Before I die and before I’m gone (1/4/2026)

How would I look back at my life, my accomplishments, regrets, failures, things or places I never did? I already have written about an eulogy as I described in part over in this blog post. But is that all? I have written about other things that are going on or have occurred in my life; however, I somehow feel more contemplative during the days with the least daylight in the year. Christmas and the new year are ideal times to reflect. Most of my regular readers know that I am not a guy for New Years resolutions. I discussed that in my recent blog post for my church and in this regular post here.

Do I feel my mortality? Maybe a little, I am getting older and I feel like I am getting slower. My joints hurt, I get mysterious muscle pains, I am looking forward to my mid-day naps, and I have become more cerebral and reflective. I am no longer that interested in the advances in biology but I have changed interests to history. I am still interested in science and I consider myself a naturalist who enjoys being out in nature and I hope to continue chronicling my forays into and opinions of the natural environment.

The truly most enjoyable things I have done in my life involved nature; those events stayed with me over the years. I have been above 14,000 feet three times in my life and those are among my favorites. The top of Mount Elgon (14,177 feet or 4321 meters), Grays Peak (14,276 feet or 4351 meters), and the north slopes of the Annapurna (we estimated to approximately 16,000 feet or 4800 meters). Our visit to Gros Morne National Park was another highlight. Finally, our hike on the Isle of Sky ranks up there as well.

My failures and most troublesome experiences include my job and stay in Uganda. I have had a difficult time holding on to jobs over the years. I am sure it was caused by my sometimes-abrasive behavior and my cynicism and sarcasm. Early on I had a difficult time compromising; but then I hate hypocrisy and that is how I perceived the world (and sometimes I still do). During my job in Nepal, I walked into my supervisor’s office and saw him bent over a chair with his pants down getting screwed in the rear by the assistant supervisor. That surely did not help, both were male and married to women. I lost my job fairly soon after that.

Anything I still want to do, experience or place I still would like to visit? I am 72 years old. How many more years do I have in me; how much longer will I live? Five, ten, fifteen, twenty years? I better hurry up. They call the 80s the slow go years (obviously even slower than right now), and the 90s the no go years. My wife thinks we will be strong and independent for a long time; seventies is the new sixties she keeps reminding me. There are places I would like to return to: Curacao, Newfoundland, Scottland, Uganda, Nepal, Japan, just to name a few. I would love to visit New Zeeland, the Easter Island, Chili, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Finland, the Faro Islands, Iceland, Alaska. Things to do? Take a Rhine cruise, eat in some high-end luxury restaurants, visit the Albuquerque balloon festival, go to the Munich October fest, take a stroll on the beach of Ipanema (I guess that I am still a dirty old man), visit Rome and Florence. I am sure there are a lot more things, but I better keep it realistic.

These are some of my thoughts about going into the new year. Politically, socially, and environmentally, 2026 is going to be an interesting, albeit very stressful year. Put on your seatbelts.

A picture from our hike on the Isle of Sky in 2011

Report from the road (9/25/2024)

Although I am home, I want to report a little more about my recent road trip. I was gone for 11 days. I had fun. I did not record the miles I drove, but I think it was over 3000 miles. Flying back was ok. Thank goodness there was a direct flight from Los Angeles to Norfolk and I was able to relax once the airplane tool off. In this blog I want to discuss some of the non-drive experiences, mostly as they relate to people.

My objective of Day 1 was to get away from Virginia as soon as possible. The major thing I experienced that roads were still under construction, very much like what I described here a year ago. I also had trouble with my phone keeping its charge, despite the fact that I plugged it in. Somehow the USB port was not doing its job. I decided to buy a plug-in charger in the town I stopped. Luckily, there was a car parts store near the motel I stayed in. The attendant was very helpful, we had a nice talk about all the complicated plug-in gadgets and different telephone charge ports there were. He was young, but even for him it was somewhat difficult to hunt for the correct gadget on the rack.

I somehow had a hankering for Mexican food and stopped at the restaurant nearby. It had good ratings on Google, and I dare say, the food was good. But don't order the rib-eye fajita. My chin dropped when it was served; it was an actual rib-eye stake with all the fajita makings. I ate all the vegies and half the meat and that was it. The stake was great but I was full and regretted all those chips I ate and washed down with a jumbo margarita. When I mentioned to my server that it was way too much, he just nodded.

As I mentioned in my previous post the next stop included St. Louis and the famous Gateway Arch. You go up in what they call a train; however, to me it feels more like a ferris-wheel. I shared my gondola with two couples. When making small talk they mentioned that they were both from Milwaukie, did not know each other, but lived a mile apart. As a result they started to discuss the latest murder a few blocks down from where they lived. The mother of one of the couples lived a few homes down whre the murder took place. One of the ladies told me that she wanted to take her (now) husband to all the water parks in the country and they had just spent a day at one in St. Louis.

I want to keep this post about some of the people I encountered on the road. I did not get a chance to interact with many, except some servers in restaurants, most of them were very nice and personable, including the server in Warrenton (MO), Pratt (KS), the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and Mesquite (NV). The bar lady at the brewery in Alamosa was nice too. The most memorable were the teenage server in Pratt. She was too young to serve beer and the bartender had to bring it over. I should have asked if she was still in school and what she thought her future was in such a small rural Kansas town. Actually, the staff at the Pratt Holiday Inn Express were the friendliest. The wait staff at the North Rim appeared to be mostly Turkish engineering students who were there for the second season. I had fun talking with them. Their season was almost over, after which they played tourist for a few weeks before going back to Ankara. Their plans included a tour of the National Parks in the west. The owner of the Peruvian restaurant was from Nicaragua, but he assured me the cook was Peruvian. The food was outstanding.

