Where's Brandon Morgan?

"Clear, pure, cold water." I was parched, it was 105 degrees out and the airborne spices of the Old Delhi spice market were starting to irritate my eyes and throat. I must have made some sort of subconscious assessment of the likelihood of the water before me being contaminated. I seemed to be thinking.....well, optimistically. A sign on the vendor's cart had a picture of plastic cups and even said "disposable cups." However, instead the street vendor handed me a 12 oz discolored glass (the fragile kind) full of water he had pumped from his own personal container of water. I drank it quickly, neglecting a conscious risk assessment with the ludicrous rationale that if I drank it really quickly I was less likely to get sick. I had already eaten some street food just prior, and since it was my last day in India, unofficially decided I would go all in and test the waters. This decision required repressing my memory of flying sick for 24 hrs after taking a ris...

Snip snip snip snip snip snip snip....I counted roughly two snips per second consistently for at least 25 minutes. Mr. Thakur carved the hair on my head with precision. The cut itself was by-the-book...there was no stylistic creativity. He simply gave me a nearly flawless traditional men's haircut. The experience he provided, however, was art. Not the kind you hang on the wall and rarely, if ever, take the time to truly appreciate. But the type of art that comes and goes once. The kind that slips away if we don't allow ourselves to fully experience it. That type of art which can fundamentally change our perspective forever if we are present to witness it. Sachita Nand Thakur, originally from Darjeeling, India, has a one-man barber shop on a small paved residential alley toward the top of a Himalayan foothill. I'd seen his shop door open, the light on, but the shop had been empty every time I walked by on the way to my local home stay. One evening, I saw him swee...

As I sat overlooking the Po Valley towards the Alps from atop the first foothill where the Mazzolino estate sits, the smells of the harvest, fresh-cut grass and the rose garden intermittently drifted in and out of my olfactories. The sounds of the winery and the birds were behind me, and the distant sounds of farmers on tractors, carpenters, local traffic, a dog barking, and church bells striking half four were ahead of me. The wind brushed my face, and I thought of the other faces and places it may have touched. I thought of the world I am heading into: an intricately connected cosmos where every activity relies on some other activity, resulting in my connection to you, to the land and to those others who work and travel it. In just two weeks at Mazzolino I gained so much in addition to new perspective (and gifts of a sweater, a scarf, an apron, a bottle opener and many bottles of wine). The beautiful landscape, and the opportunity to learn about wine and work with my hands were wonde...

Is there a piece of unfinished business in the back of your head? The one (or many) thing(s) that you wish you could go back and do over or complete? For the past eight years, one such piece of business has haunted my thoughts, perhaps even my self-worth in a sense: Eight Junes ago, I visited Aosta, Italy. It was the first time I'd seen snowcapped mountains, and as a reckless adventurer, I made a goal to get a bottle-full of snow by day's end. I began at 3pm, reached snow by 8pm, but then tried to reach the top of the mountain I was climbing. Approximately 100 meters from the peak, I stopped. It was 10pm and dark, I was exhausted, and I still had a 13-mile hike back to town. I revisted Aosta last week with one goal: to finish what I had started. This time, however, I chose a much taller mountain. At 9:30am on September 11, I began an attempt to reach the peak of Becca di Nonna, which would be an 8,406 feet (1.6 miles) vertical climb in one day (1,902 feet to 10,308 feet)....