From the Archives: Kalama

“We are the Cowlitz Tribe and this is our land! Welcome to our land!”

Book Review: Cafe Tempest, Adventures on a Small Greek Island

I’m super impatient with expat memoirs. And I have a deep dislike for the kind of travel writing that’s all introspection and metaphysical. When I agreed to read and review Café Tempest: Adventures On a Small Greek Island I did not know it was an expat slice of life read in the voice of a …


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Road Trip Almanac

It’s just about a month now since we rolled back in to Seattle. The Routan was unloaded and returned to VW’s fleet supplier pronto, but there’s still a pile of REI gear that I have to ship back along with a few other odds and ends. And part of my brain, or maybe it’s my heart, is still leaning back towards the Hi-Line, that northern Montana strip of road punctuated by old grain elevators and barbed wire fences and gas stations where time stopped in 1967. Regardless of the location of my head or heart, my body is firmly back at the keyboard. While I’m here, I thought I’d hammer out a recap of our trip.


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Book Review: I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears

There’s a funny little saying I learned early on in my time in Austria: “It’s sausage to me.” It means, essentially, “Whatever, I don’t care.” It’s not in Jag Bhalla’s wacky collection of regionalisms, I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms From Around the World , but lots of other linguistic …


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Going to the Sun Road

Glacier National Park knocks the breath right out of you and replaces it with sheer wonder.

Teddy’s Advice

[This post is available as a podcast, too. Give it a whirl. Props go to Kelly for her hilarious description of the standoffish buffalo as “the Seattle-ites of the animal kingdom” – I’ve poached a bit of that below.] I met Teddy Roosevelt in the North Dakota Badlands. Actually, to be more precise, we were …


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