Hong's farm

Dateline Bangkok, Monday October 18

We traveled by bus back to Pranburi Thursday, arriving towards evening at the Phasook Hotel, the same place we had stayed on the trip down to Koh Tao. It's a pretty nice hotel even if by stateside standards a trifle run down. It has wireless Internet, air conditioning, and nice showers with hot water, an important feature this time of year, and cost only 450 baht per night (about $15). Not all hotels where I've stayed in Thailand offer hot water but in the summertime it doesn't matter - the cold water is plenty warm enough! Nighttime temperatures outside of Bangkok at this time of year are quite pleasant -- we didn't have air conditioning on Koh Tao -- the overhead fans worked very well. We often shut them off completely at night.

On Friday we returned to the farm of Hong and her family. I'm actually sorry we missed the season of rice-planting because it would have been interesting to see this in person. I'm sure I would have wilted away in the heat but I was willing to try it even though merely walking about the place at mid-day was enough to give me bigtime sweats. Of course Hong wore a long sleeved jacket and Nut hid under an umbrella to stave off the sun's harsh rays. In the photos below I show a shot of Hong's grandmother as she was heading out to feed the fish. The fish food is in the large bowl. Granny seemed to enjoy the attention.

Feeding frenzy

Nut and Hong picking wild chili peppers

After these photos were taken we were hanging out in the family's outdoor kitchen when I noticed the sky darkening in the south. Soon torrential rain hammered the sheet metal roof and strong gusts bent the trees violently as the weather front hit. The roof over the main part of the house has good, leak proof  sheet metal but the stuff over the kitchen is so old and thin in places that you can literally see though it. The entire kitchen area was dripping wet in minutes. A nearby papaya tree was knocked flat in one gust. But I enjoyed the storm. After it peaked I walked around out by the fish ponds under an umbrella digging the rain. The water was, after all, warm and basically friendly feeling. Unlike up in Alaska where a soaking rain like this could turn out to be a killer even in the summer.


Friday was haircut day as well. I got my hair cut fairly short, although not as short as when the maniacal barber in Trat last March practically scalped me; that particular "haircut" lasted for over four months! Nut was just sitting there watching so she decided to have her hair washed, dried and brushed out. The two old ladies who worked on us giggled as they chatted with Nut about her falang boyfriend. They charged 250 baht (8 bucks) for the two of us, an exhorbitant amount in Nut's opinion. She says they took advantage of us because they think you are rich! Nut is very protective of me and is ever vigilant in defending me from rip-offs. I've taken to calling her ma-mam at times.

Next day we had planned to accompany Hong and her father to market and a nearby temple but we awoke to more rain and decided to grab a mini-van back to Bangkok. We had the dinner with Nut's brother Moo coming up Sunday and despite my resistance to ever riding in one of these vans again (see my rant in an earlier entry) we thought hell, it will be faster than the government bus and the aircon will be good so I relented and we climbed aboard. This humorous sign was posted on the van's door:

The first three are obvious, no pets, no booze, no smoking. The next one we don't have a clue about. No bugs, no cuttlefish, no carrots?? The last one needs no explanation.





My foreboding about these vans, actually the drivers of these vans, was not inappropriate. The guy was a goddamn maniac, a speed-freak, a macho idiot. We traveled at speeds averaging 80 mph most of the time but reached a maximum of 91 mph (150 km/hr). And this with a fully loaded vehicle; twelve helpless passengers looked on as we weaved in and out of traffic on the 4-lane divided highway. When Mr. Speed Demon wanted to pass a slower moving vehicle he just moved up to within 4 or 5 feet of its rear bumper and waited for the driver to notice and pull over. Sometimes he flicked his lights, sometimes he blew the horn, and it that failed to achieve the desired response, he merely moved over and passed. In this way we raced northward to Bangkok.

These vans make stops along the way to discharge or take on passengers. Due to the way he drove when these stops occurred he had to jam on the brakes but then because of our excessive speed often overshot and had to back up. As if that isn't bad enough the backing up was done in the active lane of the highway -- cars and trucks hurtled by in the adjoining lane but anyone of them could easily have rear-ended us. And then just outside of Bangkok we stopped for a break to get fuel. A large majority of the vehicles here, especially buses, trucks and taxis, run on liquid natural gas. The lines of vehicles trying to refuel at the single LNG pump at this particular station necessitated a wait of over 30 minutes! So although we hurried along when in motion, we also waited for fuel. Stupid idiot! We made it back okay in spite of his best efforts to kill us in the process.

