Alaska’s fickle summer weather threw a wet blanket on my plan to camp in Denali National Park for a few nights. Rain splattered down as I drove from Fairbanks to Denali, and the… Continue reading
Getting to Kobuk Valley and Gates of the Arctic takes some effort. The two National Parks sit in the middle of northern Alaska’s vast wilderness, with no roads and no facilities. Most visitors… Continue reading
I had a lot of reasons for wanting to make the 6,000-mile roundtrip drive to Alaska. The scenery would undoubtedly be amazing. It would be fun to check out more of Canada. I’d… Continue reading
My flight from Mongolia back to the US was long but happily uneventful, and after a great week with my family in Denver I drove to Marie’s place in Mountain View. My only… Continue reading
I threw vodka into the air above the offering circles as I read aloud the wish I’d written on a slip of paper. Then I took off my shoes and lay on the… Continue reading
Four days? I thought our horse trek in Gorkhi-Terelj National Park was only supposed to last three days, but sure enough, it would be four. Yikes. Given that an hour or two of… Continue reading
Mongolians must love basketball. At virtually every community and ger camp, no matter how small, we found a rickety backboard rising from a lonely field. But not once in all our time in… Continue reading
According to our guide Bold, all Mongolian music is about just three things: love, mothers, and horses. Those are the most important aspects of Mongolian life, he claimed, and not necessarily in that… Continue reading
“How lost do you think we are?” whispered Marie. I stared out the window at vast emptiness in all directions. We weren’t driving on a road, exactly – more like faint tire tracks… Continue reading
Halong Bay is overrated. Yes it’s beautiful, with countless limestone towers jutting up dramatically from the water. But the hype goes too far. Fodor’s describes it as “mind-blowing.” Lonely Planet calls it “a… Continue reading
