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The Year in Science Traveling -2021

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Lincoln at GettysburgLast year I started off my annual science traveling post with “Well, this shouldn’t take long.” Despite expectations, I could have started my 2021 post with: “Ditto.”

My year in traveling looks like my previous year’s “goals” list; just change the date and carry over everything to this year. Now I’ll be carrying most of it over to 2022. As with everyone else, I’ve grown exhausted by the continuing battle with COVID, in part due to its evolving variants, and in part due to the irresponsible choices of many to remain unvaccinated. And as with everyone else, it has crimped my traveling schedule. Luckily, I was too busy to travel in the first half of 2021, which I’ll talk more about in my annual “A Year in the Writing Life” that will come out next week.

I again planned to do a series of “Chasing Abraham Lincoln” road trips. Some were local (Richmond, Gettysburg, Washington DC), while others were a bit farther afield (Illinois, upstate New York, New England, California). All are now transferred to my 2022 plans. As usual, my goal was to get to five new countries this year. The reality is that the last trip I took out of the country was to Cuba in May 2019. Things started looking up in July when my brother proposed a two-week catamaran trip around the British Virgin Islands for November. Circumstances soon changed and that trip was cancelled. The idea of sailing around Spain and Portugal in November was put on the table, then removed literally the next day as both countries were added to the State Department’s “Do Not Travel” list due to COVID. Okay, let’s do the Caribbean instead. Same problem. All of this was after foregoing a trip to the Galapagos because we thought we would be tied up at that time.

Around the time things were getting the most depressing, I saw that a writing acquaintance was doing a self-imposed “writer’s retreat” on Long Island. It was a lightbulb moment, and before long the plan became a mini vacation on Long Island on the way to New England for a Thanksgiving visit with my family. The trip was delightful. We had no trouble getting accommodations because it was off-season, although several restaurants on the coast were closed for the same reason. But we did get to see my 60th aquarium and visit some cool museums at the Vanderbilt estate, plus hiked the beautiful fall woodlands at Sands Point. Then there was the wine tasting at Lieb Cellars vineyard. All-in-all, a wonderful trip. As was the chance to see my family for the second time in a year, a treat given the continuing restrictions.

Looking back, it seems my entire traveling year was crammed into November. Prior to leaving for Long Island, I attended my one and only in-person conference in two years. The Lincoln Forum had gone virtual in 2020, but they were intent on holding an in-person event in 2021. All attendees were required to be fully vaccinated – and prove it – in order to be present. Everyone was required to wear masks for all lectures and meetings, although removal was okay (by necessity) during meals. Around 300 people enjoyed a mostly normal Forum, exchanging ideas and learning about ideas. I was elected to the Board of Advisors. I’m happy to say that a grand total of zero reports of COVID cases arose from the meeting. Luckily for us, the omicron variant didn’t show up until just after our conference. It was nice to be back with people.

There was one additional in-person event in 2021. The Lincoln Group of DC, of which I am now president, had a tour of a local battlefield in September. We car-pooled and masked to limit exposure, with the rest of the tour being completely outside. Again, we managed to do it with no reported cases before or after.

So, what’s the plan for 2022?

Largely, the 2022 plan is “see 2021 plan.” The uncertainly of the omicron surge in cases has already sunk several plans for the spring, but I’m hoping/praying/pleading that travel is back on the table. In fact, we’ve already booked a Windstar cruise for late September/October that begins and ends in Istanbul and bounces around the Black Sea. We’re hoping to book another major travel destination in the early spring or early summer, but the options are still open for that one. September will be a busy month, in part because of the Windstar trip but also because my new book is scheduled for release on September 1. I’m likely to go to New England at least three times, the July 4th and Thanksgiving holidays and on my “Chasing Abraham Lincoln – New England” tour. I expect to be doing some road trips to accommodate a speaking tour for the book. I’ll also be checking off as many of the “local” road trips I’ve been carrying for two years.

A quick note on the “Year in Science Traveling” title. This website was originally called “Science Traveler” to reflect my intent to delve into the science of worldwide traveling. That was the plan when I left my last science job in 2013, the same year my first book came out (on Nikola Tesla, followed a few years later by Thomas Edison). I continue to travel and have plans for more science travel-related content, but regular readers will notice that I’ve renamed the website with my author name to reflect my divergent interests. Abraham Lincoln had always been my side-gig, but it’s clear to anyone reading this that Lincoln is now my main job and science traveling is the side-gig. I’m planning to revamp the website in early 2022 to make it more modern and functional. Stay tuned.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

[Photo credit: David J. Kent, 2021, Detail of “Return Visit” sculpture]

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The Year in Science Traveling – 2020

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Well, this shouldn’t take long.

Normally I catalogue all the traveling I did over the past year. Like everyone else in 2020, I experienced a case of travelus interruptus due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. To say that put a damper on my travel intentions is an understatement. Most of the world won’t even let Americans cross their borders right now (how’s that for irony). Even crossing state lines is a challenge with several instituting significant barriers to visitors.

So this is how I planned for the year to go:

 

You’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting,
So…get on your way!

(compliments of Dr. Suess: Oh, The Places You’ll Go!)

