Tag Archives: road trip

An uplifting trip to Bloomington, Indiana and inspiration from sports

Architecture, Art, Events, Reviews and Commentary, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The 2022 Winter Olympics are going on right now. When I was younger, I used to really enjoy watching the Olympics. It was inspiring to watch a competition from beginning to end knowing that for some of the athletes, the years of dedication were going to pay off for them in a big way. These days I’m not tuning in because apparently it’s impossible to watch a whole competition without buying a subscription to something I don’t want, or doing something shady with VPNs. It’s not worth the hassle.

Fortunately, I was able to experience the inspirational side of sports by going on a road trip with Tom to Indiana University for a track meet in January. Tom sometimes takes jobs as a track meet official on weekends. I had a great time watching Tom and watching some of the competition. I needed to get some walking in to help recover from my recent broken foot, so I walked from the hotel to the Harry Gladstein Fieldhouse where the meet was taking place. Along the way, I noticed a lot of fine limestone sculpture and limestone architecture.

I was reminded of one of my favorite books from when I was a pre-teen – Breaking Away. I bought the Scholastic Book Services version of the novel and later on I saw the movie. Indiana University is the setting for the book and the movie. In the Breaking Away story, the local young people were looked down on by some of the university students. They were nicknamed “cutters” as an unflattering reference to limestone quarrying being a major industry in the area. When I saw all the limestone, it brought back memories of the book and movie. Tom and I are going to be going back to Indiana University again, and when we do I hope to do more exploration of the stone architecture on campus. It’s really impressive! I might even see if I can get Tom to watch the movie before we go because I know he would enjoy seeing where some of the scenes were filmed.

After the track meet, since it was January and not the most comfortable time for leisurely strolls around campus, we went to the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art for some indoor art viewing. There is a lot to see in there. We toured it for three hours and didn’t come close to absorbing everything to my satisfaction, so I’ll be back. There is also a greenhouse on campus you can tour which I didn’t get to on this recent trip. I want to visit more indoor and outdoor sites the next time we go.

Seeing the college athletes competing helped inspire me to work hard to overcome my injury, and the wonderful art fired up the creative part of me. Overall, this trip was a huge boost to wellness. A road trip sure helps uplift my mind, body and soul. I’m looking forward to doing it again soon!

To see the pictures I took along my walk and inside the Field House, go to this photo album and click the right arrows:

Assorted Hikes and “Daily” Walk Photos

To see the pictures I took inside the museum, go to this photo album and click the right arrows:

Museum Visits

More of my commentary on Corporate Social Responsibility

Conservation, Historic Sites, Marketing, Reviews and Commentary, Route 66, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Here are some more excerpts from my homework for Strategic Communications Applications class as we wrote and commented on a discussion board about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Examples Of Corporate Social Responsibility

Hampton Inns

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Hampton Inns encouraged tourism on Route 66 and other historic roads and endeared themselves to a lot of Route 66 fans by sponsoring preservation projects along the route. The program was called the Hampton Save-A-Landmark program. I was made aware of the program through my own personal intense Route 66 fandom and related Route 66 news sources and events.

Sites that were targets for the preservation program received help with preservation projects along with a large and attractive signs for each sponsored location that was branded with Hampton Inns and the Save-A-Landmark graphics. The signs raised awareness among the public that the site was significant. Some historic Route 66 and other old roadside attractions are of an importance not always apparent to those not in the know about historic road trip subculture – they often look quite humble and unassuming. The signs helped to raise awareness of Hampton Inns also. From personal experience I know some Hampton Inns were patronized by many Route 66 devotees, at least during the time the campaign was running, even though sometimes the Hampton Inns were a little more expensive than the usual hotels the roadies usually patronized. Awareness of Route 66 makes road trips more fun and getting more drivers out on the roads is good for all businesses along the road including Hampton Inns. It makes sense for a large chain business to take action that helps all tourism as well as mitigates some of the bad feeling among preservationists when large chain businesses make it difficult for smaller historic businesses to survive.