I'm back in Thailand and traveling with Nut

Dateline: Koh Tao: Wednesday & Thursday, October 13, 14:

It's a rainy day today so we canceled a scheduled snorkeling trip. We're just hanging out on our veranda at the Sai Ree Hut Resort and goofing around. It's a good time to prepare some photos and write something about our travels so far. The rainy season is just about to end but I guess we've managed to catch the tail end of it. I really don't mind as the temperatures are moderate and I'm quite comfortable for a change. As you can see, Nut, ever vigilant about getting too much sun, is still in her Levis as we took our first beach walk. Later on the sun came out briefly and we went swimming. It was tons of fun because she was hanging onto me for dear life and laughing with delight as the waves washed over us. She hasn't been to the beach in years but contrary to what she told me earlier, she can swim a bit. I reckon you had to be there .....

Below is a shot of Nut on our veranda. She's chatting with one of the hired hands, a very friendly and helpful guy who goes by the name of Tiger. He's shared lots of info with us and here we are enjoying a Chang beer and some conversation (in Thai, of course. I am merely a bystander.)

I arrived in Bangkok last Wednesday and met Nut after a 6 month separation. Even though we spoke frequently on Skype over the summer I often wondered just how I'd feel about her once we got back together. We had spent only a brief time together last spring and while it was fun and I came away totally infatuated with her, I had doubts about whether we would be able to pick up where we left off. Those of you who know me know what a worrier I am. I have my my mom to thank for giving me the "worrying gene" as my sister and I call it but most of you also know that my worrying seldom leads anywhere productive. And such was the case this time as well. I'm loving being with Nut and traveling together has been a hoot. It's very obvious to me that she is completely happy with her farang boyfriend. I simply couldn't be happier about the way things have turned out.

We kicked around Bangkok for a few days visiting a few favorite places, riding the water taxis on the Chao Phraya, eating out, drinking a beer at the Gecko Bar, and shopping at the huge MBK Superstore where I bought Nut a new bathing suit and blouse for our trip. I only mention this last bit because of the novel method of trying on clothes for fit in a place like MBK. Unlike our shopping malls which are dominated by big chains with expensive displays and changing rooms, etc., the malls here are stuffed with many tiny, one-person businesses. Although some are considerably bigger many of these shops measure something like 10 ft by 20 ft and because they're so small don't have dressing rooms. The Thais improvise here by employing a technique not unlike the one you might have used as a child at the beach. That's the one where your mom and dad hold up a large beach towel to encircle and shield you from view as you change out of your street clothes and into your bathing suit.To try on pants or shorts Nut first donned a large, elastic-waisted skirt, sort of like a mu-mu in appearance, and once inside that she slipped off her jeans and slipped into the new outfit. It's sort of crazy but it works. Very inventive.

Here's a couple of photos of a Bangkok street temple we visited on the way home from our shopping trip. There are temples scattered all around Bangkok, indeed all around Thailand. Some are big and ornate like Wat Pho and Wat Arun that we visited last spring and that I included in this blog. Others are tiny street corner things containing only a statue of Buddha, some lanterns and places to put incense sticks. This temple contained two separate and different Buddhas and in size was somewhere in between. Nut told me one was especially for people asking for a partner, a girlfriend or boyfriend — love in their life. This Buddha "likes roses". The other was where you go to ask for good luck and "likes yellow chrysanthemums."

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Below is an image of a girl about to place her offering of roses on the altar. The smoke and fragrance of incense permeates the air and in this shot you can see one of the urns where the incense bundles are placed. All in all it's a really nice scene that I feel privileged to witness. We will no doubt visit many temples during our travels and I'm totally looking forward to that.

We left Bangkok by bus traveling south toward Chumphon where we would catch a boat to Koh Tao. Along the way we visited Hong, an old friend of Nut's from the years before she moved to the big city. Hong lives with her parents, grandmother and daughter WanSu, on a small farm near Pran Buri. (N12.41920 E99.91126) They grow rice, bananas, bamboo shoots, and in small ponds scattered here and there, fish that they market. They are almost completely self sufficient. The area surrounding their homestead is quiet and very much in the country -- the night sounds that filled the air after dinner (crickets? and frogs?) while unfamiliar to me were very relaxing. While I love Alaska, the nights, except in springtime when nesting songbirds and snipe are active, are very quiet. Night noises, and thunderstorms, are some of the things I miss the most from my years in "the lower 48".

