Author: lionsandcows
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2015: Berkshires and the full snow moon
Full moon fever. Perhaps that was it last week under the cold snow moon of February. It was a brilliant night, crisp and freezing. Moon shadows galore, the moon so bright, like day out. Even though it was below freezing and after midnight, I went for a walk, with my twelve coats on of course.…
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2015: A good quote
In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. ~Albert Schweitzer
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2015: California, sunsets
Amazing long weekend visit with friends. More later but for now how about the show the sky and the sun put on last night “Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky” Rabindranath Tagore
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2015: California (headed west)
Westward, chasing the sun. This post brought to you via in flight wifi. Really, why not I said? Headed out for the long weekend. I just read an article that said people who live in cloudy places are smarter. Not linking it here as clearly that piece was written to make people under the gun…
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2015: New Year’s, Boston to the Berkshires
1 Jan – 1:23 AM – Hanover Street, North End, Boston: On every block, another post midnight cliche… the fighting couple, the restaurant filled with revelers dancing to Usher’s last year’s hit, the brand new couple-maybe-to-be negotiating with their friends to be able to take the only available taxi by themselves, Boston boys with Bruins hats,…
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2015… here it comes
“No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left.” Charles Lamb, “New Year’s Eve,” in The London Magazine, January 1821
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Nepal 2014: Short Trek to the Annapurnas, the arrival
Jump head first into the deep end I say: no better reason to decide to take a trip with four days of trekking. Meanwhile, small detail: I don’t trek. I don’t even hike much despite living on the Appalachian trail and in the Berkshire hills, but I have two legs and I can walk so…
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Snow
Watching the snow fall and thinking of sunshine and trade winds. Florida, I am coming for you! Even so, it is a magical fairy forest outside tonight. Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dark trees that one could easily imagine its reason for being was nothing more than prettiness. – Mary Oliver
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USA 2014: Washington DC and the art of art
Happy Thanksgiving to one and all – a quiet one this year but after a busy fall, it’s welcome. There’s been much disturbance in my force – either by my own hand, by actual travel or just changes. Hasn’t been my month to shine. I know… 50% of the people that read this space, you’re all unsettled and…
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Destination: November 1989, London
As the land around my cow town goes to sleep for a long winter’s nap, November is my hardest month being here and yet, I never quite manage to be away long enough into the month to spend it in a curry haze in some other land. I miss my father who left this land in…
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Nepal 2014: Just a little bit about Everest
Saw many a t-shirt throughout my time in Nepal: a little up, a little down, little seems an understatement considering men and a few very intrepid women have trekked to the top of this mystical magical Himalaya mountain time and time again to seek the top – something like 4,000 success stories, hundreds & hundreds…
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Nepal 2014: every dog has it’s day
Kathmandu: as dusty and hectic as expected but even more crowded during the beginning of the biggest Hindu festival of the the year: Diwali, the Festival of Lights, celebrating the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, good over evil and hope over despair. What better to experience a brand new land. Five days…
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Dubai 2014: the getting to before the arriving
Airport hotel bars, flashback to 1985 on the radio, bizarre snacks yet kind of delicious. Having hurtled through space on a packed crying baby kind of flight, here I am in Dubai. It won’t be the gold plated, shiny Dubai of some of my fellow travelers. No, my time here feels more like Cleveland before…
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Nepal 2014: Just 3 days…leaving home
Home. Is it a place? Is it people? For me, it’s a term that contracts as much as it expands. My house, filled with my family things, that’s my home. My cow town filled with faces and places, home. I live in the USA – America is my home and even if I wander, this land…
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Nepal 2014: 4 days…
“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” ~ Terry Pratchett Packing list for Nepal:…
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India 2012: Varanasi
India, the most beautiful, most terrible place I have ever been and I ended those weeks in Varanasi. It’s taken me two years to even stop for a moment and write about being there, of all the spiritual places I have been, the one I felt the most from my feet to the top of…
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Nepal 2014: 8 days…
Lots of build up this time, but I know, I am setting myself up to deliver while overseas – however fleeting my wifi is in Nepal. It’s been a while since I’ve made myself write something every day and I am trying to be disciplined about this space I created, so my dear three readers,…
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Nepal 2014: Down to single digits
“It’s hard to go. It’s scary and lonely…and half the time you’ll be wondering why the hell you’re in Cincinnati or Austin or North Dakota or Mongolia or wherever your melodious little finger-plucking heinie takes you. There will be boondoggles and discombobulated days, freaked-out nights and metaphorical flat tires. But it will be soul-smashingly beautiful……
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Nepal 2014: just ten more days….
