Thorung la pass, Annapurna Circuit

I’m heading out today for a three week trip to Nepal. It will be my second visit to Nepal, but my first into the mountains there. The schedule calls for two days in Kathmandu, then into the western Himalayas. I’m trekking the Annapurna Circuit with son Tim and nephew Scott. Scott and I jump off the trail at day seventeen, spending a day and evening in beautiful Pokhara, followed by a night in Kathmandu, then the long journey home. Tim is staying behind to continue trekking, returning home ten days later.

This will be my sixth long-haul to that part of the world. After the fifth trip in 2009, I vowed never again. But here I go. The logistics are painfully simple: A one-hour flight from Portland to Baltimore, where I will catch up with Tim and Scott. In the evening we head to Dulles, outside of DC. There we board a non-stop flight to Doha, Qatar. That flight is fourteen hours and forty-five minutes. We have ten hours on the ground in Doha, in an airport we are not allowed to leave. Then we catch the shuttle to Kathmandu. Four hours, forty minutes.

The return trip stretches out an additional five hours and change, due to the earth’s rotation and headwinds.

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I’ve queued up a number of posts. Some are new, a few are re-posts, and a smattering are drawn from my Gentlemen of Baltimore project. I hope you enjoy the offerings. I don’t anticipate updating …house… while traveling. However, I do hope to put up an occasional trip report and photo(s) on Facebook. Please feel free to “friend” me (what an odd thing to write), if you want a peek or two from the trail.

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Should you be interested, my travel reading is:

• Essayists on the Essay, Carl H. Klaus and Ned Stuckey-French, editors (analogue)
• The latest Paris Review (#200) (analogue)
• The last six New Yorkers (I’ve been saving up my favorite plane reading.) (digital)
• A field guide, Birds of Nepal (analogue)
• Don DeLillo’s Falling Man (digital)

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Lastly, I’m not sure how that post marking the death of Henry David Thoreau popped up Sunday. That is a repost and I had, I thought, scheduled it for publishing on the day of his death, May 6th. Please, let’s all remember Henry on that date. If you feel compelled, whisper moose then Indian and take a moment to remember the zen master of Walden.

Thanks for reading.