Travel

For those of you who may have forgotten, there are new passport rules in effect for anyone returning to the United States from Mexico, Canada or the Caribbean by land or sea: You must have proof of citizenship in the form of a passport, green card or combination of driver’s license and certified copy of a birth certificate.

And you still must have a passport to get back in from those nations, as well as others, by air.

However, a new ingredient has been added to this passport stew – a passport card, which the government says will be ready by this spring.

According to the U.S. Department of State’s Web site, the card is being issued “in response to the needs of border resident communities for a less expensive and more portable alternative to the traditional passport book.

“The card will have the same validity period as a passport book: 10 years for an adult, five for children 15 and younger. For adults who already have a passport book, they may apply for the card as a passport renewal and pay only $20. First-time applicants will pay $45 for adult cards and $35 for children.’’

The passport card will facilitate entry and expedite document processing at U.S. land and sea ports-of-entry when arriving from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda. The card may not be used to travel by air. It will otherwise carry the rights and privileges of the U.S. passport book and will be adjudicated to the exact same standards.

To facilitate the frequent travel of U.S. citizens living in border communities and to meet DHS’s operational needs at land borders, the passport card will contain a vicinity-read radio frequency identification (RFID) chip. This chip will link the card to a stored record in secure government databases. There will be no personal information written to the RFID chip itself.

For more information on this and other items concerning the new passport rules, log onto travel.state.gov/passport/ppt_card/ppt_card_3926.html.

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Ever been curious about what goes on backstage at a Broadway show?

Here’s your chance to find out, with Theatre TJC’s annual six-day, five-night theatre appreciation excursion to New York City, Monday-Saturday, June 2-7.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for anyone who’s interested in seeing the best live theatre performances today,” said Dr. David W. Crawford, chair of the Tyler Junior College speech and theatre department. “Every day will bring a new opportunity to experience some of the best entertainment Broadway and off-Broadway have to offer.”

During their stay in the Big Apple, tour participants, accompanied by Crawford and an escort from Endless Adventures, will see four Broadway shows - with seating in the orchestra or front mezzanine sections -- as well as an Off-Broadway reading of Crawford’s new play, “Night Cries,” read by Judson and Christa Jones at the Beckett Theatre.

Other items on the itinerary include: three workshops with New York theatre professionals, and various sight-seeing tours and shopping visits to Chinatown, Little Italy, Soho, Greenwich Village and Central Park.

Crawford said the group will also continue what he calls “the eternal search for the perfect New York pizza and cheesecake.”
Cost of the trip includes all transportation, lodging, luggage-handling, accident insurance, show tickets, Metro Card for bus and subway transportation in the city, tour guide gratuity and motorcoach transportation between airport and hotel.

In addition to tuition and fees for the Summer I theatre appreciation class, the trip cost is: $1,471 per person for quad occupancy; $1,565 per person for triple occupancy; $1,754 for double occupancy; and $2,320 per person for single occupancy.
The class schedule includes an orientation session 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 27, in Jean Browne Theatre on the TJC campus; the trip Monday-Saturday, June 2-7; and a wrap-up session 7 p.m. Monday, June 9, in Jean Browne Theatre.

To enroll or for more information, contact Crawford at 903-510-2211, 903-510-2678 or toll-free at 800-687-5680; e-mail dcra@tjc.edu; or visit the Theatre TJC Web site at www.tjc.edu/theatre.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Eight simultaneous Earth Day festivals are being planned across the country for April 20 with the flagship event on the National Mall in Washington.

Organizers plan to stage free outdoor concerts in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco. Producers of the Green Apple Festival, which began three years ago in New York, and organizers of the first Earth Day in 1970 are staging the events in landmark parks.

The D.C. event will feature political leaders, scientists, celebrities and bands.

Producer Peter Shapiro says more than a dozen music venues in each city will be enlisted to help carry the environmental message throughout the weekend. Details at http://www.greenapplemusicfestival.com.

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MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Leery about the potential for fraud in the emerging carbon offset market, officials in 10 states have asked the Federal Trade Commission to develop guidelines for businesses that sell credits.