 

Instead, my traveling year looked like this:

 

Passport stamps 2020

 

Notwithstanding the allure of my kitchen, which my bathroom scale says I’ve been spending way too much time in, my original plan had included a significant amount of travel in 2020. There were to be several Lincoln-related road trips: Illinois, New England, Upstate New York/Ohio, and California. Then there would be the annual four-day Lincoln Forum and commemoration ceremony in Gettysburg. That doesn’t even count the semi-monthly forays into downtown Washington DC for Lincoln Group of DC dinner/lectures and book study group. Nor does it count the “local” trips into Richmond and other spots in Pennsylvania. None of that happened.

I had also planned a road trip through the central U.S. to visit the remaining contiguous states I hadn’t seen yet. That didn’t happen either.

More far-flung plans were to finally get to the Middle East, in particular Israel, Petra, and the Egyptian Pyramids. There also was the idea of visiting the Galapagos Islands and Machu Picchu. Didn’t happen.

So what did I do this year, travel-wise?

Well, I did make one road trip. Around the first year anniversary of my father’s passing and the 4th of July I drove to New England to see my mother, and as it turns out, my brother and his wife who had unexpectedly moved nearby a few weeks before. I figured there was a small window prior to COVID infections getting much worse (which turned out to be true), so squeezed in the visit not long before Massachusetts cracked down on a mandatory 14-day quarantine, later to include mandatory negative test results (and now likely, vaccination). It was the only trip I made the entire year.

To keep myself busy, and at least somewhat sane, I read more than I planned. I summarized the 90 books I read in 2020 on my Hot White Snow website. I also read a lot of Abraham Lincoln books, which I’ve documented here. Click on my Goodreads link to follow my reading travels.

Beyond that I participated in dozens of Zoom webinars and interactive presentations. My Lincoln Group of DC lectures and book study group meetings all shifted to Zoom. I gave a few presentations myself via Zoom, and have another scheduled in a couple of weeks. Many of the events worked out well enough virtually, but I know we’ll all be ready to see each other in person when safe to do so.

I also took advantage of my 2020 calendar, which features photos by David Wiegers of Abraham Lincoln statues placed all over the world. For each month I would talk about the statue of that month, but also reminisce about my own time visiting the location, or in some cases, future plans if I hadn’t already been there. What started on a whim turned out to be an interesting way to travel back in time to 12 foreign locations where the people thought honoring Lincoln was a good idea. I enjoyed the ability to travel, at least in a sense, through those posts. You can see the December post and a recap with links to all the other posts here.

Not surprisingly, I’m not even going to try to preview 2021 travel. As vaccines slowly make it out to most Americans (and overseas), I’m working on the assumption that even road trips will be curtailed at least until summer. For now it’s wait and watch. When the timing is right I’ll be ready to get back out into the world. Hopefully you’ll join me.

P.S. Check out my “A Year in the Writing Life” annual post. It has some big news, which is yet another reason I don’t expect to travel until next summer. 2021 should be a much better year!

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

 

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The Year in Science Traveling – 2019

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Capuchin monkey, Costa RicaIf I could briefly describe 2019 with respect to the year in science traveling it would be – Started with a “C.”  Mostly this was in a good way, but unfortunately it also includes cancellation. While I still had a great traveling year, it didn’t go quite the way I expected.

As with 2018, 2019 got off to a slow start. The first two weeks of January shuffled in with a commitment to jury duty, which didn’t actually result in me sitting on a jury, but nevertheless blocked out that period of time from doing anything else. I made up for it by going to Costa Rica the end of the month for nine days, a fun trip that gave me plenty to write about. February and March once again kept me local with Lincoln-related events, including participation in the annual ALI Symposium at Ford’s Theatre.

In April I merged my Lincoln and travel with another “C” location – Charleston, South Carolina. There I saw Fort Sumter, the harbor fort where a bombardment by Confederate cannons marked the official start of the Civil War. I also visited the Hunley, a Confederate submarine that was lost immediately after sinking a Union ship and only recently recovered and is being restored. Then there was the die-hard Confederate.

May started with a visit to the U.S. Capitol Building where the Lincoln Group of DC helped officially dedicate the “Lincoln Room” where Abraham Lincoln used to hang out between sessions during his one term as a U.S. Congressman. The end of May took me to another “C” – Cuba. Such a fascinating country with limited opportunities for Americans to visit, especially since four days after our return the current administration applied even more stringent roadblocks.

Camaguey, Cuba

June started a rather trying few months. Mid-month I headed out for my Chasing Abraham Lincoln, Part 3 road trip (another “C”). After stops in Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana I made my way into Illinois for a week of exploring Lincoln sites. One highlight of the trip was to join the Looking for Lincoln crew for their LEAD: Spirit of Lincoln Youth Academy. The LEAD group has given my book to all the participants (40 students and 8 mentors) for the last two years and this year they asked me to speak to them directly about leadership. The trip went well, including a foray into Wisconsin, but ended abruptly. I found out my father had gone into the hospital; ten days later he passed away. I spent the end of June and early July on a road trip up to Massachusetts for his funeral. Three months later my uncle, who had been a pillar of strength for the family at my Dad’s passing, had suddenly passed away himself, a victim of the rare disease, EEE.

