I love — love! — diving in the Great Lakes. But when the opportunity arose, I had to find out why so many recreational divers rave about the warm waters of the Caribbean. And don’t tell me this doesn’t sound cool: the last week of January, six days on a sailboat in the Bahamas, nineteen …
My brother, who is full of Finnish folk sayings, sometimes ancient and sometimes newly coined (by him), used to describe jerks with the phrase I've titled this post with. What does it say about both of us that we've gotten seriously into scuba diving? Not just that, but he got me into scuba diving? Oh …
Despite living in Southern California for almost five years, Joshua Tree has mainly meant for me the awesome 1987 U2 album of the same name. (I saw them on that tour, at the legendary L.A. Coliseum. Yes: I'm old.) I had never been there until last week.That got remedied because I had another conference in …
Sandstone Quarry in the evening sun. It's maybe a bit ironic, for someone who hates Las Vegas, to go there three times in a year. But that's what's happening: two trips this fall, in addition to the one last February. The first of the fall trips was last weekend; the second one is coming up in …
Our final summer adventure in 2012 was a trip to Silverton, Colorado, to visit our friends Anna and Chris. They were staying with Anna's parents George and Ellen, who had built a second home in town.Silverton is a funky place. It's not particularly easy to get to: You can fly to Durango and drive (or …
That's how lots of people describe some of the easy routes on West Virginia's Seneca Rocks: the scariest easy climb in the world. The "scary" had given me pause; the "easy" had appealed. Also, my climbing friends Jay and Abby had done their first climbing ever at Seneca Rocks, when Abby was thirteen to boot, …
During the very first leg -- the kayaking leg! -- of this year's Spring Fury adventure race, I noticed some awesome flowers as I was getting out of my kayak to go punch a checkpoint some yards inland. Amid the lake reeds, standard spring wetland fare such as skunk cabbage and May apples, there were …
Back in late March, work took me to Portland, Oregon, to the Western Political Science Association's annual conference. As far as academic conferences go, the WPSA is a nice one, and you don't need Portlandia to convince you that Portland is an awesome city. But there is also great rock climbing in the Pacific Northwest, …
Into the Not So Wild 