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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by Marty Coleman | Jun 14, 2010 | Anatole France, Travel |
Summer is wandering time and I have been surrounded by stories of it this week. I am getting antsy for a road trip of some type!
- My traveling daughter, who has traipsed across the west for the last 4 months, came back in town this week and told of some of her adventures off the beaten path.
- A good blogging buddy of mine is on her bazillionth trip to Pakistan and is great at posting photos and telling of the feel of the place.
- A running buddy just returned from an anniversary trip to Paris and posted photos.
- Another daughter went off to the beach in California.
- Another running buddy went off to Canada with his wife (and happened upon an annual nude bike ride! That cracked them up, big time)
We are not sure what our summer adventure will be yet, but I will let you know!
What adventures are you hoping to experience?
Drawing and wanderlust © Marty Coleman
“Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.” – Anatole France, 1844-1924, French writer
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by Marty Coleman | Apr 3, 2010 | Marty Coleman, Travel |
I have a friend somewhere in the world, not sure where, named Agnes. She has traveled the globe, sat with prestigious, inspiring people, experienced life in ways most of us do not. She is in deep, deep love with her husband, with whom she experiences many of these things. Those are her dreams, to travel with him.
He now is struggling with a pretty serious illness and that travel isn’t something they can undertake for a while. She wishes she could, she yearns for it. But though those are her big dreams, they aren’t her only dreams. She makes smaller dreams a reality for herself and her husband in tender, kind and intimate gestures.
She tells the world about these things, along with her larger dreams, in her blog. I read it and it reminds me again and again how much I love knowing people like that are in the world. I don’t really need to ever meet her or her husband, though what a pleasure it would be, I have no doubt. All I really need to be inspired is to know the two of them exist.
Read her latest entry about her manifestation of a little dream at the end of the night and then go and see if you can’t find the same fulfillment in the magic of your own small world.
Dream on, Agnes, and thank you.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“There’s not much to do but bury a person when the last of their dreams are dead.” – Agnes, somewhere
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 14, 2009 | Les Coleman, Travel |
At first I think, how pathetic – this stupid goldfish swimming around in circles going nowhere. But as an analogy how different is it from our own lives?
We are trapped on the earth, we aren’t going anywhere (well, except for the 20 million I am going to pay to go up in a rickety Russian spaceship, but besides that). Whether we travel all around the globe or barely make it out of our town, we still are contained by something.
The breakdown in the analogy is that we can change the size and look of our bowl while the goldfish can’t. But, in truth, we do not do that unless we feel some unmet need. Even then often times we will suffer with an unfulfilled dream or hope and not take the steps necessary to expand or change our bowl.
What is your bowl? Are you satisfied with it? Do you have the courage to reshape your bowl to encompass the world you want to swim in?
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“The distance a goldfish swims is not controlled by the bowl.” – Les Coleman (no relation), 1945-not dead yet), British guy
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by Marty Coleman | Jul 10, 2009 | Dr. Seuss, Travel |
Hola Napkin Kin! Today is the last of my week-long series on travel.
Would love to hear your ideas for other week-long series when you have
the time. email me at marty@martycoleman.com or just post a comment.
I love to take trips when I can, whether it be by path, road, air or water
(road is my favorite). One of the main reasons is that I am a ‘noticer’ (thanks
to Erin for that recent designation of moi). I go somewhere and I notice the
different accents, products, clothes, food, store fronts, air, potholes, patterns
and ways of doing things. It is exciting to see all those new things, to notice
the differences, to experience the newness.
With the noticing comes education. I learn first how provincial I am. I get use
to my world, my town, my way of doing things. By traveling I learn that I am
small and the world is big. I get bigger when I realize that. And yes, I get a bigger
waistline too, from ‘noticing’ all the new food!
With education comes appreciation. I appreciate that the world is open to me.
I appreciate that I have a home and familiar places I can return to. I appreciate
how the world does not revolve around me. I love seeing the people on the street
in a new locale, especially if I draw or photograph them. I think of it as a little
collision of humanity in a large world, a bump and we are back on to our own
trajectory.
With appreciation comes gratitude. I am grateful that I have the means and the
ability to travel. I know it won’t last forever. I know I will someday be at a point when
I won’t travel. I will be gone from the earth. I don’t mind that. But I would mind
not being aware of that and taking advantage of the time I do have to move about.
With gratitude comes love. Love for those who I notice along my path. The waitress,
the hot dog vendor, the random person from Idaho next to me at the fireworks, the
couple on the boat on a romantic weekend. I have a heart of hope for them.
I wish them well. I encourage them. I love them.
The greater love is for those I know and am with on the journey. My wife, daughters,
friends. I see them in a new light. I see new aspects of them, their growth, their
struggles, their eccentricities and intelligence. I have more to love of them that way.
Travel is good. Get up and go.
“You’re off to great places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting so get on your way!” – Dr. Seuss.
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