Mike Vouri - History

Mike Vouri: A walk through the Basilica of Santa Croce

Thoughts on doing the celebrity walk through the Basilica of Santa Croce (completed 1442) on a rainy morning in Florence: You know you’ve arrived when you’re dead, but you’ll never know of course unless it has…

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Mike Vouri: The ghost on my shoulder: Remembering Larry

Wars begin where you will, but they do not end where you please. — Machiavelli I recently listened from start to finish to Black Virgin Mountain: A Return to Vietnam, a Vietnam memoir by a former…

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Mike Vouri: The Pig War’s Last Victim: Free Land and the Heartbreak of Alexander McKenzie

Alexander McKenzie peered through the loopholes of his blockhouse prison and watched as the weekly steamer maneuvered in the shallow bay before tying up at the dock of the Royal Marine Camp on San Juan Island.…

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Mike Vouri: Tribute to Russ Illig

Russ Illig, one our faithful volunteers from the 1990s and 2010s, passed away on December 11. He was 94. Russ Illig photo We came to know one another in 1998 in the parking area of the…

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Mike Vouri: Dancing the Night Away on San Juan Island

“Say Herman, you want to get a pair of those fine dancing pumps at the Blue Front store before the next dance? Like everything else they are sold away down at the Blue Front.” Advertisement in…

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Mike Vouri: On Hadrian’s Wall: Bowness-on-Solway

July 17 Bowness on Solway We made it. Our journey along the Hadrian’s Wall path ended at about noon, following a final push into a west wind that plastered our clothing to our bodies and pelted…

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Mike Vouri: Along the River Eden and into the Marshlands

July 16 Easton - One night and five miles to go before reaching the end of the hike and a hut clinging to an embankment above the Solway Firth. We were up early with the Carlisle…

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Mike Vouri: Lost Rain Gear, Reivers and the Bishop’s Curse

Another bright morning in Cumbria, this one enhanced by mixed aromas emanating from the kitchen and the stables below our window at the Lanercost Equestrian & Country Inn.

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Mike Vouri: Lanercost Priory and the End of Masonry

When it was time to move on along the Hadrian’s Wall path from Gilsland, our host Jackie leashed her young black lab and escorted us to the wall trail. It was the exact spot where Jerry…

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Mike Vouri: On Hadrian’s Wall: Gods, Cows and Walltown

As we sat on a picnic table at the Cawfield Crags park, a little more than halfway along the Hadrian’s Wall path, I thought about what I would be doing back home on San Juan Island…

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Mike Vouri: On Hadrian’s Wall: Into the West

After a day of hiking and sightseeing along Hadrian’s Wall, Jerry and I sat on the lawn in front of the Vindolanda visitor center and waited for our gear to dry. We had just emerged from…

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Mike Vouri: On Hadrian’s Wall: The Hard (Best) Part

July 12 Once Brewed (Vindolanda) As I write this in our room at the Vallum Lodge, the sheep are bleating plaintively several pitches above the steady hiss of the B6318 highway, which passes directly in front…

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Mike Vouri: On Hadrian’s Wall: Bridge Over Ancient Waters

I swayed like a drunk engaged on a balance beam as I skirted thorny foliage encroaching on a narrow sidewalk that runs along England’s A6079 highway. I should have been facing the cars and monster trucks…

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Mike Vouri: Covid on the Wall

For me, the word “pandemic” was either from my grandfather’s stories or found in history books about events that have faded from living memory. “Epidemic” was quite another matter, as I still remember standing in line…

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