t get back home to her Minneapolis suburb until August 31.
But this isn’t just some sort of horseback joy ride. E’leese is actually a girl on a mission.
She wants to raise money for an organization she started called oneGirloneRide.
After she collects enough dough, she wants to buy a 3,000 acre ranch in rural Minnesota and turn it into a resort retreat for members of the military and their families.
As E’leese pictures it, the resort (which she wants to call The Ranch Minnesota) will be a place that is staffed by volunteers willing to clean cabins and cook meals so that soldiers can vacation for free.
I met E’leese, her mom Kerry and their dog Lucky the other day. I didn’t meet Chip, though. He was off in a barn somewhere. They were excited, nervous and ready to get on their trip underway.
As the summer days tick by, I’ll be checking in with E’leese to see how her journey is going. But if you want to follow her trip on your own, you can check out her oneGirloneRide blog.
Take Oprah’s Millennium Challenge
May 28, 2008 at 7:00 am | In Just For Fun, Uncategorized | 1 Comment
In a previous post I wrote about Oprah Winfrey’s plan to get more American kids interested in the world beyond U.S. borders. Her newest organization – O Ambassadors – encourages teens to get involved in volunteer mission work in developing countries.
Now I’ve spent a bit more time tooling around on her new site. I’ve discovered a fun online game that’s a part of the site.
The game is called the Millennium Challenge.
It’s like a board game except it’s on your computer screen. Your character clicks the spinner, moves the number of spaces the spinner says, and then you draw a card from the stack to see what it says.
Some of the cards are simply trivia about other lands. Other cards give you a task to complete that will help you learn something unique about another place.
But you can’t just willy nilly complete the cards. If you don’t finish your job in the given time, or if you didn’t read the directions and do it wrong, your character will be punished and you’ll have to move backwards.
It’s pretty fun. I recommend you give it a go and hop on over. But player beware.
The game does play a song that gets pretty annoying after a while. I was muting before I knew it.
O Ambassadors
May 26, 2008 at 6:00 pm | In For Teachers, Person of Interest, Teen Travel | Leave a Comment
It was only a matter of time.
Oprah Winfrey has encouraged Americans to lose weight, read books and give away money. Now, she wants Americans to go abroad. Specifically American kids.
It’s not every day that I watch the Oprah show. But I happened to be home, and I happened to turn on the TV, and it just so happened that Oprah was there on the screen talking to groups of teens about their experiences doing mission work in other countries.
After talking to the teens, the show would play a video clip of the kids out and about in the world doing their good deeds. Again and again the show returned to a particular group of American teens who’d spent time in Africa building a school for local children.
The American kids were often teary eyed talking about their experience in another country, helping other people. They were proud of themselves — as they rightfully should have been — to have traveled so far from home, made new friends in another language, and built a school from scratch with their own hands.
Heck, I was even teary eyed watching the show. These kids had gone off and done exactly what I want Global Roam ink to encourage teens to do: go travel, go get smart, and return home changed and determined to be active, educated, and global in their outlook. I KNEW I was on to something when I hatched my Global Roam ink plan!
At any rate, Oprah is going to get American teens out there and doing good by starting a new organization aimed at supporting parents, teachers and students interested in the idea. Her new initiative, O Ambassadors, supports the whole thing.
There is even a whole section of the site devoted to teachers who want to start an O Ambassadors after school club at their school.
Or, click here if you want to watch excerpts of the O Ambassador kick off episode.
The Huffington Post & Global Roam ink
May 22, 2008 at 7:00 am | In Shameless Self Promotion | Leave a Comment
I’m so excited! Global Roam ink is mentioned and linked on The Huffington Post!
I wrote a travel-themed essay and submitted it for publication through a networking group I’m a part of called Ladies Who Launch.
I submitted the essay about a month ago and had no idea whether it would be chosen or not. I was told to “wait and see.”
But it was chosen! I’m so excited to see my byline and my author credit citing Global Roam ink on such a well-read and well-regarded site!
The essay is called “My Travel, My God.”
I’ll tempt you with an excerpt below, but of course, I think you should all go and read the whole thing!
I like to travel close to the ground. I stay in budget hotels and carry my clothes on my back. I avoid package tours, preferring to map my own path. Yes, I’ve gotten lost. I’ve been frustrated to tears. I’ll even admit to being scared. But I don’t wander the globe to be comfy and snug. I travel to know I’m alive.
Rarely do I feel more alive than when I travel. At home, it’s so easy to fall into a rut, to drive the same roads every day and eat the same dish from the same Chinese joint every week. Frankly, after a while, home can get kind of boring. Routine does not stimulate my brain in the ways that travel can.
They Did It!
May 10, 2008 at 7:00 am | In Travels of Interest | Leave a Comment
I just had to check in with the guys over at the Great American Road Trip.
I first wrote about them a few days back. They were three guys hoping to road trip through every state in the U.S. of A. in just five days.
Turns out, they were successful. It took them 106 hours and 43 minutes. According to their blog, they made it the entire way without getting pulled over once, even though they saw 90 cops.
They also claim they managed to win three girls’ phone numbers from the road!
Here is a blog except from Josh, one of the road tripping guys. He offered this reflection:
I have been asked if I would do it again, without reservation the answer is yes! It was rough at times, sleeping in a car is terrible, but all the sites and people were amazing. The good far outweighs the bad. I was living a dream.
Lisa Ling is Doing Good
May 7, 2008 at 7:00 am | In Person of Interest | Leave a Comment
Last night, Lisa Ling made a stop in Minneapolis and I went to hear her speak.
Ling is probably most recognized as a former host of The View. She gave up that gig a while back, however. Now she works for Oprah and National Geographic.
She travels the world doing investigative journalism. She delves deep into topics and subjects that make most of us squirm. For example, she has investigated female suicide bombers, puppy mills and gang rape in the Congo.
Ling credited her first trip abroad as a pivotal experience in her life, as an experience that pushed her over the edge and convinced her that traveling and telling stories was for her.
At the age of 21, Ling went on assignment to Afghanistan for Channel One, a news source that brings current events into high school classrooms. After that trip, she was never the same.
Traveling, Ling said last night, makes a person more intelligent, more curious, and more human. I agree with all of that!
Last night, Ling shared a poem she wrote after traveling to Africa and investigating the lives of child brides, of girls who are married off to much older men when they are just 6 or 7 years old. Her poem was both touching and tragic.
After passing two hours listening to her speak, I was so intrigued with her life that I sought out her web site this morning.
While there, I ran across a report she did about forced child labor in India. It’s quite a long video clip – an hour – but it’s very interesting.
The report focuses on the forced labor of girls and it reminded me of the interview I did with Patricia McCormick, the author of the young adult novel Sold that is featured in this premier issue of Global Roam ink.
48 States, 5 Days, 3 Men
May 5, 2008 at 7:34 pm | In Travels of Interest | Leave a Comment
There are these three guys called Joey, Josh and Adam and they are doing something kind of crazy.
They are trying to drive through all 48 contiguous states in just 5 days.
They’ve got a plan: Start in Vermont and finish at Four Corners where Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona meet.
Their path through the states is a little strange and loopy. They are hitting a lot of corners to tick off the most states in the least amount of time.
Can they do it?
They’re trying. They pushed off at 7:30 am on Sunday, May 4. Check out their blog to chart their progress. At the time of this posting they were in Louisiana.
Their Great American Road Trip will cover 7,500 miles. They are hoping to beat the current best known time, which is – apparently – 5 days, 7 hours and 15 minutes.
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