This is the first post in a new category that I’m attempting to make some sort of regular feature here. For lack of any truly imaginative ideas, I’m calling this section “Travel Stories,” and the basic idea here is that I’ll recount interesting things that have happened to me. These are the sort of stories that I would have a tendency to tell while at a party, or (even better!) while sitting around a campfire during a hiking expedition somewhere in a national park.