After the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, the grasslands of Kazakhstan felt like another world. Snow and stone were remote memories, replaced by a deep vista of rolling hills and stretched plains painted with Van… Continue reading
Walking those last hours of descent back to pavement and electrical outlets was a time of comfortable contradictions. Steps tentative with battered ligaments, but perhaps a tiny bit of swagger after traversing the… Continue reading
That first hot cup of tea was glorious after a long cold night, and when I tipped my tent to dry in the morning sun and panes of ice cracked and fell off,… Continue reading
It was the best of campsites, it was the worst of campsites, but first we had to get there. Day Four started in another perfect mountain valley, whose light green-blue river of melted… Continue reading
I awoke surrounded by monsters. Their growls, snarls, and roars made Jurassic Park sound like a petting zoo, and I was very aware that I could see no further than the fabric of… Continue reading
Sometime in the mid-1980’s my family went to Seaworld, in large part to see Shamu the killer whale. (We didn’t know any better.) My brother had recently been given one of those thin… Continue reading
The goat-thing in front of me was perfect. And I was worried that I’m a bad traveler. For starters, I confess that I wasn’t 100% sure of how to pronounce Kyrgyzstan when I… Continue reading
The night before my first tour of Europe after two years of covid-enforced sabbatical, I wrote a post about the energy filling my mind and rattling through my body. But then I took… Continue reading
Romania was one big question mark when I first went, but after a couple months exploring the country, a clear chain of top notch attractions populated my mental map. Add in an incomparable… Continue reading
If the walls of your average hotel room could talk…I don’t think I’d ask. But the walls of Suceava Citadel, on the other hand? They would have some stories to tell. Also called… Continue reading
