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2,000 Miles, One Dog, and Zero Regrets (Except for All of It)
by a guy who should’ve known better, but somehow keeps saying yes anyway Just before Thanksgiving, my girlfriend visited me in Richmond, VA and convinced me to spend the holiday with her in Houston — or as I prefer to call it, hell with excellent barbecue. One minute I was enjoying the crisp Virginia air,…
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Three Days around Geysers: Steam, Fire, and Mordor- Yellowstone Adventure Pt- 3
By a guy who once nearly lost his eyebrows to a campfire and still thinks a Montana burger could feed Belgium. The last Airbnb move we did was to the west of Yellowstone National Park, but still in Idaho. Forty-five minutes to the gate. And that’s American forty-five minutes too— meaning it’s actually forty-five minutes,…
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Where have all the cowboys gone – Yellowstone adventure Pt- 1
By someone who still can’t figure out why GPS devices always die the moment you need them most. A couple of days ago we landed in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, ready for some sort of frontier adventure. And as far as airport views go, Jackson Hole has got to be one of the most fascinating in…
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Lost in Translation: Misadventures Through France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Beyond
Back when the world was still vaguely sensible and living in England, I decided to take a proper road trip. Not one of those dull “fly somewhere, rent a car” getaways. No, this was the real deal—Hampshire to the Netherlands, with a bit of France, Belgium, and an accidental detour into Germany. Because, as always,…
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The Salad Bowl, Mad Cows, and Algebra: Notes from a Salinas Interlude
By someone who kept showing up, and somehow became part of the scenery. During those foggy interludes when life had decided to dropkick me in the face, I found myself back in California—specifically, Salinas. I’d gone there not for the scenery, which is mostly lettuce and a worrying amount of dust, but because it was…
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Of Bridges, an Ark and Pontoon Boats: An American Story- A trip back to Indy Part-2
By Me, unfortunately. Still in West Virginia—because apparently, I enjoy humidity and odd signage—we decided to go see the New River Gorge Bridge. This is, for those unfamiliar, a giant piece of civil engineering slapped across a massive canyon like a suspension bridge built by someone showing off at a high school reunion. But before…
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The Road to Laguna: Traffic, Hot Dogs, and Mild Madness
By someone who survived a Malibu jam with only a Hyundai and a hotdog memory. Years ago, I decided—because why not—to take a road trip from Salinas to Laguna Beach. And not the usual efficient, soul-crushing, Interstate-5 kind of trip. No. I took the scenic route. Monterey. Big Sur. That glorious, winding stretch of coastline…
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Tennessee: Land of Tall Tales and Southern ways
There’s something about Tennessee that courts the imagination and livens out the heart with dreams of accidental romance, and the chance of an 80 degree weather with blue skies allover. Maybe it’s that charm where people talk in the most southern way, a combination of English and Molasses, that always seem to end a sentence…
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Into the Appalachian Twilight: A Story of Excitement, Panic, and A Bad GPS- A trip back to Indy Part-1
By a man who just wanted to visit his sister but apparently signed up for West Virginia’s “Worst Roads and Existential Crises” tour. Years ago, I used to drive from Virginia to Indiana once a week. Like clockwork. Didn’t even need directions. Just coffee, an audiobook, and the vague hope that the car wouldn’t explode.…
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Bumper to Bumper with Buffoons: A Driver’s Rant
By someone who used to be chill, but then you parked like a clown. I’ve been watching people lately—just sitting back and observing the slow-motion car crash we call “society”—and I can’t decide whether the world is spiraling into the abyss, or if I’m simply becoming a grumpier, less tolerant version of myself. It used…
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Saudi Arabia, Sand, and Surprise Barbecue
1998 — Saudi Arabia. Ministry of Foreign Affairs Building. Me, a skinny engineering graduate with the wide-eyed optimism of a chipmunk in a nut factory. And let me tell you, if you’ve ever wanted to experience the majestic thrill of absolutely nothing, the desert kingdom delivers in spades. Miles and miles of beige. Not gold.…
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Nostalgia, Travel, and the Myth of the Idaho Girl
