Traveling Tips

Let me tell you what happened to me in Amsterdam the other day.

I drive there from my home in the southern Netherlands, near Maastricht, for my interview at 11. I get there at 10 and park in a huge lot, nearly empty. From my film can I dump out all the eligible euro muntjes (coins) that I have: 90 eurocents. That buys me thirty minutes. I dump the change in the dispenser, push the green button, wait for the slip to print, and set it atop the dashboard of my VW Polo.

Fear of flying isn’t an uncommon thing, around one in five of us being affected by aerophobia to some extent. It is a condition that causes fear and panic, and in sever cases vomiting at the mention or sight of any form of aviation travel. In the past this wasn’t a real big problem, but with today’s shrinking world, all of us will eventually have to use an airplane to travel to a destination.

But luckily for a sufferer, there are ways to combat and destroy this phobia, all depending on your exact condition. There are certain ways to allow yourself to fly on planes, without the use of expensive therapies or medicines

Reading an old Time report (in a waiting room, they need to update their reading material!) that Mexican drug traffickers are using American national parks and forests for marijuana plantations. Reading the piece shed light on a mystery that has intrigued me since 1994.

On November 2 of that year, my wife, Cathy, and I drove from Montgomery, Alabama to the Sipsey Wilderness, a part of Bankhead National Forest in northwestern Alabama. Sipsey being large (25,000 plus acres), in the middle of nowhere, and it being a Wednesday, we didn’t expect to see anyone.