The ranger or receptionist at the Prairie Preserve, she was mildly interesting, well trained and thus politically correct. Between the lines, she briefly mentioned something like “the mess” this country was in, but when I tried to draw her out, she refrained. We had a nice talk; she as a wildlife grad and me as a range management dude. However, she had no idea about the less common plants that I observed during my hike on the preserve.

The most interesting discussion I had was with a Navajo sales person at the Four Corners Landmark.  He was manning a booth and we spoke about my previous life and work on and near the Navajo Nation.  He told me that I missed the powwow in Windowrock which was held that weekend.  Again just small talk but very pleasant to be back in the culture I once lived in.

My last real encounter with someone I did not know was at the Hollywood Bowl. I wanted to buy a commemorative sweatshirt. “No, no that one is too small for you,” an African American lady all the sudden started to give me advice, “you need to go a size up.” We ended up in a nice 5-minute small talk, while my daughter and her spouse looked on. Having had a few women trying to take advantage of me on-line, I was a little weary or suspicious but then my family was nearby and we parted on very friendly terms. I may write about these more nefarious encounters some other time.

As you can see, I have nothing serious to report, and never had an in-depth discussion during any of my encounters. In a way I regret that, but is never was my objective during this trip. Hopefully, it provides a very small vignette of the people I saw and met during my trip.

This is a photograph of the small gondola of the train going up the Arch.  It's a four minute ride and as you can see, very intimate.

The Four Corners Landmark

On the road (9/12/2024)

Not a very imaginative or original title, but it is appropriate. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been traveling the famous U.S. highways and some of the byways. This last time, it was a quick trip across, delivering one of our cars to my daughter and her spouse. We had three vehicles and that is more than enough for a retired couple. It was a solo trip this time; my wife stayed home to take care of the dogs and bonsai. In addition, it is hurricane season and it always feels risky leaving home for an extended period. The region was hit by a tropical storm when we took a similar trip last year.

In the past we have taken a few road trips across and I still enjoy it. In 1979 we drove from Delaware to Utah for our graduate studies. We did the opposite trip in 1981 on our way to a new job in Nepal. Those were my really first multi day road trip. On the way we visited my wife's friends in Lexington (KY), Louisville (KY) and Columbia (MO). We continued on through Denver to Cheyenne, and ended our trip in northern Utah. We drove an AMC Pacer, which looked like a fishbowl on wheels. On the way back we raced through Nebraska, Iowa and the Midwest; we were in a hurry. We somehow fixed my wife's paintings (she's an artist) to the ceiling of the car, and the gap between the paintings was occupied by our two cats; our two dogs were on the back seat. The other memorable thing that I remember is hearing Barbara Mandrell’s song titled “Crackers” over and over while driving through the prairie states (Nebraska and Iowa). It always amazed me that this song was so popular in the Bible belt since she invites someone back in her bed after a fight and I didn’t think it was her hubby.

Our next trip across the continent was in 1986, but now from Delaware to southern New Mexico. This time in a Honda Civic Wagon, with the same two dogs and only one of the two cats. The most exiting episode was when our cat escaped out of our room of an Indian run motel, in Artesia, NM. We had to stay another night before we found our cat and we could complete the journey. We got to know that town quite intimately that layover day. During those study years we made one more road trip, back and forth for Christmas vacation. Another time we drove to Dallas and flew from there to visit the grandparents of our 1 year-old daughter. In the mean time we made some other trips: to Corpus Christy for one and later on to California (the San Luise Obispo area).

Finally, we did the trip across that I describe in last year's posting: Yorktown to Montana to Long Beach and back home. In addition, my wife drove across one time to take our daughter to Sacramento and now I did this solo trip. I also made a solo trip from Gallup (NM) to Richland (WA) and from Virginia to Maine (I-95). We also have traveled to Charleston (SC) by car. In the past we frequently traveled the Pennsylvania Turnpike when we lived in Cincinnati and visited the (grand) parents in Delaware.

What highways did we take. We lived on Route 66 in Gallup, NM, and we did other Route 66 sections in Arizona, California, Oklahoma, and Missouri. These past two years Interstate 64 was a common route in our trips across the country. We have also traveled Interstates 70, 35, 40, 44, 15, 70, 76, 80, 84, 10, 37, 90, 94 and 95. Highway driving is fair. It is a great way to quickly get from point A to point B; however, the landscape typically flies by. We always joke that the Texas Interstates are the reason we were able to conceive our daughter; all those early arrivals in motel rooms and having time for more time for intimacy (aka wild monkey sex … we were still young … sorry daughter). Naturally, the radar detectors assisted in our speedy arrivals.

Honestly, I like the byways. We have taken large sections of the Lewis and Clark trail through Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Idaho, and Montana. We have driven some of the country roads in Missouri, Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Arizona on some of our other cross-country forays. I like those much better. It allows you to sightsee and just spend time to take it all in.

Things have changed over the years. While in the old days we poured over maps to plan our trips; Google maps is now my go to source. I still plan a trip marking destinations and aiming to keep a day's drive to around 300 miles (480 km). That distance can amount to approximately 6 to 7 hours of driving. Going west is easier because you gain time when crossing into another time zone. Going east you can lose an hour and a 7 hour drive all the sudden results in an 8-hour trip (on the clock) when you cross into the next time zone.

This is just a sampling what we have done. We have spread our wings and shared our exhaust gasses with many places. We still enjoy traveling the highways and byways by car (and now our van).

Bison near the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  All the pictures below are from my latest trip.

Me at the North Rim

The Four Corners

Highlands of Colorado