Travel Thursday!
Do you like kids? Do you like trains? Do you like kids on trains?
“Big Trains Rolling”, from the Association of American Railroads. This dates to either 1946 or 1955: YouTube contradicts itself.
Is it just me? Am I an old man? Or do those two kids seem awfully young to be taking a train trip alone?
Bonus: I can’t believe I haven’t used this one, but it doesn’t come up in a search, and I had it bookmarked…
“Wings to Guatemala” from those wonderful folks at Pan Am.
Travel Thursday!
Why don’t we continue with our tour of the United States and visit another exotic destination?
“More Per Mile”, a 1950s travelogue about the great state of Kentucky, “the state where the young have fun”.
Bonus: “Real Appalachia with Shane Simmons” visits Harlan.
Bonus #2: This stretches the definition of “travel” a bit, but I found it amusing: “Flight Attendant: Is There A Doctor On This Flight? Dad: Yeah, Me [It Happened Again]”. This guy seems to get dragged into in-flight medical emergencies a lot.
Also, to be honest, I’m fascinated by this portable Bluetooth EKG machine. Not that I have heart trouble, but at $149, this almost falls into “impulse buy” territory. Throw it in your carry-on if you are a doctor and are traveling…not that I know anybody who falls into that category…
Travel Thursday!
How about a trip on a defunct airline to a country that no longer exists?
“Flight to Ceylon”, from TWA at some point in the 1950s. You would know Ceylon better today as Sri Lanka.
Bonus #1: “Norway-Denmark”. This is one of those military orientation films, for personnel stationed in those countries, and dates to 1951.
Bonus #2: “Next exit, Stuckey’s”.
I always kind of liked Stuckey’s. The last time I was in one was maybe 10 or 12 years ago: there are still a few in the general East Texas area.
I also suspect that there’s a reason why “Buc-ees” sounds a lot like “Stuckey’s”, and why there seem to be things in common between the two.
Travel Thursday!
Continuing our tour of the United States, let’s visit Wisconsin! More specifically, let’s visit a place I’d really like to see, and hope to one day soon: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin.
Bonus: This is a historical oddity that I confess I haven’t watched all of yet, but am bookmarking here.
“Ridin’ the Dog” is a documentary from 1989 about taking Greyhound from Seattle to Chicago. The extra historical oddity here is: Studs Terkel narrates.
Travel Thursday!
How about South America?
“Invitation to South America”. According to Periscope Films, this was co-sponsored by Pan Am and American Express, though it isn’t in the “Wings To…” series.
Bonus: I don’t think we’ve done Florida in our tour of the United States, so let us fix that.
“Fun, Sun, Sand And Sea”. This is an episode of the old “America!” TV series.
Travel Thursday!
In honor of the late G. Gordon Liddy, how about a tour of the Watergate Hotel?
Bonus #1: I’m kind of bending one of my own rules here, but I’m thinking of this less as military history and more as “also inspired by current events”.
The Battleship New Jersey folks put up a video the other day about transiting the Suez and Panama canals.
Bonus #2: What the heck, let’s do some more ships. From the “Great British Royal Ships” series, “RMS Queen Mary”.
Travel Thursday!
Today, we journey to the Outer Limit.
Well, actually, not that one, though these folks did manage to control the horizontal and the vertical.
This is a vintage (1969) promo film from Boeing, “The Outer Limit”, about the flight testing and introduction of the 747.
I’m fudging the definition of travel a bit with that one, but it is short. The next one is, admittedly, long, but it lets me cross another state off the list, and it is a place I enjoy visiting.
“The City of Las Vegas, the Early Years”. This covers the period from 1905 to 1920. See? Who says Vegas doesn’t have a sense of history?
Bonus: I’ve griped before about the hard hat tour of Hoover Dam (which I was lucky enough to go on) and how it was shut down after 9/11. Well, here’s a video (a little over 30 minutes long) of the hard hat tour from March 2001.
“If you’re going home by plane, wear the hard hat on the plane. It scares the heck out of the other passengers.” Man, wasn’t that a simpler time?
Travel Thursday!
I’ve been neglecting the United States. Technically, I still am, as today’s presentation is a place that isn’t a state: the place that my sister and her family refer to as “WashingtonDCOurNation’sCapital” (all one word).
From 1945, “The District of Columbia”, part of the “This Land Of Ours” series.
Bonus: and if you liked that one, here’s another one from 1954 and Esso (aka “Standard Oil Company of New Jersey”). “Welcome to Washington”.
Travel Thursday!
Have you ever considered exotic Pakistan as a destination? No? Let’s change that!
“New Horizons: Pakistan” from our friends at Pan Am sometime in the 1960s.
I bet it was a lot easier to bring home a little souvenir from the Khyber Pass back then, too.
Bonus: “Flying with the KLM from Amsterdam to Paris in 1929 in color!” As I understand it from the YouTube description, this is originally from 1929, but the poster (Rick88888888) has done a lot of work: “motion-stabilized, speed-corrected, A.I. enhanced and A.I. colorized”.
Travel Thursday!
Would you like to fly in my beautiful balloon? Or if not that, a passenger airplane from the 1950s?
From those wonderful folks at TWA, “Flight To California”.
Bonus, plus CanCon! “The Mother of Rivers”, about the Columbia River ice field. Made about 1947 for the Canadian National Railways by our old friends at the National Film Board of Canada.
Bonus #2: Again, I’m stretching the definition of travel, but this involves planes and is short. Have you ever wanted to see a Boeing 747-8 fully loaded abort a takeoff at 200 MPH? Using only the brakes, no reverse thrust? And by the way, the brakes are worn down to the metal studs?
Travel Thursday!
I can’t find any evidence I’ve used this before. Google doesn’t return any results when I search my site, but I’m not sure how it escaped me for this long.
“Pan Am’s World”, a vintage 1970s promo film.
Bonus: this is something called “Flight Into Time” from the 1950s and TWA. The unifying theme is travel through the Mediterranean and the area around it: Portugal, Spain, Italy, Israel, Syria & Egypt.
Bonus bonus: Constellations!
Travel Thursday!
This is slightly less timely than I would have liked: I would have used this last week, but it wasn’t uploaded then.
There was a TV series called “Vagabond” back during the 1950s, hosted by a former child star named “Bill Burrud”. This episode is about Mardi Gras. And even better, it is in color!
Bonus video: in keeping with the theme, and offering something more recent, here’s something called “NOPD: Mardi Gras” which is exactly what it says on the tin: New Orleans Police Department officers patrolling during Mardi Gras in 2006.