Category: Travels for Fun
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HITCHHIKING TO THE MORRAINES
FIVE-DAY BLACK & WHITE PHOTO CHALLENGE – DAY 5Kettle Morraine State Park, Wisconsin – 1978Scanned from Kodak Plus-X negative film To conclude this B/W photo challenge, I’m going to go back to one of the first rolls of black and white film I ever shot. You may think that I’ve got an incredible memory to recount these stories from long ago. The truth is I often have travel journals to consult and that was the case of this trip in 1978. Or so I thought. I pulled out the notes and…
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VUELTA DE NICARAGUA
Managua, Nicaragua – 1987 Scanned from Kodak Tri-X negative film In the early 1980s, US President Ronald Reagan seemed determined to deny the Nicaraguan people the right to self-determination. He authorised Oliver North to organise a band of misfits called the Contras and attempt to oust the popular Sandinista government from power. On the other hand I felt that the Sandinista-led people’s revolution which overthrew the oppressive regime of Anastasio Somoza was glorious and helped provide hope for the downtrodden and I couldn’t wait to be a part of it. The…
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BOOM BOOM IN PURACE
Puracé National Park, Colombia – 1994 Scanned from Kodak TMax negative film (the last roll of B/W film I ever shot) Colombia was hardly the safest place in the world when Padma and I lived near Cali between 1993-94. On one hand you had the ‘narcotraficantes’ – the drug lords. The Medellin and Cali Cartels were in their heyday. However, the drug lords pretty much just killed each other so as long as you stayed out of the cross fire you’d be safe. A bit more concerning was the FARC, which…
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MY BARBER LARRY
In the four years I lived in Madison in the late 1980s, I only let one man cut my hair, Larry the barber. I have never been fussed about my hair and hated going to fancy hairdressers who would offer you a Chardonnay. I just wanted to come out with hair shorter than it was when I came in. And Larry and the College Barber Shop on Madison’s State Street was the perfect solution for me. Larry and I would talk and talk. He always remembered how much I paid for…
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DAY 11. Madison, Wisconsin
In May of 1986, I finally figured out that I didn’t know diddly squat about anything so after five years of living and working in Central America, I packed my bags and came looking for an education. I really didn’t know where to go but I flew in to Chicago and then at the last minute decided to take a bus to Madison, Wisconsin and check out the University of Wisconsin. The bus dropped me off in front of Memorial Union. I pulled my life’s possessions – a backpack and a…
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DAY 10. BILLY GOAT TAVERN
Joseph loved the show Man Vs Food and watched the Chicago episode when host Adam Richmond ate his way through piles of Italian food. So Joe had a list of places he wanted to eat. We could only grant him one wish so we chose to go to the Billy Goat Tavern in downtown Chicago. The Billy Goat Tavern is famous for two reasons. In 1945, the Chicago Cubs seemed destined to win the World Series and local tavern owner William ‘Billy Goat’ Sianis attended game 4 with his lucky goat.…
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DAY 9. St Charles, Illinois
My grandfather was a Methodist minister and preached in Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Idaho, Washington and California. My dad was a deep sea diver and brought the family to Southern California and Alaska. My uncle Carl was a journalist and settled with his family near Chicago. Because of these geographic differences I never got too close with the only first cousins I have – Jennifer, Jeff and Lee. About the last time the whole family got together was in Seattle around 1957 a year before I was born as shown in this…
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THE ELK MOUND TOUR
I was born in Southern California and didn’t move to Wisconsin until I was 10 years old. As a result I always felt like a bit of a foreigner here and that probably explains why I left Wisconsin after finishing university and spent most of my adult life living overseas. What I didn’t know at the time though is that my ancestral roots are very deeply embedded in Wisconsin and my ancestors were some of northern Wisconsin’s original homesteaders. I was keen to get in touch with my Wisconsin roots so…
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DAY 8. Twins vs Yankees
This was the day Joseph and I were really looking forward to – a Major League Baseball game! Russ offered us his company’s Twins season tickets and Jenni, Padma, Joe and I went to see the Twins battle the Yankees at Target Field. We were four of 36,000 fans who came out on a perfect Saturday afternoon for a ball game. There were plenty of Yankee fans in the stadium who proudly displayed their loyalty to their heros. But the Twins fans were very eager for a win after what’s been…
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