Tag Archives: thirdeyemom

Tour de la Vanoise: Our starting point Pralognan-la-Vanoise

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Author’s note: This post is a continuation of my series on trekking La Tour de la Vanoise in the French Alps. For previous post, click here. 

Lovely, quaint Pralognan-la-Vanoise, a mountain town located in the heart of Savoie in the French Alps.

After our unexpected afternoon in Geneva (for post click here), we returned to the airport to meet our guide Mark along with the other two guests joining us on our trek through La Tour de la Vanoise. Our group would be small, only four trekkers along with our own, personal mountain guide, France-based Brit, Mark of Simply Savoie.

Isn’t this what you envision a French Alpine village to look like?

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Sumptuous Savoie: The heart of Vanoise

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Our week-long trek through the peaks and valleys of the French Alps took place in the beautiful eastern Rhône-Alpes region of France known as Savoie (pronounced “saw-vwa”). 

Logo of Savoie (Wikipedia).

Savoie, along with neighboring Haute-Savoie, has a long, fascinating history as a prosperous kingdom known as Savoy that was annexed by France in 1860. Savoy existed as an autonomous country for almost a thousand years and its traditional boundaries have not changed since the annexation (placed at the crossroads of the Alps in the eastern part of France, west of Italy and south of Switzerland. See map below).

 

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An unexpected afternoon in Old Genève

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“She was already thinking of herself
as a kind of expatriate…not
smothered by what she believed to
be America’s puritanical and
materialistic culture, which she
had little patience for.
She saw herself more a European
soul, in tune with the thinkers and
artists she felt expressed her
tragic, romantic, freethinking view
of life.”
– Vicky Christina Barcelona

Photo taken as we walked up the stairs to enter historical, old Genève. August 2012.

Our transatlantic flight left Minneapolis on Friday, August 10th. My parents had flown in fifty minutes before from Tucson, Arizona. We were doing a swap. My mom was staying here in Minneapolis helping my husband look after the kids while my dad and I were boarding a non-stop flight to Amsterdam at approximately 7:30 pm.  I could hardly wait.

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Midtown Mania

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During my three day trip to New York City for the BlogHer ’12 conference we stayed at the Hilton New York (the largest hotel in NYC) in vibrant, fast-faced Midtown.  As a travel blogger, I found it irresistibly hard to be trapped inside the jam-packed hotel in sessions all day long with 5,000 fellow bloggers. My curiosity and desire to explore got the best of me so I snuck out during the live Katie Couric interview and hit Midtown.

Thinking the coffee line at Starbucks would definitely be better across the street of our hotel, I crossed the famous Avenue of the Americas to yet another Starbucks, equally full with a queue of at least 20 deep. Wow, Starbucks must really rake in the money and I don’t even like their coffee (it is bitter, expensive and reminds me of a coffee shop version of McDonalds).

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The Power of One: Commenting for Social Good

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This month, Shot@Life (a global campaign that provides life-saving vaccines to children in developing countries) has launched something spectacular: Blogust.

Every day throughout the month of August, Shot@Life will feature a post on why comments matter and how they build community and work to promote social good. An anonymous donor has generously agreed to donate $20 per comment.  That $20 is enough money to provide four life-saving vaccines to one child and vaccinate him or her for life.

One in five children do not have access to life-saving vaccines. Shot@Life is working to change that number by reaching that fifth child.
Photo Credit: UN Foundation

Since the launch of Blogust, fellow Shot@Life Champions including myself have done everything possible to spread the word through social media and get more people to comment. So far, it has worked in unimaginable ways and has been an unbelievable success. Over the weekend, we reached our first 1,500 comments meaning 1,500 children who would otherwise not receive these life-saving vaccines will get them. We have raised $30,000 reaching the initial donation commitment from our donor and we are only on Day 5 of the campaign!!!

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Hike along the Split Rock Lighthouse Coastal trail

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The dramatic view of Lake Superior at the end of the Split Rock Lighthouse Costal Hike

Back in early June, my family and I had the pleasure of spending a long weekend along Minnesota’s sensational, untouched North Shore of Lake Superior. I’d written quite a few posts about the gorgeous hikes we did in this area (to read them click here) but never had a chance to write about our final hike along the Split Rock Lighthouse Coastal Trail.

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The End of AIDS? We can’t stop funding now.

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It was no coincidence that the RESULTS International Conference to end global poverty was held at the same time as the AIDS 2012 Conference. It was a huge event and opportunity for over 400 RESULTS Activists to learn about the latest breakthroughs in HIV/AIDS treatments and the impact this devastating disease has had on the world, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa where it is rampant, having 22.9 million of the 34 million adults and children living with HIV/AIDS.

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The path not taken

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This week’s Sunday Post theme by Jakesprinter is roads. I couldn’t help but think of this theme in both a literal and metaphorical way. As there was one road that I traveled on while hiking the Annapurna trail in Nepal, that changed my life forever and set me on my future path to where I am today.

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The Power of One Voice

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“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

I want to give all my readers a huge thank you for all the wonderful, supportive comments I received after my post The Color of Guatemala was Freshly Pressed.  I could not have been more humbled by the beautiful, encouraging comments I received from fellow readers and bloggers.  It was a big pleasure to read each comment and I’m in the process of responding to each and every one. So thank you, everyone! You are why I keep blogging!

What could not be more ironic, however, is the timing of my Freshly Pressed post. I wrote it hurriedly last Friday morning as I was desperately trying to get in one last post done before I left to our nation’s capital to the Results International conference on ending global poverty.

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A Message of Hope

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Today I did something I never dreamed possible. As a representative of the world’s poorest of the poor, I lobbied on Capital Hill. If you asked me two years ago if I would ever find myself here as an advocate for global and human rights, I would have laughed it all away saying “you’re dreaming”. Yet, here I am. Today I did it. I gave a voice to the millions of voiceless people dying and suffering around the world.
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DC and the missed opportunity

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I’m here safe and sound in Washington DC and just had an amazing 12-hour day of conferences. I am here attending the RESULTS International Conference (a grassroots advocacy group focused on ending global poverty and hunger) on behalf of my advocacy work for the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life campaign (an initiative to provide life-saving vaccines in poor countries).

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The color of Guatemala

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Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky. – Rabindranath Tagore

There is no place on earth that has as vibrant of colors as Guatemala. From the brightly painted buildings in hues of a brilliant rainbow to the intense, magical colors of the Mayan clothing and textiles, I’ve found no place quite like Guatemala.

Here are some of my favorite photos from my trip that burst off the page with color and imagination. Since I’ve already written quite a lot about Guatemala, there will be no descriptions of these photos and it will only be a journey of colors.  Hope you enjoy!


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