Latest Adventures
Traveling the Oregon Trail, Part 12
December 20, 2022
Down the Columbia. It’s time now to scoot back up the Columbia River, like the salmon at Bonneville Dam, to rejoin where we left the other, water-bound leg of the Oregon Trail. A view of the Columbia River Gorge from the northern (Washington State) bank. Before the Cascade Locks were constructed around them in 1875, […]
Traveling the Oregon Trail, Part 11
December 20, 2022
Busted Wheels. We’ve rejoined the Trail again, at the town of Pendleton, Oregon. The Working Girls Hotel in Pendleton, Oregon used to be a … well, I guess you can figure that out. I just hope they got new mattresses. The hotel is associated with Pendleton Underground Tours. Apparently there’s a warren of subterranean saloons, […]
Traveling the Oregon Trail, Part 10
December 20, 2022
To the Whitman Mission. Starting with this Indian raid on a wagon train in 1854, west of present-day Boise, the Oregon Trail across Idaho became dangerous without military escort. While most of the settlers were just passing through, the Native tribes resented their depletion of local firewood and game. Horse grazing in a field near […]
Traveling the Oregon Trail, Part 9
December 20, 2022
Along the Snake River. Just north of Pocatello, in Blackfoot, we paid a visit to the Idaho Potato Museum. Not only does it have a restaurant, it was surprisingly fun and interesting. Idaho produces about 1/3 of the potatoes grown in the US, nearly all of them on land artificially irrigated from the Snake River. […]
Traveling the Oregon Trail, Part 8
December 20, 2022
To Fort Hall We’ve rejoined the Oregon Trail heading north from Fort Bridger, in southwestern Wyoming. This is Kemmerer, a Wyoming coal mining town where John Cash Penney (yes, that was he real middle name) established his first store in 1902. Penney got his start in nearby Evanston, Wyoming, working for a pair of partners […]
Traveling the Oregon Trail, Part 7
December 20, 2022
This is the Place! There are about 77,000 wild horses, or mustangs, roaming the western US. To control their numbers, the Bureau of Land Management periodically rounds them up into corrals, like this one on the outskirts of Rock Springs. Horses evolved in North America, spreading to Asia and Europe before going extinct here at […]
Traveling the Oregon Trail, Part 6
December 20, 2022
Crossing the Continental Divide. Passing through downtown Casper, Wyoming, early the next morning. Fort Caspar (yes, slightly different spelling than the town) was the migrants’ last stop before departing the North Platte River, which they had been following for over a month. The small military cemetery at Fort Caspar, Wyoming. Fort Caspar originated as a […]
Traveling the Oregon Trail, Part 5
December 20, 2022
Over Scotts Bluff and Into Wyoming. As we arrived in the outskirts of Scottsbluff, we came across the grave of Rebecca Winters. A Mormon emigrant, age 50, she died here in 1852 of cholera. Her husband Hiram chiseled her name into an iron wagon tire, which still stands over her final resting place. Always good […]
Traveling the Oregon Trail, Part 4
December 20, 2022
Following the Platte River. The Platte River is wide and shallow, and looks like it should be easy to cross. But the waters hide deadly quicksand. The Oregon Trail migrants followed the southern bank, while the Mormons and later transcontinental railroad, joining from Omaha, followed the northern bank. More signs of trouble along the Oregon […]
Traveling the Oregon Trail, Part 3
December 20, 2022
Across the Plains to Fort Kearney. We’ve left St. Joseph and are following the Pony Express – and the Oregon Trail – west across the Missouri River into Kansas. The corn fields of northeast Kansas, along the Oregon Trail. Following the Pony Express into Seneca, Kansas. Asking myself if I need crop insurance. Seneca, Kansas. […]
Traveling the Oregon Trail, Part 2
December 20, 2022
On to St. Joseph. Railroad cars beside a grain elevator outside Kansas City, Missouri. Kansas City has long been a major transportation hub in the center of the country. Before departing it entirely, we paid a visit to the TWA Museum at the airline’s former corporate headquarters at Charles B. Wheeler Airport just outside of […]
Traveling the Oregon Trail, Part 1
December 20, 2022
Starting out from Independence, Missouri. Ready to depart on the Oregon Trail? In August 2021, this was the route my 11-year-old son followed (with the exception of a short trip up to St. Joseph, the other starting point for the Trail), on a road trip that took two weeks. The county courthouse in Independence, Missouri […]
Portrait of Qatar
December 13, 2019
From December 13, 2019 I just got back from Qatar, a small country in the Middle East you probably don’t think about much, but should. Qatar is the largest liquified natural gas exporter in the world, and the richest country (per capital) in the world. It hosts the largest US military base in the Middle […]
Two Faces of Weimar
September 29, 2019