Nut with Hong and her daughter, WanSu

WanSu's father works in Malaysia and only comes home every few weeks to see his wife and daughter. He's a huge man apparently and the size of WanSu attests to that. She's a very large two-year old (63 lb). She apparently took a liking to her large falang visitor because when we left she cried hard and desperately tried to join us in the truck. Images of Harper and how much I already miss him filled my thoughts as we adjourned to our hotel in Pran Buri. Here's a a candid shot I got of Nut while she was yakking with her daughter on her hand phone.

After spending the night at the Pasook Hotel we grabbed another bus for the short hop to Chumphon. We stayed in a fairly nice hotel there but the big treat for me was the dinner we had in a restaurant right next to our hotel. The food was cooked in what I think is referred to as Moo Kata. You get a small charcoal fired cooking unit delivered to your table. The center part serves exactly as a charcoal grill -- assorted meats and fish are cooked on the grate. Surrounding the grate is a "moat" filled with boiling water. In the water you place other foods, mushroom, broccoli, baby corn, noodles, morning glory, etc. The meat choices were many - pork, chicken, curried or not, several kinds of fish, squid, prawns, beef, liver, tripe, whatever. On the veggie side we could choose from many, many items, some already mentioned, along with seaweed, rice noodles, bok choy, you name it. On the side we had a variety of cold salads, some with prawns... I could go on but you get the idea. Oh, yes, I almost forgot. We had ice cream for dessert. Total cost for two, not including the beer, came to 200 baht, about 6 bucks. We ate until we were stuffed. Nut kept up with me, or maybe I should say I kept up with her. She will never leave the table until every scrap is consumed. How does this waif of a woman stay so thin? We joke about her having a tapeworm — "time to feed the worm, he's screaming again!" By the way, Nut remarked as we were finishing up that this meal was only okay in her opinion. The moo kata in Chiang Mai, she assured me, is much, better. (a-roi mak mak) Hah! I'll believe it when I taste it.
(Note: Nov 2012: I learned that what I was referring to as Moo Kata is in reality, moo gra~ta
(หมู กระทะ) where moo means pork and a gra~ta (กระทะ) is a small frying pan. As is so often the case, what I heard as a "k" sound was really a hard "g" sound.)

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Our visit to Koh Tao was a bit of a disappointment. It's really touristy, loaded with farangs and is really all about diving. Consequently, prices are high and the streets crowded. If I had made it down here while Joe was doing his free-diving course last spring I likely would have tried the diving. Still, we had fun and made a few friends. Tiger for one and a young woman named Susan from Boston who is on an extended tour. She despises the political situation in the states and is seeking another place to hang her hat. I cannot say I blame her. She's been on the road for two years and won't return until she runs out of money.

Later this morning we head back up north to Bangkok. We have a dinner date with Nut's brother Moo who says he wants to drink whiskey with me. I'm not going to try to keep up with him because I had an experience with Thai whiskey last spring that I'd rather not repeat. We'll catch the fast catamaran back to the mainland and then hop a bus to Pran Buri where we'll again visit Hong and her family.

Dateline Pran Buri: I added this photo after I uploaded the original post. We boarded the catamaran and as I was about to walk by the snack bar to rejoin Nut on the top deck I thought I'd go ahead grab a coffee. It turned out to be Nescafe instant topped off with powdered Coffeemate. Yuk! As you can plainly see, I was not pleased with it, not at all.

Signing off for now. I'm wishing you well wherever you are...

Visiting the Lower 48

For the past month I've been visiting family and because they're pretty well scattered geographically I've been hop-scotching around the U.S. I started out in Eugene, Oregon, on September 1 and I'm back there now as I write this. It's a short hop from here to LA which is where my flight to Bangkok originates on October 5th. And then too, Harper, my youngest grandson, lives here. I missed out on being near my other grandkids when they were Harper's age due to the fact that I was working full time and we're separated by huge distances. I'm determined not to miss out on his childhood.

Harper at the playground (age 20 months)

I have a few photos, of interest mostly to family members, that I'll include here. Usually you can click on any of these images to see them at full size but Blogger currently has a bug that prevents that from happening. Maybe someone over at Google can fix this issue, maybe not.


I spent a week with Tuli, Shannon and Harper, then flew to Kernersville, North Carolina, to hang out with my daughter Carin and her family. Here's a shot of Carin and my granddaughter Kaiyah cleaning leaves from their backyard pool.

Poolside at Carin's

Carin and me

Sandy with wine and roses

From Carin's I went to Buffalo to see my mom, sister and brother. I stayed with my sister Sandy at her place on Lake Ontario. She also has a pool but it was covered for the winter even though the weather was still very mild. Here she is sniffing the last of the roses as we head out to the lake shore on the north edge of her property for a drink at sunset.

