Last summer, I walked to the highest village in Europe--Ushguli, Georgia--arriving during a power outage and just as the sun was setting, so all the houses were just illuminated by candles or oil lamps. I ended up running into a Georgian who spoke some Turkish, so I was able to arrange to stay in a little farmhouse for the night. Eating a meal of stew cooked over a fire, with a little matsoni and some pickled greens, by candlelight in a stone house, with only the rushing of the mountain stream outside, and the crackling of the cooking fire to disturb the medieval silence of that village was a truly beautiful experience. The above story is old, but Ushguli has changed a lot in the last 7 years, so I keep it as a memory of how the place used to be. Still an amazing experience. A few years later I walked the Colorado Trail from Denver to Durango. That was pretty amazing.

I can fix bike flats, bake a wicked apple pie, and get a fire going in a hurry. I can also make a good carbonara too now.

I can cook and clean? I was a linecook and dishwasher for about a year once, so I'm pretty fast at both.

Bicycling, mountain climbing, getting lost, eating well. Cast iron pans, ultralight camping gear, sandals, mountain lakes.