by Marty Coleman | Sep 16, 2010 | Road Trip, Seattle Road Trip, Travel |
Time to pack it in! After 5 days on a road trip to Seattle, 2 days there and 3 more in San Diego I am looking forward to home.
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| The Baby and the Plane of Smiles |
Sometimes you hear horror stories about babies on planes. But this one, in the waiting area and on the plane, just made people smile. Sweet, funny, calm, and not crying. What more could one ask for!
I am a friendly guy, I like to engage in conversation and like meeting new people. I know some people don’t like doing that on planes and I respect that when I sit next to someone who obviously isn’t into it. But this time around the person I met added a nice full-circle ending to my trip.
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| D Seeing the Road Ahead |
D noticed me drawing and that got us in a conversation about art, college, majors, etc. She is a biology major and wants to be a doctor. She just moved to the west coast, first time away from home. 4 months ago she married her childhood sweetheart, a Marine, stationed at Camp Pendleton in San Diego county. Talk about a radical, crazy new phase of life! Although the situation isn’t exactly the same, I started out driving with my daughter to her new home on the west coast where she is going to be building a new life with a new beau. It will be her first time living completely apart geographically from family and friends. Now I am ending my journey talking to a stranger on a plane who is living a similar story. I love that.
I parted ways with her in Houston where she was headed and I was continuing on to Tulsa. I felt good about her chances for a happy life just as I did when I left Chelsea in Seattle the week before.
Now on to Tulsa where I expect to see my wife at the gate waiting for me. Not at the baggage claim, but at the actual gate, like in the old days. How can that be you ask? Because, ironies of ironies, my wife is about to go on a business trip to Houston and is taking the exact same plane I am arriving on! So, I am getting off, kissing her hello, kissing her goodbye and driving home to a household of animals. Not the optimal homecoming but it’s even worse for Linda since she has been the one home working all the while I have been traipsing around the country.
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| Hello Goodbye |
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate and love her for that. She works really hard in a really stressful job. She travels more than she likes and for her to have to leave as I arrive does not make her a happy camper. But it was fun to have her at the gate, no doubt!
Marty
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 15, 2010 | Road Trip, San Diego, Seattle Road Trip |
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Southwest Airline napkin.
The hat is formed out of the route I took across the country and back. |
At age 6 I moved away from Del Mar, California. For many decades no one in my family lived there, or anywhere close. Now, 50 years later my father and sister live in the area and I go back to visit regularly. It feels like home, always has and always will. The ocean air, the wispy low beach fog in the morning, the smell of the Eucalyptus trees and the feel of the sun all are as natural to me as can be.
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| Sketchbook – Sleeping Woman on a Plane |
I flew down to San Diego (Del Mar is just north of the city) and spent a few days with my younger sister, Jackie and her family. I also spent a good amount of time with my 92 year old father, Skeets. He is frail and doesn’t remember much, but he is still enjoying life.
He has had a long career in aviation, first in WWII as a fighter pilot in the South Pacific, then as a test pilot, jet salesman and aviation magazine publisher. You can read about his exploits and fame here.
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My father, Skeets Coleman, (famous aviator) and
myself (famous napkin dad). haha |
Marty
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 14, 2010 | Road Trip, Seattle Road Trip, Travel Napkins |
Deep Thoughts and the Barista
We have arrived in Seattle, our final road trip destination! My daughter has been a barista for quite some time, as well as a coffee roaster, office manager, and everything else in the coffee business. So, of course the first thing we did when arriving in Seattle was to hit a nice coffee house! I drew this after meeting a barista who didn’t quite look like this (she was happier looking) and having a conversation with Chelsea about obligation. I couldn’t think of a way to succinctly ‘quote’ our conversation so I did a little question/riddle type thing. Coffee will do that to you, you know.
Anyway, the goal has been achieved and she is now off to start her new life!
I am on to visit family in San Diego for a few days before heading home.
Marty
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 13, 2010 | Road Trip, Seattle Road Trip, Travel Napkins |
We spent time in Yellowstone National Park, looking at Bison and Waterfalls and bubbling mud pots of steam. It made us imagine what the first people who saw this area must have thought, how scary it must have been for the native peoples to traverse this landscape, for the Europeans to do the same. How that scared quality actually drove them on.
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| Yellowstone River from above the falls |
Chelsea is moving to Washington, 1,000 of miles away from home. That is scary. I know she will do well, but it’s still a courageous move and there are fears and unknowns to overcome. I am proud of her and I think facing those fears will make her an even better person than she already is.
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| Objects in mirror are larger than they appear. |
What fear are you facing down today?
