Travels & Adventures
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| The old railway station at Crawford Notch; now operated by Appalachian Mountain Club. |
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Travels in the United States
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Mountain Climbing in the Northeast
 Even before moving to Boston in the winter of 1997, I frequently drove up to northern New England from New York City to go mountain climbing. My favorite and most frequent destination remains Mount Washington. I usually climb Mt. Washington at least once each year, typically going up the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail and down the Jewell Trail. In my subjective experience, these west face trails are less crowded and more enjoyable than most of the trails on the east face. I do, however, have a healthy respect for the Huntington Ravine Trail which I have only ascended twice. On four occasions when I was especially energized (and probably a little crazed), I drove up to Baxter State Park in Maine to climb Mt. Katahdin. (I only reached the summit on two of those four attempts.) Click on the picture at right to see some mountain climbing pictures.
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Travels in Europe
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Saddleworth and Environs
 My great-grand father emigrated from the mill country of the West Riding of Yorkshire England as a boy of six in 1870 with his adoptive father, Samuel Butterworth, to settle in Lawrence, Massachusetts with its own mills. In 1886 when he was about to marry Mary Haynes, his presumed mother, Ellen Butterworth (nee Manchester), explained to him that his name was not really John Thomas Butterworth, but actually John Thomas Wood. Indeed, he still had a father, William Wood, alive in Saddleworth, England. My trip to Saddleworth in May 2006 revisits many of the places that John Thomas's family had lived in and explores the lush hills of this famous woolen district.
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Travels in South Asia
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Darjeeling, India and its Land Rovers
 In the fall of 1995, I travelled throughout south and southeast Asia. One of the more spectacular places I visited during these travels was the hill station of Darjeeling in the northern reaches of West Bengal. Cool and clear with the great Himalayas towering in the distance, this town was also unusual for the extrarodinary preponderance of ancient Land Rovers which fill its streets. Click on the picture at right to visit my Darjeeling Page.
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Travels in Rajasthan
 In January 1998, I returned to Rajasthan, the fabled land of the maharajas and their great palaces. Many years earlier I had been to Jaipur, the pink city. This time I came to Rajasthan to visit the western outposts of Jodhpur and, a mere five minutes by air from the Pakistani border, the desert jewel of Jaisalmer. Both cities boast ancient forts rising out of the stark landscape and remind one of the images conjured up by tales of the Arabian Nights. The photographs which follow give a flavor of these two magnificent cities, including the Fort at Jodhpur, the incomparable Umaid Bhawan Palace, the markets and sights of Jodhpur, Jaisalmer city and fort, and the Narayan Niwas Palace in Jaisalmer. The Umaid Bhawan Palace is a real palace as well as an extraordinary hotel; the Narayan Niwas Palace is a pleasant well situated hotel in Jaisalmer which, like most Indian hostelries which use that term, never was (and never will be) a real palace.
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British Era Hotels of Sri Lanka
During my travels in Sri Lanka in February 1998, I had the opportunity to visit some wonderful old hotels, all of which dated back to many years before Ceylon (as it was then known) gained its independence from Great Britain. These include (or were to include) Queens Hotel, Kandy; Hotel Suisse, Kandy; Grand Hotel, Nuwara Eliya; The Hill Club, Nuwara Eliya; and the Galle Face Hotel, Colombo.
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Travels in India in January 2006
 The following pictures were all taken during travels in India in January 2006. The photographs show our visit to the Red Fort, Old Delhi and the Central Secrariat in New Delhi; views of Agra from the roof of the Sheraton Hotel; the town and lake at Udaipur including the Lake Palace Hotel and the abandoned Monsoon Palace castle; and the famous Hill Station of Shimla where the British used to move the government of India during the steamy summer months.
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Travels in South America
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Hotel Antumalal, Pucón, Chile
During our travels through Chile in November 1999, my wife and I stayed at the Hotel Antumalal in Pucón. Upon our arrival we discovered a long, low, modern building with a dozen or so rooms overlooking the vast Lake Villarica. The hotel, cut into the hillside above the lake, reminded me of Frank Lloyd Wright's Kaufmann home, Falling Water, in the woods of western Pennsylvania... This hotel has been called, quite rightly, the finest wilderness resort in South America.
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Travels in the Persian Gulf
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The Pearl in Doha, Qatar
In early June 2009, I went to Doha, Qatar for four days as a tourist. (I was traveling with my wife who was there on business.) We spent four nights at the Ritz Carlton Doha. The view from our hotel revealed the extraordinary scope of the construction underway in this Persian Gulf state. Looking out of my hotel room, I witnessed what I now describe as the twenty-first century equivalent of the construction of the great pyramids of Egypt: Day and night truck after truck delivered load after load of sand to a great and unknown mountain that was rising out of the desert less than a kilometer away. On my second morning there while my wife was working, I set off to wander through the Qatari desert. My explorations led me to The Pearl. The Pearl is a vast development complex encompassing a series of man made islands which, when completed, will house affluent ex-patriots some of whom will (according to the plan) work in Qatar's new international financial zone. I couldn't help wondering if the global recession may have put some of the construction projects on long term hold. The dozens of cranes visible across the horizon were all conspicuously idle. Time will tell whether or not the vision of The Pearl is ultimately fulfilled.
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