Twenty-five years from my last trip into Mayan territory (Belize) I am back. This time with my grown-up daughter, who watched the Smurfs in Spanish in Cancun at age 6, and her 8 eight-year-old daughter. Our base is Merida, the capital of the Yucatan, and the heart of the Mayab, the Maya territory of northern … More My Mayan Obsession: Part 4, Merida, Mexico
In the last week of September 2013 my husband Phil and I took a road/hike trip to the Olympic Peninsula. Olympic National Park is a one-of-a-kind wilderness in the US because it includes a temperate rainforest, averaging 150 annual inches of rainfall, along with two other major ecological zones, old growth forest and endemic animal … More Outrunning the Government on the Olympic Peninsula
Since high school I have always read science fiction. I was partial to the short stories by scientists like Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke. I often read them while soaking for hours in a warm bath, in between doing assigned reading for school. Perhaps it helped me to float away into other … More Travel to the Future: Why I read science fiction
In the second week of October this year I was on the beach at Ogunquit, Maine. It was a rough repeat of last year’s COVID-19 Desperation Road Trip. I was watching the tide come in and reading my grandfather’s Upton Sinclair book–Dragon Harvest– while my husband arranged the names of his two grandchildren, using little … More Like Adventure Travel? You’ve gotta rock the squat
George Floyd and George Floyd Square have become known since 2020 in many parts of the world. Floyd’s torture and pointless death at the hands and knee of a now convicted police officer have revitalized the movement against discriminatory and ham-fisted police brutality—not just in Minneapolis, but in towns and cities across the country. George … More Time Travel: 100 Flowers to George Floyd Square
I love serendipity. A few days ago, at the one-year anniversary of the latest world pandemic, I stopped by the Little Free Library that I got installed when we first moved into our townhouse nine years ago. It is easy to reach now, because most of the snow has melted. I picked out a book … More I Love Serendipity!
You probably think that Aruba is all high-rise hotels on the beach, kite-surfing, pina coladas, casinos, and crowded bars, looking at this fridge magnet. Google Aruba images and that’s what you will see. It is that, minus the ALL and minus COVID. I and my family pod were recently here escaping winter and coronavirus isolation … More Aruba on the Quild Side
(Note: Readers familiar with my travel blog will know that I try not to describe the obvious about places I have traveled. How many ways can I talk about white sand, sun and wind? All good, but you can learn that anywhere.} A few months ago, I read the new book by Kim Stanley Robinson … More Aruba: A Little Ministry for the Future
Month seven of the coronavirus pandemic. Summer in Minnesota is short. It provokes a headlong rush into socializing, Bermuda shorts, BBQ’s, outdoor music, festivals, and ending in the final glut of the State Fair, the last two weeks through Labor Day. Summer 2020 was not so different, despite the narrowing of the choices for entertainment: … More Desperation Travel
“With Cultural Diversity and National Solidarity We Move Towards the 21st Century.” That noble slogan greeted us at a bus stop along the way from Belize City to San Ignacio in 1997, our last plunge into Mayan territory and culture. Another signpost paints a less utopian picture of the new country at a literal crossroads. … More My Mayan Culture Fixation: Part 3–Belize
Other states, other lives, other souls 