A trip to Weimar, Buchenwald, and two very different Germanies. In 1775, the duke of the tiny German state of Saxe-Weimar invited the German-speaking world’s hottest new celebrity, 25-year old Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, to take up residence in his quiet little capital. Goethe was famous because of his hit novel “The Sorrows if Young […]
Airlift Tempelhof
September 26, 2019
From September 26, 2019: Over the weekend, I had the chance to visit Tempelhof, Berlin’s original airport and a very important site in the city’s history. Even before there was a terminal, Tempelhof Field, located south of Berlin’s city center, was witness to some of the earliest steps in aviation – including a demonstration, in […]
Escape from Colditz
September 20, 2019
From September 20, 2019: Status: Currently escaping from Colditz Castle. Will let you know how it goes. If you’ve ever played and enjoyed “Castle Wolfenstein”, this post is for you. During WW2, Colditz Castle, about an hour southeast of Leipzig, served a top-security prison for Allied POWs, most of them officers. The Allied prisoners sent […]
Exploring Potsdam
September 17, 2019
In July 1945, the leaders of the three Allied Powers that had just defeated Hitler – Churchill, Truman, and Stalin – met at Potsdam, southwest of Berlin, to plot the continuing war against Japan and the immediate future of post-war Germany. They met at Schloss Cecilienhof, a rambling Tudor mansion built by the Crown Prince […]
Different Dreams in Atlanta
August 27, 2019
Different dreams in Atlanta, Georgia. A thread. Dreams of the Lost Cause: The images of Jefferson Davis, Robert E Lee, and Stonewall Jackson carved into Stone Mountain, Georgia. The top of Stone Mountain was infamously the site of the second foundation of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915. Statue of Mahatma Gandhi at the Martin […]
Following the Freedom Riders
August 18, 2019
In May 1961, a group of interracial civil rights activists journeyed together through the South to challenge the non-enforcement of US Supreme Court rulings outlawing segregation on interstate buses. During a recent road trip through Alabama, I followed their path. Dubbed the “Freedom Riders” and sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), they planned […]
A Visit to Tuskegee
August 14, 2019
This is a post about my visit in the summer of 2019 to Tuskegee University, in eastern Alabama, which was an opportunity to learn about two amazing Americans and the legacy they left behind. Those two individuals are Booker T. Washington, the founding president of the school, and George Washington Carver, a scientist he recruited […]
Moon Landing, Moment by Moment
July 25, 2019
In July 2019, I became aware that the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing was approaching. Using the Lego Saturn V rocket my children had bought me for my birthday that year, I demonstrated for them the different stages of the mission. I started live-tweeting the photos and timeline of events I had […]
Battle for the Solomons, Part 3
May 30, 2019
But the battle for the remote Solomon Islands was not over. And no one would experience this more directly than a young man born to privilege who arrived in Tulagi in April 1943, to take command of a PT patrol boat. His name was John F. Kennedy. This quonset hut on Tulagi was the repair […]
Battle for the Solomons, Part 2
May 30, 2019
By mid-September, the Japanese were ready to try to break through the US perimeter again. Under the command of Major General Kiyotake Kawaguchi, they drilled a tortuous path through the jungle to hit the Marines from an unexpected direction – the south. Except that it wasn’t entirely unexpected. General Vandegrift had guessed the Japanese intentions […]
Battle for the Solomons, Part 1
May 30, 2019
From May 30, 2019 During World War II, the US and Japan waged an extended battle for control of the Solomon Islands, including the island of Guadalcanal, in the South Pacific. I visited there over Memorial Day weekend, and have put together my own photos and historical pics to tell that story. The story begins […]
Guest on Guadalcanal
May 28, 2019
From May 28, 2019 This man and his wife on Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands, purposely set themselves apart to live and demonstrate the traditional life of their ancestors. It is their full-time way of life. I visited them today. All photos and videos are taken with their permission. First I was greeted with the […]
Chef’s Table
April 30, 2019
Before leaving for Italy, our family watched an episode of “Chef’s Table” on Netflix devoted to Dario Cecchini, a butcher in the small town of Panzano in the Chianti region south of Florence. So we looked up him up on the internet and, luckily, were able to book a reservation at his restaurant, attached to […]
Cooking Lesson in Italy
April 29, 2019
On our trip to Italy over Easter, I took the family to a small village outside Greve in Chianti (south of Florence) for a family cooking class. It took place in the home of Stefania Balducci. Our first sight when we walked in her door was the table set for the meal we would create with her help.
