Category: Travels for Fun
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CARPETS BUT NO ARK
In June 1991, my mates Heiko Schnell and Ben and Sharon Timmerman and I drove from Aleppo, Syria to the NE corner of Turkey where it borders Armenia and Iran. Our destination was Mt Ararat. We didn’t find the ark but found this carpet/kilim/soumak vendor along some quiet road with a view to Ararat. I […]
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A WESTERN TURKEY ROADTRIP
From 12-19 April 1991, my ICARDA colleague, Anne, and I travelled in his little car on 2500 km roadtrip to Western Turkey during the Ramadan Eid. I did not take journal notes and can only piece together the trip via a vague memory and a few captions on photos. We began in Aleppo and drove […]
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DIVING IN BELIZE
In February and March of 1990, I had some time to kill. I was in between jobs. I had finished my job at the University of Wisconsin because I had been hired by ICARDA to work in Aleppo, Syria. But there was delay after delay in getting my work visa. So I figured I’d go […]
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Atitlán
I spent the summer of 1987 in Central America. Mainly I was in Costa Rica conducting research for my Masters degree. But the folks at CATIE gave me a contract to develop a slideshow on sustainable natural resources. For some reason, I invented an excuse to travel to Guatemala. Perhaps I was working but I […]
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SELVA LACANDONA – NO PLACE FOR A GRINGO
Day 1 – 28 March 1981Lagos de Montebello to Huistan on the Rio Delores They were the best tortilla I had ever eaten. Made of freshly ground corn, they were thick, yet not tough and still warm. I folded one and used it as a spoon to scoop up the scrambled eggs served in a […]
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California Odyssey
In December of 1979, the road once again called me. It was a time to head west, a time for vagabonding, a time to visit my birthplace and meet with my grandfather and father after 11 years of absence. My travels would take me to the Pacific coast, to Southern California, to the San Jacinto […]
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DOWN UPON THE SUWANNEE RIVER
Spring Break. April 1980 Spring break is a time to head south and party on some Florida beach. After weathering a Wisconsin winter, I had Spring fever, no doubt about it. But I wasn’t keen about the beach party scene. So some mates and I decided to go canoeing in Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp. My hometown […]
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BAJA’S RED CARPET
Just say the word. Baja. Think of towering cordon cacti, grotesque elephant trees and winding boojum trees. Baja. Imagine long-tailed man of war birds, sailing pelicans and plummeting brown footed boobies. Baja. Dream about a remote wilderness peninsula 1280 kilometers long where the footprints of man are as scarce as rainfall. Baja. The very name […]
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ALONE ON THE ICE AGE TRAIL
I took a walk through time recently. Matter of fact, I walked thru a period of the Earth’s history that occurred 10,000 to one million years ago. And I witnessed the remnants of a tremendous battle that occurred against a frozen invader. I walked a portion of the Ice Age Trail. I arrived at the […]
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