Bob’s Report:

Curious how one thing leads to another. It all started at the local fitness club. In the bravado of a post-workout discussion we proposed adventures that would be a goal to keep our workouts both frequent and intense. The suggestion that appealed to us was to climb Mt. Rainier in Washngton State. We decided […]

According to political geograpy Turkey is half in Europe and half in Asia. But since it is ethnically and culturally closer to the Middle East I have categorized as such. With its strategic location on the Bosphorus peninsula between the Balkans and Anatolia, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, Istanbul has been associated with major […]

After coming off the Kyrgyzstan trek, Peter, our trip leader, had arranged for us to go to Samarkand in Uzbekistan before continuing on up to Tashkent for the flight home via a week in Istanbul Turkey. Beautiful…magical Samarkand…with more history than you can imagine. The population (412,300 in 2005) is the third-largest city in Uzbekistan […]

It is said, the sand was strewn on the ground to soak up the blood from the public executions that were held there until early in the 20th century. The Registan is where Tamerlane stuck his victims’ heads on spikes, and is where people gathered to hear royal proclamations, heralded by blasts on enormous copper […]

The fall of 1995 Bob and I joined an REI adventure tour company based in Seattle Washington on an 18 day trek in the highest and most dramatic part of the central Tian Shan mountain range of south Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. Uzbekistan Airways, flying in from New York, landed in Tashkent Uzbekistan where we […]

After our son Josh graduated from Whitman College, he joined his former roommate and friend, Phil, in Kauai where they were to spend a couple years working and repairing some cottages that belonged to Phil’s dad near Poipu Beach that were damaged in a hurricane September 1992. Hurricane Iniki caused more damage than any other hurricane […]

After two years on a waiting list my husband and I were finally able to spend 18 days paddle rafting the Grand Canyon…putting in above Flagstaff Arizona. We went with a company called “Azra”…not a cadillac company…but with knowledgeable and entertaining river guides who have been running the river for years. Highly recommended. We went […]