The Story of Sri Lanka
January 26, 2019
The earliest written reference to Sri Lanka dates from the Indian epic the Ramayana (c 500 BC) in which Ravana, the island’s demon king, kidnaps the hero Rama’s wife Sita. According to legend, after kidnapping Sita, Ravana hid her in a cave behind these falls south of Ella, in Sri Lanka’s central highlands. The Seetha […]
The Story of Ethiopia, Part 1
November 18, 2018
Prompted by my trip there in November 2018, I’m going to do two history posts on Ethiopia, one on its ancient history, one on its modern story (1800 to today). I’ll begin with the ancient history … and it goes way back. Because modern humans – and before that, the ancestors of humans – almost […]
Whatever You Do, Don’t Look Down
November 18, 2018
From November 2018. Getting ready to climb to the rock-hewn churches of Maryam Korkor and Daniel Korkor atop this butte in Tigray, northern Ethiopia. (You can just spot the latter as a tiny shadow near the top of the second bulge from the left). It was already a hike to get here, following footpaths between […]
Climbing to Debre Damo
November 17, 2018
Debre Damo, sitting atop a mesa in Tigray, is one of Ethiopia’s oldest Christian monasteries, dating back to the 6th Century AD. According to legend, the saint Abuna Aregawi found his way to the summit when a snake lowered its tail for him to climb. The mountaintop monastery of Debre Damo, seen from a distance. […]
Live-Tweeting World War I
November 8, 2018
Published in The New York Review, November 8, 2018: World War I Relived Day by Day by Patrick Chovanec Four years ago, I went to war. Like many of the people whose stories I followed in my daily “live-tweets” on World War I, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. What began […]
Exploring Carinthia
September 19, 2018
Klagenfurt is the capital of the modern state of Carinthia, in southern Austria. Statue of the 18th Century Austrian Empress Maria Theresa in Klagenfurt, Austria Klagenfurt was founded in 1246 by Bernhard von Spanheim, Duke of Carinthia But the story of Klagenfurt, and Carinthia, goes back much farther in the mists of time. According to […]
Along the Isonzo Front
September 17, 2018
For those of you who’ve followed my #100yearsago tweets, this should be a familiar name: the Isonzo River, scene of repeated, grinding, futile battles between the Italians and Austrians in the First World War. The Isonzo River cuts its way through a steep mountain valley in the Julian Alps to the north, exiting around Gorizia, […]
Crossroads Trieste
September 16, 2018
Before it was transferred to Italy after World War I, Trieste – on the Adriatic Sea – was the main port city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was a major center of shipping and commerce, and the self-conscious grandeur the Austrians tried to achieve there is obvious. My hotel in Trieste, the Excelsior, was one […]
German Tank Museum
August 13, 2018
From August 2018 A visit to the German Tank Museum in Munster, Lower Saxony – about an hour outside of Hamburg. The quote on the wall says “He who wants peace, talk of war”. Replica of a German A7V tank from World War I. The only genuine surviving article is in Australia. Inside the German […]
The Catacombs Under Odessa
June 13, 2018
From June 13, 2018: Today I went exploring in the extensive catacombs underneath the city of Odessa, Ukraine – one entrance to which you can see in the picture below, in the city outskirts. Most of Odessa’s catacombs were originally underground quarries for the stone used to build the city. But they became a vital […]
Measuring Radiation at Chernobyl
June 8, 2018
From a series of Twitter threads posted in June 2018: Welcome to Chernobyl, Ukraine, site of the world’s worst nuclear accident on April 26, 1986. I’ve come here on a special day-tour from Kyiv. The site is about 62 miles north of Ukraine’s capital, about 10 miles from the border with Belarus. At the start […]
On the Trail of Lawrence
March 28, 2018
The house of T.E. Lawrence in the desert of Wadi Rum, Jordan. In this thread, follow me in the footsteps of “Lawrence of Arabia”. T.E. Lawrence was a young English archaeologist and linguist, already experienced in the Middle East, who during World War I joined up as a British Army intelligence officer, based in Cairo. […]
