Some days are made for reading, while others are for writing. Today is one of those days I’d rather read than write, but I’ve already missed three days of writing due to circumstances beyond my control. Isn’t it uncanny how life likes to remind us that we’re barely in control, if even that? I often…
Travel Diaries: Oregon
My drive through Oregon during my 2013 road trip was a quick one. I didn’t even stop in Portland, but headed straight for Eugene to meet a friend for dinch. I had been to Portland the summer before, and I had greatly enjoyed being there as I had known I would. Several of my friends…
Spurned
In a little while, I will be leaving my neighborhood and moving to a new one. The two neighborhoods are similar, in that they are both nestled in foothills and surrounded by wild lands, where wildlife lurks around residential areas. I’ve often thought this is not much different from what some call “the African bush,”…
Travel Diaries: Washington
I finally realized why it’s taken me a year and a half to write the last few posts about my Summer 2013 road trip across the United States: every time I thought about my drive through the Western states (which are the ones I haven’t written about yet), I was overwhelmed by the feeling of…
Portable Magic
In case you’re wondering whether I got enough sleep last night, I didn’t. I was cold and it took forever to warm up enough to fall asleep. And then I woke up in the middle of the night to turn off the heater because I got too warm. Sigh. But I soldiered through the day…
Accidental Discoveries
Lately, I have been thinking about accidental discoveries, also known as Serendipity. For years, I believed in the supreme importance of planning, but I have had to re-examine this in the light of my life experiences. Although I still believe that planning is important because it enables you to be efficient at the things that…
The Return from Silence
It’s already over a year since I hit the road for my epic poetry-reading trip last year. Unforseeably, it’s taken my writing almost that entire time to recover from the nearly 12,000 miles of driving! I didn’t even finish blogging about the final leg of my trip (coming soon). Bath and Bed were all I…
Travel Diairies: Big Sky Country
I’d been to Montana two times before, but my visit this past summer was just magical. I was so exhausted from having driven over 8,000 miles at that point that all I could think of was getting some rest. I found it in Big Sky Country. Driving into Billings, MT from Rapid City, SD I…
Travel Diaries: The Dakotas and the Lakota
My visit to the Dakotas began in the North. I went to Fargo, ND to tour Bonanzaville, a village that preserves North Dakotan history. As soon as I walked into the Cass County Museum and viewed the different exhibits on Native American culture, I realized that I’d been catching glimpses of Native American history throughout…
Travel Diaries: Minneapolis
I saw a lot of farmland in Minnesota. Indeed, as one travels further West, urban skylines give way to the more pastoral scenery of ranches and farms. I didn’t get to see much of Minneapolis because my visit was short, and I also didn’t make it into its twin city, St. Paul. That will have…
Travel Diaries: Wisconsin
My first awareness of Wisconsin came through the children’s clothing company, Oshkosh B’Gosh, which I discovered was also headquartered in a Wisconsin city called Oshkosh. It was named after the Native American Menominee Chief Oshkosh, whose name means claw. Years later, I learned of Milwaukee and Madison, as I toyed with the idea of going…
Minda Magero 