Dad in DC 2014

July and August were light on travel, in part because of local commitments and the need to do more writing. September took us to Chicago (there’s that “C” again) for several Lincoln-related activities and the chance to see the musical Hamilton. October and November were light until mid-month when I attended the annual Lincoln Forum in Gettysburg, PA.

Then there was an unexpected “C.” We had booked a Caribbean Cruise on Windstar many months in advance and were looking forward to two weeks in such places as Curacao, Colombia, and Colon, Panama, in addition to other Caribbean islands. But those “C”s were enough it seems; literally one week before our departure I received an email saying the ship had major engine trouble and would be forced out of service – the trip was Cancelled. We were not amused. So instead of being warm and toasty sipping tropical drinks on the deck of a sailing ship in the Caribbean, we drove to Massachusetts and huddled over hot cocoa for a chilly Thanksgiving with my mother and other family. It was great to join my Mom for her first Thanksgiving since my Dad’s passing, but it wasn’t even a “C” location. There were plenty of other “C”s, including a trip to Coatesville (PA), some Civil War stops, and Ru’s multiple trips to China.

Overall, 2019 was much less than I had anticipated but still reasonably busy with science traveling. The 2020 travel prospects are the most uncertain we’ve had in years. As of now there is absolutely nothing booked and only some general plans for what we want to do. With some key decisions up in the air, we’ll have to wait a few weeks more before deciding where to go, or even if we can go, or if alternative plans are necessary to go. While I admit that sounds rather cryptic, I’m hedging because there is a great deal of uncertainly extant, plus I don’t want to jinx things that are in the works. You’ll have to check back later for something more concrete. I promise to post a further update when I can.

Until then, happy traveling.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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The Year in Science Traveling – 2018

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Water Buffalo, Boracay, PhilippinesI was traveling. That’s my excuse for being a bit tardy on this wrap of the year in science traveling, 2018. And what a year of traveling it was, with 8 new countries visited, plus a lot of domestic travel. Click on the links for stories about some of the stops.

It was a bit of a slow start, with only one significant trip in the first 2-1/2 months. The end of January took me to Sanibel Island and Fort Myers, Florida to visit the Thomas Edison/Henry Ford Winter Estates, the Mote Marine Lab (in Sarasota), and explore nature on Sanibel. February and March kept me mostly local with tons of Lincoln-related events, including a weekend trip to Newport News for the annual Battle of Hampton Roads event (including touring the facility with none other than Abraham Lincoln).

In April it really got busy travel-wise, a condition that didn’t let up for the rest of the year. Early in the month I was scheduled to give a presentation in West Virginia, after which I was starting my Chasing Abraham Lincoln, Part 1 tour. At the last minute I had to scrap the whole trip and instead drive up to Massachusetts where my father had gone into the hospital. After my return, virtually every day was filled with some sort of event, plus a short trip to Fredericksburg for the annual CPRC meeting.

I finally was able to take my Chasing Abraham Lincoln, Part 1 trip in early May. This had originally been planned for March, then due to a huge snowstorm in my target area put off to April, which as mentioned above was again rescheduled at the last moment. The road trip took me down to Tennessee and Lincoln Memorial University, where I spent the day in the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum. For the next 8 days I wound my up through Lincoln’s birthplace in Kentucky, his boyhood home in Indiana (with a day spent researching in the Allen County Public Library Lincoln Collection), then up to Michigan to see the actual chair Lincoln was sitting in when he was assassinated.

Windstar CruisesThe end of June put me on a Windstar Cruise into the Baltic Sea. Windstar specializes in small yacht cruises so we got to know the other 200 passengers well during the 11-day cruise. Starting in Copenhagen, we stopped in Bornholm, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Russia, Finland, the Aland Islands, and finally into Stockholm. Windstar offers such great cruises that this was the first of two we took in 2018.

Part 2 of my Chasing Abraham Lincoln tour took place in mid-July. Over 9 days I zigzagged my way around Illinois to see dozens of Lincoln statues, all 7 of the Lincoln-Douglas debate sites, and other key locations related to research for my next Lincoln book. I even got to see Lincoln and Douglas debate in person.

August took me back up to Massachusetts to visit my family. I made three trips up in 2018, and each time my father was in the hospital or rehab so I never saw him at home. On this one I also drove up to Maine to visit my brother who had become President/CEO of the Schoodic Institute, a non-profit associated with Acadia National Park. On my return I picked up my son for a week’s stay in the DC area.

Crater LakeThree days later we flew out to Oregon to begin a 10-day road trip in early September starting in Crater Lake, up the Oregon coast, through the Columbia River Gorge, into eastern Washington state, through Idaho and into Montana to spend a couple of days in Glacier National Park.

Okay, breathe. The rest of September and October was time to catch up at home and prepare for the next trips. No, we weren’t done by a long shot.

