January – Catch the “Big One” in Lake Oahe Try your hand at ice fishing in Lake Oahe. Here, guides can help you land your own trophy-winning catch. Ice fishing enthusiasts won’t want to miss the Mobridge Ice Fishing Tournament which takes place in Pierre each January. February – Stress-Free Skiing Near Deadwood to South Dakota’s Terri Peak Ski Area for a great day on the slopes without the crowds. The mountain features a variety of terrain for all levels of skiers, a sizeable terrain park, and the highest lift […]

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While I was house-sitting a 15th-century farmhouse in historical Gascony, with a backyard view of the snow-capped Pyrennees, I decided one bracing morning over a cafe du lait to hire a bike and make a pilgrimage to one of France’s oddest pilgrimage sites: “NOTRE DAME DES CYCLISTES.” Looking decidedly uncool in my fuzzy Patagonia jacket, Tintin T-shirt, Gap shorts, white athletic socks, and Rockport walking shoes, I pedaled like a madman, dodging vicious pariah dogs guarding farmsteads, as well as the occasional horse-drawn carriage or crazy Citroen. Since I was […]

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You plan on some things, and others just happen. Usually you don’t plan on getting bitten by a rattlesnake for example. It’s just one of those things when you’re out in desolate country; alone, weather beaten and emotionally off guard. Of course you could argue that inserting yourself into desolate and dangerous country is, in a way, inviting an encounter with an ill-tempered reptile. True I didn’t know when setting out on my two-month canoe trip that I had a date with a Prairie Rattler a thousand miles downriver, but […]

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EVERYONE knows J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed entirely on location downunder by Kiwi director Peter Jackson. But did you know that a real sorcerer, a magi of magic realism straight out of the Oscar-winning series, only rather recently left New Zealand after the nasty Christchurch Earthquake of 2011. Born Ian Brackenbury Channell in London (4 December 1932), “The Wizard of Christchurch” is an inspired soap-box orator, comic genius, and eccentric occultist. His irreverently dadaist “Upside-Down World Map,” which places Antarctica on the top […]

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Looking for Love on Lovina, Bali Well, er, the problem was, I thought I saw a real live mermaid. Get that? Loping on Bali’s Lovina beach one day, I came across a troglodytic Indonesian man crouching over a campfire, cooking a stunted animal on a skewer. Was he eating a cat?! “Very nice bitch,” the local sarong hawker spat in the sand. Lo and behold! I saw a bikinied blond, like the statuesque prow of a Viking vessel, splashing out in the water. Aha! Bali Baywatch. Glint: tail! But when […]

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