Feb
13
Marci relaxes in a funky panoramic shot at the Southernmost Beach Resort on Key West.
Photo from archaeologicalconservancy.org
I’m not a big fan of snakes.
So why am I on top of a tower in a rain storm, overlooking the enormous reptile slithering down below me, like it has for more than 2,000 years?
Oct
06
The family cottage is sold and a chapter closes on this Canadian peninsula.
On a mirror-calm bay, on a see-forever day, we scattered my aunt and uncle’s ashes. They died within months of each other over the past year and we took them back to northern Canada, to the cottage they built so long ago.
Oct
06
Sharpie and I, after the colonoscopy
The email started out innocuously enough.
“Curtis, word on the street is that you will barnstorm through our hamlet soon.”
Oct
05
Hot Water Beach, New Zealand
Taylor, Marci and I hang out in a rainy jacuzzi we dug ourselves on Hot Water Beach, New Zealand.
The rain steadily pours down outside our cute, cozy, cottage and life is calm, peaceful and smooth. So it seems insane that we’re about to go outside into the downpour, dig a hole and crawl into it.
Helmet cam: I perched my little point-n-shoot atop my riding helmet and rotated it backward to snap shots while Strawberry “furiously charged” ahead.
Black sand beaches. Just the name sounds exotic. I’ve always wanted to see one and visiting the so-hot-it’s-cool Pacific Ring of Fire, I knew I’d have a chance.
Taylor sits atop a small waterfall on geothermal Kerosene Creek outside of Rotorua, New Zealand.
A babbling brook on a hot summer’s day turns out to be a 100 degree geothermal creek. Mud bubbles up into pools with the smell of either bean and bacon soup or, more succinctly, farts — as the ladies say. These cracks in our perception of the way the earth should be are magical and meaningful. Welcome to Rotorua.
Somewhere out there, a thousand penguins are getting ready to barf.
Close your eyes and imagine sitting by the sea. You’re on a multi-level deck, accessed by a long and winding walkway. Now look out over sea, the clouds have gathered around the already set sun. Ask yourself what would make this scene better, perfect actually.
Why penguins, of course, hundreds of ’em. Close to a thousand.
Taylor poses for Marci outside the Hobbit Motel after a very comfortable night’s stay and well before second breakfast and elevenses.
I’m taking a shower in a Hobbit hole. That’s the lead I came up with as the warm, delicious water washed a day of caves off me. Contenders were The hobbit hole has heated blankets or No wifi in Baggins’ place. The one ring to rule them all is embedded in our bed and I look forward to falling asleep in Middle Earth, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
Apr
24
In a bucolic early image, my grandmother strikes a heroic pose with a speckled friend in New York’s Catskills.