Bouillon Cubes in Uruguay
March 31, 2017
In March 2017, my travel pics and WWI tweets converged in the western Uruguay town of Fray Bentos – home of the OXO bouillon cube. In 1840s, German scientist Justus von Liebig became convinced the common practice of boiling beef destroyed much of its nutritional value. In 1847, Liebig invented “meat extract” as a means […]
Top of the Andes
January 17, 2017
On my last day in Chile, I decided to leave Santiago and drive as high into the nearby Andes Mountains as I could, to the border with Argentina. Passing through the town of Los Andes, Chile, on the way to … the Andes. The road kept going higher and higher into the Andes, but at […]
Wild Pakistan, Part I
January 29, 2012
I thought I’d share some of my memories of my travels in Pakistan in the spring of 1992. Many of the places I visited would now be completely off-limits to an American traveling alone.
What’s It Like to Be a Tourist in North Korea?
August 16, 2010
An American business professor, Patrick Chovanec, visits fields, casinos, and kindergartens in North Korea — and explains how the Hermit Kingdom is and is not like Mordor.
House of the Living
May 10, 2010
May 10, 2010 A friend of mine recently sent me an old article of mine she happened to find. I wrote it many years ago, just after Mother Theresa passed away in September 1997. Due to a submission mix-up, it was never published. But it remains as relevant today as it was then, and I hope you don’t mind me […]
A Visit to North Korea, Part 6
November 13, 2009
Even though Kim Il-Sung died in 1994, officially he is still the “Eternal President” of North Korea. So when official visitors call, they are expected to present not one but two gifts, one to Kim Il-Sung and the other to his son, the country’s current ruler, Kim Jong-Il. All of these gifts are reverently collected […]
A Visit to North Korea, Part 5
October 16, 2009
The most tantalizing mystery about North Korea is its people. How do they live their lives, and what do they really think? Their belief system seems so alien, so isolated from all we know about the rest of the world, we wonder whether they have any sense of the disconnect or not – and if so, […]
A Visit to North Korea, Part 4
September 6, 2009
The only reason North Korea grants visas to Americans — with the exception of diplomats and exceptional guests like the New York Philharmonic — is to witness the Mass Games. The problem is, nobody knows exactly how long the Mass Games will run. They might be cancelled or extended at the last minute, and if they’re cancelled, […]
A Visit to North Korea, Part 3
August 29, 2009
The Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) may seem like an odd name for one of the most militarized places on the face of the earth. Just 30 miles north of Seoul, and 80 miles south of Pyongyang, it was the armistice line at the end of the Korean War: its winding contours stretching across the peninsula, 155 miles from east to west, mark […]
A Visit to North Korea, Part 2
August 25, 2009
When you arrive in North Korea, there’s a sense of unreality about it. I suspect even Bill Clinton, when he climbed out his private jet onto the tarmac at Pyongyang, must have wondered to himself, “Is this really happening? Am I actually here?” For most of us, North Korea seems to occupy the same imaginary […]
A Visit to North Korea, Part 1
August 23, 2009
From August 23, 2009 In October 2008, I traveled to North Korea. Before our departure, our group was informed that we marked roughly the 1,000th U.S. citizen to visit North Korea since the Korean War, over 58 years ago. In the wake of former President Clinton’s surprise visit to Pyongyang, to retrieve two imprisoned U.S. journalists, many people have […]
Memories of Old Kashgar
August 13, 2009
From August 13, 2009 It’s with a heavy heart that I read a report by Time’s correspondents that Chinese authorities have nearly completed bulldozing the ancient quarter of Kashgar, an oasis on the Silk Road in the far western province of Xinjiang. Old Kashgar and its famed Sunday market (which I’ve heard has also been shut down) […]