“So, are you ready?” My father asked me this question two nights ago as he collapsed into the couch next to me. My nose was pressed into a map of Iceland, where I had been uttering low guttural sounds in various attempts to pronounce the names of small towns along the Ring Road. With an… Continue reading Deep Breaths
Category: Getting Ready
It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him. – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Other Side of the Coin
By a Slightly Petrified Ryan Don’t get me wrong. As I sit here, I feel very blessed that we have the opportunity to travel and see the world for the next 11 months. That said, for the past week I have been wracked with the kind of anxiety that makes a person’s stomach feel as… Continue reading The Other Side of the Coin
Fashionably Light
I read the other day that backpackers tend to suffer from two afflictions more so than from anything else. The first is the inevitable traveller’s diarrhea (aka Delhi Belly, Rangoon Runs, Tokyo Trots, Montezuma’s Revenge, etc), for which we have enough ciprofloxacin, azithromycin and loperamide to plug a hole in the Hoover Dam. The second… Continue reading Fashionably Light
Countdown
Please accept my apology when I tell you that I haven’t channeled a writerly thought in now nearly a decade. In fact, it is with distinct physical discomfort that I sit alone tonight, in the darkened kitchen nearing 2AM, banging away at this keyboard in what is now my seventh effort to get this damned… Continue reading Countdown