Hampton Inns also made some Save-A-Landmark program branded games meant as giveaways for kids. Some of these games ended up in the hands of collectors (I still have one!) because they provided cases of them to the Route 66 community to distribute at Route 66 events. Adults grabbed some for their collections after the kids who were present got theirs. I loved this game idea because when I was young we had a Stuckey’s board game that I loved to play. I wish we still had it! Games are a great way to build brand loyalty in the young, to have fun and to educate. If I could, I would still patronize Howard Johnson’s, Stuckey’s and A&W often while on road trips. These places are rare now, but are brands I enjoyed very much in childhood. These brands have a place in my collections of road memorabilia because I enjoy the personal memories, the graphics and the history.

More info:
https://www.hotel-online.com/News/PR2004_2nd/May04_HamptonLandmarks.html

Here is the front and back of the game:
http://www.chasenfratz.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/hampton_front.jpg 
http://www.chasenfratz.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/hampton_back.jpg 

Ozark Outdoors Riverfront Resort

Ozark Outdoors is a resort and outfitter that services the area of the Missouri Ozarks where the Huzzah, Courtois, and Meramec rivers meet. Like several other float trip outfitters in Missouri, they give out mesh trash bags to their patrons and provide trash receptacles at the take out points to encourage and enable floaters to dispose of their trash responsibly. In addition, Ozark Outdoors has donated the use of shuttles, vessels and trash pickup containers in their role as sponsor of Operation Clean Stream for several years. Operation Clean Stream is a volunteer effort to pick up trash from land and bodies of water to clean up waterways and the environment in general. Ozark Outdoor stands to get more visitors if the rivers that they serve remain clean and beautiful so it makes sense for them to sponsor such an activity. The humans and wildlife in the area and downstream all benefit from clean water too.

More info:
https://ozarkoutdoorsresort.com/operation-clean-stream-on-missouri-rivers/
http://www.chasenfratz.com/wp/fit-and-healthy-on-route-66-operation-clean-stream-on-the-meramec-river/

Scrapbooking With Small Format Photos

Historic Sites, Paper Crafts, Route 66, Rubber Stamping, , , , , , , , , , ,

8.5 x 11 Scrapbook Pages
8.5 x 11 Scrapbook Pages of Route 66 Sites and Events in Lebanon, Missouri

In my tutorial “Scrapbooking My Way on the Highway” I explained why I chose an 8.5 x 11 inch page format for my Route 66 scrapbooks and described how 3-ring binders help me to arrange my photographs by geographic order rather than time order. I’ve taken a lot of Route 66 trips and plan to do more in the future, so I like to be able to insert pages from the same area next to pages from an earlier trip. This practice helps me to learn the geography of the road and to document how it changes over time.

When you mount standard-sized photos on an 8.5 x 11 inch page, you are left with a lot of empty areas to fill. This is not necessarily a bad thing because as a result there is ample room on the pages for journaling and small ephemera. Lately I’ve been experimenting with another way to fill those empty spots – with small photos.

There are online companies that specialize in printing 2 x 2 inch photos from your social media accounts. I decided to try out the services of Social Print Studio to see how such photos look in my existing albums.

In the image at the top of this article, I have mixed the white-bordered 2 x 2 prints from Social Print Studio with standard sized-photos on two scrapbook pages that show places and events in the Lebanon, Missouri area. I’m really happy with the results – these small photos really help me use the space more efficiently and the white borders look terrific on colored cardstock.

I also tried using Photoshop to make montages of photos for printing in a 4 x 6 format. This is a great way to print photos from social media that are not of a high enough resolution to print in a standard size. The tiny photo at the lower left was taken from Facebook. Yes it’s small but it’s better than not having it at all! This is a great way to obtain a bunch of small photos to fill in gaps for a very reasonable price! Just cut the montage prints apart and fit the tiny photos in among the larger photos.

The image below shows two more pages that utilize the 2 x 2 photos from Social Print Studio. I like to mix emphemera in my albums and I have a lot of brochures and brochure-sized items displayed in pockets. On an 8 x 11 inch page, after I install the pocket there is no room for a standard sized photo but as you can see there is room for 6 small photos!

8.5 x 11 Scrapbook Pages of Route 66 Events and Locations Between Springfield and Carthage
8.5 x 11 Scrapbook Pages of Route 66 Events and Locations Between Springfield and Carthage, Missouri

If you are interested in the rubber stamps I used on my pages, here is a link to the year number stamps and the tiny hand stamps come from sets from my faux postage collection. The word “Friends” comes from the stamp set Photo Caption Word Stamps for Road Trips which was designed with road trip scrapping in mind!