Travel Thursday!
Today: “High Road to the Orient”, from Northwest Orient sometime in the 1950s.
Bonus: The “I Will Always Travel For Food” channel takes the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto…and eats along the way.
Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 199
Thursday, October 15th, 2020“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 192
Thursday, October 8th, 2020Travel Thursday!
Today: the Philippines! “New Horizons: The Philippines” from our favorite airline, Pan Am, sometime in the 1960s.
Bonus video: another point of view, from the 1950s and Northwest Orient, yet another defunct airline. (Northwest Orient merged with Republic in 1986 and dropped the “Orient”. Northwest filed for bankruptcy in 2005, and merged into Delta in 2008.)
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 185
Thursday, October 1st, 2020Travel Thursday!
Today I thought we’d all go out to Montreux, on the Lake Geneva shoreline.
“The Swiss Rivera”, sometime in the 1950s.
Bonus #1: Also from the 1950s, “Switzerland – Land of Contrasts”.
Bonus #2: This has little to do with travel, but I’m throwing it in here as a diversion: Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention play “Cosmik Debris”.
Bonus #3: Bringing it back around, a short interview with Frank Zappa about the Montreux casino fire. This is in French, but has English subtitles, and you can hear Zappa speaking under the translation.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 178
Thursday, September 24th, 2020Travel Thursday!
I thought we’d go back to France this week. But this time, in English, and on one of our favorite defunct airlines, Pan Am.
“Voici La France”.
Bonus: since I’ve kind of been neglecting my responsibilities to the United States, “The First and the Small”. This is a 1960s episode of a TV series called “America!” and covers Delaware and Rhode Island. (I think that’s four states down, 46 to go.)
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 171
Thursday, September 17th, 2020I thought it might be fun to visit France. But this time, on Air France!
“Discovering France”, from the 1960s.
I apologize for the fact that this is in French, without English subtitles. I feel the virtues of the vintage French scenery outweigh this.
But as a bonus: an old TWA promo film, “World On Parade”. This has three things going for it:
- It is short.
- More Paris.
- O.J. Simpson and Arnold Palmer.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 164
Thursday, September 10th, 2020Travel Thursday!
Upstairs in my “to read” pile, underneath my three volumes of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, I have both volumes of Pierre Berton’s books about the construction of Canada’s transcontinental railroad (The National Dream and The Last Spike). What can I say, they were cheap at Half-Price.
I thought it might be fun to put this up: “Great Canadian Railway Journeys ‘Kamloops to Banff'”. I’d like to visit both Kamloops and Banff one of these days: I’ve been to Vancouver, but Kamloops is about three and a half hours away. Also, I kind of like saying “Kamloops”.
Bonus: “Port Moody to Kamloops”.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 157
Thursday, September 3rd, 2020Travel Thursday!
I can’t find that I’ve done this one yet: as much as I try to keep track, after 157 of these, it is starting to get hard.
Today: “Wings to Germany” on Pan Am! Berlin in the 1960s!
They had me at “over which we pour bananas and flaming brandy”.
(Wow! I managed to find this on the Wayback Machine, and it is now moved over to the new SDC site.)
Bonus: in the interest of equal time, TWA’s “Flight To Germany” from the 1950s.
Bonus #2: Just to give you that feeling of being there, a Lufthansa safety video for the 747.
Bonus #3: First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.
(Apropos of nothing in particular, this Reddit thread gave me a few much needed laughs night before last.)
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 150
Thursday, August 27th, 2020Travel Thursday!
Here’s something a little different: “To Catch a Dream”, a visit to Spain by way of Iberia Airlines. I could go for Spain right now. Sherry! Tapas!
Iberia merged with British Airways in 2010, according to Wikipedia, but both airlines still operate under their own names.
Bonus video, for two reasons: in keeping with the Spanish theme, “Morocco to Madrid by train & ferry”.
The other reason is that I like The Man In Seat 61. One of these days, if I can ever get the time and money together, I want to ride the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and his site has a lot of useful information on doing that (as well as other train travel).
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 143
Thursday, August 20th, 2020Travel Thursday!
I thought I’d do something different today. Instead of planes for our first video, trains. And instead of visiting a relatively civilized country, a fifth world banana republic.
“The California Zephyr”! With VistaDome! And courteous waiters!
