It is a good thing to have people who understand the way you’re wired. On Monday, I got in touch with some of them and said, “If I don’t get outta town — are you home?” “When do you arrive?” they all responded. Off I went, under-packed but with a ukulele. I have seen many …
I’ve been driving around Oregon and Washington with no particular purpose or agenda. Here are some pictures.
The road is a glorious two lane stripe of asphalt that flanks the northeast side of Mt. Rainier National Park. The day was dry and the light was beautiful, but the top of the mountain was not to make an appearance, the clouds blanketed the highest parts. Never mind, never mind, the air smelled amazing …
Across the alley from my house there’s a sprawling fig tree. It’s abundant with fruit in the summer — once, I was walking to the bus stop and wondering how it could be that everything smelled like honey when I realized that it was coming from the bottom of my shoes; I’d stepped in fallen …
When you stalk the bees in your yard, you start to learn that there are several different kinds. The fluffy black bumblebees in the Charlie Brown shirts. The stripey cartoon kind. The really big kind with the waspy waist. They rarely sit still enough so you can see their bumble faces, but you always get …
[dropcap]Traveling to Ladakh[/dropcap] was all accident that summer. One morning, while dithering about where to go, my eye drifted up the map to a dot marked Leh. A small name for a giant dream. I had always wanted to travel there, the capital of the ancient Himalayan kingdom of Ladakh. Remote, virtually unreachable, a land …