Week 9: Tr 21 December 2017, 19:15. Cape Shirreff, Livingston Island, Antarctica From “Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage” by Alfred Lansing — “Returning from a hunting trip, Orde-Lees, traveling on skis across the rotting surface of the ice, had just about reached camp when an evil, knoblike head burst out of the water just in front of him. He turned and fled, pushing as hard as he could with his ski…
Monday 21 August 2017, week 15: Buldir Island, 22:39 As the wind strengthens and the rain intensifies, I find myself alone in our main cabin, writing in the dim light of day that remains. The clock above me ticks away the seconds that make up minutes, but I can’t help but notice it’s also ticking down the minutes remaining in my second season on Buldir. Today was our final day…
Saturday 17 June 2017, week 5: Buldir Island Coming up with weekly topics is proving more difficult this year. Of course it doesn’t help that I’m struggling to balance it with my same two hobbies from last year, either; reading and journaling are still the evil culprits. Just to send all the blame away from myself, it’s also Kevin and McKenzie’s fault that I’m not writing. They’re always reading, so…
Thursday 28 July 2016, week 11: Buldir Island, 20:46 Sorry, but there will be no post for this week. Before our overnight at Spike Camp, I had 2 different posts started, but the words weren’t coming. Books are also to blame, as I read the first 75 pages of “The Last Season” in an afternoon and the first 90 pages of “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid” last…
You know what kids have so much easier these days? The chance to read. When we were growing up, my brother and I both read books in bed when we should have been sleeping. Many nights a flashlight and book could be found hidden underneath my pillow. Over the years a bulky flashlight transitioned to a small Maglite that could eventually be slipped inside a headband for fancy hands-free lighting….
I’m doomed. While in NZ I discovered that author Bill Bryson writes highly entertaining books, and many of them just happen to be about his travels. I’ve read a fair number of them since, and a friend just passed on another to me: Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe. I knew I’d be in trouble dreaming up trips before I even cracked open the book. Bryson didn’t fail to…
Some relatives and friends consider me crazy for taking off to the middle of nowhere to live in a tent for months, driving around NZ on my own, and wandering through Tiananmen Square during an 8 hour layover in Beijing. I’ll admit the Tiananmen adventure was something else, but everything else I’ve done pales in comparison to finding myself a job on a fishing vessel during winter in the Bering…
Ah ha! How refreshing it is to read a book that seems to be teaching me about myself. I come from a family of readers, so you might think I’m always reading something or other. However, my reading has happened in waves ever since I started college, and I’ve primarily read books just for kicks since freeing myself from the school system. My parents recently sent me this book as…