My Portfolio

  On the road…. again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   N is Nigeria One of the stopover countries, Nigeria will always come to mind because of the stories associated with it.  As we ate dinner at the home of a newly arrived USAID program officer in Cape...

The young man at the garage in Cork ambled over to our car.  His thinly veiled annoyance made it clear he saw us as an interruption in his day.  I put on my best smile and said, “I’ve had a blowout and need to get a tire repaired.”  He looked surprised...

On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   G is for Ghana   Only after Ghana defeated the United States in World Cup soccer in 2006 did it occur to the Footloose Forester that a Ghana story might get somebody’s attention.  The name Ghana was tossed around...

I once learned a valuable lesson about travelling in a foreign country – always know where you are and where you are going. Seems obvious, I know, but it can be surprisingly easy to get lost. I was in my 20s when I went to Europe one October. My husband, Brian,...

  On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   L is for Laos Laos is as exotic a country as most people will ever visit.  In the 1960s when the Footloose Forester first visited, the market place reeked of the distinctive smell of marijuana in the...

On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   T for Thailand Two weeks was the limit for a visa to Thailand, so the Footloose Forester too soon had to leave the vacation atmosphere of Bangkok and seek adventure elsewhere.  Vacation, yes, since eating good food everyday and...

I love animals and I love to travel so when the opportunity to combine these passions presents itself, I rarely pass it up. That is how my husband, Mike, and I found ourselves at the top of a mountain in Mexico surrounded by millions of butterflies in the winter of 2008....

For a girl who had never been far from home, flying to Cancun was a big adventure. I was going with my new husband, Greg, on our honeymoon and this man was someone I wanted to travel with. In my previous life(before Greg I had always found excuses about why not...

On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Backpackers   Part I As the two-year Peace Corps assignment in Pakistan was coming to an end, the Peace Corps Representative in Lahore began setting up the details for a return flight to the USA for a restless Footloose...

On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek Nightmares and Daydreams of Indonesia   Of all the many memories of foreign lands that are among the very deepest in the conscious and sub-conscious thoughts of the Footloose Forester, more of them are about Indonesia than elsewhere. Sleeping in...

On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek J for Jordan Being in Jordan during the mid-1960s was a bit of good news-bad news for a Footloose Forester hoping to take a dip in the Dead Sea and spending a day in the western part of Jerusalem. Merely...

On the road… again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Mist in the Volcanoes Anyone wanting to adventure and drink in the wonders of nature at the same time might consider visiting a few volcanoes. The fearsome earthquakes and tsunamis of the last two decades are reminders of...

On the road....again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Montmartre, 1963   Joe Pellek Enjoyed Watching The Parisians From His Table At The Right Once again, thanks to the Internet and the power of sharing photos attached to e-mail messages; and those found on web pages, the Footloose...

Our accommodations at the whale camp were serviceable but Spartan. We were provided with cots and sleeping bags in small tents on the beach. Because it was a desert—and February—the temperature dropped sharply when the sun went down and how the wind howled! Each night I waited for our tent to...

Last stop on our 2009 summer vacation was to Carlsbad Caverns.  The cave offered a refreshing coolness from the heat of the summer sun.     We traveled deep into the earth . . .       and saw stalagtites, (Stalagtites hold "tight" to the cave ceiling) . . ....