I'll Be Back

When we rendezvous in the San Juan Islands a week from today with fourteen people we first met on our 2015 Road Scholars trip to Alaska, it will be the fourth adventure we've shared with this group. Connecting with these folks has been one of the highlights of my post full time work life. If you're around my age looking for an active and educational way to vacation, as well as a way to meet like-minded travelers, I recommend checking out Road Scholars, nee Elder Hostels.

www.roadscholar.org

Before that rendezvous, my wife and I will hike for a few days in Olympic National Park, bringing us well past the 1/3 mark in our quest to visit all fifty nine national parks. The laptop will be packed soon after this post is published. But if past experience with wi-fi in some of the remote areas of the parks is any guide - never mind what service on the San Juan Islands will be like - it might be more quiet than usual here on the bell curve for the next few weeks.

In the meanwhile, you'll be needing recommendations, right? In order of amount of time required:
1.) Non-Fiction: "American Audacity" - William Giraldi (2018) (More in near future post, for sure)
2.) Fiction: "Less" - Andrew Sean Greer (2017)
3.) Film: "Juliet, Naked" -  adapted from Nick Hornby's novel; Ethan Hawke has never been better.
4.) Documentary: "The Center Will Not Hold" - re the national treasure that is Joan Didion.
5.) Recently uncovered music (thanks to a younger relative): Pearl Jam's rendition of "Little Wing"
6.) Cool new word just added to my vocabulary: hecatomb - any great slaughter. Extra points for any reader using hecatomb - appropriately - in a comment on my blog.

In words crooned immortal via Lennon & McCartney way before Ahnold grunted them - I'll be back.