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A Bookish Saturday in Kingston
Here’s an interesting thing about being at a festival that celebrates books—there’s very little time in the day to sit down and read. I left my garage lodging after the sun was up and bicycled along...
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Letters Home: Betsy Kepes hears the good news in church with Jimmy Carter
Jimmy and Roselyn Carter and Betsy Kepes at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia. A lizard ran across the floor this morning during the short chapel service that begins the day here at Koinonia...
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Photo essay: The photography of war
From the section “Nature.” Photo: Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times/Redux. From “War is Beautiful” by David Shields, published by powerHouse Books. For a few years in the 1980s David Shields was a...
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Letters Home: A Gringa in Costa Rica, pt. 1
Part one – Heliconias Lodge – Swinging Bridges and Monkeys People from northern New York know about living on the edge, that it takes a long time to get to our homes from the rest of the world but that...
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Letters Home: A Gringa in Costa Rica, pt. 2
Part Two – Heliconias Lodge – Sign language and the dumb Gringa It is very uncomfortable to be speechless. I often make money by writing strings of words and I can fumble my way through a conversation...
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Letters Home: A Gringa in Costa Rica, pt. 3
Tapirs, Monkeys and Frogs It’s Saturday morning and we have the day off. After breakfast – rice and beans – the five of us gather water bottles and a few oranges. The volunteers at Heliconias Lodge now...
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Letters Home: A Gringa in Costa Rica, pt. 4
White Sand, Brown Pelicans, and Our Daily Walk to Nowhere On our last weekend in Costa Rica we walk down to Bihagua from Heliconias Lodge to catch a bus to the small city of Liberia. Our actual...
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Letters Home: Betsy Kepes in New Zealand, pt. 1
Rob Roy Glacier. Photo: Tom Vandewater Tramping in the Southern Alps of New Zealand The tourist town of Wanaka reminded me of Lake Placid as we pedaled through streets jammed with tourists and past...
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Letters Home: Betsy Kepes in New Zealand, pt. 2
A long ride on the Central Otago Rail Trail For a long-distance cyclist, 150 miles of scenic, almost flat road cleared of cars and trucks is a dream ride. Add in roadside cafes that serve tea and...
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Letters Home: Betsy Kepes in New Zealand, pt. 3
The Smell of Turnips – a Cyclist’s View of New Zealand Agriculture Betsy Kepes amid fields and hedges, next to a cabbage tree. One of my New Zealand friends teaches horticulture. Another one owns a...
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Letters Home: Betsy Kepes in New Zealand, pt. 4
Memorial notes commemorate 5-year anniversary of devastating earthquake. Photo: Tom Vandewater The human aftershocks of the Christchurch earthquake On our short flight from Auckland to Christchurch I...
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Letters Home: A thousand-year-old walking trail, the 88 temples of Shikoku
Photo: Tom Vandewater We’ve been walking for six days now, at every corner looking for the trail sign, a pilgrim in a big straw hat. People who follow this ancient circular route of 1,100 kilometers...
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Letters Home: A pilgrimage walk along the Pacific Ocean
Shikoku southeast coast. Photo: Tom Vandewater Japan is a small country with much of its land area the steep slopes of mountains. Wherever there is flat land it is reserved for agriculture with houses...
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Letters Home: Fueling a Japanese walking pilgrimage
Betsy Kepes digging into dinner. Photo: Tom Vandewater We are now in our third week of walking the Shikoku 88 Temple pilgrimage and we’ve been averaging fifteen miles a day. That means we have the...
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Letters Home: Heading out west by train
Question: How many days does it take to go from Canton, New York to Missoula, Montana on public transportation? Answer: I don’t know as it’s been three days and we haven’t gotten there yet. That’s the...
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Letters Home: Notes from a Forest Service nomad
Forest Service nomad Betsy Kepes/ Photo: Lee Van de Water I’ve been a nomad now for over thirty years, migrating every summer to the Rocky Mountains in Idaho to work for the United States Forest...
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Summer Reading: Two new books set in the North Country
Betsy Kepes talks with Todd Moe about Never Coming Back and Barn Stories https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/audio/betsykjune18.mp3 Never Coming Back by Alison McGhee (Houghton Mifflin...
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Letters Home: Betsy Kepes in Iceland
Hallo from Iceland Godard- waterfall of the gods with Maxine, a volunteer from Belgium. Photo: Betsy Kepes The weather in Iceland, even in July, is epic. Two days ago it was so windy was blown over as...
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Letters Home: Taking a quick dip in the Arctic Ocean
Walti and Balasz putting in trail stakes above the Arctic Ocean. Photo: Betsy Kepes Where I am living in east Iceland is far away from Reykjavik, the capitol and location of the only international...
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Bill McKibben’s first novel and a biography in poetry
Book Covers: “Radio Free Vermont,” Bill McKibben, Blue Rider Press, 2017 and “Building on River,” Jean Van Loon, Cormorant Books, 2018. Radio Free Vermont, Bill McKibben Who would have believed that...
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