“A person susceptible to “wanderlust” is not so much addicted to movement as committed to transformation.” ― Pico Iyer
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Nepal 2014: Passports, visas, adaptors… it’s almost time to go
I took a rain soaked, muddy hike today…. which ended right by this flaming tree. Fall has brought out her best colors this year. Apparently, I cannot live and write at the same time. I think about this blog, the place I created to share my adventures and I greedily eat up all those stories…
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2013: the year in review, the year I did more living than blogging
I used to wish for peace but as this year unfolded I’ve realized peace is an elusive and hard to pin down thing and when you do find it, you usually loose it and begin the cycle almost immediately. So frustrating. So annoyingly brief. So little, after so much. Makes me think of that Greek…
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Rest In Peace
“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” ― Nelson Mandela
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Berkshires 2013: Tanglewood in the rain
It is what we’ve done every summer to honor my father, rain or shine. He loved classical music and yet was cursed with what he thought were two girls who loved men in tight pants and arena rock. He was wrong. All ninety nine versions of the melancholic but gorgeous Mahler symphonies he owned and…
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Cape Cod 2013: a reboot and at last some sunshine
All the lion time in my life has to have a price. This spring’s return from Africa = a cold, job changes and adjustment – nothing horrible or life altering, just unsettling and time consuming. In the meantime, on the eastern seaboard, the sun is finally out and summer, in all her glory, rolled in…
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hitting the road, off to see some lions
“You know you are truly alive when you’re living among lions.” Karen Blixen, Out of Africa Months of planning, getting near time to leave. My duffle is almost packed. Farewell cow town – am waking from my winter nap & headed for the savannas, the deltas, the dust of the land where lions roar.
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Bridges 2013: Old and New
On a lazy Sunday morning recently, I saw a story on Bartonsville, a small Vermont town that lost a covered bridge in Hurricane Irene a few summers ago . The locals refused to accept this loss and one very determined woman, as she watched the bridge wash out in the flood waters, made sure it…
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Spring: Almost there…
Today in my small cow town it was sunny and warm… yes, does mean mud season is coming but I don’t mind that so much. As I wait for my next journey (two months and bring on the zebra, lions, and hippos), this brief rest from snow and cold, well, I did kind of feel…
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Caribbean 2013: Resorting to a resort vacation
Taking a break from far flung places this month – I’ll save that for Africa in May. Far flung is pretty hard on the family when you have a two year old and an eighty two year old in tow. Sometimes, you just have to be an all inclusive style of joiner and so, for…
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“When preparing…
“When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money”. – Unknown Happy New Year! Thanks to Matador Network for the above quote… hope it’s a wonderful new year of adventures for all. Read more at http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/30-funny-travel-quotes-to-make-you-smile/#JGIjE6HD02Iw1j0H.99
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New England 2013: All Hallow’s Eve
I love Halloween, always have always will. Always been more than candy and costumes for me. As someone who grew up New England, USA and loves fall, where we seem to have a link to the seasons that cannot be denied, this day is the line between fall and winter. The earth outside my window…
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India 2012: Taj Mahal
This morning we woke up at dawn to get to the Taj before the masses and I learned, you can never ever beat the masses in this country, because they get up even earlier and maybe never sleep at all. I can understand now why my grandfather said it was the most beautiful place that…
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India 2012: Cows
Of course, I need to write about cows here. So many cows, every where I look, more cows. More like wild dogs, domesticated cows sitting in the middle of traffic. Here’s a photo series of the whole high way being stopped by a herd headed south. I have done so much more today and yesterday,…
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India: Delhi to Jaipur 2012
India is all I expected and more – it is dusty, chaotic and noisy… people, cows and monkeys are everywhere. Life happens on the street – sleeping, eating, fighting, bathing. I can see how so many people come here and hate it but I can also see how people come here and loose their hearts…
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This is indeed India! The…
This is indeed India! The land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendour and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a…
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Almost time: India 2012
Today, when I called my credit card companies to tell them I was leaving my normal cowtown land, a great small world moment happened. The operator at X Bank asked me where I was headed, when I said India, he told me how lucky I was, how it would change my life and that especially…
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India 2012: Packing it all in
There’s a time before a new journey when I always get to maximum velocity; a perfect storm hits of everything at the same time. A window into my mind (so sorry, it’s not as bad in there as it initially appears), I have this moment when I think because I am getting on a plane…
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Two week countdown
Seven years ago tonight, I was sitting around a fire in the middle of the Sahara listening to music, under a bowl full of stars, so far away from everything. Getting on that plane seems so close now and have to start really mentally preparing myself for the other side. Today, I realized I don’t…
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“Half the fun of the tr…
“Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness.” – Ray Bradbury Cpuntdown to India: 22 days (it’s 9 pm here so maybe that’s really 21 and bit)
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Buenos Aires, March 2012
