Straight to God's Ear
Dogs howling at the moon. I roll over and from bed I look up to eighteen thousand feet of snow-covered peaks, shimmering in the moonlight. Shit, I gotta catch a plane! I throw on my clothes and race down the stairs, grab my last pair of underwear off the clothes line, stuff them in my pocket, throw my bag on my head, stumble through the turnip patch and onto the trail. I drink in the vista one last time. Fields of blooming mustard greens tint the valley a hazy yellow, tall poplar trees line the paths, and every little house sports a well tended vegetable garden.
The stream that winds its way through Leh and past the giant prayer wheel nurtures it all. In this remotest corner of India, one spin of the wheel and your prayers go straight into Gods ear. Beyond the village, as the stream peters out, the view is a vast barren moonscape of chocolate mountains, where not so much as a blade of grass grows. In the distance on all sides, the biggest platinum mountains I’ve ever seen. I lope through the village at dawn, past the monastery and the stark grey palace carved out of the hillside in the center of town. The air is thin, the bag is heavy and I’m out of breath. I flash a smile at my taxi driver and he waits while I duck into the bakery to grab a cup of Ladakhi tea, brewed from toasted barley and fermented yak butter. Its hot and salty, and it feels good on my dry lips.
When I landed at LAX I didn’t have the heart to tell my father all I wanted for dinner was some delicious Prime Rib from Lawry’s. But, I didn’t need to wait long because just as we entered the house he announced we would be getting dinner there that very night. Needless to say, the Martini, Lawry’s Cut, and all the sides had me full, content, and very sleepy after a long day of travel. 
I planned it for months, really almost a year. We all had so much fun in Ireland the year before, that everyone looked to me to plan the next grand birthday celebration. "We" consists of 5 of my best friends, 3 of
which, like me, have a December birthday and have also been robbed all these years of having a proper celebration with a birthday in the middle of the holidays. We were making up for it. 
Of course you surely know the only reason to travel is to eat, so when I got an invitation to attend the St. Croix Food and Wine Experience, I jumped at the chance. I admit to a bit of hidden skepticism. I mean how could an island sitting in the middle of the Caribbean Sea possibly have any interesting food?
Tears always run down my cheeks as we cross that first bridge on the way to the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. I promise myself repeatedly that I won’t cry, but I always do. I can feel my emotions start to well up when I am denied Paris air when the Air France autobus door shuts out the sweet scent of my favorite city. I get anxious knowing the door won’t open again for a whole year as I start my ungraceful shuffle homeward bound. I’m not sad to be going home, I’m sad to be leaving Paris.