Della Fencl

I love to travel. So when a friend asked if I’d join her on a two-person birding trip to the rainforests of Belize, I said yes, despite not being a birder myself. The rainforest is a surreal environment, teeming with wildlife. If Instagram had a “green” filter, that’s what it would look like—flowers everywhere, air plants growing on power lines, insects, lizards, rodents scurrying wherever you look, and lots and lots of colorful birds. Over the course of our trip, we spotted about 130 different species of birds. And while …READ MORE

Recently, our world-traveling comptroller Della Fencl returned from a three-week guided trip with her mom through Cambodia and Vietnam. She sat down to exchange notes with fellow Southeast Asia traveler Danielle Strollo. Danielle: Did you eat anything funky? Della: The weirdest thing I ate was a “baby duck.” It was a fertilized egg that they incubated for about 15-20 days, then they cooked it and cracked it open to eat. It was basically a hard-boiled egg with a tiny, boneless duck in there. My mom ate the meat and said …READ MORE

This last weekend, I decided to run/walk a great event out at Ste. Chapelle’s winery in Caldwell: the Idaho Wine Run. Normally this race is my favorite of the year, since there’s no better way to celebrate finishing a great run than with a glass of wine. This year, though, I was reminded that nature’s bounty and beauty can be a double-edged sword. It’s been a particularly difficult fire season here in the Northwest, as fires rage all over Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. I followed the smoke from one of …READ MORE

Traveling for me has always been about adventure. The excitement of seeing new places, learning new things, trying new foods, and meeting new people motivates me to bear the TSA security lines in search of unforgettable experiences. So when my nieces asked me to travel with them to Chihuahua, Mexico, for a seven-night mission trip, I enthusiastically agreed. Chihuahua houses the largest population center for the Tarahumara people. Like many native populations, the Tarahumara are endangered by a number of external factors, including but not limited to deforestation, climate change, …READ MORE