Four years ago for our honeymoon, we traveled to the Grand Teton National Park. I fell in love with the Tetons immediately, head over heels. Teeth rising straight out of the earth, fierce and abrupt, like a hand simply slipped underneath and pushed. Yet the Tetons were familiar in their…

Last week I attended a talk by Daniel Handler at Hugo House. Handler was witty and intelligent and generous (and the topic, “bewilderment,” fascinating). During the Q&A, someone asked how many drafts he typically writes. If memory serves, he said three or four. …

Walking through the labyrinthine streets of the Plaka neighborhood in Athens, you don’t have to know that people have walked here for 7,000 years — you can feel it. Cobblestones worn by millennia of footsteps, the smell of roasting meat, the hot fecund air sticking to your neck. That citadel…

Empty your heart of its mortal dream. -William Butler Yeats Have you heard of “thin places”? It’s originally a Celtic term — the idea that some places on earth are “thin” and therefore closer to “the other side,” whatever that might be. Ireland is one of those places. Unless you’ve…

Get Lost — Sometimes you take a wrong turn and find yourself on a gravel road in an unknown mountain pass with no AC. Like last year and the year before, we knew we wanted to head east — out to the desert, where muted rainbow hues splash the landscape and molasses-thick air…

What once would induce boredom brings on something new and foreign; you become unfocused. Like any born-and-bred American, road trips are in my DNA. Growing up, they were an integral part of family vacations. We never did any truly epic routes — the longest was Seattle to Santa Monica, with…

This is what happens when you travel to a yurt in the desert and read Barry Lopez. — photo by LD Oxford Drive east on highway 90, past suburbia and floating bridges until you hit the top, the mountain pass with the ski resort to the north and the long lake to your south. Everything looks the same for a while, until suddenly the trees stop. One second…

You can’t say no to The Bartender. — photo by LD Oxford “Can I help you?” “Oh, we were hoping to get a drink at the bar, but it looks like it’s full?” “One moment.” The bar was incredibly inviting — hexagonal tile on the floors, dark wood at the bar and dark leather on the booths. Huge…