On the Road Again - Adventures from an Empty Nest

(Pictures below, if you're impatient) Mongolia is, as you might imagine, like nothing we've seen before. We spent two days in the city of Ulaanbaatar, visiting museums and exploring the downtown area. The highlight for me of those first two days was a visit to a school of traditional music, where a very talented young throat singer demonstrated his singing and playing the horsehead fiddle for us. After the performance, he gave me a lesson in throat singing, and I was able to achieve the first stage! It sounds harsh, but really feels open and easy when you get it. On the way out of the school, we met two little girls who had arrived for their Mongolian harp lesson. They gave us an impromptu concert in the lobby. One turned out to be from Ireland; her parents send her back to her grandparents in Mongolia every summer to learn her culture.  On the third day, we headed out into the countryside in six four-wheel-drive trucks to begin our 2,500km odyssey. After a stop at the ger (yur

This year's anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Charlottesville passed almost without note in our house, quite a difference from the last seven years. It's not that we didn't remember, but we were, wellm distracted. I had a major deadline for a work project—the 25-page draft was due yesterday. Meanwhile, we were making lists and using up leftovers and cleaning and—PACKING! Today, we are off to Mongolia, to revel in throat singing and camel riding and starry desert nights. Mongolia was never really on our bucket list, though I have always said I'll go anywhere if I have the opportunity. Road Scholar, a nonprofit educational tour company for elders, started sending us their catalog when Joe turned 65. We always read it with interest, fantasizing about the amazing places they go. And then, late last year, the catalog announced "Special Price–Free Airfare" on a trip to Mongolia. I've never been able to pass up a great deal, and it made the trip almost affordab

Beautiful Lake Huron. More pictures below. Churning across the water in the darkness and rain, above the rumble of giant engines strong enough to carry semi-trailers and RVs and trucks and cars across the mouth of Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay. Joe has gone upstairs to the passenger area of the Chi Cheemaun Ferry. Darwin and I are staying below, as dogs aren’t allowed out of the vehicles. It’s surreal. We are clearly moving, but the view outside the window is just a sign that says “ Les freins doivent être appliques pendent le voyage" –  “All vehicles must have brakes applied while aboard vessel.” When we left you, we had returned to the U.S., and it was lovely, but the coming week promised to be too warm for living in a black steel box, so we have headed north again.  First though, we had a delightful visit with my friends (Joe’s new friends) Nathaniel and Trina Borenstein on the east side of Michigan’s mitten. Nathaniel and I were at Grinnell College together. We were both religious

Manitoba and the Great Lakes The Souris, Manitoba, swinging bridge (Many more photos at the end of the post)   I ended the last blog entry with a teaser: we were headed to Souris, Manitoba, the next day. I was tickled because “souris” is the French word for “mouse”. Souris turned out to be a lovely place, with a long pedestrian suspension bridge, a great bakery, and a delightful town museum. The tagline on Manitoba license plates is “Friendly Manitoba”, and it’s true. Since leaving the Southeast, we hadn’t experienced those casual friendly conversations one can have with strangers during the course of a regular day. But Manitobans are eager to engage, and will start a conversation just about anywhere. We learned about the region, heard about travels people have taken, got advice on great places to see in the region, commiserated about the shortage of rain this summer, and fielded questions about where we had been on our trip so far. Thanks, Manitoba, for such a warm welcome.  Manitoba