John Krog

Email = john@notlostwandering.me

Message Only (Voice & Text) Phone = (541) 719-8020

YouTube Channel: Not Lost, Wandering

If you’ve found “Wandering”, you’ve found my one and only blog, a place where I’ll share my first cruise experience and my 2023 visit to Europe. And, with a bit of luck, those reports will be followed by future motorhome travel adventures.

I decided to try a travel blog format accompanied by a YouTube channel as I have a strong dislike for Facebook, Instagram, and now even Twitter. I really don’t like to provide free of charge anymore of my “data” with Zuckerberg, Musk, and others than I absolutely need to.

As this is my first effort with both a blog and a YouTube channel you can expect some pretty amateurish writing, photos, and videos. I’ve already discovered the learning curve for this endeavor is steep and time-costly. My apologies in advance.

A little background……

I think I caught the travel bug when I was twelve and my parents decided to use my banker father’s once-in-every-five-years, four-week vacation to cross America. We drove the family 1955 Chrysler, big fins and all, from Oregon to the Atlantic Ocean with a short detour into Canada and back in four weeks. I still remember being down on the living room floor with my mom and dad planning the trip while we poured over dozens of paper maps accompanied by tourism literature.

These were pre-Internet days when AAA members could describe a trip and request maps with recommended routes pre-marked and related travel brochures. For this young boy from the little town of Bend, Oregon, the excitement of getting big packages from AAA filled with all kinds of fascinating stuff was off-the-charts exciting.

This is also when I most likely got hooked on how much I like to plan ahead.

After graduating from the University of Oregon in June 1969, and then being trained as an Army Lieutenant, I was fortunate to avoid being sent to do combat in Vietnam but instead spent nearly three years stationed in Germany while serving as a Photo Officer. I traveled around Central Europe as often as possible on three-day passes and used my 30-days a year leave to explore as much as I was able. After my active duty military commitment was over I took my Army discharge in Europe, traveled to London to purchase a large Norton motorcycle, and then spent a number of months motorcycle touring Italy, France, England, and Scotland before returning to the States.

An attempt to ride the Norton across the U.S. ended with mechanical issues in upstate New York but I made it back to Eugene in time to seek another college degree from Oregon. I vowed to return to Europe. And I did – a number of times – but only for a week or two at a time. And then, only by long and boring transatlantic flights.

After a number of uneventful years earning a living as a CPA I was able to experience working in a developing country when I was hired to manage a 600-acre lime grove development on Grand Bahama Island. I quickly learned that managing a farm year-round in heat and humidity with Haitian field hands in the middle of a semi-tropical island is nothing like what tourists were experiencing during their beach vacation at one of the Bahamian island resorts. Nonetheless, it was an experience I’ll never forget.

Until a few years ago I sought adventure by climbing mountains, rock faces, and ice formations. Traveling “Somewhere” was almost always necessary for these adventures. Those somewheres included incredible places like the summits of Mt. Rainier, multiple climbing visits to the granite walls of Yosemite Valley, three weeks in the Cirque of the Unclimbables in Canada’s Northwest Territories trying the climb the classic Lotus Flower Tower, a month rock climbing to Australia where I climbed routes at Arapiles, the Grampians and Mt. Buffalo, and an unforgettable climb of the immense and intimidating vertical ice of Alberta Canada’s Weeping Wall.

Now I’m retired so it’s time to travel to less challenging but still distant Somewheres.