Tillamook Creamery

 

Tillamook Creamery

Tillamook, Oregon

I toured the creamery in the late 90s.  The ice cream was great!

More Sake

Kade bought this sake at Whole Foods.  The shot glasses are obviously from Thailand and Russia.

Gifts

 

The Uzbek tea pot & cups and NYC skyline poster are "gifts" I got from my uncle's estate.  I also received his Uzbek skull cap and Mongolian hat.

Click here to learn more about the Uzbek ceramics.  And click here to see my Uzbek caps.

Against Happiness

source

part of an e-mail I sent to the author, Eric Wilson, years ago

What's interesting is that I have visited the homes of some of the depressives you mentioned in your book: Edgar Allan Poe (dorm room in Charlottesville), Dostoevsky and Tolstoy (St. Petersburg and Moscow), Hemingway's apartment (Paris) and Beethoven's birth home in Cologne, Germany.

Click here for an article on Wilson.

Gotta Have A Vision

I have four USA trips I want do, all before I reach fifty:  1. Drive the Pacific Coast Highway from tip of Oregon all the way south to San Diego, stopping at every popular beach.  Thinking of a compact RV for this.  2. Drive the entire coast of Florida, stopping at every important beach.  Again, a compact RV.  3. Spend 3-4 weeks in Hawaii.  4. Drive the Maine coast, eating seafood along the way, and then hit parts of New Hampshire and Vermont. 

If I can do these four, I will rest forever easy on US travel.  And these I think are vital to do when you're younger and in good shape.  I don't want to be the traveler at 65, with a big stomach and worn look, embarrassed to take off my shirt and regretting not being able to eye the young lasses during my prime!  lol

Internationally, I have some bigger ideas.  But the main thing I lack right now is the willpower to do them.  Part of my trouble is that I have done a lot already and my enthusiasm is not what I want it to be.  Hoping it can change.  Lovely places out there.  And I like the idea of themes for some reason: oyster eating, body massages, etc..

We will very likely live out our twilight years in Thailand......

- thoughts to someone in 2016

Asian Art

Central, Southeast and East Asia

Live Your Best

Baseball player Tim Wakefield just died of brain cancer at 53.  His wife died of pancreatic cancer not long after.

The way I see it:  When you consider the average life expectancy throughout the world, if you make it to 50, that's pretty decent.  If you get to 60, good.  If 70, great.  If 80, remarkable.  This is why I tell people, live your very best from 20-60.  My neighbor, who's in his nineties, did say his 50s were his best years in most respects.  Well, just don’t wait till you retire to travel, live overseas or get a little tail.  You may not make it to retirement, and even if you do, it's not the same as your prime years.  I think you and I, when it comes to travel, did something extraordinary in our younger years.  No regrets.

- correspondence with friend

Tim Wakefield dies

Spinoza

Spinoza was a freethinking Jew who grew up somewhere in Western Europe, yet fled to more tolerant Amsterdam, which was long ago a bastion of freedom for radicals, atheists and exiles.  Sadly, though, he ended up being murdered by a Jewish religious zealot.  I'm recalling all this from a biography I read long ago.  Might be off.  Anyway, we are in a restaurant right near his statue, drinking a hazelnut latte before making a short stroll to Rembrandt's house.

- a few Junes ago

Click here for more of that Spinoza encounter.

New England

Kade and I have been to each of these states.  We've spent the most time in Maine.  We have driven from the very southern tip of Maine, starting in the state's oldest town, Kittery, and working our way up the coast to Acadia National Park.  I can already imagine revisiting Maine.  I think next time we will start in Portland and then drive back up to Acadia National Park to complete a couple of hikes before finishing up the rest of the coast and possibly exploring a couple of Canadian provinces.  Right now it's just a dream!

Savannah, 1 of 2