Archives
November 17, 2017: Varanasi, India. Only a post or two to go before I’m cleared for the deep dive into INDIA (which should always be spelled with capital letters because it is always shouting at all of our senses). But before the Ganges, there was Everest. November 14, 2017: Kathmandu, Nepal. Today was the long-anticipated flight around Everest. Airport at 5am. Off at 6:30 for the hour’s ride forth and back past… Read More
Thanks to Friend Beth’s invitation I walked/climbed 6.6 miles/1162 feet yesterday. Now granted I wasn’t appropriately grateful on some of those long uphill stretches but nine hours in bed and a pain pill later I am ready to offer up an earnest thank you. One of those goldy fall days, nice people, such a much better way to spend a day off than binging on netflix (really!) Here’s a two-part photo album: The… Read More
(This set of posts comprise an addendum for Time and Place 2015-16, accounting for previous travels and events.) Yes, Bill Clinton is very popular around here for his generally active role in subduing the Serbs in the Balkan wars of the ’90s. And yes, Mother Teresa is from Skopje, Macedonia. But best of all, Macedonia has reclaimed Alexander the Great from Greece…although Greece doesn’t acknowledge the claim. On behalf of my friend Gordon… Read More
(This set of posts comprise an addendum for Time and Place 2015-16, accounting for previous travels and events.) In late summer/early fall, 2011, I set off to explore the very big ‘neighborhood’ of much of Eastern and Central Europe. Altogether I visited 13 countries (Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia, Moldova, Ukraine, Greece and Turkey), finding the region more fascinating than I could ever have imagined, even from the… Read More
(This set of posts comprise an addendum for Time and Place 2015-16, accounting for previous travels and events.) Quite a few of the following photos have been posted previously but because these two astonishingly beautiful and diverse cities with unmatched historical significance are in so much trouble—first from the civil war unleashed by the U.S.’ disastrous ventures in Iraq, and now to be followed by the shyster’s band of swamp creatures who are… Read More
(This set of posts comprise an addendum for Time and Place 2015-16, accounting for previous travels and events.) I can honestly say that my hotel room in Amman was among the strangest ever…and yet completely comfortable. The photo doesn’t do it justice but it was huge with blankets so heavy they could barely be lifted and windows opening so wide the dry desert breeze and the haunting calls to prayer had full access… Read More
Home means very different things to different people. Now that’s a trite statement if ever there was one—but important to say before I launch into what that seemingly innocuous but really heavy-laden four-letter word means to me. I’ve declared my spiritual, home as everyone who’s ever seen this blog knows, to be Neset Camping in Setesdal Valley, Norway. My birth and forever-after—my history and geography—Northern Minnesota. My son Steven went up to… Read More
THE GEOGRAPHER: Greenland means something quite special in my life. I’ve already written about the place and the literature and its significance to me but I must include just a few more thoughts before I move on. With only a month’s hindsight, the glorious scenery of Greenland and my ‘walking accomplishments’ are still present and accumulating the sheen reserved for Big Special Trips. If I were in a cartoon the two thinking-bubbles… Read More
Forgive the lack of order in when these little stories and albums were posted. So much depended on when I could get photos sorted and had time to post. Just enjoy. We’ve crossed the mountains from Neset Camping today, down to Lysefjord, then up and over to this small oil-based city on Norway’s west coast. Stavanger, where around 872 King Harold finally planted his sword after many bloody battles and declared Norway united…. Read More
So soon. The routine. Did that other thing really happen? Did I really do that? Go around the world. Was it a long time ago? No? A few days ago you say…I’m already forgetting. I did. Go around the world. It was—in today’s vernacular—awesome. Actually it was just plain awesome. But when I started to catch up on diary entries for those days and weeks away they had already slipped into past tense,… Read More