The inherently intangible nature of carbon offsets and the lack of standards and definitions among those selling them make it hard for consumers to know whether they got what they paid for, according to the attorney general for Vermont, William Sorrell, and his counterparts in Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Mississippi, New Hampshire and Oklahoma.

The market for carbon offsets has ballooned into a $100 million a year business, but it needs regulation by the federal government, the attorneys general said in a seven-page letter Jan. 27.

The FTC should research consumers’ understanding of what carbon offsets are and what disclosures might be necessary to help them make informed decisions, and should undertake enforcement efforts to prevent “overly broad environmental claims” by sellers, they said.

Carbon offset is the term applied to credits bought by people and companies to offset their contributions to global climate change by supporting environmental projects that CO-2 elsewhere in the environment.

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FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A mobile Abraham Lincoln museum will make its debut at the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site.

The Kentucky Historical Society will debut the traveling “Kentucky’s Abraham Lincoln” display during the opening ceremonies of the National Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Comm-emoration on Feb. 12.

According to a release from the Historical Society, its HistoryMobile is a 300-square-foot exhibit inside a tractor trailer.
The Lincoln display has several visits scheduled across the state, from Ashland to Paducah, during Lincoln’s birth month of February. It also has a two-week visit scheduled at the Kentucky State Fair in August.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Country cooking with ingredients fresh from the farm, and trendy, elegant menus are not mutually exclusive.
Conde Nast Traveler magazine is recommending top “farm tables” in its February issue. Some are in restaurants that buy heirloom tomatos, organic chicken and other produce from nearby farmers; some are organizations that set up movable feasts at outdoor tables, often right in the fields.

Farm tables mentioned by the magazine include those found at Shelburne Farms, which is actually a historic mansion in Shelburne, Vt.; Inn at Baldwin Creek, Bristol, Vt.; Restaurant at Potowmack Farms, Lovettsville, Va.; occasional garden soirees at Paradise Farms, Homestead, Fla.; Arrows Restaurant, Ogunquit, Maine; monthly Sunday dinners at Celebrity Dairy, Siler City, N.C.; the famed Blackberry Farm resort in Walland, Tenn.; and the Gathering Together Farm in Philomoth, Ore., where diners get a field tour in a pickup truck before eating.

Organizations mentioned by Conde Nast that arrange or sponsor one-of-a-kind culinary events in conjunction with artisanal food producers and farmers include Slow Food USA, http://www.slowfoodusa.com; Dinners at the Farm, in New England, http://www.dinnersatthefarm.com; Learn Great Foods, Michigan, http://www.learngreatfoods.com; Plate and Pitchfork, Oregon, http://www.plateandpitchfork.com and Outstanding in the Field, http://www.outstandinginthefield.com.

Just remember that the simplicity of fresh ingredients and dining al fresco does not come cheap. Conde Nast Traveler says attending a dinner party sponsored by Outstanding in the Field can run $300-$400 for two.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A new chain of boutique hotels planned by Marriott and upscale hotelier Ian Schrager will be called Edition.

Marriott and Schrager plan to open the first Edition brand hotels around 2010 in nine cities, including Paris, Madrid, Miami, Chicago and two in Los Angeles. A Washington hotel is planned for the 18th Street corridor, but details on the exact location and timetable were not available.

The Bethesda, Md.-based company said more than 100 of the “lifestyle” hotels could eventually be built worldwide. The partnership was originally announced in June but the name for the chain was just announced Jan. 29.

Edition is a new tack for Marriott, a family-run hotel operator known for more traditional brands like Ritz-Carlton, Courtyard or its eponymous Marriott properties. But the company is also trying to update its image to attract younger and affluent travelers, sprucing up lobbies, improving food service and building its technology offerings in rooms.

For Edition, Marriott is teaming up with Schrager, one of the founders of the infamous but defunct Studio 54 nightclub in New York. The hotels will be relatively small, averaging between 150 to 200 rooms. Each hotel will be designed by different architects and designers to give them a unique look.

Schrager will oversee design, marketing and food and beverage for the brand while Marriott will handle development and operate the hotels when they are finished.

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SINGAPORE (AP) — Singapore Airlines Ltd. plans to fly the world’s largest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380, on the Singapore-London route starting in March.

