It is an old tradition that travelers send postcards to loved ones back home. With the Coronavirus putting a halt to travel and creating a near-universal sense of isolation and fear, I propose the reverse. From my home in America, I am sending digital postcards to some of the people I have met on my travels. Each in their way has taught me we have much in common, no matter what country we call home. To: Doreen Sekento Kumum in Maasi Mara, Kenya Habari Doreen, Thanks once again for teaching me the very basics of stringing beads during my visit to the Karen Blixen Camp…. Read More…
Artist Greg Gifford of Bend, Oregon, sees inspiration where others might overlook it. He finds it on the ground. A decade ago, a hobby for stacking rocks turned into the retired school teacher’s creative second career. “The materials are really cheap,” Gifford said, adding another incentive to using this material over something else for his creations. Gifford first started playing with stones while camping on the beach in Baja with his wife Jan. Mornings they would fish or kayak and in the afternoons they would windsurf. In between, he would make rock stacks, seeking the most challenging, oddly-shaped rocks to see if he could make… Read More…
Ask anyone about the Wright Brothers and for sure, they’ll mention flight and maybe even that before inventing their famous airplane, Orville & Wilber Wright built bikes. Even though they are arguably history’s most famous bike builders it still seems like an aside. But look closely at a Wright Brothers airplane and you’ll see the brothers borrowed chains and sprockets and incorporated the geometric shapes from bike frames to construct and test their flying machine. “We marvel at the airplane while overlooking the bicycle,” Ryan Qualls a National Park Service Ranger told me. At the time, the bike was, “one of the simplest machines with… Read More…
“If you get lost in the forest in Iceland, just stand up,” or so the joke goes. Iceland has many natural wonders, but forests are not among them. You are much more likely to get lost among the volcanic rocks which pile atop each other over vast distances. Covered by snow in winter, lichen in fall and awash in purple Lupina in the summer, the bones of the face of Iceland have a seasonal sameness. I’ve visited Iceland five times in as many years, including a visit in July for this story for The New York Times. But after a conference here this week, I took two days and… Read More…
No irregular rider goes out on a horse without expecting sore muscles the next day. The price seems well worth it, however, because there’s nothing to compare with the get-back-to-nature nature of horseback riding and doubly so when the destination is Victoria’s St. Andrews Beach, a wild stretch of dunes and energetic surf on the Mornington Peninsula. Early one recent morning, I saddled up for a ride with a group and guide at Gunnamatta Trail Rides. We were given a safety briefing and helmets and then I was assisted into the saddle of a tranquil horse named Banjo. With me atop, he obediently he took his place in a line of horses… Read More…
