Category: Travels
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Passports 3: Passing Through the Fields of Death
We left Paris on a crisp bright May morning. This was the only day-long excursion we booked in advance. We were going to visit Mont St. Michele in Brittany. The trip would take us four hours one way, in a northwest direction to this 850 year old Abbey mountain. Our route took us through the…
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The Lock Bridges of Paris
Many have called Paris the “City of Lovers”. The Seine River is like the Aorta of Paris. It carries the life-blood of the city past and under some of the most important buildings and architecture this sublimely beautiful city possesses. It’s color is that of some shade of green, not unpleasant, that defies description. By…
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Passports I: East and West of the Sun
The great city of New York was behind us…and the sun was setting in the west. We flew into the approaching darkness of night. As I was planning this blog series, I was sitting on the American Airlines 767 trans-oceanic super jet propelled airplane. My problem, right from the ‘get go’ (God, I hate that…
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Sunday Rock
It was raining as I drove along the western edge of the Adirondack Park recently. It was around the time when my thoughts turned to how much weight the Yankee pitcher, C. C. Sabathia, had lost during the off-season. Or, perhaps I was reflecting on Colbert replacing Letterman on the Late Show. More than likely, however,…
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The Rivers of my Life: Episode 1–The Charles
The river rolls on, like a sad lover’s song. But is it the beginning or the end? [Lyrics taken from an educational film I used to show my students when I taught Earth & Space Science in the 1970’s] Flowing water has always held a fascination with me. I grew up with the great Susquehanna…
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The Bubble Man of Montreal
He was a dream-maker, a writer of love letters and a magician in a black frock coat; he played out his act in the square in front of the Basilique of Notre-Dame in Montreal. He was like a pilgrim doing his penance, with the Basilique keeping watch on his movements. The man appeared, without seeming…
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Mummies in Dublin? or How I Filled a Day Looking For a White Horse
Right here at the start, I’ll say that if you want a good look at Dublin, a really good look, then you have to do some homework. Go out and buy a copy of James Joyce’s’ Ulysses, pick up a Cliff Notes while you’re at it, and read away. This zillion page novel takes the…
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A Visit To A Foreign Land
Life was getting a little repetitious at Rainbow Lake, here in the heart of the Northern Adirondacks. My office Indoor/Outdoor weather station seemed to be having a battery problem. The outside temperature indicator sometimes showed no digits at all. Not wanting to check the red-liquid filled thermometer nailed to the post under the deck, I…
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The Scrabble Game at the End of the World
This title of this post is something of a misnomer. On an oblate spheroid like the earth, there is no “end”. It’s been said that an ant crawling around on a basketball can do so forever…infinity…it’s just stuck on one dimension, but still. Don’t get me wrong, I think the concept of the “end of…
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How Soon They Forget
There I sit, in the corner of the yard, like a ’51 Chevy that had a broken axle and no one had the $65.00 to repair it. I’ve been dusted off, washed and parked out to dry. The thousands of smashed bug bodies on my forward surface are gone. That’s ok, I don’t like bug…
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