Do You Need Hope?

I decided to write this book because I was struggling with thoughts like these: 

“If I died right now, that would be fine with me. Life would go on just fine without me.”

“Why should I keep on going? I’ve got nothing to look forward to.”

"What’s the point? Why should I bother getting out of bed today?”

I realized that I was missing meaning in my life (please read the back cover of my book in the photo above) and the things I tried to bring meaning to my life weren't working.

I realized that my focus on finding meaning was based in my own strength and not on God's strength. That is when I remembered that the most meaningful moments in my life involved God working in amazing, surprising, supernatural and simple ways. 

By recounting my own personal stories of God's activity, I hope that you will also remember your own similar stories and say to yourself, "Yes. Something similar happened to me! I just didn't realize it might be God trying to get my attention." 

Then, by recognizing the Divine in your life, you can begin moving toward hope with the realization that God loves you and wants you to find true meaning in your life that will satisfy.

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If you would like to read more about my amazing travel (mis)adventures, then please check out my books on my Amazon author's page. Just Click Here

Become a Better Traveler

What if you could become a better traveler by learning from the outrageous adventures of a global nomad and enjoy a good laugh while doing so? Would you like to become an expert traveler the easy way—by learning from someone else's mistakes?

Pushed From a Train, a collection of misadventures and everyday encounters, teaches practical travel skills and life lessons learned the hard way while the author lived and traveled in China, Ethiopia, Mexico, Slovakia, Morocco, Albania, Brazil and other countries for over 17 years.  

For example, what should you say when picked up under suspicion of terrorism by the Mexican military police? What steps should you take to avoid being scammed by a swarthy sailor in Casablanca? How do you escape imprisonment by an angry Hungarian border guard? In this book you will learn from these and other international experiences in addition to gaining valuable travel advice such as how to prepare for any trip and how to make your next journey a one-of-a-kind adventure.

If you want to laugh and learn and if you love to travel, then pick up this book and begin to live life with the perspective of a global nomad.

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HERE IS A 90 SECOND INTRO VIDEO ABOUT MY BOOK: 

All My Books: 

If you would like to read more about my amazing travel (mis)adventures, then please check out my books on my Amazon author's page. Just Click Here

A child needs your help.

I believe that one of the greatest privileges in life is the opportunity to help someone else, and who is more deserving than a child.  I support my children through World Vision and I highly recommend this organization as reliable, accountable, well-organized and invested in helping children and their communities to take charge in improving their own lives. I would like to persuade some of my readers to support one or more children, too!

Please check out this link about supporting a child in any country you choose: Choose a child

There are so many children in the world who you can help with just $35 per month.  This money will help provide supplies for the child's education, medicine for when they are sick, and infrastructure improvements within the child's community.

Please check out this link about supporting a child in any country you choose: Choose a child

Thanks so much for your help and generosity.  I thank you and your child will thank you!

National Geographic Nature Photography Competition

I just entered two photos in a National Geographic photo competition.  If you would like to help by voting for my pics, please click on these links and "like" my photo on Nat Geo's competition page. Thanks!

Photo #1: Puffin in the Daisies   Click here to vote for this photo.

Photo #2: Sunset Scorpion  Click here to vote for this photo

Thanks so much for your help!  :)  

My Books: 

If you would like to read more about my amazing travel (mis)adventures, then please check out my books on my Amazon author's page. Just Click Here

Ifrane: Birds and Blooms

I even wrote a book dedicated to Ifrane. It is called My Middle Atlas Forest.  Check it out below!

My Books: 

If you would like to read more about my amazing travel (mis)adventures, then please check out my books on my Amazon author's page. Just Click Here

ONE HUNDRED AIRPLANES CRASH, KILLING 26,500!

"ONE HUNDRED AIRPLANES CRASH, KILLING 26,500."  

Imagine if this was the headline today! Think of all the pandemonium this would create across the world. 

Now imagine that the very next day,100 more airplanes crashed...and 100 more the next, and the next and the next. It is unimaginable that something this terrible could ever happen.  

BUT IT DID--AND IT DOES! 26,500 CHILDREN DIED TODAY from preventable causes related to poverty, and it will happen tomorrow and the next day and the next.  

10 MILLION CHILDREN PER YEAR!!  

So why isn't this in the news?

HERE'S WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. (Pick any or all of these): 

Give Clean Water

Give $420 worth of Medicine for just $35

Give Life-Saving Food and Care

Save a Family from Malaria

Thanks so much for helping!  :)

Children protected from malaria by a bed net.  A simple way to prevent the worst killer on the planet--the mosquito!

Living in Moroccan Paradise: Ifrane National Park

No, this isn't a re-make of a Weird Al Yankovic song.

There really is a Moroccan paradise.  

Cedar trees ring an ancient crater at center.  Another crater is visible at center right.

Imagine burnished blue skies and crisp mountain air.  Can you smell the clean aroma of cedar wafting on a warm summer breeze?  See the golden colors of yet another blazingly perfect sunset, then gaze up at Orion as he wields his bow across the northern sky.

Hear the rustle of fallen leaves under your feet as you wander the silent oak forest.  Then in winter swish your way through the swirling snow as boughs pregnant with snow threaten to unburden themselves under the next landing of a leaping macaque.

This is Moroccan paradise, and its name is Ifrane.

TO SEE THE PARADISE I JUST DESCRIBED, CLICK HERE OR WATCH BELOW:

"Ifrane?  Where's that?"

