“Did you spit in it?” Christine asked, the first time she saw me after our trip to St Vincent. It had been my standing joke before we went. Anyone who had been here two years before understood. When La Soufrière erupted and the jet stream brought clouds of ash eastward to Barbados, we were trapped … Continue reading On the Edge of the Volcano: La Soufrière in St. Vincent
How do you evoke a Caribbean paradise, without sounding like a thousand other descriptions of a hundred different islands? Your table is waiting. ✔️ Warm tropical breezes?✔️ Sandy beaches lapped by turquoise water? ✔️ Hot tropical sun, then a sudden shower of rain, soon over?✔️ Palm trees and lush flowering shrubs?✔️ Quaint fishing villages?✔️ Beach … Continue reading Grenada: Another Caribbean Paradise
Sunny bluebird day with fresh, fluffy snow. Rain and “mashed potatoes.” Fog and icy hard-pack. Clouds and gently falling new snow. All this and more on my January trip to Whistler! Whistler- Blackcomb is the largest ski resort in North America, and so was on the bucket list for my husband Scott and our friends … Continue reading Whistler-Blackcomb— Skiing West Coast Style
I stand at the top of the Saddle, looking at the black diamond on the post by the drop off. I take a deep breath. “Ok. Let’s do this.” And over the edge I go. So that makes it sound like I’m a good skier. I used to be. On this trip to Whistler, however, … Continue reading Do You Still Ski?
“Scott! Look at this! It was made in Barbados!” I’m holding up a leotard/unitard/one piece shorty exercise outfit. Exuberant tropical flowers, red, orange, pink, are splashed large across a white background. What’s surprising is not so much that it was made in the country we now live in, but that I’d bought it 25 years … Continue reading Beautiful Barbados Broad
I find myself being still. At first I was jittery. When I was not in the lounges on the ship, being social, when I was in my room, I would shuffle through the papers on my desk. Should I write in my trip journal? No, that was all caught up. Could I play a game … Continue reading The Silence of the North
“Listen.” I hear the ice: the rustling crackle of the small floating pieces against our hulls; the swoosh-bang of water sloshing over a shelf on an iceberg; faint, distant crashes, muted to the point where direction was uncertain, only that it came from the frozen reaches of Icefjord. Paddling through the ice at Ilullisset Here … Continue reading In the Ice: Kayaking in the Arctic
“I accept his apology,” said Looee quietly. “Because I feel that you can’t move forward otherwise. But there are those who don’t, and that is their choice.” Less than a week after I left Iqaluit they welcomed another visitor. The Pope chose to come to the north to deliver an apology for the Catholic church’s … Continue reading Reconciliation in the Arctic
“We knew he had Covid. But nobody said anything because we would have all been quarantined and we would have missed the rest of the trip.” I try not to react as the middle-aged American woman spoke with her friends about her bus tour in Ireland. I was eavesdropping, after all— accidentally at first, but … Continue reading Travel in the Time of Covid— Arctic Reprise
There is still paint on the wall behind the inside stairs, and carpet or oilcloth on some of the stairs. The colours are faded, but their presence is the echo of this once being a joyful place. Very little left in this house The windows and doors, the electric fixtures and wiring are gone, scavenged, … Continue reading Abandoned Places
Brave Travels 