From mid-November until Christmas we didn’t stop. I drove up to Gettysburg for the annual Lincoln Forum conference. A day later I was driving to Massachusetts for the Thanksgiving holiday. Then few days after that we were again on a plane, this time flying to Hong Kong to board our second Windstar Cruise for the year. For 14 days we toured five different parts of the Philippines (Hundred Islands, Manila, Boracay, Coron, Palawan), two parts of Malaysia on the island of Borneo (Kota Kinabalu and Kuching), and the tiny country of Brunei (officially, “Nation of Brunei, The Abode of Peace”). After finishing the cruise in Singapore we spent a four days exploring the city that spawned the book and movie, Crazy Rich Asians.

I flew home from Singapore less than a week before Christmas while Ru flew on to Beijing to spend a few days with her family. When she returned on Christmas eve she was accompanied by her mother, who will spend the next three months visiting.

Clearly 2018 was a busy year. I estimate that I took between 10,000 and 15,000 photos in one year, and going through them is always a slow process. Regular readers of this page will have seen many of the trip posts I’ve done during the year and I’ll continue to write posts to catch up. How quickly that happens will depend on how much time my upcoming travel and writing allows.

So what about 2019? Trips are already booked for Costa Rica and Cuba and I am planning a Part 3 of Chasing Abraham Lincoln, proven necessary after I realized how much I missed on the previous two trips. I’ve had tentative plans to rent an apartment in Paris in the spring to do research for a forthcoming book, but so far haven’t done much to prepare for it. I’ll plan at least one family trip to New England with the likelihood it will end up being two or three trips. I’ll definitely be at the Lincoln Forum in Gettysburg. Where else I go is still rather fuzzy. Domestic options include a Southwest road trip, Chicago, Charleston, and various other Lincoln-related sites. International travel options currently on the radar include Iceland, Banff, Galapagos, and Antarctica/South America.

And somewhere in there I need to keep writing. I was able to write during sea days on both Windstar Cruises, but usually I’m so busy on travel that I can’t get much done on the road (other than writing about the current trip itself, which some day will be fodder for Bill Bryson-ish travel memoirs).

As Mark Twain wrote in Innocents Abroad:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

Happy Science Traveling!

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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The Year in Science Traveling – 2017

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Sometimes Science Traveling takes me to distant lands and cultures, and sometimes it takes me closer to my own culture. This year was a little of both. I only took two major trips out of the country, but whoa, were they major. No more significant travel in the last twelve days of 2017, so here’s a recap.

First, the big trips.

Seoul, South Korea

In May I flew to South Korea. Mostly there weren’t any missiles flying while I was on the ground (there were just before and after), so I was able to move around without much difficulty. After landing in Seoul I immediately hopped a train to Busan on the southeast coast. After a few days there I headed back to Seoul and even took a day trip up into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). An interesting experience to say the least. Even Seoul offered some excitement as I was there on election day; they were voting to replace the president who had been impeached (and who days before had been arrested for corruption). And yes, I took notes.

Nine Dragon Wall, Beijing, China

From South Korea I flew to Beijing. I’ve been there a couple of times before so had already seen the usual tourist traps. This time the temperature hit 100 degrees F to offset the first time I was there when it was -5 F. I checked out some local areas and visited the Bell and Drum Towers. Vladimir Putin and about 30 other world leaders were in town for a One Belt, One Road Summit, so the air was bright and clear (they close down the factories and ban cars). On the flip side, the Forbidden City was closed for a private tour of all the first ladies and every version of military uniform possible was parading the streets.

The next big trip was in October to Australia and New Zealand. First to Sydney (the famous bridge, the even more famous Opera House, and the at least locally famous Bondi Beach), then up to Cairns (Great Barrier Reef), then to Queenstown, New Zealand (fjord cruising), then back to Australia for Melbourne (12 Apostles), and finally up to Uluru (Ayer’s Rock). Day trips included hiking the Blue Mountains, checking out three different aquariums, and chasing the Lord of the Rings through the mountains of New Zealand. A trip of a lifetime.

Mt. Rushmore

The rest of the year was spent on less adventurous trips. I attended the annual CPRC meeting in Annapolis (where I also went kayaking on a separate trip), the Lincoln Forum in Gettysburg, and then two trips up to Massachusetts (July and November). I also got to hang out with Abraham Lincoln (George Buss) and Teddy Roosevelt (Joe Wiegand). In fact, both men twice. In February they were joined by actors playing George Washington and Thomas Jefferson for a “Mt. Rushmore” night at the National Archives. Joe reprised his role for the Lincoln Group of DC in October with a tribute to Abraham Lincoln; George played Lincoln at the Gettysburg cemetery commemoration in November.

Overall there were fewer trips this year, but to farther places. I only managed to get to three new countries, which brings the total to something like 45 depending on how you count. If things work out the way I’m anticipating, next year could add up to eight, or even more, new countries visited. Now how do I get to Antarctica? Stay tuned.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, now available. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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The Year in Science Traveling – 2016

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My third year of science traveling ended up being a lot different in execution than it was in design. Trips planned were dropped, trips not planned were added, and I was forced to work around an unforeseen distraction. And yet I still managed to hit several new countries, at least one new state, and enjoyed what most would consider a very good year in Science Traveling. I’m finished traveling for the year so it’s time for a quick recap.

February: My first travel ran from January 29 through February 6, which entailed flying to the Caribbean island of St. Maarten and boarding a large sailing yacht for a week-long journey around several sub-tropical islands. Highlights included the most interesting airport landing in the world, boarding a yellow submarine in St. Barts, and exploring the land of the frigates in Barbuda.