The airline will take delivery of the third of the double-decker planes into its fleet by mid-March, and will fly it daily between the city-state and London from March 18, the carrier said in a statement.

Singapore Airlines received its second superjumbo on Jan. 11, and said it would use it to complement the first A380 service on the Singapore-Sydney route.

The double-decker A380 ends the nearly 37-year reign of the U.S.-made Boeing 747 jumbo jet as the world’s most spacious passenger plane. The first plane was delivered to Singapore Airlines on Oct. 15, 18 months behind schedule after billions of dollars in cost overruns for Airbus SAS.

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HONOLULU (AP) — They don’t call it the Garden Isle for nothing.

A new survey by the Hawaii Tourism Authority shows four of the state’s 10 most popular state parks are on Kauai: Wailua State Park, Haena State Park; Waimea Canyon; and the Napali Coast.

The most frequently visited park site, however, is the Pali Lookout on Oahu, also known as Nu’uanu Pali State Wayside.

Also on the list are Diamond Head, Oahu; Makena State Park, Maui; Hapuna Beach State Recreation Area, Big Island; Iao Valley State Monument, Maui; and Ka’ena Point State Park, Oahu.

The survey conducted for the authority by OmniTrack Group Inc. covers 55 state parks on all islands. Researchers randomly visited park sites and surveyed visitors between July and October.

About two-thirds of all visitors were from out of state, with 86 percent of those from North America. Only 5 percent of park visitors were Japanese.

Meanwhile, state officials said that the number of Japanese visitors to Hawaii overall has declined, along with a drop in visits from Californians and residents of the eastern United States.

Tourists from those three places declined altogether by more than 3 percent from 2006.

The total number of visitors to Hawaii also fell 1.2 percent from 2006 to about 7.4 million people in 2007. The number of days visitors spent in the state also dipped by 1.6 percent.

But while fewer tourists came to the state compared to the previous year, they spent $103.2 million more. Total visitor spending in 2007 climbed to $12.2 billion, up 0.9 percent from 2006.

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WEEKI WACHEE, Fla. (AP) — The famous mermaids of Weeki Wachee Springs will become state employees on Nov. 1.

That’s when the venerable roadside attraction will become a state park. The Southwest Florida Water Management District, which owns the land and spring, approved the deal Jan. 29.

The tiny town of Weeki Wachee owns the park but asked the state Department of Environmental Protection to take it on after years of disputes with the water management district. The state says it plans to keep the famous live mermaid shows intact.

The park opened 60 years ago about 50 miles north of Tampa, making it one of Florida’s oldest tourist attractions.

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HAZLEHURST, Miss. (AP) — A blues trail marker has been unveiled signifying the birthplace of legendary Delta blues musician Robert Johnson.

The city of Hazlehurst unveiled the marker Jan. 31 near the city’s historic train depot.

Johnson recorded only 29 songs during two recording sessions in 1936 and 1937, but his work went on to be performed by countless blues and rock musicians since.

Johnson wrote “Me and the Devil Blues,” “Crossroads Blues” and “Rambling on My Mind.” Eric Clapton in 2004 assembled a tribute album, “Me and Mr. Johnson,” which was nominated for a Grammy.

Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, but was living near Robinsonville, just south of Memphis, by 1920. He traveled around the Mississippi Delta and to other parts of the country, including Memphis, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, New York, and even Canada.

Another blues marker honoring Johnson went up in May 2007 outside Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church, near Greenwood.
The bluesman is buried either in a cemetery adjacent to that church or outside Payne Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Quito or Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Morgan City.

Officials with the Mississippi Blues Commission have said it is widely believed that Johnson is buried at Little Zion because there was an eyewitness.

As the story goes, Johnson was poisoned by a cuckolded husband who learned of the bluesman’s dalliance with his wife. He was only 27 when he died on Aug. 16, 1938. His and the history of other blues musicians draw hundreds of tourists to Mississippi each year.

Johnson’s legend is that he made a deal with the Devil to trade his soul in exchange for becoming a great blues musician.

In 2006, Robert Johnson’s family accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award during the Grammy Awards.