utter randomonium

My sister suggested I write about how I got into Markeroni and what I like about snarfing*.

I think we can safely blame Cookie for this one. :) Actually, I’d known about Markeroni for years before joining, as its founder is a BookCrosser. As part of a BookCrossing-related fundraising effort, she ran a pretty good sale on her book, a travelogue about her solo motorcycle trip to the 2005 BookCrossing Convention in Fort Worth, Texas. In it she includes a few side trips to visit historical markers. In early 2009, Cookie joined the annual history release challenge and invited the rest of us to join her.

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea why I signed up. I didn’t participate in the release challenge and the kind of history printed on roadside signs doesn’t interest me much. Looking back, I suspect it was just another excuse to hang out with my buddies. It also opened up new wild release opportunities and excuses to visit new places – and a little friendly competition with a good friend.

These days I use it as a way to satisfy my wanderlust. I’ve been known to just pick a town and make a snarf map for it. Were it not for Markeroni I would have never thought to visit places like Waterford or the African American Civil War Museum. When I get a cabin fever my husband will actually suggest I go snarfing, because he knows that getting out of the house would be good for me, but only if I’m actually doing something. One of these days I want to combine Markeroni with SketchCrawl but I haven’t figured out how to make that work yet. Maybe I need somewhere with a bunch of markers within easy walking distance of each other. Maybe I’ll try it out when I’m in Asheville, North Carolina this autumn.

*Snarf, by the way, is a rather complicated word: as a noun, it means the actual visit to a historical landmark. As a verb, it is the act of hunting for these landmarks. My friends and I also refer to the landmark itself as a snarf.