April: Spring saw my first trip ever to Springfield, Illinois, but it wouldn’t be my last this year (see September). I spent a hugely productive two days chasing the Papers of Abraham Lincoln at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. Later in the month I drove to Charlottesville in southern Virginia to check out Thomas Jefferson’s home and attend the annual CPRC scientific meeting.

May: Spring also saw my first time in San Antonio, Texas. The city offered a wonderful river walk, great food, and the Alamo. From there we drove cross state and went underground – literally – to see the amazing bats and birds of Carlsbad Caverns in southeastern New Mexico.

July: In early July I met the Crown Prince and Princess of Serbia. This was as part of a grand tour of Serbia, Montenegro, and Croatia, with quick stops in Amsterdam and Frankfurt on the way there and back again.

September: After undergoing major eye surgery in August, by the end of September I was ready to get out of the house. This trip took me back out to Springfield, Illinois and surrounding area where, along with 20 others from the Lincoln Group of DC, I went Looking for Lincoln (See Part I and Part II for quick summaries). The total immersion in Lincoln’s life was a fantastic experience for this particular Lincoln buff.

November: The fall saw my now annual trek up to Gettysburg for a meeting of the Lincoln Forum, one of the preeminent Abraham Lincoln societies in the country. I got to meet up with a new old friend, Abraham Lincoln himself (compliments of George Buss). A week later I drove up to visit family in my old home town, a trip I had delayed from my usual July excursion because of the Serbian trip.

December: Normally I take a quick hop trip in December just to get away from the approaching winter (last year was New Orleans), but this year we decided to stay close to home, both to catch up and catch a breather. This was a demanding year – psychologically, medically, and literately. The latter is not a typo; besides reading more than 100 books, I wrote one. In addition, the book I wrote last year (Edison) come out in stores. More on that in my writing wrap up post.

So the year was a busy one, science traveling wise, despite many changes and challenges. Originally the plans included a trip to Machu Picchu, which for the second year in a row got bumped (it’s on our list again for this year, maybe). Planned trips to Michigan (writer’s retreat) and China were also bumped because of the aforementioned unplanned distractions. Overall, however, it was a very good year for traveling. The best part was that science and Abraham Lincoln were present virtually everywhere I went.

I’ll do a 2017 year in preview in a few weeks. So many places to go!

David J. Kent is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate. His next book is on Abraham Lincoln, due out in 2017.

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The Year in Science Traveling – 2015

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Science TravelerSomehow I managed not to travel anywhere in February, June, and August. But for the other nine months I had at least one out-of-town trip. It was a very good year in Science Traveling. I’ve finished traveling for the year so it’s time for a quick recap.

January: Everglades, Key West, and the Dry Tortugas. Besides seeing the prison cells that held the Lincoln assassination conspirators I discovered that Ernest Hemingway was a crazy cat lady. I also discovered the Holocaust Memorial in Miami Beach.

March: A relatively local trip to the eastern shore of Maryland in which I unexpectedly came upon skeleton road at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. I also checked in to the marine biology lab I once worked in, plus a wine tasting in St. Michaels.

April: Another semi-local trip for the annual CPRC scientific conference, this one a full-day affair at the Robinson Nature Center in Columbia, MD.

May: I started May in New England on a writer’s retreat in my old home town. I ended May in Scandinavia on a tour of Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, and Bergen (with stops on the fjords). I even came across a few surprises.

July: The 4th of July brought me back to my home town for the holiday, then a road trip up to Quebec City and Montreal. On the way back the route took us on a quest for used book stores in western Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. One of the highlights was Montmorency Falls.

September: A busy fall began with a trip to New York City, where I got up close with the Statue of Liberty, saw the top of the world from the Empire State Building, the bottom of the world in the new World Trade Center Memorial and Museum, and some aircraft carriers/submarines/space shuttles.

October: Ah, Paris in the spring, er, the fall. For once the weather cooperated and the Eiffel Tower was amazing. In two short days we squeezed in a lot of venues, including Musee d’Orsay and the Pompidou Centre, then took the train through the Chunnel to London. Unfortunately I spent most of my time in the latter city hopping around on one foot.

November: The morning after returning from London I was on a plane to Salt Lake City for the annual SETAC meeting, where I picked up the award for Outstanding Regional Chapter Member. Ten days after my return I was in Gettysburg for the annual Lincoln Forum conference. And then my parents visited me for 10 days. November was a very busy month.

December: December seems low-key given that the sole trip was a long weekend to New Orleans. Okay, technically that isn’t the last trip of the year as we likely will drive up to Amish country in Pennsylvania for the Christmas weekend, but that will actually feel like a nice break from a year of science traveling.

And it was, in fact, science traveling. Every trip had some connection to a book I’m researching or a future book in the plans. It’s amazing how much science (and Lincoln and Tesla and Edison) there is when you look for it. The July 4th trip, for example, included stops in two of Thomas Edison’s most iconic laboratories, and New Orleans has a plaque at Thomas Edison Place. Lincoln was everywhere (including New Orleans).

