Curiosity, Travel and Change
On a breezy and sunny afternoon last May, I found myself peering through my telephoto lens at an abandoned Soviet military installation on the other side of the Arpaçay River. The installation was in Armenia, a literal stone’s throw across the river, but as impenetrable from Turkiye as a moon landing. Earlier that day, our …
On the only sunny day of my six days in Newfoundland, I drove down the Irish Loop from St. Johns to Ferryland, a town founded in 1621. Ferryland sits halfway down the east coast of the Avalon Peninsula, nestled, like so many Newfoundland towns, in a cove framed by rocky cliffs. In mid-October, I parked …
There is a Balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole, There is a Balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul [African American spiritual] Once, when I was a child, I ran briefly away from home. I got no farther than the wooded ravine on the far side of Salisbury Road, two blocks from …
January 7-9. I spent my last weekend in India near the Munnar hill station in the Western Gats of Kerala. We were grateful for the calm and welcoming presence of our hosts at @mistletoehomestay. View from our room at Mistletoe Homestay Ayurvedic tourism is very big in this part of India. All along the road …
Continue reading "Munnar Hill Station and Final Thoughts: India Travels Part 5"
Me in the hot springs There is something disconcerting about that helplessness you feel when you learn you will spend the next two days without access to email or social media. You don’t want to believe you are one of those people so hopelessly addicted to your phone that its loss causes anxiety. But you …
We arrived at Caleta Tortel and parked at the edge of this tiny town near the end of the Carretera Austral, having driven another 12 miles on a dirt side road till we reached the porous coastline of Patagonia. We strapped on backpacks with our stuff for two days, and started walking. Walking to our …
Continue reading "Chile Part 2: Caleta Tortel, the end of the road."
Chile is almost as long as the US is wide, but it snakes along the Pacific Ocean for 2700 miles, hemmed in by its portion of the 5,500-mile Andes range. Most of its 17 million people live in the center, within a couple of hours of Santiago and at its extreme ends are sparsely populated …
It’s hard to love Spring in the Adirondacks. Indeed, “Spring” is a bit of a misnomer. The season I had come to think of as “Spring”--warm days, lush with the lavender crocus, yellow forsythia and the magenta azaleas—arrives in the Adirondacks but a few days before Summer. Until then, the snow lingers, disappears slowly, then …
I know I’m late to the party, but I found it. I’m talking about the mid-week season pass at Gore Mountain. I live a few miles away from the mountain and this year, finally, I joined the weekday early morning skiing crowd. I’m 65 years old and I feel like I’ve joined one of those …
Continue reading "My Senior Early Bird Special — on the Mountain"
Capulalpám de Mendez is a pueblo mágico perched high in the Sierra Norte, reached by a curving, ascending two-hour drive from Oaxaca City. In these mountains, live people whose original language is Zapotec, not Spanish, who fight to preserve their traditions, and who live with a profound understanding of nature. View toward the villages Capulalpám …
Continue reading "The Sierra Norte: Walking in the land of the Zapotec"
Old and On the Way 