Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Been sitting in my bathtub. It's nice to own a bathtub, and to sit in it.

Canada, British Columbia, Vancouver

Checking in for the flight, the Canadian airline rep for Air China looked inside my passport and asked where I was going.

"Mongolia."

She flipped a couple pages of my passport and asked: "Where is your visa?"

"U.S. citizens don't need Mongolian visas." At least, they didn't last year. I hope that hasn't changed. Maybe should've checked on that.

Canada, British Columbia, Vancouver

Passed through downtown Vancouver on a Saturday night: the city is populated with nothing but stylish twenty-something-year-olds. Some French speakers.

U.S.A., Washington

Train is really the most comfortable way to travel. It's basically a moving building.

U.S.A., Oregon, Sherwood

Back to Mongolia next week.

U.S.A., Oregon, Lake Oswego

Talked to my brother on the phone this morning. He said there's been lots of wind in Dakota. He was driving the garbage truck back from the landfill the other day when suddenly he got passed... by a plastic bag. So of course he wasn't going to let that happen, so he stepped down on it, and this is a garbage truck mind you, so it was howling along. Couldn't catch that plastic bag. Realized that the plastic bag was somehow riding air off of the garbage truck, and it just floated along, out in front of the truck. Never did catch the bag. Took a tight corner and the bag sailed off across a field.

U.S.A., North Dakota

Nothing moves about in the North Dakota winter night. It is as death.