Whew! the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 has been a crazy time for the Roaming Parkers – just like for everyone else in the world!
Australian wildfires, threats of war with Iran and North Korea, and then worldwide CORONAVIRUS pandemic and financial meltdown!
This, our third year of Travel, Adventure, Conservationhas been a year of uncertainty and contraction – it looks like all of our foreign travel plans and most of our longer domestic travel plans are bust for the next year but we’ve still had some great local adventures!
Check out some samples of our best articles from our third year as The Roaming Parkers!
Travel
Greece’s great martial history
The Roaming Parkers are Greece-bound! This fall we are headed to Athens for a couple of weeks and we are totally looking forward to exploring southern and eastern mainland areas! But why Greece? What put that idea in our heads? I could probably rattle off a dozen reasons real quick, but today there is only…
Sounio’s Temple of Poseidon
The southernmost point of Attica, the mainland of Greece, has a remarkable ruin at Cape Sounio. Almost 3000 years ago, ancient bards like Homer sang ballads of the importance of Sounio as a trading port and refuge to which people would flee in times of war. You can still see remnants of the city center…
Marathon – more than a race
I suspect many of us have heard the story of the Battle of Marathon. Maybe not as many as have heard of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae because Marathon has not been popularized in a Frank Miller comic book and a big budget movie featuring mutants and ninjas – but Marathon was probably an even…
Adventure
Where the Wild Things Roam
Part 1 in a series For a long time I’ve pined to explore the Wild Azalea Trail south of Alexandria Louisiana – a national hiking trail that stretches from Woodworth Louisiana 24 miles through the Kisatchie National Forest to Valentine Lake near the town of Gardner Louisiana. Dispersed camping is allowed throughout, and it has…
Top 10 foreign backpacking destinations
A recent report at Globehunters has identified the top ten global hotspots for backpacking. Some of these immediately struck me as idyllic backpacking destinations and some of them took a minute or two of thinking about before I realized just how perfect they would be! Which one would you most like to hike through? FinlandDenmarkCanadaCzech…
Conservation
Lucy the lake monster
Our local Scout camp has been rated by Boys’ Life Magazine as one of the 8 Coolest Camps in the Country! Hood Scout Reservation has everything from a world-class shooting sports program to a fantastic COPE/Climbing program to an expansive aquatics program – and everything in between! Hood even has a handful of spooky cryptids,…
Pearl river – it’s kind of a big deal !
The Pearl River starts near Nanih Waiya, the legendary birthplace of the Choctaw nation in central Mississippi and runs southeast, gathering the waters of Strong river and Yockanookany before it flows through the Ross Barnett Reservoir and southward into Louisiana, where it subsumes the waters of the Bogue Chitto river and continues to the Gulf…
Where have all the turkey buzzards gone?
I was chatting with a naturalist buddy of mine a while back and he was talking about a trip he’d taken. He commented that he’d seen some buzzards and I asked, “Black buzzards of turkey vultures?” If you are not a connoisseur of buzzards, you may not know that around here (southeastern U.S.) there are…
Food
Disappointing melons dig at the heart of summertime
Summertime in the deep South is melon season, and few things are more synonymous with summertime around here as a sweet, ripe, chilled melon! Around Central Mississippi the epitome of the watermelon is a red Smith County watermelon. I don’t know why, but those Smith County melons simply outshine all others for sweetness and flavor.…
10 chefs & food personalities that inspired me
My mom! – Anyone that can cook 3 meals per day for a family of seven every day for 40 years is a master chef!Justin Wilson – I guarantee!Irma Rombauer Emeril Lagasse – BAM!Rachael RayPaula Dean – Everything starts with a stick of butter.Bobby FlayPaul PrudhommeAndrew Zimmern – try something new every so often!Michael Pollan…
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