Cycling in the Drizzle: Seattle to Vancouver by Bicycle
Day One Downtown Snohomish, WA: Touristy but cute The open trail: cycling the Centennial Trail. Quiet and smooth enough to take a photo hands free while moving. I can see 5,000 miles: my odometer hits 5,000 miles. I could've cycled to China. Instead I'm at … Instead I'm at this Strawberry Stand in the middle [...]
Gaviota, The Last Cowgirl in Cuba
I become even more schitzy than usual when I visit Cuba. Comparing the resilience and vitality of the people with the shards of their ramshackle society is interesting at times and other times a heart-breaker. This last trip wasn't different, except for one new aspect. Photo 17 Fidel Castro on the reviewing stand at the [...]
Cycling The Raritan Across New Jersey
Last weekend I took advantage of the last of the Indian Summer and did a 2-day 170 mile bike ride out to New Hope, PA. It was both an awakening to the possibilities of the Northeast and a confirmation that my lifestyle is better suited to the West coast. The sun was shining gloriously last [...]
NYC Six Doug Zero
I think this city is out to get me–by my take trying to drive me out with mental, physical and mechanical abuse. It's winning. By my count 6 to 0 in the past month. And by very creative and unprecedented dirty tricks. (1) In my first NY accident, after years of succesfully avoiding them, the [...]
Pedaling in Quebec
I returned to Quebec a month or so back on the occasion of having 9 whole days off between the end of my old position and the start of my new one. (What happened to 6 weeks here and 5 weeks there?!? Don't tell me I've rejoined the working class). Route notes: I planned my [...]
Gay Cuba
This entry doesn't actually start in Cuba. It starts in Miami a few months earlier. I saw a very small notice in one of the gay newspapers in Miami about a documentary called "Gay Cuba" by Sonja de Vries being presented at the community college in downtown Miami. I expected maybe a dozen gay and [...]
Cuba Ingenuity
I thought I'd share a few amusing sights I saw in Cuba proving Cuban ingenuity–necessity is the mother of invention after all! Cuba, 1997RoderoBuy this Art Print at AllPosters.com BICYCLES The bicycle is the main method of transport in Cuba not because people don't have cars but because they can't afford gasoline for them. The [...]
Cuba, Si! Err, No. Well, Maybe
Photo byLeszek Majkowski. Cuba produced a lot of different reactions in me and I saw it through a lot of different eyes. As I review my journal entries, my opinion of the place seemed to swing from wildly positive to darkly negative. I was always learning something though, always being surprised for good or bad. [...]
Settling into the RD
RD = Dominican Republic (initials in Spanish ordering of course) After almost two weeks here I am starting to settle in. Unfortunately, I started my visit to RD with five days in the capitol, Santo Domingo. Not being a novice to Latin American cities I should have known better. Actually I had some stuff to [...]
