Traveling with the Jones

In late September we spent a night at the Hilton Boston Logan Airport hotel before a Canada and New England cruise.

The Logan Airport 9/11 Memorial is located across the street from the hotel.

Before heading to the cruise ship, I took a walk around the hotel and visited the memorial. It is called The Place of Remembrance and was designed by Moskow Linn Architects of Boston.

(Both the hotel and the memorial can be reached by walking from the airport, or taking the hotel shuttle bus. )

The Logan Airport 9/11 Memorial contains landscaped paths that lead to a large glass cube.

Inside the glass cube, glass panels honor the passengers and crews of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175.

On September 11, 2001, these two flights departed Logan Airport for Los Angeles, but were hijacked by terrorists who crashed them into the World Trade Towers in New York.

From inside, visitors look up at a sky transformed by a prism of reflective panels by day; the cube glows with a soft light by night.

Also inside the cube are two glass panels containing the names of every person aboard both flights.

If you have a longer layover or an overnight stay, you can visit the Logan Airport 9/11 Memorial 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Signs in the airport direct you to the 9/11/ Memorial.

Do you remember exactly where you were on the morning of September 11, 2001?

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To read more on the events of September 11, 2001:

9/11: The Culture of Commemoration

No Day Shall Erase You: The Story of 9/11 as Told at the September 11 Museum

We are always working to eat healthier foods. During August, we re-tried the Whole30 eating plan which is particularly tough for travelers.

When you are on long flights or connecting flights or delayed flights, it is easy to get tried, hungry and willing to eat that bag of cardboard-tasting pretzels or other foods that you don’t really want.

Here are some of our favorite foods that we pack in our carry-on backpack or briefcase to keep hunger under control, no matter how long our flight is sitting on a runway waiting for clearance.

1. Mario Olives in Brineless Pouch – I carry these small packages of olives in my backpack with a plastic spoon. (A toothpick or cocktail stirrer stick can work in a pinch to stay the olives.) Since each pack is sealed without juice, they pass through security. Each pack of the black olives with sea salt (my favorite) contains about 10 olives and 50 calories, and effectively staves off hunger until you can have a proper meal.

2. Nick’s Sticks – Mr. Jones’ favorite “stuck on the plane” snack are these beef or turkey meat sticks that we order from Amazon. They are gluten-free, are made from grass-fed beef or free-range turkey, and come in regular or spicy flavors.

3. Jack Link’s Original Protein On-the-Go Packs – an alternative beef jerky option, these little packs take up very little space in your briefcase. There also doesn’t seem to be a strong odor, something your fellow airplane passengers will appreciate.

4. KIND Fruit & Nut Bars – Kind bars have been one of our favorite on-the-go travel snacks for several years. We find them to be more-filling than most bars, and a “kind” snack to give to other hungry travelers who are without one in their bag.

5. Larabars – When following the Whole30 eating plan, I rely on Lara bars in a pinch. Apple Pie, Banana Bread, Carrot Cake, Cashew Cookie, Cherry Pie and Coconut Cream Pie are said to be some of the Whole30 compliant flavors of these bars.

6. Individual packages of mixed nuts – Nuts are also a handy, portable snack, and buying them in individual packages helps control portion size.

7. Individual bags of apple slices – We buy a bag of individually-packaged packs of apple slices at Costco. While you can’t put these packs in your bag and forget about them, you can throw them in just before you leave for the airport. I think they make an ideal post-departure snack, shortly after take-off, before they’ve been away from your refrigerator for too long.

Do you have a favorite travel snack to stash in your briefcase for flights? Please share. 

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For more travel tips, check out these posts:

• Do You Have a Travel Drawer?
• How to Get an Onboard Credit For Every Cruise You Take
• How to Avoid Weight Gain While Enjoying Your Cruise
• International Traveler? How to Get Through US Customs Quickly With Global Entry
• Visiting Somewhere New? 7 Tips for “Getting In the Know” Before You Go

Or, check out our Travel Toolkit.

You may know that the city of Austin, Texas likes to “Keep Things Weird.” The city’s unofficial slogan originated in 2000 when Red Wassenich, a local librarian, used the phrase when he called in to a local radio show.

Here are 23 other interesting tidbits about Texas’ fourth largest city, behind Houston, San Antonio and Dallas.

