I made a list of dreams, some old some not so old. This page is about that list. Here it is:
1. Sail on a square rigger. X
2. Dog sledding in the frozen North. X
3. Go to the Darien Gap. X
4. See St. Peter's in Rome. X
5. Boat down the Yukon. X
6. Travel the Trans-Siberian Railroad X
7. Et. Al.
As #7 indicates this is an ongoing list. This page is about getting through the list, and by golly I did it... Now I gotta make a NEW list!!!
Why These Places?
X indicates "Been there"
&
Family Pics
Photo Gallery
The Square rigger and the dog sledding are probably the oldest. These come from a life long love of ships and the sea that started when I was a kid wandering along the docks of San Francisco in the ‘50s. San Francisco was a working port then and I’d spend hours just staring at the ships and imagining myself sailing on them. I read all of the Hornblower series and Melville and Dana and any other sailing book I could find. Found the HMS Rose a couple of years ago and will be climbing her rigging this fall.
The dog sledding came from the books of Jack London. I finally ran a team during a weeks stay in the Boundary Waters area of Northern Minnesota. Running a team is everything I dreamed it would be and more. I will include trip notes at a later date.
The trip to the Darien came about because of a late night, whiskey inspired conversation with my brother about 25 years ago. He pointed to a map and said the THIS is where the road ends. My brother never made it there though his life was well filled with other adventures.
The Trans-Siberian railroad? Who knows.. Dr. Zivago maybe. There is something about Siberia that intrigues me and Moscow to Vladisvostok is a definite go, a ways down the list.
St. Peter’s is there by accident. I’m not Catholic but after the kids were put to bed on Christmas Eve, for many years I’d fix myself a toddy and see in Christmas with the Pope on TV. I could not believe what I saw on TV of St. Peter’s. No building could be that big. Well, it is. Trip notes coming soon.
Going down the Yukon came about as the result of another adventure. I hitchhiked the Al-Can a couple of decades ago and when I reached Dawson City I camped along the Yukon for a week or so. One day in Dawson I saw a boat loading up for a trip down river. I was hooked. There is a trip offered from the headwaters of the Salmon to Dawson by Wilderness Inquiry, the same excellent group that I went dog sledding with. They are a non-profit that gives wilderness experiences to differently abled folk and their prices are low. The differently abled members of the dog sledding trip were really an inspiration and getting to know them and sharing adventures with them was a highlight of that trip.
Anyhow the list is a work in progress, there are some tentative trips that are almost on it like riding a pony across the Mongolian Steppe but we’ll see how it goes.
Top