So as it turns out both my daughter and my sister have heated, in ground swimming pools. And my brother Dale has a huge pond with hand built waterfalls upon which he is just putting the finishing touches. He is a crazed DIYer and loves working on his house, a house he built essentially himself. And I have a tiny rented cabin with no pool, not even running water. What's up with that? Below is a photo of my bro' and his pond, complete with carved bears and tons of rocks that he brought in from the driveway in a wheelbarrow ;-)

Dale with his handiwork - he wheelbarrowed all those rocks in from his driveway

 My mom will turn 94 this November. Last May she finally left her home of almost 60 years. Early this spring she told my sister, "I'm tired of cooking and cleaning. And I'm tired of being alone." I never entertained the notion that my mom would ever not want to cook but I could well understand her feeling of not wanting to be alone. Of all the relatives, all the neighbors, and all her friends, she's practically the last one left alive. My dad passed away over 30 years ago, her brothers and sisters, all five of them, are long gone. My resourceful sister found the perfect assisted living facility in nearby Lockport and mom absolutely loves it. She's hardly ever in her room. She loves to walk and she loves Buffalo sports, the Bills and the Sabres. Doesn't miss a game. The home is a lovely old converted mansion with high ceilings and fireplaces, now non-functioning, in every room and is staffed by some incredible people. She has more closet space in her quarters there than she had in the entire house she left behind last May.

It's football season so we watched the Bills play one Sunday afternoon. They lost but we enjoyed pizza and "wings", a Buffalo specialty and favorite snack food.

Mom watching the game

"Get going you bums!"

Mom doesn't drink these days but enjoys a non-alcoholic beer now and then. Especially with pizza and football.

I spent a couple of fun days with my college friend Carm and his wife Kim and attended a high school reunion that just happened to be taking place during the week I was in town. It was bizarre to see people that I hadn't laid eyes on for almost 50 years. I reconnected with one old buddy but unfortunately most of my closest friends from that time are dead already. While it was interesting and fun, the few people I ran into had been only casual acquaintances in 1961. And everyone I met was very politically conservative -- I felt a bit like a fish out of water at this gathering. It's weird to consider how far to the left I am politically from almost everyone that stayed in Buffalo, including most of my family. When I visit Buffalo I mostly avoid talking politics. It's easier for everyone that way.

We visited Beaver Island State Park, a regular Sunday family destination for many years

After returning to Eugene I rented a car so I could drive up to Portland for a few days. Ive been wanting to see Portland for quite a while. I keep hearing wonderful things about it and, of course, I'm trying to check out places I might want to live given that I can ever summon the courage to leave Alaska after 28 years. I Couchsurfed with a person that I only knew from our online email exchanges. Cadence was a wonderful host and showed me some of the best Portland has to offer in the limited time available. I was suitably impressed. But it is a huge city and the traffic and crowds were, I don't know, difficult to enjoy. Maybe I've changed too much during the time I've spent in rural, unspoiled Alaska to return to an urban life. As I've said before, I loved Boston when I lived there and Boston is bigger and surlier than Portland. But that was a long time ago.

Like all my other Couchsurfing experiences, this one was special. And in the same way -- I will definitely be visiting Cadence again. We're politically aligned, we both love to talk, she's a Portland booster, and a great cook. I met one other Couchsurfing acquaintance in Portland. Zoe and I shared travel gossip and a meal in Jake's Grill. Zoe has a son who lives part time in Thailand, another in Hong Kong, and she lives part time in Mexico so she's a traveler who moves around and like me, jumps from family member to family member in those travels. Except her kids are rather more far flung and have settled in more exotic locales than mine. I think there's an excellent chance we'll meet up again.

Cadence and I drove the scenic Columbia River Hwy to the Columbia Gorge and visited a few of the numerous waterfalls along the way. I had heard of Multnomah Falls a long time ago so please bear with me -- they warrant inclusion here although I'm sure there are literally thousands of pictures of them on the web.

The Columbia River Gorge looking east toward Bonneville Dam

Multnomah Falls

The next day we went to the famous Japanese Gardens in Washington Park. I had seen photos of this magical place before too but in any event it is a photographer's dream. Cadence told me the best time to visit is a bit later in the year when the maples have turned but I liked it nonetheless.

Maple tree

Maple tree

Even the spider webs at the Japanese Gardens were fantastical.











Last but not least we walked across the street to check out the Rose Garden. The roses, unlike the maples, were a bit past their prime, like me, but also like me, offered a bit of color and vitality despite that fact.

Faded rose

White rose

Red rose

Back in Eugene I caught this photo of Tuli and Shannon roughing up the Doodle. He was laughing and yelling my name (actually his pronunciation of grandpa), bampa, bampa, bampa,  as though to have me rescue him but you can see he was enjoying the attention.

