Volume IV, Issue III
AUGUST 2002

The Small Town Torture Issue

FREE DOWNLOADS!
Two San Juans for the price of... Juan.

Wallpaper of the Month:
Friday Harbor, San Juan island fire

View from a gondola, Whistler/Blackcomb, British Columbia

SIDEBARD

Our favorite Palindromes with apologies to Oklahomans, sluts, and people who own potato pans:

Tulsa nightlife: filth, gin, a slut

Sit on a potato pan, Otis

Oh, no! Don Ho!

T H I S   I S S U E

Return of BugBoy Philip Johns, Nick Mistretta Hangs Out for the Moment, British whale researcher Andy Foote reviews surfing movie "The Far Shore," McBee dances with the Quileutes and they don't laugh at him (much), McCrea dances with the little turtles, John Burdick's time-share torture is rewarded at Whistler, BC with a super-dumb Dumb-Ass Trip®, Martha "Stewart" Strom buries us in lettuce alternatives, and Leslie reviews travel jewel Globetrotter Dogma. Also, new Wallpaper of the Month.

F E A T U R E S

Return of BugBoy - Sex and the Single Entomologist's Philip Johns asks "Whence Wings?" in an unexpected Look at the Mayfly, like you've never imagined. Or maybe you have. But that would make you like Philip and that would just be... strange.

The moment's the only thing as Nick Mistretta Hangs Out.

At the end of the road at La Push, Washington, McBee finds a Quileute drum circle.

Mike McCrea slaves to build a Habitat for Tortoisity.

R E V I E W S

Andy Foote reviews a new video arrival of the surfer movie "The Far Shore" mercifully not starring Dinah Shore and Pauley Shore.

Leslie reviews the enchanting book Globetrotter Dogma - 100 Canons for Escaping the Rat Race and Exploring the World.

D U M B - A S S  T R I P S

You can tell John's in thrift mode when he endures a gruelling timeshare sales pitch for a free trip to Whistler Village, British Columbia. Leslie springs for the Tim Horton's donut holes for John's first and her northernmost Dumb-Ass Trip yet.

T H E  C A S U A L  C O O K

Silage and seasonal lawn clippings might have a place in your next meal...Casual Cook Martha Strom brings you five summer salads - more than you may have time this summer to fix.

E D I T O R I A L

Philosopy in its many phorms

We had some great stuff come our way this issue. Our friend Nick Mistretta has surfaced briefly after a long absence (taking a break from writing a book) to lob over the transom a good philosophical piece on the virtues of hanging out that we relate to so well, and Philip Johns has managed to outdo last issue's article on spiders with observations on Mayflies that I think everyone should read.

Personally, I like science teachers. I'm surrrounded by them at the museum where I work, and from time to time they'll come through to the museum store and applaud the rubber squid and plastic jellyfish I have procured. "It's about time we got some invertebrates around here!" they'll say. I try not to take it personally.

Science educators are always doing something fascinating and somewhat disgusting. Baleen in the fridge, carcasses in the freezer - you get the drift. I was once with a group of marine biology teachers on a private island in the San Juans, bumbling around under the full moon looking for Mouflon Sheep (long story) when one of our party bumbled into some stinging nettles. We all crowded around her as we tested the theory that the antidote for everything in nature is found nearby. We agitated a banana slug with a stick until it foamed slug slime, then rubbed the slime on her leg where the nettles stung her, then waited for her evaluation of the cure. Sure enough, the slime took the sting away. Just goes to show you... something or other.

Salt: The Deadly Condiment

"Hey, this has all the earmarks of a dumb-ass trip!" Anyone who has traveled with me or read my Dumb-Ass trip articles ends up saying this at some point in time. All it takes are fecklessness, timing, and poverty. Usually there is good potential for arrest, or ridiculous fatality.

Here's one that could have turned out in the fatality category: Our good friend Marcia Tapp comes to visit me here on San Juan island. We buy some really good ice cream bars at the corner gas station and drive out to South Beach, a long stretch of wild, windblown bluffs. It's stormy, the moon is full, the tide is at extreme high. We think this is neat. We find one of the many handmade temporary driftwood structures people like to build on the beach, this one like a classic Lincoln Log square.

We hunker down in it out of the wind and start to eat our ice cream bars, chatting about things. I suddenly get an uneasy feeling, then suggest we get out of there fast. The waves are crashing diagonally on the beach, and the sneaker waves, usually sneakier, are becoming downright brazen and we can taste the salt from them. Not a good condiment with ice cream, we had to agree. We scramble for the shelter of the car and notice that now the waves are closer to the driftwood shelter. Soon the whole thing will collapse under one good sneaker wave and we could have been under half a ton of sharp sticks. A gigantic tree root ball, all deadly pointy bits weighing what looks like half a ton, wobbles loose in the tide a short distance away. Our epitaphs could have been an homage to stupidity. but they weren't. Now that, my friends, is a Dumb-Ass Trip.

Validation is as validation does, especially if we get free books out of it

In our fourth fabulous year of publication, Get Lost Magazine is now a regular recipient of travel-related books and films for review. They just appear in the mail sometimes. This month you may have noticed that we're reviewing a film and a book. For next issue I have received a novel, a European pub guide, and two foreign language books. One is for colloquial Portuguese and one for a language I've never heard of before - Tamil. I'm currently unsuccessfully trying to find someone to take the book to task. No luck so far. My friends are making fun of me, but I may have the last laugh: I'll be able to say "Pardon me. Why are you laughing at me?" in colloquial Tamil and they won't understand a word of it.

My Goat Can Fly

By the way, South Beach on San Juan island is not just my favorite place in the world. It also is the favorite place of a dog and his boy: check out the keenest web site we've seen in a long time by Justin Nakatsuka, owner and tailor and poet and webmaster and picture-taker of Row West. If you love dogs, if you love old dogs, if you love throwing things on a beach for a dog, if you love poetry that makes you misty remembering throwing an object for a once-young dog, and how it transformed him into a flying dog... oh, just go look at it. It's beautiful. (Thanks to our own Philip "BugBoy" Johns for sending the link. The weird poet hearts can always find each other.)

My Goat Can Fly:
Starring
- The Goat
- Justin Nakatsuka
- a Kong

- Leslie Strom

Your Salted Editor-in-Chief

SITES WE DIG

Follow Kinga and Chopin as they hitchhike around the world!

Suddenly acquired a yen for Soundtracks and Heavy Metal? Go to Amazon, get current, and save dough.

Cheryl Conlon, professional travel photographer: check out her latest portfolio at conlonphoto.com

Armchair Travel for Quicktime Virtual Reality photoessays.

The 2Camels web site with travel events and stuff