When I wasn’t science traveling I was writing a book, two books in fact. Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World is finished and will be in Barnes and Noble bookstores in 2016. I also published an e-book available on Amazon: Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate. If that wasn’t enough to keep me busy I also have read 94 books this year (with two weeks to go), chaired a scientific committee, attended various local Abraham Lincoln dinners, lectures, and symposiums, and served as a Vice President in the Lincoln Group of DC.

Next year should be even busier!

David J. Kent has been a scientist for thirty-five years, is an avid science traveler, and an independent Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (now in its 5th printing) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate. His book on Thomas Edison is due in Barnes and Noble stores in spring 2016.

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The Year in a Writer’s Life – 2023

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David J Kent at the Lincoln MemorialThe year in a writer’s life was busy. Some of it actually went according to plan, while some of it was, well, off-plan. I continued to do events related to my book, Lincoln: The Fire of Genius, and continued to write for the Lincoln Group and other venues. On the other hand, some of my writing goals turned out to be unrealistic and have been punted to next year. That said, overall, 2023 was a successful writing year.

You can read about my year of traveling here, and my 2023 Lincoln book acquisitions here. I also wrote a reflections on a decade of writing here. Shortly I’ll have a recap of my year in reading here.

Getting back to the year in a writer’s life, I started 2023 with a series of presentations for various media outlets. There was the talk on how Lincoln institutionalized science for the Looking for Lincoln conversations (video), the Scholar Session with President Lincoln’s Cottage (video), the premier of a radio program called Our American Stories featuring me on Lincoln’s education (audio), my talk for Lonestar College – Kingwood (video), and my keynote speeches for the annual dinner of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS) and for the Lincoln Society in Peekskill. And that’s just in the first few months of 2023. You can check out more of the Fire of Genius-related talks I gave on my media page.

I also won the Lincoln Legacy Award conferred by the Lincoln Society in Peekskill. Lincoln: The Fire of Genius was nominated for a dozen book awards, of which it was a finalist for two. I also started getting royalties for the new book in addition to continuing royalties for my previous books.

There were also several media mentions, including articles about my appearances, book reviews in Civil War Times and The Civil War Monitor magazines, and other interviews. Additionally, I was interviewed and quoted extensively in articles published in Salon (a liberal-leaning national periodical) and Fox News (a conservative-leaning media conglomerate). I did, however, turn down a requested interview with the CEO and host of a nationally known podcast featuring a universally recognized political personality because of the host’s long history of deceit and continuing attempts to undermine democracy. I wrote about the experience on Hot White Snow under the title “Writing Responsibly.”

Other writing activities included continuing to write for the quarterly Lincolnian newsletter, for which I again wrote eight book reviews and several shorter articles. I also wrote four book reviews for the Lincoln Herald journal. I continue to write for the Lincolnian.org website, now approaching around 200 articles. Then there were dozens of articles each for this David J. Kent website and my Hot White Snow blog, plus I post reviews about Lincoln books on the Abraham Lincoln Bibliography Project website (about 50 so far). I also wrote for the Lincoln Forum Bulletin. When I wasn’t writing, I was responding to requests for writing advice from several people planning to write books of their own. I also provided my first official “back cover blurb” for the book, Defeating Slavery, by Nancy Spannaus.

What I didn’t do was finish the three works in progress (plus one, see 2024) that I had planned to publish on Amazon. They will have to wait until next year.

Which gets me to 2024

I have two main focus areas (writing wise) in 2024. The first and foremost is to complete a book proposal for a work I’ve been researching. I had hoped to get the proposal to my agent in 2023, but travel and Lincoln Group of DC activities conspired to drag out the process. So…2024 it is. My goal is to get the proposal done in January with hopes of signing a publishing contract in the first quarter and a book in stores in 2025. I’ll have more on that project as it develops.

The second main focus is to finish the aforementioned three works in progress. One is the confederate monument book (a rational dialogue). A second is to publish second editions of my two previous e-books as print books, complete with much-expanded text and photos. Third is to complete a new Tesla book by the end of the year.

In addition, I plan to submit several articles for publication, both professional treatises in Lincoln journals and more accessible articles in popular magazines. I’m also considering developing a podcast series with the Lincoln Group of DC. Another potential project is to start a Substack column. And then there is the fiction, which I will definitely write with greater urgency in 2024.

Of course, I’ll continue to write for the Lincolnian newsletter and website, my DJK and Hot White Snow websites, and wherever else I can find space.

And yes, I realize that is a lot, to which I’ll add more traveling and continued reading.

I’m excited about starting on 2024. It’ll be busy for sure.

[Photo by Henry Ballone, Lincoln Memorial Centennial, May 22, 2022]

Fire of Genius

 

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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The Year in a Traveler’s Life – 2023

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Samarkand, UzbekistanAnother year has passed at the speed of travel, which if my time sense is correct is somewhere between the speed of sound and the speed of light. I’m always shocked to reach December only to wonder what happened to the first eleven months of the year. At least this year, travel-wise, was back to some sense of normality. To quote my old TV psycho-complement, Monk, “Here’s what happened.”