I've been spending many hours with Harper each and every day, taking him for walks, reading and rereading books he loves, singing nursery songs over and over, putting him to bed at night, bonding with him. It's been a fabulous experience. Being with him constantly reminds me of the time when Tuli was a youngster; those were some of the best years of my life. I kick myself mentally for not having been the same sort of totally committed parent to my older kids. I guess at the time I just didn't have the maturity. Sure, I read books to them and sang songs, and played with them like the loving father that I was, but I practically deserted them when their mother and I divorced. That is really the only regret I have in how I've lived my life up to now. It's too bad we learn the important things so slowly or sometimes not at all.

I'll be leaving here for LA and Bangkok late on Tuesday. Nut will meet me in Bangkok and we'll travel together for a month or so. Having been a hard working single parent for many years, she has never been to any of the island resorts for which Thailand is famous so we have plans to visit Koh Tao and maybe Phuket or Koh Phi Phi. Stay tuned....

Harper

I'm in Eugene with Tuli, Shannon and my little grandson Harper. Life here is "all Harper, all the time". He's still totally charming and a raft of fun but at the moment is having a bit of a temper tantrum. Overtired after a big day visiting Shannon's family, including great-grandparents, he's carrying on like a, well,  like a baby. But he has a winning smile and a fantastic personality, is curious about everything, constantly yells out the few words he knows really well, Dada, Mama, ball, hoop (as in basketball), book, gampa (that's me), and of course, NO! But just take a look look at his winning smile:

Harper at age 20 months

Naturally, Tuli and I have played a bit of tennis. It's been hot in the afternoons but by evening the weather is perfect.We got together with Max the other evening and hit for a couple of hours. But the main thing I've done aside from playing with Harper and hanging out with Tuli & Shannon is check out motorcycles and gear. I went to BMW of Western Oregon here in Eugene recently to see these big touring BMWs I've been reading about. Goddamn it, they are huge! The R1200RT, a world class touring machine, is as big as a small car. And the K1200LT (1200 cc) and is so big I can't even imagine swinging my leg over it and driving it away. In fact, I can barely swing a leg over it period. This latter machine is BMW's answer to Honda's Goldwing and comes equipped with cruise control, stereo, ABS braking, power windshield, and of all things, a reverse gear to get you out of spots where you're simply not going to be able to push it backwards with leg power alone! Very intimidating to say the least! These are certainly a far cry from DC's "little" R80RT (800 cc and about 500 lb) I rode last week while the Honda Phantom I'll be riding again this year in Thailand will surely seem a toy by comparison.

BMW K 1200 LT Luxury Tourer

Homer friend and biking buddy DC, who was on the Thailand ride last year, has a favorite BMW and after seeing one here in Eugene, I like it too.  It's the F800ST. It's a sport-tourer and this 800cc belt-driven bike, weighing in at just over 400 lb, seems at least manageable to my inexperienced eye. (Manageable? Am I crazy?) Finding a used one will be difficult and affording one another problem altogether. Buying a new one at list price would cost over $12,000! Ha-ha. I'm retired, remember? I can dream though.

BMW F 800 ST Sport Tourer

Next stop, next Wednesday, will be my daughter Carin's in North Carolina. She said last week when we chatted by phone, Dad, remember, it's summer now. It's hot here. Make sure you bring your bathing suit. Their backyard pool, which was frozen in January when I last visited, will be full of warm, liquid water this time. I plan to take advantage of it.

Stay tuned....

I'm Outta Here, again

A view of beautiful Kachemak Bay

I'm getting ready to depart Alaska for another winter of travel. I'm very much looking forward to that but I'm sad to be taking leave of old friends and my wonderful hometown so soon. But I'm very excited. I recall how nervous I was when it came time to leave last fall. I had no idea how anything was gonna turn out. Naturally, all my worries were for nothing. I'll rejoin Nut in Bangkok and we'll travel together for a while. She wants to go to Koh Tao, where I've not been before and where I could meet up with Naroa, and Nut might come along with me to Lao. Yep, Lao is in the plans, and Africa! (more below). Yeah, you could say I'm stoked!

It has been a terrible summer in Homer in terms of the weather -- lots of rain and chilly days. I left the cabin early one morning a little while ago and it felt like fall was in the air already. I can recall this type of weather from my first years here when we used to joke about the fact that it's "always cool in the shade" in Homer.  I've been living in a wool sweater most of the time since coming back in late April to five feet of snow. I keep my heat low or off during the summer. Force of habit I guess. That and a sincere wish to not use any more fuel oil than is absolutely necessary.


