#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 […]
On Safari: Among Lions
As our plane landed in the middle of the Serengeti, I wasn’t having the best of days. I was recovering from a bottle of Swiss Kirsch which I’d acquired at the Zurich duty free and finished off while talking Kenyan politics late into the night with a few Masai at the Emakoko Lodge in Nairobi […]
Wrapping Up; The Bucket List in Review
I’ve been avoiding this post for the longest time. For one, because it feels like it needs to be a conclusion. I have no more countries to add to this list, so should I be done? I feels so wrong to write a concluding post to a journey which I feel is still very much […]
