Travel – GringoPotpourri

Lucky to be Alive

This is Mount LeConte. The third-highest peak in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, its summit lodge and unrestricted views attract thousands of hearty hikers each year. There are five routes to the top, each of varying degrees of difficulty. Even the easiest and most popular of the bunch, Alum Cave, is no mere walk in the park.

On Monday, September 9, the weather forecast was ideal: 70 degrees along the trail, 60 degrees at the summit, low humidity and nary a cloud in the sky. Knowing I had a new job waiting for me the following Monday, I woke up before dawn, printed out my parking permit, and made the one-hour drive to the Rainbow Falls parking lot, where the plan was to take the Rainbow Falls Trail up and either the Trillium Gap Trail or the Bullhead Trail down. I packed two bottles of Gatorade, two liters of water, and lots of trail food (beef sticks, pretzel sticks, honey stinger energy chews, trail mix). I bought a brownie at the LeConte Lodge store, topped off my water, and tightened my laces for the descent, deciding on the Bullhead Trail, which was roughly one-half mile longer than the Trillium Gap but which led directly to my starting parking lot, rather than to an additional connector trail that roughly paralleled the paved, Roaring Fork Motorway for 1.7 miles from the bottom of Trillium Gap to the bottom of Rainbow Falls.

It was late when I headed down, after 3:30 pm, so my choice of the shorter trail was the correct one, right? Seeing as I’m writing this with three broken bones, limited mobility in both arms, and a fresh forehead scar, I’d say I chose poorly.

My Year in Review

Once again, it’s that time of year when I find myself busy with any variety of tasks. For 2023, these tasks include holiday shopping, job searching, calendar making, book publishing, novel writing, and the usual year-end self-reflecting.

2023 was an interesting year, neither my best nor my worst. In some ways, I treaded water, but in others, I achieved important goals. Here is a summary:

25 Great Travel Memories

Last month’s blog post, One Sentence on Each Country, received higher-than-normal readership. Thank you for checking it out, Loyal Readers. I wanted to expand upon that (don’t worry, just a short post this time) by sharing some of my favorite travel memories over the years. A few of these fall into the “profound” category. I am referring to things like seeing the mo’ai heads of Easter Island, or of gazing upon 8,000 Qin Dynasty terracotta warriors in Xi’an.

On the other hand, many of these memories are simple recollections of the little things that make travel so rewarding. For this, I am referring to failed, but somehow amusing, attempts at communication with Russian cabin mates on a train from St. Petersburg to Moscow, or of the literal hole-in-the-wall pizzeria that I stumbled upon in Salzburg, a place that somehow crisped my pepperoni pizza just right.

In no particular order, here are 25 Great Travel Memories:

Continue reading “25 Great Travel Memories”