I'm feeling uncomfortably rootless these days. I ask myself, where do you really live? Where is your home? While it's nice to be totally free of entanglements, property and responsibilities, that freedom does not come without costs. I sit on the deck on the nicer days and look around in awe at the beautiful surroundings. I ask myself, how could you ever leave Homer? On the other hand, why should you continue to live in a place where you're only willing to stay for four or five months a year? Back and forth it goes. It is a dilemma that needn't be solved right away but I do think about it often these days.

Siting on the deck with a Hop Czar IPA on a rare sunny evening in August

Lush greenery in high summer

First fireweed blossoms

Here are a few scenes from around the neighborhood. The summer greenery is thick and lush in early August. Mostly what you see out front is pushkii (cow parsnip), fireweed, which in this photo isn't yet blooming, lupine, wild geranium, and chocolate lily. The pushkii plants are fully six feet tall by this time. The first fireweed blossoms signal the onset of autumn which, up here at least,  can be a very short season. I was watching the bees earlier tonight as they collected pollen from the just now emerging blossoms. In a few short weeks these blossoms will form seed pods whose gossamer spores will be scattered by the wind. The conventional wisdom around Homer has it that winter will arrive about six weeks from the time the fireweed "cotton" starts to blow around.

Pushkii in full bloom

I've been eating lots of great seafood all summer; sablefish, salmon and halibut. My absolute favorite way to cook fish is on the grill. I use my little gas grill on the deck 4 or 5 times a week. I cook everything on it: fish, burgers, the occasional steak and assorted vegetables, even bacon. Below is a dinner I made recently with some of that grilled sablefish. It's accompanied by sauteed fennel and carrots, and some sauteed mushrooms.

Grilled sablefish dinner

I've got the suitcase out and open on the floor of my tiny cabin. I'm gathering things to pack: books, camping gear, clothing, my computer necessaries, personal items, etc. I've many computer things to attend to: installing Windows 7 on my Netbook, getting all my favorite software installed and activated, copying my photos and music to its hard drive, again. (My Netbook suffered a hard disk failure last January, just as I was about to leave for Thailand.) This time I'll store all my travel work, Photoshop files, journal entries, etc., online in "the cloud" (via Dropbox), so if my computer goes T.U. again nothing will be lost. I received my Passport back from the Thai Consulate in LA the other day and so my Tourist Visa is all squared away (I got a triple entry Visa. And because Thailand is encouraging tourism after last spring's Red Shirt troubles, it was totally free.)  So things are slowly coming together. At the same time I've been selling (or tossing) things I no longer use or need in an effort to ready myself for the possibility of an eventual exodus from Alaska. I'm not ready to do that yet but it's something I think about more and more.

I had such a great time on the motorcycle trip in Thailand that I've decided to buy one next spring after I get back. I've been doing tons of research about what to buy. It'll be used of course and will probably be a BMW "airhead" twin but the Kawasaki KLR 650 has recently caught my attention as well. BMW's RT bikes have a full fairing and many are equipped with luggage cases for touring. I could buy a fairly nice one (1985-90) for about 4 or 5 thousand dollars. I rode a friend's 1986 R80RT the other day and it is indeed a fine bike, and noted for its longevity and low maintenance, except that for a guy my size, due to the limited space under the cylinder heads, I can barely get my feet onto the shifter and rear brake. Plus, all Beemer parts are super expensive. On the other hand, the Kawasaki is light and maneuverable, and cheap ( a 2008 model can be had for ~4,000). It has a solid reputation as a world tourer. A good friend of mine rode one all the way down to Chile, and his experience isn't unique.

I owned a couple of bikes many years ago (gads, it was back in 1970-75!); a Honda CL350 and then a CB750, which was stolen when I lived in a high crime area of Boston in 1975, but I've always liked motorcycling. I've never lusted after a bike up here because our climate is very difficult; it's simply too damn cold most of the time for enjoyable riding. The local folks wear full body suits equipped with heated vests and many bikes have heated hand grips. Warm windproof clothing is essential to be able to ride with comfort in our 40 degree summer evenings. I'll no doubt be leaving my bike in Eugene, at my son Tuli's. Maybe do some touring in the desert next spring. Depending on several factors, I reckon there's a small chance I'll even drive it up here.

These are the two bikes I'm interested in at this point

 As you can see, the two bikes are purposed quite differently. The Beemer is definitely a touring machine while the KLR is a dual purpose bike; it can be used for off-road travel as well as for touring. But is it comfortable enough for a 3,000 mile ride to Alaska? Ah well, spring is a long time from now. I'll keep doing research and make a decision later.

