My friends are running down the lane without their pocket handkerchief crying “I’m going on an adventure!”
Craig Rullman is off to the dark forests of Germania where he will embed with his old Marine outfit, which is training troops from the Republic of Georgia to — well, I presume they’re being trained to be an effective tripwire if the Bear decides it wants to bite off another chunk of the old Soviet Republics. I am expecting interesting dispatches from the front.
Rullman may have flashbacks of a previous Germanic incarnation…Art by Angus McBride
Macgregor Hay is heading to Edinburgh for the legendary Book Fair, where he will interview the author of a new and definitive account of the Battle of Culloden. He is going to explore the ongoing resonance of that obscure battle on the moor, and the similarities between the harrowing of the Highlanders and the dispossession of the North American Indian peoples.
Clan Macgregor will represent in Scotland.
Art by Angus McBride
And Lynn Woodward, who is responsible for making this site look good and is designing “Warriors of the Wild Lands,” will soon be riding the steppe in Mongolia, as part of a mounted archery event. Talk about going back to the source…
Woodward is off like a shot to the homeland of mounted archery…
I won’t lie: I’m more than a little jealous. Won’t complain. I’ll spend the next couple of weeks gigging, hiking and getting the “Warriors” manuscript in final shape for formatting, galley proofing and printing. All worth endeavors, if not terribly adventurous.
But I’m tellin’ ya, come the autumn, I will not be able to withstand the impulse to fling open the door of my own hobbit hole and fly down the lane on my own furry feet into The Wild on a quest for adventure. Must go There And Back Again…
lane batot says
What GREAT adventures upcoming! Perhaps they’ll “guest post” about them? Or, J. C., you’ll interview them when they return? Just remember though(when you go There And Back Again) to pack enough supplies for 2nd breakfasts…….
JimC says
Second breakfast is crucial! All ail be reporting for The Nugget — and I’ll post up as appropriate. Lynn will no doubt have some spectacular photos.
lane batot says
AWRIGHT! We can all live vicariously through their stories! Be SURE and INSIST Lynn take photos of Mongolian DOGS for moi! By-the-by, you read Bodio’s newest “Hounds Of Heaven” yet? I got mine this past weekend and couldn’t put it down–finished it toot-sweet! I can REALLY relate, of course, two of my pack of ten being Tazis related to his bloodlines…..The WHOLE book is great, of course, but the purchase price IS worth the cover art by Vadim Gorbatov alone! You DO know Vadim’s stuff? He has a website, of course–stuff tailor made for Frontier Partisans illustrations…….
LynnW says
Hi Lane, I am most fond of dogs and wolves myself, and yes, I hope to encounter them, so will shoot them for you (with pixels not arrows). I have read that the greeting one hollers upon arriving a safe distance from a ger (yurt) is not any form of “hello;” it is “hold your dogs!”
And yes, I am bringing some food with me, as I can’t agree more, 2nd breakfast is crucial. Perhaps I am part hobbit? I read The Hobbit about 15 times in my childhood, so the osmosis could have affected my appetite.
The road goes ever on and on…
JimC says
“Hold yer dogs!” I am adopting this as a general expression. Safe journeys, fine adventures and may the hair on your toes never fall out.
lane batot says
AWRIGHT Lynn W!!! Be sure and try to see both Tazi/Saluki-type sighthounds(I HAVE two Tazis from recent Kazakhstan bloodlines!) and whatever Livestock Guardian types they may have–and heck, ANY type of dogs they keep! Have you read “Wolf Totem” by the Chinese author(that became a BESTSELLER in China!) about the Mongols in Inner Mongolia? Excellent tale of nomads, wolves, people, and that damned march of “Progress”….and ALSO, it should be MANDATORY for you to watch before you go(if you haven’t already!) the FILM by the same title made from the book–“Wolf Totem”–I think they did a superb job! I think it is viewable on Youtube(I got my own DVD copy, of course!). One thing I LOVED about it is they acquired, raised, and trained a pack of REAL Mongolian subspecies wolf for the film–and got some INCREDIBLE scenes with them! They were NOT so accurate or concerned about the dog-types, I don’t think(alas)……Both the book and film I HIGHLY recommend to ALL “Frontier Partisans”!
Breaker Morant says
With Outlander raising interest in the subject it would be a good time to have a Culloden book out.
Per Mongolia-Ewan MacGregor and Charlie Boorman (a lesser known actor) have two TV series out based on Motorcycle trips-I really like these 2 shows,
“Long Way Around” which is a trip around the world from London to New York. Kazakhstan,Mongolia, and Siberia are the core of the show. Worth watching just to hear the oft repeated phrase-“Road of Bones” which is through the Gulag Country in Siberia.