To be fair, this is from the 1950s, prior to the decline and fall. And somewhat interestingly, Amtrak still runs a train called “California Zephyr” over a similar route (According to Wikipedia, the original Western Pacific Railroad, Burlington Railroad and Rio Grande Railroad incarnation shown here was discontinued in 1970, and Amtrak began running their version in 1983.)
Bonus video #1: More trains, this time the Santa Fe railroad. “Southern California Holiday”. Both of these videos also include some footage of the happiest place on Earth.
“You may cross here from country to country, with no passport problems.” I remember those days. (Never been to Tijuana, but when I was young, my family walked across the border between Texas and Mexico more than once. And when I was older, I made a couple more cross-border trips with friends. Then Homeland Security.)
Bonus video #2: Okay, travel by air this time. “California: World In a Week”, from the 1960s and United Airlines.
It is almost like being there. Except you don’t have to step over the needles and feces. Marineland of the Pacific operated until 1987, when it was bought by the people who owned SeaWorld. The new owners promptly moved all of the animals to SeaWorld San Diego, shut down Marineland, and poured concrete into the drains.
(Also.)
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 136
Thursday, August 13th, 2020Travel Thursday!
I know we went to Singapore last week, but here’s a different view, from a different airline that still exists and is one of my personal favorites. Why?
“Singapore Stop Over”, from Qantas sometime in the 1960s.
Bonus video: in all our travels, I’ve been neglecting the United States. So let us fix that. And it is the time of year when I want to visit someplace slightly cooler.
“This Land of Ours: Montana”, from 1947.
To be fair, yes, I probably picked this just so I could use the Frank Zappa video.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 129
Thursday, August 6th, 2020Travel Thursday!
I was thinking about the Orient today. We’ve already done Japan. So how about the next best thing?
“New Horizons: Hong Kong and Singapore”. From Pan Am and 1960, back when Hong Kong was still under British rule.
And your bonus for today: “The Wonderful Jet World of Pan American”, from 1959 and the usual suspects, touting the virtues of Pan Am’s jet fleet.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 79
Wednesday, June 17th, 2020I’m thinking it is time for some more travel video.
From those wonderful folks at Pan Am, “Wings To Ireland”.
Oddly, my major associations with Ireland are Ken Bruen and “all the bright young things were throwing up their Guinness in the gutters…”
You don’t recognize the latter? Let’s fix that.
That wasn’t a bonus video, this is a bonus video. And it isn’t from Pan Am this time.
“Time Flies”. Yes, yes, like an arrow and fruit flies like a banana. But seriously, this is a 1960s promo film for Lufthansa.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 71
Tuesday, June 9th, 2020I was going to post the Golden Gate construction video. Really, I was. I had it in my YouTube history and everything.
Then ASM826 beat me to it. Drat. So something else.
This might be a day for more travel on Pan Am. I’ve got a couple of these in the queue. What exotic destination sounds good?
Well, right now, it is 99 degrees in Austin. And 71 degrees below the equator, in the exotic land of…
“Wings to Brazil”, another 1960s travelogue.
Carnival starts at about the 24 minute mark, if you’re interested.
And as a bonus totally unrelated to travel (except you need these to get places): “The Suspension Bridge”, from the United States Steel Corporation.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 64
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2020I believe I promised an exotic destination yesterday. I hope you all have your bags packed, because what could be more exotic than…
…Vietnam?
From 1967, “You In Vietnam”, a Marine Corps training/orientation film for new recruits in country.
Bonus: from 1986, “Combat Leadership: The Ultimate Challenge”.
Lee Marvin shows up at about the three minute mark.
Back on the train…
Monday, June 17th, 2019I’ve returned from my travel, for the record. I may talk a little about where I was at some point in the near future, but I probably won’t be doing a full fledged after action report.
One thing I will say: I can’t recommend the Sixth Floor Museum. It is expensive (a minimum of $30 for one person if you want to park your car), a Mongolian fire drill to get in to (you have to wait in line to buy tickets, or you can order them online. But either way, you then have to wait in line until your designated admission time comes around, then you have to wait in another line to actually get in the elevators up to the sixth floor.) and there’s just really not a whole lot to it that you don’t already know or haven’t heard. Most of the stuff there (Oswald’s rifle, Zapruder’s camera) isn’t even the original items (which are stored in the National Archives) but “reproductions” or similar items made around the same time.
It might be a good place to take your kids (but if you drive, you’re going to be out a minimum of $76 for a family of four) but I was generally disappointed.