In the meantime some new possibilities have presented themselves. I recently got in touch through Facebook with an old friend from KBBI, the public radio station where I worked in the late 1980s, who has been living in Lao for the past six years. Scott owns property near Luang Prabang and invited me for a visit. From what I hear the country around Luang Prabang is over-the-top scenic and the town itself, with its French colonial architecture, has a reputation for beauty. Nut and I will probably spend a few weeks there sometime in November.

An even more exciting trip within a trip is in the works. My good friend Janice (aka Jambo), who was pivotal in my decision to visit Fiji back in 2009, a decision that indirectly resulted in my visit to Europe last fall, invited me to join her and partner Willy, and another mutual Homer friend, Elizabeth, on a safari in Africa in January. Jambo is among my oldest and closest friends here in Homer and is a seasoned world traveler. Her advice about Fiji as a travel destination led me to go there. Ultimately, I encountered some new life-long friends: Tea and Arnaud, along with dive masters Joe and Naroa, and Lisa, in the Yasawa Islands. Tea and Arnaud live in Paris and one night while we were partying at Manta Ray Resort they invited me to come and stay with them. I didn't give it serious thought at the time but after I got back to Homer it dawned on me that with a base to operate from, I could actually afford to visit Europe. For years I had dreamed about going to Europe to find my grandmother's birthplace in what was once East Prussia (but is now part of Poland. See my blog entries for Nov. and Dec. 2009 for more). I joined Couchsurfing.org (CS) and had a wonderful time in Paris with Tea and Arnaud, in Berlin with Jana (CS), in Poland with Ewa and Daniel (CS), in Spain with Naroa & Ainara, and with Rety & Bruce (CS) in Valencia. But the time I spent in Fiji was critical to the way my travels developed last season.

Okay, back to the Africa trip. We will travel with a touring outfit, the Africa Travel Company, and a bunch of other fellow travelers, folks as yet unknown to us. Considering my other travel experiences, this will probably work out well and we'll have made some new friends after spending three weeks in a Mercedes bus and visiting something like 5 African countries together. The trip begins in Nairobi and wends its way generally southwest, through the Serengeti and Ngonongoro Crater, then east to the island of Zanzibar, and then south again along Lake Malawi, and finally west through Zambia to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. See the full trip description here.  For an extra $100 you can take a day-long raft trip on the Zambezi River! How awesome is that? I'm very excited about this trip even though it will strain my budget to do it. While my partners will make a long multi-stop trip from Alaska, I'll simply fly from Bangkok to Nairobi. Simple but not short; it's still a long 13-hour flight with a stopover somewhere in India.

I went to see my doctor to get the appropriate shots: yellow fever (required), the first of two hepatitis shots, typhoid oral vaccine, and malaria pills. Hells bells, I packed most of this stuff up yesterday and it took two hours to get my drugs organized and repackaged. I have ibuprofen, Felxeril and percocet in case my back gets tweaked again. I have my 80 mg. aspirin tabs, and cholesterol meds, vitamin D, etc. On this trip, since there will be many opportunities to watch really interesting animals I'm taking my good, but heavy, binoculars and because we're camping, my Thermarest mattress and sleeping bag. And then there's computer gear, camera, my GPS, and the myriad cords, cables and chargers I'll need to keep everything running, blah, blah, blah.

As the time to depart nears my friends are wining and dining me. We had a special Friday get together at work after hours on Friday, and we're getting together for dinner at Fat Olive's Tuesday night (tomorrow), the day before I leave. Glenn made the tongue-in-cheek (I hope) comment that eventually having yet another Going Away Party for me might begin to get old. Yep, I can see how that might happen.

Three dull Men resting in the Fungus Lounge at Dull Men's Bend, Ninilchik, Alaska

Last Saturday I hiked down to our old fishing spot on Deep Creek with my buddies Kirk, Kevin, and Michael. We used to fish here all the time back a few years ago, before I discovered tennis. Things have changed down at the creekside as many big rains over the years have totally reworked the neighborhood but we managed to find some fish and a good spot for a campfire. We used to call ourselves the Dull Men's Club, (Northern Division, Alaska Branch), and this particular fishing spot is therefore known as Dull Men's Bend. The old trail down to the river from the road, a drop of 300 feet (they don't call it Deep Creek for nothing), was grown in with brush so we bushwhacked our way through alders and the smelly, foot-sucking swamp at the bottom. Here we are warming our feet after wading up and down the river in our sandals. (Thank you  Michael for  the photo.) We each caught several rainbows and I hooked a 10-12 lb silver salmon, the only fish I've caught this year. We released all of them because they are protected up here in the fish nursery. The trip back up was steep and ugly. But after an hour of creative cursing and heavy breathing we were in Kevin's van and heading back to Homer.