In what seems to have become a trend, my travel year started slowly. January through March are always intensely busy, both with catching up on everything I didn’t finish the previous year and with Abraham Lincoln-related events. This year I was especially busy giving presentations, doing radio and podcast interviews, and fielding questions from reporters related to my book, Lincoln: The Fire of Genius. More on that in my annual writing post coming soon. The bottom line is that I didn’t travel much in the first quarter.

All that changed in April as the proverbial (not literal) dam burst. Of the thirty days in April, I was home for only six of them. Early in the month I took a road trip up through New England to investigate many of the stops Lincoln made on his two visits to the region. He had given a dozen lectures in Massachusetts in 1848 between sessions of his single term as a U.S. Congressman, mostly stumping for the Whig nominee for president, Zachary Taylor (Spoiler: Taylor won). Lincoln returned in February of 1860 immediately after his Cooper Union speech in New York City. While originally planned solely to visit his son Robert doing time at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire (after failing his Harvard entrance exams), the success of Cooper Union led to high demand for him to speak in Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. I visited many of the sites and conducted research for a future project. I also stopped at Hildene – Robert Lincoln’s home in Vermont – and got a VIP tour, then stopped in Peekskill, NY to keynote an annual meeting and pick up an award.

After two days home, which included a webinar one day and hosting a Lincoln Group dinner meeting the next, I was on a plane to Lisbon, Portugal. We had a few days there before boarding a Windstar luxury yacht to Gibraltar, Morocco, many cities in Spain, Barcelona, and a day trip to Andorra. I wrote a bit more about that trip here. It was May 6th before we got home. June was a busy work month, but it was on the road again for the week of July 4th back to New England for family visits and stops at Chesterwood (the studio of Daniel Chester French, sculptor of the Lincoln Memorial Lincoln), The Mount (the writer Edith Wharton’s home), and the Norman Rockwell Museum (to see his portrait of Lincoln, of course).

September had me back on a plane to “The Stans,” more specifically Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. I met up with a group of people traveling under the Eurocircle moniker, whose leader I had first met a decade ago when my book, Tesla, first came out. This was my fourth trip with her and was happy to see another four people I had met last year on the Tanzania trip. There were eleven of us total who jumped around three major cities in Uzbekistan before spending shorter times in the other three countries. It was an eye-opening experience, as was the single day I had in Istanbul on the way there. [Hint: Turkish Airlines offers free tours if you’re on certain flights with long layovers]

November included the annual Lincoln Forum symposium in Gettysburg, PA, a 3-day collection of a record 350 Lincoln attendees to listen to a collection of some of the greatest Lincoln scholars in the country. Last year (i.e., 2022) I picked up the Wendy Allen Award for the Lincoln Group of DC and gave a presentation on my Fire of Genius book, so this year was slightly less hectic. That said, I did spend time chatting up key leaders of other Lincoln organizations about plans for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. I joined a group of colleagues on the first day out at the Gettysburg National Cemetery examining the camera angles from all the extant photos of the event, including pinpointing the actual location of where Lincoln spoke. That night was headlined by Steve Inskeep of NPR fame. The middle night gave us a concert by Jay Ungar and Molly Mason, whose music you would recognize from the Ken Burns mini-series on the Civil War. The final night featured a great rendition of the Gettysburg Address by actor Graham Sibley and a conversation with the incomparable Pulitzer Prize-winning Doris Kearns Goodwin (Team of Rivals and many others). Two days after returning from Gettysburg, it was on the road again to New England for the third time in 2023, this time for a more relaxed Thanksgiving with family.

Which gets us to December. I do have one more short trip, a few days in Pennsylvania with family, but otherwise the year is done for traveling.

But 2024 is only ten days away. And I have plenty of plans.

Two big trips have already been booked. March will find us on Windstar again, this time on a small sailing ship (140 passengers) in the Caribbean. We’ll start in Panama and spend some time in Colombia before dropping in on the ABC islands, Grenada, the Grenadines, and ending in Barbados. July will find us in Botswana (birding), Zimbabwe (Victoria Falls), and South Africa (Cape Town). After not having been to Africa ever until 2021, this will make the third year in a row seeing a new country (or three) on that continent. The earlier trip to Colombia will be the first time in South America since the amazing Argentina trip of 2014. South America and Antarctica are in future plans starting in 2025.

Of course, there will be “shorter” trips closer to home. I plan another road trip to New England, likely in April, in addition to at least two, and likely three, other trips to various places there in 2023. There will be the Lincoln Forum in November, possibly an upstate New York road trip, a visit to NYC for both work and pleasure, and shorter visits (if I haven’t run out of days in the year) to Richmond and West Virginia. There may be more, or slightly less as circumstances warrant, but it promises to be a very busy travel year.

I’ll have my annual Year in the Writer’s Life post up shortly after Christmas.

Photo: David J. Kent, Samarkand, Uzbekistan

Fire of Genius

 

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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The Year in a Traveler’s Life – 2022

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David and the Lion - TanzaniaSome followers will recall that my annual travel roundup has been called “The Year in Science Traveling” since its inception many years ago. I’ve decided to change it to “The Year in a Traveler’s Life” from this point forward to reflect my broader traveling experiences. Given my writing history, which I’ll capture shortly in my “writer’s life” annual post, much of my travel includes Lincoln-themed locations. That said, I still do a lot of science traveling and this year was no exception. In fact, it was almost a normal travel year after two-plus years of COVID travel restrictions. In 2022 I made my first overseas trips since I went to Cuba in May of 2019. It was nice to see more of the world again.