“Long Way Down” is from the top of Scotland to Cape Town. This series has the coolest thing I have ever seen on TV. Water goes down the drain one way in the Northern Hemisphere and the other way in the Southern Hemisphere.
They were in Kenya at the equator and did a test. 20 meters north of the equator the water drained the northern hemisphere way. Right on the equator, the water went straight down with no swirl and 20 meters south of the equator, the water went the southern hemisphere way.
I am totally gobsmacked to this day that the line is that definite.
lane batot says
Yeah it’s a small world! I haven’t seen any of the TV series, but I have Charlie Boorman’s and Ewan McGregor’s BOOK “Long Way Around”(I THINK it’s the same title….)–GREAT travel adventures, for sure! This would be THE Charlie Boorman that was in his dad’s movies “Excalibur”(as a SCARY little kid) and another favorite of mine, “The Emerald Forest”(as a well-growed, mostly nekkid, savage teen-ager)–that we have discussed on this here blog! Small, small, world. I wonder if’n Saddle Tramp ever got his copy of “The Emerald Forest”(and actually watched it–just HAVING a copy of something don’t mean much until one WATCHES it–ahem!)…….
Keith West says
I’m not familiar with “Long Way Around”, but I’m going to have to see it. My son is adopted from Kazakhstan, and maybe some of the sights will be familiar.
Breaker Morant says
The Kazakhstan part of the trip was very frustrating for them. MacGregor was at the height of his Star Wars fame then and they were given a lot more police escorts across the country than they would have liked.
Although, I think it was in Kazakhstan where they were served horse penis-so that was funny with a lot of ribald humor.
JimC says
Oh. My. You haven’t lived until you’ve been served horse penis.
Keith West says
I ate horse one when I was there, but not horse penis.
Breaker Morant says
A British term from the show that I like is “Cuds” for the remote areas. They were told during training for the trip that you can always find somebody who knows how to weld out in the Cuds-because they have to be able to fix stuff there.
VS says
Definitely some enviable trips! When I was in high school and college I was enamoured with the Jacobite Rebellions–I’d like to visit the site of Culloden one day. And Mongolia?! Heck yes! I’d want to follow in the footsteps of Roy Chapman Andrews.
By the way–I just supported your book on Kickstarter. Now begins the long wait until November.
JimC says
Thx V! Be here before you know it.
Keith West says
“I’m more than a little jealous.”
So am I.
lane batot says
….and a coupla things–I checked Amazon, “Wolf Totem”, the BOOK, is still available dirt cheap, hardback or paperback(Jiang Rong, the author). The film, on DVD is ALSO available cheapo, Blue Ray a bit more. I have an old-fashioned 19 inch tube TV that suits me just fine, but I DID take my DVD “Wolf Totem” when invited to do so to a friends’ house, where we all watched it on their ginormous flat screen–WOW! The plains and mountains of Inner Mongolia were SPECTACULAR on the BIG screen!…..
lane batot says
…..AND; did I ever tell you guys how I(finally) got to read Tolkien’s “Lord Of The Rings” trilogy(and “The Hobbit”)? If so, please excuse me for redundancy….. When I went to Africa(Tanzania), lo, those many years ago, “working” for Jane Goodall, living in Gombe forest with wild chimpanzees and baboons(some of the BEST primates I’ve known….), it was just me, her, and her son Grub at the camp at night, and about our only “entertainment” by the campfire(our only source of light and cooking at night), on the shores of fresh water Lake Tanganyika(admittedly, THAT was “entertainment” enough!), was telling stories, including books we’d read and movies we’d seen. Jane often said she “had me out” because I had SO MANY stories/adventures to relate! A story-teller is considered VALUABLE in that kind of setting! And that’s where Jane and I had some SERIOUS(ahem!) “Tarzan” discussions! Anyway, both Jane and Grub were MORTIFIED to learn I’d never read any Tolkien, and they sometimes had in depth discussions about hobbits and orcs and wargs and elves, and dwarves and a dragon(etc. etc.) that I could not begin to join in on. Ignorant bloody yank, me!(I DID havta correct lots of those ignerrint furriners that I WAS NOT a Yankee, just cuz I was Uh Marikin!). Fast forward about a year later–I was back in the states, checking my mailbox, and I had a thick package. It was ALL of the Tolkien tales–“The Hobbit” and the “Lord Of The Rings” trilogy, from Jane! I still have those now ragged copies. And you can bet I can join in with just about any Tolkien geek at least enough to be respectable! I LOVED Peter Jackson’s films, too–MY favorite characters, books and movies, are the ENTS, wouldn’t you know!
JimC says
Of course the Ents are your favorites. I can do a mean Treebeard myself…
Great story.