Book Review: Cafe Tempest, Adventures on a Small Greek Island

I’m super impatient with expat memoirs. And I have a deep dislike for the kind of travel writing that’s all introspection and metaphysical. When I agreed to read and review Café Tempest: Adventures On a Small Greek Island I did not know it was an expat slice of life read in the voice of a …


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Road Trip Almanac

It’s just about a month now since we rolled back in to Seattle. The Routan was unloaded and returned to VW’s fleet supplier pronto, but there’s still a pile of REI gear that I have to ship back along with a few other odds and ends. And part of my brain, or maybe it’s my heart, is still leaning back towards the Hi-Line, that northern Montana strip of road punctuated by old grain elevators and barbed wire fences and gas stations where time stopped in 1967. Regardless of the location of my head or heart, my body is firmly back at the keyboard. While I’m here, I thought I’d hammer out a recap of our trip.


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Fish Wednesday, Ballard Locks on Sunday Edition

I’m standing on the east gate of the larger lock. The salmon are running, they’re hurling themselves in to the air and slapping back down against the dark green water. The sun is behind the rail bridge, it’s early evening. Every time a salmon hurls its silver body out of the water my heart leaps. …


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Book Review: I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears

There’s a funny little saying I learned early on in my time in Austria: “It’s sausage to me.” It means, essentially, “Whatever, I don’t care.” It’s not in Jag Bhalla’s wacky collection of regionalisms, I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms From Around the World , but lots of other linguistic …


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Going to the Sun Road

Glacier National Park knocks the breath right out of you and replaces it with sheer wonder.