Months ago, Paul shared one of our favorite Edward Abbey quotes — a musing on wilderness from Desert Solitaire: We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to go there. I may never in my life go to Alaska, for example, but I am grateful that it is there. We need the possibility of escape as [...]
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On one of our first nights in our new place, Lisa met one of the staff from the local Chinese place on the street. It “served the best Chinese food in town,” the woman promised Lisa. We ordered take-out a few days later — they were right. When we first moved to Chicago, we lived around the corner from a place that bragged it served the best Chinese food in [...]
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Today is the third Thursday of November! Today is the day that Beaujolais Nouveau emerges from the temporary storage rooms of French wineries and makes its way around the globe, bringing joy to wine lovers (then leaving them with terrible, terrible hangovers on the third Friday in November). Oh, Beaujolais Nouveau…some people hate it a lot, some people hate it a little. I don’t know anyone who would say that they love the wine. For [...]
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The question we’re most often asked is: “What was your favorite place?” This question is impossible to answer, because we didn’t have one favorite place. I usually reply by listing a few places I loved, then pretty soon I find myself throwing out just about every single place we visited that I didn’t hate, while the questioner, having long ago lost interest in the answer, stares blankly at the ground. Now that [...]
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That’s what everyone says, right — “Ithaca is Gorges.” We have, at last count, three items in our (downsized) house that bear those three words. You can’t go anywhere here without seeing these three words stamped or printed or carved on every object imaginable. The phrase even has an entry in the urban dictionary. With that said, um…yes…this area is gorgeous. Reminding us of that fact on a regular basis [...]
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Why is it that people feel the need to post signs in restrooms telling you how to use the bathroom? We spotted so many — here are some of my favorites. 1. Rest area in Oklahoma: 2. Passive-aggressive note in a coffee shop in northern Wisconsin: 3. Campground in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado: 4. Public toilet in downtown Taos, New Mexico: 5. Olympic National Park Hoh Rainforest visitor’s center, [...]
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It’s coming up on the holiday season. The Black Friday Christmas buying binge is about to begin. It’s a difficult time of the year to be anti-stuff. But some stuff can save you money, make you more mobile, and help you travel. This is that stuff. These are perfect gifts to add to your Christmas list, give you favorite traveler, or buy yourself. Full disclosure: Amazon links contain affiliate tracking codes. We [...]
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Browsing around Ithaca Craigslist for couches, I spotted the “Strictly Platonic” section and was intrigued. We don’t have any old friends still living in the Ithaca area, and I don’t really know how to make friends anymore. Especially without a job (i.e. especially when I rarely leave the house). So, strictly platonic, you say. Why not? Here’s the first one that caught my eye: Couple seeking Coulpe – mw4mw – [...]
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This weekend, we were at Just a Taste in Ithaca and we thought we recognized our waitress. “Have you worked here for a while,” I asked. “Yeah. A loooooong time,” she said. “Like ten years? We haven’t been here for ten years and you look familiar.” “Longer than that,” she said. I knew it! One of the most fun parts of being back in the area is sampling our old [...]
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Our re-introduction to non-transient society has not been smooth. We arrived in Trumansburg on Friday to find our place still under construction (wet carpet, wet paint, wet roof). We ended up camping in the Finger Lakes National Forest instead, where we had our first rowdy camper expedience of the trip — our neighbors arrived drunk at 1AM, set up their tent in the rain, and attempted to start a bonfire [...]
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The Syndicate Wine Shop