This might be your question upon hearing the name of the home I love.

Ifrane is a small mountain town in the Middle Atlas mountains of Morocco, well-known by Moroccans but little-known to foreign tourists.

But Ifrane should be on your list of places to visit during your travels in Morocco!  Let me tell you why I love Ifrane:

1.  The town of Ifrane

Ifrane is a peaceful mountain town of approximately 40,000 set at the refreshing altitude of 1,665 meters (5,460 feet).  This altitude means that Ifrane is cooler than most lowland Moroccan cities during the hot summer months and it experiences all the seasons with brilliant fall colors (though of a limited spectrum)...

 ...AND the occasional heavy snowfall.

TO SEE IFRANE AS A WINTER WONDERLAND CLICK HERE OR WATCH BELOW:

I enjoy the usual lack of traffic (except when Moroccan tourists crowd in to see the snow), the pristine air, and plenty of trees and flowers beautifully landscaped around the town.  A few good restaurants in the quaint centre ville add to the pleasant ambiance, and the town is small enough that you can walk everywhere.

Centre Ville (Town Center) of Ifrane

2.  The Cedar and Oak Forests

Living in a peaceful, stress-free town is nice, but what I really love about Ifrane is the surrounding countryside!

The oak forests that cover the hills around town look very similar to the scenery of southern California.  Most of the oak trees are surprisingly evergreen, so you can enjoy one of Morocco's really green areas even in the winter.

Oak forest.

The oak trees do lose their leaves, but not all at once.  New leaves grow only at the tips of the branches and older leaves further down the branch eventually drop to the ground leaving a pleasantly crunching carpet under your feet as you wander through the forest.

But the grandest of all trees is the Atlas cedar!  These magnificent giants tower to 35 meters (about 100 feet) and are up to 2 meters (7 feet) in diameter.  The countryside around Ifrane and Azrou is the best place to enjoy the cedar forest with 3 long chains of mountains, the closest only 5 minutes by car from the center of town.

Me at the foot of "Granddaddy Cedar."

The mightiest cedar of them all!

3.  The Wildlife

Morocco is, admittedly, not a safari destination, but Ifrane does have a variety of wildlife, including the charismatic Barbary macaque.

Many European bird species pass through Morocco during fall and spring migrations.  So far I've checked off 85 species in my bird guidebook.  My favorite is the hoopoe, but I also like raptors such as the short-toed eagle.

Short-toed eagle

You might be lucky enough to spot a wild boar in the woods.  Males can be quite large measuring 1 and 1/2 meters high at their shoulder hump.  The piglets are extremely cute with their spots and stripes!

TO SEE WILD BOAR IN IFRANE CLICK HERE OR WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW:

And, of course, there is the entertaining Barbary macaque, the largest population of which lives right here in Ifrane's cedar forest. It is good fun to watch them leaping from branch to branch and seeing the cute wrinkly babies in spring is a treat.

4. The Flowers

If you love flowers, then you should be in Ifrane from mid-May to early June.  Fields of scarlet poppies are common, not to mention a colorful cornucopia of violet, yellow, white, pink, blue and purple flowers that I wish I knew all the names of!  :)  Anyway, I love to photograph them all and can enjoy their beauty without knowing all their names.   Springtime is also the greenest time in Ifrane when the hillsides are covered in verdant grasses benefiting from the snowmelt and spring rains.

TO SEE MORE GORGEOUS FLOWERS AND BIRDS WATCH BELOW: 

5. Hiking and Mountain Biking

Ifrane is an ideal location for hiking a mountain biking, and I've made my own list of 45 trails in the area (and still adding more!).  There is nothing quite like having a silent forest all to yourself as you listen to the breeze in the cedar branches and watch a black kite soar overhead.  

TO SEE 3 GREAT HIKES IN IFRANE CLICK HERE OR WATCH BELOW:

Atlas cedar forest.

I often like to ride my mountain bike to one of my seven favorite spots--Kolin's Korner-- and read a book under a towering tree. I leisurely eat my lunch and read for a couple of hours, then tear off through the woods on my mountain bike across trails I've cleared,  finally arriving at home feeling invigorated and refreshed!

At the top of the Azrou Cliff.

For hikers, there are several interesting geographical features to visit such as (these are my names since they aren't named on the map) the Fox Bowl--an extinct volcanic crater 50 meters deep and circled by cedar trees; Raven's Roost--a rocky promontory that commands a spectacular view of the Azrou valley; the Azrou cliff--a precipitous drop that overlooks the town of Azrou; and the Sinkhole--a deep vertical shaft circled by cedars, whose cliffs are home to roosting owls, wood pigeons, and choughs, and whose boulder-filled bottom shelters a pair of foxes.

Hiking in deep snow among the cedars.

For mountain bikers, you can head off into the woods just over the hill from the Shell station and explore some of the old logging paths, but if you want to discover some of the best trails I would have to show you.  Some of their names might whet your appetite: the Panorama Trail, Sunday's Seven Hour Suicide Ride, the Cone, Rock and Roll, Macaque Supertrack and my very own 29 kilometer Tour d'Ifrane.

TO SEE MOUNTAIN BIKING IN IFRANE WATCH BELOW:

I even wrote a book dedicated to Ifrane. It is called My Middle Atlas Forest.  Check it out below!

My Books: 

If you would like to read more about my amazing travel (mis)adventures, then please check out my books on my Amazon author's page. Just Click Here