#25: French Polynesia.

If there ever was a paradise on this earth, it is Polynesia. These islands, formed slowly over millions of years in a violent but invisible storm which still continues to this day; the inner crust of the earth heaving innumerable tons of liquid rock from the ocean floor, building undersea mountains which over these millenea […]
#24b: Belgium. Bastogne.

Pulling off of the road, I was not sure what to expect. As ‘war memorials’ go, usually there is some sort of informational signage or plaque to help guide you around. Here I was in what was maybe the most anticipated historical place of my entire life and I wasn’t sure if the small gravel […]
#24a: Belgium. In Flanders Fields

I’d have to imagine that they thought we were insane. The birds. With their tiny brains, flying overhead and looking to make a nest or forage for food over the once peaceful fields of Flanders, Belgium; but finding this an untenable task given that we had blown to hell every tree or useful remnant of […]
The Casita
The road from Las Vegas through the Mojave Desert is long. It is straight, and it is peaceful; one can go over 110 miles per hour in their car through these roads without attracting the attention of so much as a ground squirrel. Not that I would have done this on my trip out to […]
On Safari: The Maasai

Being in the backcountry of Africa had presented some incredible opportunities to witness things I never had. An elephant charging our car only to be shouted off by a tiny (by comparison) man with a big attitude. A patient cheetah stalking her prey for what seemed like hours, finally scoring a meal for she and […]
#23. Mexico. Olmecs and Pool Decks.

As a child, I was fascinated by that show ‘Legends of the Hidden Temple’. The one where the Silver Snakes battled the Blue Barracudas in super cool obstacle courses to uncover treasures while being hunted by hidden bloodthirsty native warriors. You know it if you are a kid of the 80’s. I’d hold my breath […]
#22b. France. The Moveable Feast.

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast. – Ernest Hemingway – A Moveable Feast For a nostalgist like me – Hemingway’s time in Paris seemed the perfect life. […]
#22. France. Day of Days

D DAY -1. H HOUR -14 Along the Loire River southwest of Paris was the frontier of Nazi Occupied France. To the south beyond it laid Vichy France, the people there still under the thumb of the Germans, but living to a certain degree more autonomously than the rest of their countrymen subject to the […]
On Safari: The Migration

https://www.tumblr.com/grimeskr/170722925225 On the third morning, we left the Namiri Plain for the Saronara airstrip where we’d entered the Serengeti a few days before. We piled into the Cessna Caravan and climbed away from the plains, the yellow grasses dotted by deep green acacia trees becoming like an impressionist painting laid wide out towards the horizon. […]
On Safari: The Patient One.

It would be easy for this to turn into somewhat of a ‘fish story,’ as the only handful of people who could dispute or corroborate this likely don’t read this blog. So you’ll just have to take my word on this that I’m retelling honestly, and this fish was in fact as big as I […]