A turtle says hello

The octopus is still on his way to Alaska, but his turtle pal is standing in. Today, we got some photos from Turks & Caicos, in the Antilles.

Getting ready for a little snorkeling at Grace Bay

Nice place to be in December!

Reading on the beach

82 degrees and sunny

One of those rare, tree-climbing turtles...

Enjoying some conch and beef spring rolls at Crackpot Kitchen.

Thanks, Josh and Tonya. :)

He's off!

Wow. You guys are awesome. There was an overwhelmingly positive response, and the octopus is en route to Fairbanks. He'll do Alaska and Hawaii with our friend Kerynn, and then Japan with Greg and Nairobi (and safari!) with the Pryor cousins. (Timing on those last two still to be determined. Japan first, or Nairobi?)

We've got offers of Ottawa and London for the holidays. We might have to get a second octopus! But feel free to play along. If we can't get the octopus to you but you've got an unusual plush toy who also has the travel bug, take photos and send us those, too. The octopus is an outgoing type. He has lots of friends. And we always like to know what our friends are up to.

We're going to make T-shirts for everyone who participates, I think. Get our many-legged friend around the world and home in time for Christmas 2014, and we'll send each and every one of you a T-shirt with a map of his travels. It'll be a hot item. Trust me.

Feeling like the world is a small and cosy place this morning...

Meet the little wanderer

Here he is: the octopus.

While at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts a week or two ago, Stella found a story about a travel service for stuffed animals. And yesterday, at breakfast, she asked about it again. Only this time, she was angling for an octopus vacation. (Yes, Stella has a plush octopus. Of course. He's part of her collection of "animals that should never have been made into plush toys.")

Now, the service we saw described, Unagi Travel, offers trips for your loveys to Japan for the bargain price of $35-55. But given our circle of friends and family, I think we can do better.

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it: Show the octopus around.

Going somewhere cool on vacation? Live somewhere that's NOT Minnesota? We'll send you the octopus. You document his visit, in the form of photographs of seeing the sights, sampling the food, enjoying the views. Send us the pictures, and let us know what he's looking at. And then forward him on to his next destination. 

Our responsibility: logistics and support.

We provide the octopus, of sorts, and provide an address for his next destination and pay the postage. We'll also post the pictures and descriptions here. Along with maps. 

So...who's in? Where is the octopus going first? Contact me, either here or on Facebook, to set up a trip. Oh, and hey: if you're already somewhere awesome and you wish you could show the octopus around but we can't get him to you in time, we will also accept submissions from other cephalopods, of your choice. Or, you know, whatever you've got.

C'mon: how can you disappoint this kid?

You can't.

So start thinking about taking this wily mollusk on your next trip.