Books: What We're Reading While Abroad

Often, what would be a simple task at home is a big, time-intensive process while traveling, and this leaves LOTS of time for reading. (The photo above is a sleeper train from Goa to Kerala). This enables us to read about one book per week on average. We usually just trade for new books with other travelers, but we still have quite a few, very heavy books that we lug around with us. Here is a rundown on what we've been reading while abroad. You may notice Rusty's list is a little longer than Kelsi's, but remember that he went to Law School and had to get through masses of pages, so he reads 2-3 books for every one Kelsi reads.

Novels:

1. A Girl Named Zippy (Both)
2. Twilight (Both)
3. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (Rusty)
4. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand (Rusty)
5. On Chesil Beach (Both)
6. The Awakening (Rusty)
7. The Secret Life of Bees (Both)
8. Nepal Folk Stories (Kelsi)
9. The Kite Runner (Both)

Historical:

1. Devil in a White City (Both)
2. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Both)
3. Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer (Both - For some reason, Kelsi read twice)
4. Seven Years in Tibet (Both)
5. Life in the Far West (Rusty)

Science/Social Science:

1. The End of Poverty - Jeffrey Sachs (Rusty)
2. The Making of Modern Economics - Skousen (Rusty)
3. A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson (Both)
4. The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins (Rusty)
5. When Elephants Weep (Both)

Spiritual/Philosophical:

1. A New Earth - Eckhart Tolle (Both - Rusty twice)
2. The Art of Living - William Hart (Both)
3. A Theory of Everything - Ken Wilbur (Both)
4. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig (Both)
5. The Art of Happiness - Dalai Lahmma (Rusty, Kelsi currently reading)
6. Nausea - Jean Paul Sartre (Rusty)
7. Life Ahead - J. Krishnamurti (Both)
8. Tao Teh Ching - Lao Tzu (Both)
9. Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert (Both - 2nd time for both of us)
10. Textbook of Ayurveda - Vasant Lad (Kelsi)

Wedding Pics

We've had many requests to see wedding pics, so here's a few highlights (if you're not on Facebook). Finally 9 months later - can you believe that?! Now we've been married 9 months.

Starting with some adorable kids . . .

And an adorable photographer!
Kissy Kissy!

Our niece Ashley helping out without being asked to! What a wonderful flower girl!
KISSY! KISSY! Again . . .

A Sneak Preview caught Rusty off-guard!

Rusty's sister, Briana, died her hair in our wedding colors special for this day!

Man Love

India has some social codes prohibiting hand-holding and touching in public. Fortunately, for those who enjoy a good cuddle, this applies only to contact between opposite sexes. You will almost never see a husband and wife holding hands or touching when they are out and about. In fact, if two couples go out together, the husbands will stroll along holding hands with each other, typically with their wives following along behind.


We have been travelling in India and Nepal for almost five months now, and had become quite accustomed to same-sex interdigitation and cuddling as a normal, everyday, occurrence. Then, one evening as we were enjoying a walk along the Arabian Sea, we realized that everywhere we looked, men were holding hands and cuddling each other. We had our camera with us, and here are a few pictures we shot:

We have noticed that same-sex affection, or "man love," as we have dubbed it, is actually a non-homosexual, worldwide phenomenom. Maybe it is Westerner men who are missing out...  or maybe not...

Finishing the Guitar

We finally finished our guitar yesterday, and thought we'd post a few more pictures of the final product as well as a few more showing the 16 day process.

Holding our new guitar with Chris, our master luthier teacher.

It sounds amazing... perfect intonation and accoustics!

Our first piece of wood.

Amazingly the stack of wood clamped together below turned into the guitar neck.

The finished guitar neck.

Rusty working on the headstock.

Kelsi making the rosetta.

Rusty bending the sides and trying not to burn himself over a torch-heated pipe.

Kelsi preparing to inlay the rosetta with the router.

Unfortunately, this is the only group picture we have with the other couple (Malachy and Stephanie from Ireland) that was 2 weeks ahead of us on their guitar. We became quite good friends and hope that our travels will cross paths again.

Rusty laquering.