It's taken me a while to compose this entry. I started it back towards the beginning of August and today as I am finishing it, I find myself just 48 hours from my flight from Homer to Anchorage and the beginning of this winter's adventure. I'll be writing more as time and Internet access permits.

Full Circle

Mt Iliamna in early May 2010

May 3rd, 2010
I left Bangkok on April 15th and flew to Eugene to spend some time with my son Tuli and his family, partner Shannon and 15 month old grandson, Harper. Everything was beautiful in Eugene. The grass was green and growing, flowering shrubs peaking, daffodils and tulips almost finished, the temperature perfect. We hooked up with our old and dear friend Alice and took a walk in a nearby park with Harper. Some photos are below. Little Harper is a charmer. He's easy going, completely friendly and unthreatened by being around new people, and has a ready smile for everyone. He reminds me of his dad when he was a baby.

Me and Harper

Three generations

So I guess you can say I've come Full Circle. I flew in to Homer on April 27th, just two days shy of 6 full months of travel. I left here on October 29th with no plan and with no idea how I would fare as a traveler or with being away from home for 6 months. Of course, if you've read any of this blog you know it was a wonderful trip. But, somewhat surprisingly, I am not elated to be back. I miss Thailand and Nut. I miss the easy life, the plentiful and delicious food, the thrill of visiting a foreign land, while here in Homer it's still cold with plenty of snow at the altitude where I live. Here are a few shots of my neighborhood taken on May 3rd. Believe me, I was not happy to find all this snow hanging around in May.

May 3rd: my trusty 1993 Toyota Camry

Homer had a very strange winter. It was warm and sunny in February but in March and April, heavy snowfalls blasted the area.  It snowed just a few days before I got back. A highly unusual winter to be sure.

 Snowfall on March 16th

Below is a picture taken from my friends' front door on March 16th looking toward where my car is in this other photo.

Home sweet home

Kachemak view

Baycrest view

May 22nd, 2010
Things have improved as I finish writing this entry. Yet I'm still obliged to wear snowshoes to get in and out of my cabin--if the sun continues to shine and the temperature stays in the 50s, this weekend should signal an end to that nonsense.

However, by now I've been back for almost a month and I'm still in a quandary about being in Alaska. The snow up on Diamond Ridge has convinced me that I should try to find a place in town, both to avoid the snow next spring and to reduce the amount of fuel I use in my daily commute, and I'm trying to sell or discard extra baggage to make that an easier transition. I have a bunch of tools and stuff in a storage locker that I'm trying to decide what to do with. While having lunch with my partner Doug the other day I was musing about how to get some of those tools, woodworking tools especially, to Tuli now that he's taken an interest in woodworking. He asked me, why don't you load up the Camry with the stuff you want to give him and drive down to Oregon this fall? The notion stuck in my head and has by now become a plan. I need to visit my mom and brother and sister in Buffalo, and check in on my grandchildren in North Carolina before leaving the country. If I'm in Eugene in September, I reasoned, it will be so much easier to hop on a plane from there and head east than to do it from Alaska. And I've already bought tickets to return to Thailand on October 3rd. So the plan is now to leave here in August, mid to late August, and do a leisurely drive down to the "lower 48" as we call it, do a bit of camping and fishing on the way, and hang out down there for 4 or 5 weeks before going back to Asia. I'll return to Oregon in the spring but this time I'll wait until all the snow is gone before heading to Alaska.

My quandary about Alaska has also to do with an important question I'm asking myself again: why do I live up here, so far from everywhere, in a place with a climate that no longer suits me very well?  This is a question I think many Alaskans ask periodically and it's definitely food for thought. I've asked myself many times where I would choose to live if not here? I really don't have an answer. I think vaguely about Oregon, and Portland in particular. I have never been there except for a short visit a few years ago so what I'm going on is what others have told me. Once upon a time I rather enjoyed living in a busy urban environment; I loved Boston when I first went there in 1972. But now, after living in Alaska for 27 years, I'm not sure how it would play out were I to pack up and leave. Of course at that point the question "where should I live?" will need an answer.

I might try to catch a king salmon tomorrow down at the old fishing hole on the spit. The kings should be running in there any day now. The Anchor River season opened at midnight last night. One of the absolute best things about Alaska is the salmon we enjoy all summer.