in Fernie, B.C., Canada

I made it to Fernie. So far it looks really great and I'm glad to be here. As it turned out, I didn't take the bus at all. The day before I was going to leave by Greyhound bus, I decided to put up an ad on an online rideshare board. About 30 minutes later, I got a call from a girl who was driving from Portland up to Vancouver the next day to visit her boyfriend who lived there. So we made plans to leave the following day at noon. From there I was hoping to catch the same bus that I otherwise would have been taking out of Vancouver anyway. However, due to a few delays we left later than expected and wouldn't be able to catch that bus, so I made plans to stay at a hostel in Vancouver for the night, and then would catch the bus the next day.

Fortunately however, I got a call while we were driving, from someone else responding to my other ad that I'd posted on the Vancouver rideshare site. He was leaving the next morning, driving from Vancouver to Alberta, and would be going right through Fernie. He had a friend in Nelson along the way, and was planning to stay there for the night.

We left a little later than planned, as it tends to go, drove all day and then pulled into Nelson around 6pm. We hung out there for the evening, I got in a much-needed shower, slept in the guest room, and then we got up early and discovered that it was (not all that surprisingly) snowing. Not too much and not too hard, and besides the guy I was with had a Ford F150 with snow tires, so it handled the snow well. The first couple of hours of driving was all in the snow, then we dropped down in elevation and it was all clear roads the rest of the way to Fernie. As we pulled into town about noon, I saw the Greyhound bus that I would have been on all night if I had taken it.

The town looks like pretty much what I was hoping for, and it's a real relief to have no future travel plans for a while. I've been corresponding with someone online the past week or so who needs a housemate, so I'll probably check that out in the next day or two. In the meantime I'm staying at the Raging Elk hostel.

Although there's a little less snow than normal apparently, there's still plenty around, so I'm looking forward to getting out on my cross country skis. There's snow right in town so hopefully I can find somewhere to ski that I can just walk to, since I'm now without a vehicle. But it's a small town and easy to get around. And the runs for the downhill resort can be seen from town, looks pretty tempting so I'll hope to get a job soon enough that I can afford to buy some used downhill gear, and then hit the slopes sometime this winter. But for now it's fun just to be in the mountains in a small town, a long ways from the city. Seems like there are some pretty cool people, restaurants and shops, etc. around here as well, so I think it has everything I was looking for.

Slideshow of my travel photos (click here)

I've added a few older travels photos to my flickr account, from my 2007-2008 trip to Asia. Click the link above to see a slide show of my all-around best travel photos from Thailand, India, Nepal, Greece, Egypt and Turkey.

New publication (click here)

I have a new short piece in a book compilation of spiritual writings from 111 different authors (although mine of course manages to weave in a lot about traveling). Titled "One Page Wisdom", it also features Mike Dooley, the actor from the movie "The Secret", which explores various spiritual concepts and phenomenon. Click the link above to go to my writing website, where there's more info on the book (as well as my other publications). The book was just recently published, and so is now available.

Termessos ruins

The ancient village ruins of Termessos in southern Turkey:

Underground city of Derinkuyu

Here I am with Dianna in the underground city of Derinkuyu in Cappadocia, Turkey; in which an entire city was carved out of rock deep underground:

Painted cave church in Cappadocia

A small painted church carved out of rock in the Soganli Valley, Cappadocia, alongside countless cliff dwellings:

Cappadocia in central Turkey

This is the strange and beautiful landscape known as Cappadocia, one of the most amazing places I've visited in the world:

Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, Yosemite

I went hiking today at Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, in Yosemite National Park here in California (I'm visiting family nearby for the holidays). It was dammed in the 1930s (after much protestation from John Muir) but is still incredibly beautiful. Click the subject line above for some photos.

photos of Turkey (click here)

Click the subject line above to see a bunch of new photos from my travels with Dianna around Turkey.

Back in Antalya (click here for images of Pamukkale)

Dianna and İ are back in the medium sized city of Antalya, on Turkey's south coast, after a week of driving around western Turkey. Summing things up briefly, we left here in a rental car last Monday and drove to Kabak, near the town of Fethiye. Kabak is the last little village before the beginning of the 300-mile Lycian Way trek; which I had been considering doing on this trip, but which will have to wait for another time. We stayed for two nights in a little cabin in a gorgeous setting amidst beautiful mountains that hovered right over the sea.

From there we continued west to a small town called Koycegiz, that had some hot springs nearby that we wanted to check out, which turned out to be really nice. We stayed there another two nights. Then from there we headed north to Pamukkale, a popular tourist attraction and for good reason. Geothermal phenomenon there has created a bizzare landscape of white travertine with natural hot springs scattered all throughout a large area that looks something like frozen waterfalls cascading down white cliffs, but is actually a hard chalky substance. Click on the subject line above for photos to see what it looks like.

From Pamukkale we headed back east and spent one night at the small lakeside village of Egirdir. Today we continued south from there, stopping for a short hike in a national park, through trees shedding their leaves alongside a remote lake. Then we came back down to Antalya and are staying tonight in the same hotel where we stayed previously.

A couple of days ago we were making our travel plans, and decided to check for cheap flights online, since it's a long ways from here to Cappadocia in the center of Turkey. We lucked out and found dirt cheap tickets for $30 each. So we ended up booking flights from Antalya to Kayseri, near the Cappadocia region, and then from there back to İstanbul. We fly out of here tomorrow morning and will spend five days exploring Cappadocia, before flyıng back to İstanbul. Then we have just two full days in İstanbul before İ fly back to San Francisco, and Dianna flies back to Athens...Hopefully İ'll get the chance, either in İstanbul or else back home, to talk a little more ın detail about Turkey since İ've been skimming over things with short posts. And also İ'll be posting photos whenever İ get the chance, as well as videos. But for now it's time for us to find something for dinner, and then get some much-needed sleep before flying out in the morning.