Marty
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 12, 2010 | Road Trip, Seattle Road Trip |
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The Bagel Maker and the Bison
We stopped at a red light and asked a guy with a very hoarse voice where a good place to eat was and he squeeked out ‘bagels on broadway’ so off we went on a search in Missoula, Montana. What a beautiful town. It’s a college town (U of M is there I think) so it has that college town vibe to it. We found the place and had great bagels. We told them we were from the bagel capital of the world, Tulsa, Oklahoma so they were mightily impressed.
The quote for the napkin came from the magnetic poetry thing that was in front of us at the counter. Here is a picture of it.
I did a caricature of the bagel maker for my napkin. She wasn’t in a great mood but by the end of our time there she was smiling and happy. Our mission to get a bagel and spread joy was complete. Here she is with the napkin.
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| Caitlin the Bagel Maker in Missoula, MT |
Sorry I have been so lame about posting, the trip has been more fun and more time consuming that I anticipated!
Marty
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 10, 2010 | Road Trip, Seattle Road Trip |
My first brown napkin ever! Got it at the Super 8 Motel at breakfast in Buffalo, Wyoming after a day getting to Badlands National Park JUST as the sun set! But we found an ultra cool abandoned church and took some pics there.
And just a few minutes later we got into the park and got to see some bison and witness the sunset. It was gorgeous. We even got a pic of us at just the right moment!
Next stop, Yellowstone National Park!
Drawing and photos (all from my iPhone, ‘good’ pics from my camera to come later) by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily.
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 6, 2010 | Road Trip, Seattle Road Trip |
A little napkin in a little motel in little Concordia, Kansas during our little breakfast.
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A graveyard named Pleasant Center. Rural Kansas, sunset
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Cuz it costs 15 cents just to flush it, said the man. Pay toilet, rural Oklahoma
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On our way!
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 5, 2010 | Road Trip, Seattle Road Trip |
Hello Napkin Kin!
I am going to be on a road trip this week and a bit into next. I will be driving from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Seattle, Washington (about 2,000 miles) to help my daughter move. I will then fly down to San Diego, California to visit my 92 year old father and my sister and her family.
I will be drawing on whatever napkins I find along the way, at diners, fast food joints, hotels, wherever. It might be a quote, might be something funny I heard, who knows.
I will also be taking photos and posting them. Let’s hear stories of your road trips with links to your photos as well, ok?
If you are on my route go out and wave as I pass by, ok?
Friend,
Marty
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by Marty Coleman | Jul 9, 2010 | Self, Travel, Vacation - 2010, William Least Heat Moon |
Day #4 of Vacation Week at The Napkin Dad Daily
I took my daughters to Europe in 2003. We traveled through Germany, Italy, France and Spain for 2 weeks. We stayed at youth hostels and Bed & Breakfasts.
When we were in Munich, Germany we had beds for 5 in our room and only 4 of us so a single woman from the US joined us. We knew nothing about her, she knew nothing about us. We went out to dinner with her and got to discover her as she was, right then. She was a blank slate, with no yesterdays for us.
We didn’t know if she suffered from depression, with an Eeyore cloud over her head all the time, or if she had been stabbed in the back by her best friend the week before. All we knew was what she decided to present to us that day.
One of the great things about moving away from an old home town, or traveling to a new spot where you spend some time, is that you get to reinvent yourself. You can practice being who you want to be, not who you are expected to be.
But here is the great secret. Every new encounter you are a blank slate. It doesn’t matter if you are in France or your local dry cleaners. That person does not know you or your history. You want to be different than you are in daily life? Then practice on that new person. Be kinder, be more complimentary, be quieter, be less judgmental, be funnier, be happier. You don’t need to go on vacation to become someone new, you just need to see the opportunities right in front of you.
Before you know it, you will become what you practice, no matter where you are.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“There are no yesterdays on the road.” – William Least Heat Moon, 1939-not dead yet, American writer of native Osage heritage. Writes particularly about travel, including his best seller, Blue Highways, published in 1982, about his journey on the backroads of America.
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by Marty Coleman | Jul 8, 2010 | Nikos Kazantsakis, Travel, Vacation - 2010 |
Day #4 of Vacation Week at The Napkin Dad Daily
But isn’t this against the whole idea of traveling? That is that you open your mind and allow whatever is really there to come through, instead of creating a vacation of photo ops and prepackaged tours, right?
Yes, that is true, the traveler does need to be open. But the traveler also needs to understand that what is going on when they travel is in their head. They benefit from being able to provide themselves and others a story of their travels and to do that they must be able to create a narrative. Not just a story of ‘I did this then I did that’, but a story that creates itself as you experience it. The aromas you notice as you walk, the look of the sky as the sun goes down, the feeling of the humidity or dryness in the air. You experience your world with awareness is the idea. You notice and remember.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels.” – Nikos Kazantzakis, 1883-1957, Greek writer and philosopher. Author of ‘Zorba the Greek’.
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