All good things must come to an end, and it had become our last day in Chang Rai. Pete invited me to his weekly coffee with a few of his friends. The coffee was grown in the mountains by one of the hill tribes. It was delicious. The conversation was all over the place, as […]
Conversation
Chang Rai with Lek and Pete
As those of you who followed this blog years ago in Ecuador know, we met Pete in Ecuador in 2015. An amazing thing about “travel buddies,” is that you don’t need to see them all of the time in order to retain a travel friendship. So it is with Pete. In the intervening years, our […]
Berlin Rhymes
Cover Photo: Ellen posing in front of a “Trabi” or Trabant, an East German vehicle. Ellen’s Thoughts: Who Knew! Not at all what I expected! Then I am not sure what I expected.We went on a walking tour and the guide was fantastic! He was 28 years old, doing graduate school in Sociology after deciding […]
Froggy’s
We met Sunday night at Froggy’s. Froggy’s Fish Market is another Topangan institution. For the last bit it’s only open on weekend nights, so Sunday worked well. One would have to say that Froggy’s epitomizes Topanga casual (sheik?) It is very common these days to find restaurants and pubs that are decorated with a bunch […]
Post Card from Ellen’s Edge!
Carole King and Cat Stevens are singing to me and Steve is tolerating it pretty well. We have made it to the ocean! I keep getting asked what it is like to be on the road together so much,what do we do? How are we getting along? Well, we read a lot, listen to books […]
Barbara, Hyla, and Al
We went to Eugene, Oregon to see Barbara, Hyla, and Alfonso. Barbara is a cousin. By pure coincidence, another cousin, Susan, was visiting from Hawaii. Ellen hadn’t seen her since childhood. I first met Barbara and Hyla when they visited us in Linden Hills several years ago. We pulled up fairly late on Saturday. It […]
Homage to the Lake Cabin
Last weekend our good friends Beth and John invited us to their family lake cabin in celebration of John’s birthday. The cabin is on Red Cedar Lake, near Birchwood, Wisconsin. We biked, boated, talked, ate, drank wine, went for pizza, and generally had an all-around good time. Truth be told, there were actually five of […]
Martha’s Vineyard Highpoints
Here are a few of the high-points of our recent trip to Martha’s Vineyard: Ellie and Jack Quite clearly two of Ellen and my favorite people. Ellie and Jack demonstrate a joi de vivre that can only be described as inspirational. They are exceptional hosts, having opened their home to Ellen and me on several […]
Community
How do you get community? It was a topic of a very interesting conversation last night. We had Jack and Ellie who have developed a senior living community in Elon, NC in the mid-1980’s. Bob and Pam were early pioneers in the American co-housing movement in the mid-1990’s. And Ellen and Steve, about to embark […]