October 30 – Paris, France It is an unusually warm fall morning as I walk the quiet streets of Paris on my way to mass at Notre Dame. The streets are damp from rain the night before but this morning the sky is blue and cloudless. Paris mornings are typically slow, but this Sunday is even more tranquil as I navigate metro closures and join the stream of tourists crowding buses towards the cathedral. I worry I have missed the early mass until someone tells me Europe has “fallen back.” Suddenly I have a full hour to grab a coffee and croissant and look at souvenir stands. Soon the bells announce the...

Photo of the Day Another summer is in the books in Arizona and that means two of my favorite things are back on the regular schedule: Scooters and rocks.  But unfortunately, not at the same time. In Finale, my first Italian scooter ride couldn’t have been better as I jumped on the back of my roommate’s moto with a visiting friend and we sped off toward the rocks. The helmet case was converted into a rope box and we had our gear in one pack. We took the back road out of town careful to avoid the carabinieri – my friend did not have a helmet which is now a big no-no in Italy. On a spring afternoon...

Or Send the GFA to CANFEST 2011 The Third Annual CANFEST hits the rough and ready town of Reno, Nevada in November to celebrate just what you’d think – the best of craft beer available in the aluminum can. They’re sending one blogger to the festivities on their dime. While I don’t consider myself a beer blogger proper, they said it was open to all types of writers, so here it goes. Besides, how could CANFEST deny true love!   I ♥ canned beer Anyone who reads this blog or knows me in real life knows that I love canned beer. OK – maybe not as much as these guys. Well, yeah. Probably as...

This Easter was a good example of one of the best answers I have to the question of why I climb. Friday night I grabbed the fourth spot in a climbing quad going to La Spezia for the holiday weekend. The only thing on the agenda: climbing the walls of Muzzerone – a scenic area overlooking the heart of the Italian Riviera. La Spezia is a port town on the Gulf of the Poets which is something of a joke because at first glance, the only poets La Spezia might inspire would be Sylvia Plath or Edgar Allen Poe. The town has a fitting industrial and military feel with matching smells and sounds. But what La...

Things started early for a Saturday morning. Bago called at 7 am with a weather report: rain at Monte Cucco, and lots of it. My views one valley over and beachside were foggy but dry. Pier was next on the phone, shifting our start time back two hours. By 10:30 it was drizzly in Finale and still pouring on the mountain. Word from Pier: climbing would become hiking. But by the time we all coverged in Borgo, the weather – in a word – was brutto. Even walking around the piazza sounded like a bad idea. What was wrong with sitting in a café all day, Bago and I wondered, as we drank our second macchiato...