As I sort through all the wires, converters, lenses today, preparing for my next journey – here are some pictures of Buenos Aires. Alas, my camera was on the fritz… so just a few to share. Countdown to India: 29 days
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2012: India
“In India, I was living in a little hut, about six feet by seven feet. It had a canvas flap instead of a door. I was sitting on my bed meditating, and a cat wandered in and plopped down on my lap. I took the cat and tossed it out the door. Ten seconds later…
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And so with the sunshine …
And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Patagonia March 2012
“I climbed a path and from the top looked up-stream towards Chile. I could see the river, glinting and sliding through the bone-white cliffs with strips of emerald cultivation either side. Away from the cliffs was the desert. There was no sound but the wind, whirring through thorns and whistling through dead grass, and no…
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“Travel does what good …
“Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and…
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Mexico: a kayaking story for cinco de Mayo…
.. or as my family likes to call it… the near death kayak. About ten years ago, my family decided we wanted to start traveling for Christmas – get some sun in before the long winter haul of the the northeast USA. We’re not the all inclusive, cruise people so we decided to go to…
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Travel & Tears… a short list
“This is your captain speaking” The most dreaded words in air travel without a doubt. Nothing like being 30,000 feet in the air, meal service under way and learning the plane is turning around, back to the land you just left, no local currency in my pocket, no mobile phone and yes, the yearning deep…
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A passport, as I’m sure …
A passport, as I’m sure you know, is a document that one shows to government officials whenever one reaches a border between countries, so the officials can learn who you are, where you were born, and how you look when photographed unflatteringly. ~Lemony Snicket
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One month countdown begins… now
In just one month, will be headed out to Argentina and Chile – starting in Buenos Aires, headed south to Calefate & Torres del Paine National Park and then spending some time on a boat from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia, heading south a bit, and then home. Let’s hope my rounding of Cape Horn will be…
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really a lion and less of cow
Today, I booked my air tickets to Argentina and Chile and all I can do since I pressed the button to buy is smile and smile. I am an admitted addict and will never ever be finished with my exploration of our blue planet. I have been trying to be brave in my little, lovely…
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A happy dog post
Lots of plans being laid for exciting new adventures south, west and east – not so much north until this winter is done. In the meantime… here’s the happiest dog I have seen in some time – may you all be jumping for joy like this pup out there in the world, friends and will…
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New Year’s Wishes
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain On this last day of a very long 2011,…
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just some lions
Have been a terrible blogger but just know…. this can only mean greatness is coming (that’s what THEY say, whoever THEY are). In the meantime, here’s a lion video to fill this space. Happy almost 2012 friends! Hope you’re all headed or coming back from somewhere great. (thanks to the BBC)
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Just for fun…
Just because I love this kind of wacky travel, no guidebook needed – just lots of maps, luck and pluck – via @theAdventurists http://www.mongolrally.com “10,000 miles in a tiny car from Europe to Mongolia. Travelling is for sissies, come and get stuck in a desert on the Mongol Rally 2012.”
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Thanksgiving Sunsets
As the eastern states of the US were treated to such gorgeous weather the week of Thanksgiving and because I have so much to say/posts to write/am overwhelmed by the holiday rush of life/not sure I have the hang of this blogging thing yet, here are some lovely pictures from Cape Cod, MA in the…
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Europe: Remembrance Day, Bruges
A number of years ago, a friend and I decided to take this week long dash through some European countries we had not visited in a while and to see some friends – a week long journey of planes, trains, buses, trams, boats to the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands. Why we chose a week when…
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Staying put, what happens when you cannot go…
I have started and deleted this post so many many times. My update was going to be all about what happens when you don’t get to go on a journey you’ve planned and dreamed about for months….but how do write about that without sounding like a spoiled baby? To be able to travel for pleasure,…
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New York 2011: A New York state of mind
Sometimes, small town living is just that…. small…. slowly, everything is just too predictable and the sameness of every day begins to dent my wanderlustful soul. When I can’t hop on a plane, what better way blow out the cobwebs than a road trip north (and a smidge west) to bask in the glory of…
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dreams of other places
Just the rainy, cold kind of gloomy cow town morning that makes me wish I were elsewhere and yet again the deep debate in my heart rises up – to travel more of the year and work to make that happen, or to continue on the path I am on… because if I were elsewhere,…
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2011: New England, apples and more apples
Fall has arrived in these green hills – the leaves are turning and even though the days lately have been global warming humid, it would never really feel like summer to a local. The mellow golden sunsets of August have absolutely given way to cold nights and I have been watching the twilight creeping earlier…
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beginning at the beginning
When I was eight, my family spent a month and a 1/2 in France and England. It was the first international flight I could remember, drank my first orangina, learned my first French word – which was STOP (aggressive foreign speaking children + pool ) and slept in an overnight train berth. My mother kept…
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LIONSANDCOWS 