A trip to Bennett Lake, British Columbia, then, and now
In 1986, when I arrived at Bennett Lake, my body was beat up, but my spirit was soaring. After four days of backpacking on “the meanest 33 miles of history,” […]
Travels
A slew of seals at LeConte Glacier
The blue icebergs bobbed and floated seductively, dangerous but enticing, clues that somewhere upstream lay a glacier. But in Southeast Alaska, navigating a field of icebergs field is dangerous is […]
Bears, bears everywhere: AnAn Alaska adventure
From the platform, we could see the drama at the outhouse unfolding, predictably, almost comically, if not for the fact that the climax could be a dangerous human-bear encounter. The […]
Tiny travel, big world at the Peabody Essex Museum
I call this blog The Maniacal Traveler because I have a mania for travel in all its forms. Visiting museums, wherever they are, is a sort of super-condensed travel, or […]
When the cold fails, try the warmth
Five things to do instead of skiing during New Mexico’s worst drought ever I am probably the only person in the United States who was disappointed by snowfall totals this […]
Missing my (Wild)Cat: Skittering on New Mexico’s ski slopes
Here in New England, skiers are familiar with what I call the “skitter” – the combination of a clattering sound and a slipping movement a skier experiences when she is […]
Drinking coffee and looking for aliens in Roswell, New Mexico
In Roswell, in need of coffee and a bathroom, we stopped at McDonald’s. I ordered a cup of Newman’s Own and opened out my wallet. “Fifty-three cents please,” the cashier […]
Art amidst the mills of North Adams
A decaying mill town on a gray November weekend in an isolated corner of Massachusetts might seem an unlikely destination, but North Adams had been on my radar for a […]
The wind howls, and we stir the pot
As I write at the kitchen table, a pulled pork lunch for 17 simmers in the crockpot and the wind shrieks above the stove vents. That wind has been howling […]
Crisis on Mount Washington: The Empty Sugar Barrel
Saturday was a crazy day for the weather observers, as the information technology observer took down the computer servers for some infrastructure maintenance. As with most IT endeavors, the process […]