Travel: August 2021 Archives

Ash Salisbury -- My Aussie Journal

A US-based Australian citizen, Ash Salisbury was unable to return home for over a year to see her parents and her boyfriend because of the two-week hotel quarantine period imposed by Australia. A window of opportunity opened in June, and she spent two weeks isolated in a hotel in Sydney in order to get four days with friends and family in Melbourne, which she logged in a daily journal. The willingness of her fellow Aussies to sacrifice a lot of freedom for the illusion of safety was shocking to her. From her "Afterword."

"Australia got it wrong!

"They found themselves in an elimination strategy and that strategy has no exit. The only way out now is to allow a degree of the virus to be in the community. The fear that has been dished out to Australians means that it's political suicide and no politician is going to overturn the plan but will continue to toe the line. With this, their bureaucrats are now in positions where they have so much power over other people's lives and are starting to enjoy it. It's a real-life Milgram Shock and Zimbardo Experiment that is happening in Australia.

"Even the hotel manager when I checked in on Day One of my quarantine showed little emotion over concerns but clearly enjoyed his power over arrivals. The police reading us the riot act as if we were criminals for simply wanting to return to Australia is all evidenced by a new form of Australia that is massively concerning."

CITY OF DUST: Whiskey and the Devil: Taiban, New Mexico

A great "long-tail" blog post that begins with the story of the photogenic abandoned church belonging to this ghost town on US 60 between Clovis and Fort Sumner, New Mexico, and has grown over time to include photos, postcards, and more stories about this short-lived town associated with Billy the Kid and saloons.