I can really measure my life in coffee spoons. Here I sit again. In a café when a fresh cup of medium roast before me. It could be anywhere. Yet today it’s the Blue Line Café in the Dundee neighborhood of Omaha. Perhaps their suprisingly successful attempt at an urban youthful neighborhood with hipsters and beards and community gardens, microbrews and vintage shops selling floral blouses just recently pulled out of Grandmother Gertie’s closet. Slow jazz and gingham dresses and open mac books. We’re resting on the edge of reality folks. This is Omaha, Nebraska. Corn country. Cattle country. And the mega of metropolitan culture and avant-garde. Or perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. Give it a double shot of espresso and light years into the future and perhaps we’re looking at something radically different. But now my coffee is cold and the rain outside isn’t looking like much. Yet I like what I see, and I must admit the Crabbies Ginger beer at the Dundee Dell threw me back to Prescott’s Liqueur Deli nights with herb-infused flatbread pizza, gooey mozzarella and roasted tomato. And walking around the relatively quiet streets this morning, gawking at the warm brick homes and meticulously mowed, green lawns made me feel strangely familiar and at home with this city in the plains. After all, I entered this world screaming and naked in Omaha Nebraska one early October morning. Perhaps it’s the faintest, closest thing to home I could ever ask for. And the rose garden in memorial park cautioned me that life was too short and I really should just lie down in the grass, and watch the clouds slowly creep across the sky.

Currently claimed a seat next to Gate A49, waiting for my last leg of the journey to Chicago from Delhi. I just posted a photo of a portion of my very large host family in Srinigar, Kashmir. I’m very lucky to have stayed with them I think my experience in Kashmir would have been very different if I hadn’t met them. So long story short Srinigar was not on my list this summer, either was Leh. But I made the choice to go to Srinigar after I already bought tickets from Leh to Manali, then from Manali to Delhi. The road to Manali is pure hell on earth. The sights are out of this planet and the altitude you scale is incredibly cool. But not worth doing twice. So I sadly said goodbye to the money spent and booked a shared jeep with a Ladahki family and one boy from Delhi. I earned a high fever and headache about an hour. But once I got Sringigar it had been arranged to stay with Javid Reshi and his family. Which turned out to be about 20 people living in a large Kashmir style house along the placid shores of Dal Lake, in the quiet part of Srinigar. It was a wonderful three days spent. More to come later. Jet leg is creeping in.

Decided I was itching to get some elevation and chilled mountain air yesterday. So I wandered into a hiking group going on a day hike. I didn’t find out until trudging through muddy, slick forest trails in drenching, cold rain that I would be hiking a 15,000 foot high Himalayan peak. It was a cold, foggy, rainy day straight out of something from a Lord of the Rings film. I ventured up steep muddy, icy slopes in a thin jacket and sneakers. My companions were two experienced trekking guides and a German/Italian alpinist.  Then me, two bottles of water, short legs, and a small yak cheese sandwich. We stopped at 12,000 destroy make chai with goat milk in a small stone shepard hut. The fire warmed my stiff, cold  feet! The shepard stays up there for months with just two dogs and a herd of sheep and goats for company. As darkness came on the valley during our descent
down my guides told me a story of a black bear who scalped their aunt. Minutes later ahead could be seen in a tree, grunting at us from a far! Such an intense day!

Himalayan view during my hike to a 15,000 peak yesterday