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Mark Twain on Travel
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime. – Innocents Abroad I have found out there ain’t no surer way to…
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Book Review: In Tasmania
In Tasmania is that rare book – a doggedly researched work of non-fiction that reads like a page-turner. For several years after moving to eastern Tasmania from England, author Nicholas Shakespeare pursued all sorts of leads, delving into his past before even understanding his intricate connections to Tasmania and its people. He uncovers a new…
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Quotable Travel Quotes
Your true traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty-his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure. –Aldous Huxley, quoting from Matador Network’s 50 Most Inspiring Travel Quotes When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all…
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Sonnet 2, Camino Expectations
The click of walking sticks on gravel roads With crunchy boot steps and determined strides, A meditative cadence, balanced load; New landscapes painting the absence inside. What message in eagles, staid pairs on limbs, In rocks, cows, and songbirds leading the way, In storied arroyos and hot, mad winds, In tree shapes and harvested grapes…
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Six Haiku, December 2011
My haiku warm-up exercises turned into multi-day workshops. I could keep fiddling with these things indefinitely. Here, so I can move on to something else: In our jet cocoon Silk strands floating behind us A tensile trail home Your body deprived Goes numb, the dragging foot draws Warped lines of anguish Camino soundtrack: Clicking sticks,…