I went cage diving in South Africa. I was lowered into a narrow pen made of chicken wire, something you might keep rabbits in. I could have reached through one of the sizable gaps and touched the bleeding fish head that served as bait. When the sharks came, big as cars and blank eyed, they brushed the wire with their toothy grins, sloshed water over our heads with their tails. One bit the cage. Mostly they sunk silently back into the dark. More »

In Ghana, I did something I perhaps shouldn’t have; something which I have been told may curse me for the rest of my life. Something small and perhaps stupid and perhaps profound. But first there is how the thing came to happen. More »

My first hour in Spain convinced me that  the country was slightly mad. I saw, in rapid succession, a well dressed and angry looking young woman marching an enormous hog down the streets of Cadiz; an overweight, elderly man dressed only in short shorts and super-tight glittery jelly shoes strolling down the beach, and a group of American Indians in full feathered headdresses and costume playing “My Heart Will Go On” on the pan pipes. More »

Two weeks ago I learned to haggle in the muddy, shadowy markets of Marrakech. Morocco was one of the ports I had most anticipated visiting, partially because I am partially Middle-Eastern-Syrian, to be precise. That facet of my heritage has always fascinated me, and I was curious to get a glimpse of a culture which I feel at least biologically connected to. More »

The leaves of one of the trees at the entrance to our neighborhood have changed color and are beginning to fall. As I pack up all my worldly possessions into three suitcases that decrease in size from Paul Bunyan-worthy on down to way-too-big-to-be-a-carry-on-but-the-only-way-I’m-going-to-get-all-my-stuff-back-to-Scotland size, I think about how soon I will be walking down the Scores, a street in St. Andrews on the edge of the North Sea. More »

When I came home this spring it was to mayflies, ephemoptera, those insects of the long slender bodies and sail-shaped wings. The effect they have on me is complex, tied to bare feet, cherry blossoms, rain. Robins were unreliable indicators of spring, but when the mayflies emerged I knew it to be the season of bonfires and fishing and freckles. More »

Last weekend I took a swim in Lake Huron, just off the shore of Thompson Harbor in Presque Isle. Equipped with sandals, sunglasses, a fleece and jeans to name some of my make-shift wetsuit attire, I jumped in the water to try to save a dog.

If you have read some of my previous blog entries, you know I suffer from a lack of common sense. Or as my fiance explains, I don’t think rationally about reality. Most of the time my irrationality doesn’t bother me, but other times it digs at me like a tick into flesh. More »

For those of you fortunate enough to be off the Keweenaw right now, I want to give you a little run down of what you’re missing here in the northwestern-est shark fin of Michigan’s upper peninsula.

Upon arriving to Houghton you’ll see the ghost town of campus past — where there once were students hustling and bustling, carrying backpacks heavy with Engineering Fundamentals textbooks; now all that can be seen are tumbleweeds rolling through campus.

After passing by the admissions building, driving north on Sheldon, you’ll see Uhauls loading up in many of the frat and sorority houses. You’ll also need to watch your speed and your driving — get off your cell phone and ignore the GPS for a minute — there’s a lot of road construction going on! That’s right. It’s chaos downtown. More »

We have made it to Santiago where the Cathedral houses the burial place of St. James, for whom the “El Camino de Santiago” is named.

We are known on the Pilgrim Trail four “Americanos” from Michigan; or as Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Spaniards from Madrid, have named us: “the Space Cowboys” after the “older” Astronaut movie actors James Gardner, etc. More »

We have approached our third week on the “Camino to Santiago.” We are taking a day of rest in Sarria, Spain, awaiting our friend Joe Bottenhorn’s arrival from Lake Leelanau. Joe will walk the last six days of the trail.

What has happened since my last blog? We have meet additional world travelers. Add a Bolivian pilgrim who I performed field surgery on (blistered feet) at the top of a mountain peak before making our descent. More »