The travel year didn’t start well. We had planned a small ship cruise beginning and ending in Istanbul, Turkey. It would have taken us into the Black Sea with stops in Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine (Odesa), Russia (Sochi), Georgia, and a few additional spots in Turkey (including Cappadocia). Although it was scheduled for September, by March it was clear that was not going to happen. Not surprisingly, the cruise was cancelled soon after Russia invaded Ukraine and our attention switched to focusing on supporting a Ukrainian friend with whom we had traveled previously. With the Black Sea off the table, we looked for alternatives and found a quick booking for a tour of Iceland, a place that has been on my bucket list for many years. Iceland was a wonderful experience as we circled the island, stopping at a seemingly infinite number of spectacular waterfalls. We also saw volcanoes, luckily all dormant at the moment. Not long after getting home there was a volcano spewing ash and lava not far from the airport we had traveled from. While there I saw the Eyjafjallajökull volcano that had disrupted air travel for weeks in 2010 while I was living in Brussels. Iceland is known as the land of fire and ice, and this trip certainly proved that catchphrase true. A truly amazing experience, including hiking behind a large waterfall (and getting drenched) and seeing the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that passes through the island.

Meanwhile, around the time of our Iceland trip we committed to a photo safari in Tanzania, which we took in late November into early December. This was our first time in Africa, our sixth continent (still working on getting to Antarctica). The trip came about through a friend we’ve traveled with two times before. I had met her in 2013 when my first Tesla book was coming out (we were both involved with the Tesla Science Foundation and her mother is from Serbia, like Tesla). Since then, we’ve joined her and her travel organization, EuroCircle, on two trips. The first took us to Serbia, Montenegro, and Croatia, one of the highlights of which was meeting the Prince and Princess of Serbia in the Royal Palace. The second was to Australia and New Zealand. This time we flew for over 13 hours to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, then another 2.5 hours to Arusha, Tanzania. After a night in a small hotel outside the city, we spent the following week in the bush, living in different tented lodges each night (including the one where giraffes and wildebeests snorted and roamed outside our tent all night). We saw thousands of animals – elephants, lions, wildebeest, buffalo, zebras, antelopes, cheetahs, leopards, and tons of bird species – as we wandered through three national parks (Tarangire, Serengeti, Mt. Kilimanjaro) and the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area, plus the rift valley. We even did some sunrise ballooning over the Serengeti. I’ll have more stories and photos as I get the time to sort through them.

Besides the two overseas trips, we made two road trips up to New England. The first in June was to celebrate my mother’s milestone birthday, while the second was actually my first time in many years visiting family for Christmas. I’ve taken to adding side trips to these visits. Last year I tacked on a mini-vacation on Long Island on the trip up and this year’s June visit included a one-night stop in Hartford, CT to see an Abraham Lincoln tribute river walk complete with sculptures of various styles. For the Christmas trip, because of traffic and some tentative weather forecasts, there was no overnight stop but on the way, I steered the car into Concord, MA. I had started reading a book called The People of Concord just before the drive and wanted to learn more about the vibrant writer community there in the 1800s. I also wanted to stop at the Concord Museum because the Lincoln Memorial Centennial special exhibit that I had missed earlier in the year when it was in western Massachusetts was resident in Concord only until February. The exhibit and the Museum were both fabulous and well worth the stop. A brief side trip on the way back involved Henry Wilson, a Senator during the Civil War that played major roles in at least two Lincoln achievements (later he was Ulysses S. Grant’s second vice president).

There was one more short travel event in November. I attended the Lincoln Forum in Gettysburg, PA, where I gave some presentations and accepted the prestigious Wendy Allen Award on behalf of the Lincoln Group of DC, of which I am currently president.

Overall, it was a good travel year despite the challenges (not mention being busy with my book release, which I’ll talk more about in my annual writer’s life post).

So, what’s up for 2023?

Fingers crossed that we don’t get a resurgence of COVID or some other pandemic-related restrictions. But assuming a year at least as available as this one, 2023 should be a good travel year. We’re already booked on a Windstar small ship cruise in April from Lisbon to Barcelona with many stops along the way, including Casablanca, Morocco. That will give us a second country in Africa and a far different experience than Tanzania. Earlier in the April I’ll be doing a road trip to New England that will combine my previously planned “Chasing Abraham Lincoln” stops plus some more related to a possible new writing project. November will have the annual Lincoln Forum. Beyond that, the travel schedule is still in flux. There are a couple of big overseas options I’m considering for late in the year, but I would like to get some sort of travel – either overseas or road trip – in during the summer. I’ll also plan on road tripping to see family at least twice more in the year, plus some shorter day-tripping to see key locations less far afield. And of course, there are all those plans that the “COVID era” put on the back burner, so we’ll have to see what fits into my schedule. Stay tuned!

[Photo credit: Ru Sun (See the lion outside the window?)]

Fire of Genius

 

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.