travel writing

Why Remember?

In Why Write?, Astrid tried to answer the question, “Why write?” for herself. She wrote to be a better thinker, because writing well takes more thought than speaking. But she also wrote to remember. And, as is many times the case, answers lead to more questions. “Why remember?” Why did she carry a pencil andContinue reading “Why Remember?”

A Note From the Author

“Yet all experience is an arch where through Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades For ever and ever when I move” Ulysses by Tennyson, lines 19-21 Let me step out from behind the curtain of third person point-of-view for a brief moment and speak without the filter. This is challenging … all of it :Continue reading “A Note From the Author”

Reviving Wonder

March 30, 2016 Four steps to Hawaii Island from Michigan: 1. Drive to Chicago, stay one night in a hotel. 2. Park car, take shuttle to the airport, get on an early morning flight to Honolulu. 3. From Honolulu get on a plane to Hilo, Hawaii Island. 4. Get rental car, drive to rented houseContinue reading “Reviving Wonder”

Long Trails and Tall Trees

Day 7 The family started day seven of their Sierra Nevada travels by eating breakfast outside in the gentle morning sunlight, shooing bees away from their food as they watched a flock of wild turkeys strut by. They were at We Three Bakery, a sweet little restaurant along the road leading into Sequoia National Park.Continue reading “Long Trails and Tall Trees”

Distractions Along the Road

Day 4.1 That morning, B was ecstatic. His late-night drive up to Tunnel View, a turnout affording panoramic vistas of the Yosmite Valley, had given him and Tripod a soul-shaking opportunity to catch the heavens in their glory. “I’ve already been to church and had my spiritual experience … last night I got some greatContinue reading “Distractions Along the Road”

Driving to Fly

Day 1 As AJ washed the dinner dishes from a meal of leftovers and refrigerator scraps, her mind wasn’t too far away, just through the door to where her packed suitcase stood. She mentally riffled through the items she had just gathered, bundled and stuffed into the luggage. “Hat? Sunblock? Do I have enough socks?Continue reading “Driving to Fly”

Painting a Deck with Robert Louis Stevenson and a Donkey

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilization, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints. Stevenson, RobertContinue reading “Painting a Deck with Robert Louis Stevenson and a Donkey”