By someone who’s been around a bit and still wonders what happened to all the people who vanished quietly. Lately, I’ve been feeling… well, nostalgic. And not in the soft-focus, violins-playing sort of way, but more like someone opened the floodgates in my brain and out came everything from school uniforms to the smell of…
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Cruising for a Bruising
In 2016, I had what I thought was a brilliant idea: a relaxing cruise. Just me, a big ship, the open sea, and perhaps a few dolphins joyfully following along as I reclined on the deck, engrossed in a Tom Clancy novel. I pictured people around me, civilized and happy, united by the common goal…
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Richmond is Melting and So Am I
By a man who thought Virginia summers were supposed to be charming and full of fireflies, not the actual fires of hell. It is currently 102°F in Richmond, Virginia. That’s not a heatwave—that’s the sun filing a restraining order against us for getting too close. The weather app isn’t even pretending anymore. It just says…
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Driven Mad: A Life in Cars
You know how it is with people and cars. Some folks couldn’t care less—as long as it’s got four wheels and doesn’t explode every Tuesday, they’re happy. To them, it’s just a box to get from A to B without getting arrested. Others? They treat cars like rolling symphonies. Every curve is sculpture. Every exhaust…
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Airport Survival Guide: Cry Quietly and Carry On
The airport. A monument to mankind’s ability to take something majestic—flight, freedom, the sheer glory of defying gravity—and turn it into a sort of bureaucratic cattle prod run by people who think “urgent” is a type of seasoning. Let’s start with getting there. You set off three hours early, because apparently, even though your flight…
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Houston, I Have a Flyover (and Some Eggs)
One Man’s Journey Through Delayed Flights, Concrete Madness, and Culinary Salvation. I arrived in Houston at about 2 a.m., which is, of course, precisely not what the airline promised. According to the booking, I was supposed to arrive at something resembling a human hour—dinner time, maybe, or at worst, the awkward mid-evening dead zone when…
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A Jubilee, a Corr, and a Cold Goodbye
February 2017, London. Cold, damp, and everything was wrapped in that stubborn, bone-chilling English gray. It was the sort of chill that could freeze tea right in the kettle. So naturally, I thought, “What better time for a nostalgia walk?” There I was, hoofing it down the Mall, past Buckingham Palace, when I realized the…
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On My Way to Houston
By A Guy Who Just Wanted a Quiet Flight and Maybe a Hug It’s been a month since I saw my girlfriend. We live apart—she’s in Houston, that vast, sprawling circus of freeways, mad drivers, and more concrete bridges than sense. I live in Richmond, Virginia, which, if you read my last bit of rambling,…
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The Wild, the Weird, and the Wonderfully West Virginian
January 2013. I rolled into Lewisburg, West Virginia, at precisely 8 PM after a long but admittedly beautiful drive from Pennsylvania. It was the kind of drive that makes you feel like you’re in an advert for winter tires—curving roads, mountains, light snow, and just enough loneliness to feel dramatic but not suicidal. First impressions?…
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Flying: The Sky’s the Limit, Sanity Optional
Flying used to be glamorous. I’m talking about the golden age—suits, silk ties, champagne served by flight attendants with teeth so perfect they could light up a runway. It was the Concorde, it was Pan Am, it was James Bond having a Vodka Martini “shaken, not stirred”. Now? It’s not travel. It’s airborne livestock logistics.…
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Waiting to Be Heard: Breaking the Silence in a Digital World
I was sitting in the airport terminal, waiting for a flight to absolutely nowhere of any consequence, when it hit me like a misplaced luggage trolley to the shins: no one talks anymore. Look around any departure lounge today, and it’s like staring into a digital graveyard. Heads bowed, faces lit by the cold glow…
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When the World Was Young (And Then It Wasn’t)
I remember yesterday, when the world was younger—when everything smelled faintly of vinyl records and cigarettes, and no one had yet decided that being permanently offended was a lifestyle choice. The 1970s—at least the bits I can recall—were a curious time. Women’s hair were a towering work of architectural ambition, and the men? Well, they…
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