1. Humans have lived in the Austin area since 9200 BC.

2. Until late in the Cretaceous Period — which ended 66 million years ago — the area that makes up Austin today was completely underwater and home to 10 underwater volcanoes that geologists call “explosion craters.”  That’s why many of Austin’s cliffs are crumbly, whitish rock known as “Austin Chalk.”

3. Austin was originally named Waterloo when the city was officially chosen as the new capital of the Republic of Texas. The name was changed to Austin in honor of Stephen F. Austin, the “Father of Texas” and the republic’s first secretary of state.

4. Constructed from sunset red granite, the Texas State Capitol building in Austin is the largest state capitol in the United States.

5. While the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city’s population at 947,890 in 2016, Forbes named Austin as the fastest growing large city in the United States.

6. The city of Austin covers 280 square miles, making the city nearly as large in landmass as New York City.

7. Located in central Texas near Hill Country, Austin is 225 miles from the U.S./Mexico border.

8. Austin is the only city in the world known to still operate a system of Moonlight Towers, 165 ft. tall structures from the 19th century to light up the city at night. One of the towers was prominently featured in the 1993 film Dazed and Confused as the site of a high-school keg party, where in Matthew McConaughey character exclaims, “Party at the Moon Tower.”

The city of Austin dismantled and restored the towers in 1993 at a cost of $1.3 million.

9. When it was built in 1893, the Austin Dam was one of the world’s largest concrete dams stretching 1,200 feet across the Colorado River. The dam powered Austin’s electric trolley cars as well as its Moon Towers. Sadly, seven years after it was built, flood waters caused the Austin Dam to collapse, killing eight people.

10. With 200 live music venues and as many as 2,000 bands and performing artists, Austin is considered the Live Music Capital of the World.  

11. Singer Janis Joplin got her start in Austin at Threadgill’s — a gas station and restaurant where bands played for rounds of beer.

12. “Austin City Limits” — the longest-running live music television show in the U.S. –began broadcasting on October 14, 1974 with Willie Nelson as a featured performer.  As many as 5 million people worldwide view the PBS each week.

13. In 1986, three staffers at The Austin Chronicle envisioned a festival to showcase Austin’s musical talents. South by Southwest kicked off in 1987 with 700 attendees. 30 years later, South by Southwest (also known as SXSW) lasts 10 days each March and includes film, comedy, gaming, interactive media and other components in addition to attracting more than 2,200 musicians and 28,000 concert goers to venues throughout Austin.

14. Since 1963, Austin has celebrated the birthday of Eeyore, the fictional character from Winnie the Pooh. Eeyore’s Birthday Party generally occurs on the last Saturday in April.

15. Austin hosts the O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships, which draws pun-loving individuals from around the country. Contestants use their pun skills in the “Punslinger” and “Punniest of Show” competitions.

16. Every spring and summer about 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats migrate to Austin, giving the city North America’s largest urban bat colony. Every night these bats emerge from under the Congress Avenue Bridge.

17. Whole Foods began in Austin in 1978 when 25-year-old college dropout John Mackey and Rene Lawson Hardy borrowed $45,000 to open a small natural foods store. In 2017, Amazon paid $13.4 billion to acquire the upscale grocery chain.

18. Austin is home to America’s only Formula 1 race, the United States Grand Prix. The annual race takes place at the 3.4-mile Circuit of the Americas course located southwest of the city.

19. Austin is home to one of Texas’s largest sports stadiums. The University of Texas at Austin Longhorns athletic stadium holds more than 101,000 people. During football games at the stadium, UT-Austin fans display the Hook ’em Horns hand sign, created in 1955 by cheerleader Harley Clark. 

20. Austin is home to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum. Located on the grounds of the University of Texas at Austin, the library and museum houses documents and artifacts related to the Johnson administration, including LBJ’s limousine and a re-creation of the Oval Office.

21. Austin has provided the filiming location for a number of well-known movies in addition to Miss Congeniality, Kill Bill: Volume 1, Dazed and Confused, Office Space and Spy Kids.

22. According to the Nielsen Company, adults in Austin read and contribute to blogs more than those in any other U.S. metropolitan area.

23. U.S. News & World Report named Austin the best place to live in the U.S. in 2017.

Have you visited Austin, Texas? Or have you lived there? What fun fact can you add about Austin? 

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