My son once opined that explorers should always travel with a ship’s poet, the better to name the newly discovered. Great Pond. Black Mountain. Rio Grande. No poet named those. * * * * * Planning a road trip into the Rockies had dragged my map mouse across several northern California highways unknown to me. […]
Category Archives: Travel
Profile: Bert James, Mountain of a Man
December 21, 2010 – 2:36 pm
Albert’s Place dressed up for the movies Bert James is a huge, bearded man who can build, drive, or fix anything. When I arrived at his place five miles north of I-90 near Kingston, Idaho, I expected to and did see him astride one of him many machines. We first met when he approached me […]
Blue Highway Travelogue–Fossil, Oregon
December 19, 2010 – 4:12 pm
Clarno palisades After Crater Lake, only 33 miles in circumference, was circumnavigated, we crossed the Pumice Desert (a patch of treeless scratch less than a half-mile across) and flew north toward the belly of Oregon. Long, rolling rise-and-falls, seer-suckered by sagebrush, scruff and cattle, persevered on US 97 until we took the small road at […]
Blue Highway Travelogue–Crater Lake
December 18, 2010 – 9:13 pm
“Continental Breakfast Served” is written on the doorposts of my motel room, so I venture down at 8 a.m. to sample their cuisine. Two styros of hot dark coffee substance and three ping pong ball-sized poppy seed muffins later, I am back in Room #244 embracing my belly wondering whether liquid poison or bad baking […]
Blue Highway Travelogue–Mt. Lassen
December 17, 2010 – 4:02 pm
“If you want to hike to the peak, you’d best do that this morning,” Ranger Ilene cautioned at the entrance gate. Dry lightning had recently set fires across four counties, and we could see two plumes graying the horizon of blue sky to the west. Her electro-shock warning encouraged us to choose Lassen National Park‘s […]
Zorb in Slovenia
July 12, 2010 – 5:42 pm
The Zorb In 2002, my son and I toured Slovenia by car. Rarely featured as a travel destination, Slovenia is a gem: fabulous scenery, interesting and friendly people, inexpensive (comparatively) accommodations…and it has Zorb. What is Zorbing? Well, the website states: Imagine yourself suspended inside a clear inflatable plastic ball of about 3 meters in […]
Kiss Me, I’m Irie!–St. Patrick’s Day on St. Croix
March 13, 2010 – 6:55 pm
Irie (EYE-ree)—to be at total peace with your current state of being. The way you feel when you have no worries. (Jamaican) The small-town paraders and bystanders were more than irie long before the procession began just before noon. This is a big deal in Christiansted. Everyone knows this isn’t the right day, but we’re […]
Lost! (Episode 4: St. Croix)
March 12, 2010 – 9:19 pm
A mile south of our camp, we found a fallen sign next to a broken road leading uphill and west: Scenic Route. Our now-crumpled map, provided free at the airport days earlier by hopeful advertisers, echoed the invitation: Scenic Route. Our eyes met, questioned, then agreed. A right turn, and we were adventure-borne. In minutes […]
St. Croix–Christiansted and Points East
March 11, 2010 – 8:31 pm
St. Croix architecture–Christiansted Christiansted, at 3,000, the larger of St. Croix‘s two towns, is just what one would expect a Caribbean tourist town to be: shops, restaurants, water sports, bars, and realtors. When cruise ships dock at St. Croix’s only non-industrial, deep-water port in Frederiksted, passengers are almost always immediately taxied or bused to the […]
St. Croix–Frederiksted
March 10, 2010 – 9:04 pm
Fort Frederik Cooled by early morning trade winds, we sunblocked, took an early morning walk on our condo’s north shore beach, then drove west through St. Croix’s rain forest (left-lane driving is significantly less stressful in daylight) to Frederiksted, population 830, the smaller of the island’s two towns. Built around Fort Frederik in the mid-18th […]
