Blogging will be sporadic, or maybe nonexistent, for the next week as I head for the Mysterious East (Virginia) for M.’s family reunion. <\/p>\n
I do want to make a little bit of a pilgrimage along the way, and if it happens, I’ll blog it.<\/p>\n
Right now, I am obsessed with the thought of flying into a strange airport, renting a strange car, and driving three hours at night through a mostly unfamiliar area to find a place that I have never seen before.<\/p>\n
Unlike your typical road warrior<\/a>, I have to do that only about once a year.<\/p>\n Really, it’s nothing compared to what some people have faced:<\/p>\n I had decided quite definitely that if I could find the right kind of Kurdish brigand \u2014 and the hills around Kuchan were infested with them \u2014 then by means of a goodly sum of money which I felt confident of getting, and the promise of some plunder into the bargain, I would be able to get through the mountains with explosives.<\/em><\/p>\n Now that is what is meant by “travel, not tourism.” It’s from The Spy Who Disappeared<\/em><\/a> by Reginald Teague-Jones<\/a>, a memoir of his months in the Caspian Sea region during the Russian Civil War.<\/p>\n My pilgrimage connects with that era too.<\/p>\n But I all I need is someone helpful at the Avis<\/a> counter, not Kurdish brigands. (Imagining an Avis counter manned by Kurdish brigands … Like this?<\/a>)<\/p>\n At least we can come back by train.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Blogging will be sporadic, or maybe nonexistent, for the next week as I head for the Mysterious East (Virginia) for M.’s family reunion. I do want to make a little bit of a pilgrimage along the way, and if it happens, I’ll blog it. Right now, I am obsessed with the thought of flying into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-1033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-gF","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6313,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6313","url_meta":{"origin":1033,"position":0},"title":"Ayahuasca Tourism and Pagan Holidays","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 7, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Kira Salak, a writer for National Geographic, has a good article published on her ayahuasca pilgrimage to Peru. But she can't call it a that. It was \"a lark,\" at least the first time: And then there is me, who a year ago came to Peru on a lark to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"entheogens\"","block_context":{"text":"entheogens","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=entheogens"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9681,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9681","url_meta":{"origin":1033,"position":1},"title":"UFOs, Bigfoot, and Economic Development in the Coal Camps","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 25, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Three little towns in Fremont County, Colo., are referred to collectively as \"the coal camps.\" Rockvale, Coal Creek, and Williamsburg all housed coal miners of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I don't know when their populations originally peaked \u2014 maybe in the 1920s. They had a reputation for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/welcome-to-rockvale.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4337,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4337","url_meta":{"origin":1033,"position":2},"title":"This Is How It Begins","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I saw this video at The Wild Hunt this morning and wanted to give it more circulation. It is beautifully done \u2014 a visual reflection on one person's (?) or a small group's (?) clandestine effort to revive a Pagan pilgrimage in the ancient Lebanese city of Sidon, an observance\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Lebanon\"","block_context":{"text":"Lebanon","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=lebanon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":835,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=835","url_meta":{"origin":1033,"position":3},"title":"Gallimaufry","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 When driving east from Colorado, I often make a short pilgrimage to Carhenge.\u2022 BeliefNet has cut me off again. Restoring this blog to BlogHeaven is a \"top priority,\" my contact there said. That was three days ago. Again, I am baffled; I have not changed my RSS or Atom\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2232,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2232","url_meta":{"origin":1033,"position":4},"title":"An American Goddess","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"After a mere 150 years (the Vatican's wheels turn slowly), the Roman Catholic church has decided that Mary really did appear in a Wisconsin chapel, now a popular pilgrimage site. In one striking sign of a divine presence ... the shrine\u2019s grounds and the terrified crowd who gathered there were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7925,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7925","url_meta":{"origin":1033,"position":5},"title":"Passing of Nikki Bado","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I was just informed today of the passing of an old friend and colleague in Pagan studies, Nikki Bado, who taught at Iowa State University. She had been on medical leave for the last year or so, and apparently suffered a heart attack after her last surgery. I have forgotten\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"nikki","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/nikki.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}