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Three Saints Road

Remember Who You Wanted To Be

  • My Balkan Holiday
  • The Renaissance Project: A Story of Reclamation
  • Five Nights in May: Baseball and Middle America

Tag: Lisbon

Posted on August 9, 2014November 16, 2015

Portugal in Pictures

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jay.morse1970@gmail.com

About Three Saints Road

Welcome to Three Saints Road — a place where I chase experience instead of souvenirs, stories instead of postcards. I believe travel should be raw and real: Cracked sidewalks, back-alley chatter, the one beer too many with strangers, the unexpected kindness and awkward moments we all deserve.

Here, I write about places not as tourist traps, but as living, breathing neighborhoods. I wander streets most guidebooks skip, meet people whose lives don’t show up in glossy ads. I seek the unexpected and uncomfortable, where we are most likely to find both chaos and charm. Three Saints Road isn’t about ticking off checklists, but about immersion, curiosity, and the grit of real life abroad. I try to write so you might feel what I feel – a greater connection with the rest of the world.

Join me on roads less traveled. Maybe you’ll see a piece of the world — and of yourself — somewhere in the cracks.

Three Saints Road has been published in Tahoma Literary Review, The Forge Literary Magazine, Door=Jar, and Hinterland Magazine. "Triumph" was included in Notable Essays & Literary Nonfiction of 2024 in The Best American Essays 2025.

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The Archive

  • Afghanistan
  • Africa
  • Army Tales
  • Blue Highways: Road Trip Notes
  • Europe
  • Five Nights in May
  • Guest Posts
  • Iraq
  • My Balkan Holiday
  • Photography
  • Short Stories
  • South America
  • The Renaissance Project
  • Uncategorized

Images

  • 4th Street Project
  • Africa
    • Niamey, Niger
  • Asia
    • Afghanistan
    • Cambodia
    • Iraq
    • Viet Nam
  • Central/South America
    • Guatemala
  • Europe
    • Amsterdam/Garmisch/Munich
    • Edinburgh
    • Suances/Lisbon/Sintra
  • Home (New)
  • North America
    • Copper Canyon, Mexico
    • Guanajuato, Mexico
    • Toronto, Canada
    • United States
      • A Series of Pictures Involving a Blue Can
      • Assateague Island National Seashore
      • Reno, Nevada
      • The Ford
        • After
        • Before
        • During
      • The Preakness

threesaintsroad

This is the fourth or fifth year I've read "Man's This is the fourth or fifth year I've read "Man's Search for Meaning" on New Year's Day, and Viktor Frankl's words and observations continue to move me. Though I don't do resolutions, I take away something new (and anew) each time I read it, both as reminder of the depths and heights of human-beingness - for better or worse - and as a reminder of the person I want to be: "The consciousness of our inner value cannot be shaken by (camp) life, but rather is anchored in higher, more spiritual things."

Happy New Year! And may you continue your search for meaning. #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
Birthday workout with my nephews is my favorite pr Birthday workout with my nephews is my favorite present. There will surely be a year where this hurts too much to do, but not today. #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
New travel essay on ThreeSaintsRoad (link in bio) New travel essay on ThreeSaintsRoad (link in bio) - come travel with me where I take unnecessary risks and act like a class A a-hole tourist, even when I know better. But I'm a good citizen more often than I'm not, I promise...

Subscribe and share. #travelmore And #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
I like books. I like to read them, to gift them, t I like books. I like to read them, to gift them, to recommend those relevant, or timely, or those I found particularly moving. I like the potential of an unread book, or a series of the unread stacked together, waiting to be picked up and thumbed, or put back down because it is not yet their time, or grabbed onto and spread open, the reader slowly moving closer, immersed in a mutual embrace, a silent stop-action film. A long-held fantasy in my nomadic life has been a library, a quiet, personal, safe space where I could look, and think, and - here's the real fantasy part - where I could watch a niece or nephew stand in front of book-filled shelves, back to me, staring up and thinking "what kind of sociopath is my uncle?  THESE ARE ALPHABETIZED." 

I am here for this moment, nieces and nephews and family writ large, and the sharing of books. This small child - who can't yet read - is partial to non-fiction, Edmund Morris's "Dutch", Tom Reiss's "The Black Count", Isak Dineson's "Out of Africa", John Berendt's "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil." Now if I can only get her to put them back facing the correct direction. #readmore #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
Reno in November is all right. #rememberwhoyouwant Reno in November is all right. #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
Happy Halloween! And of vastly more importance, ha Happy Halloween! And of vastly more importance, happy birthday to the best state in the union, container of the most mountain ranges, the eastern run of the Truckee's silvery reels, builder of grit, home of the darkest skies, undiscovered wilderness, Redneck Portland (trademark pending!), the home of my youth - and the best day for this homer for the High Desert to get a copy of the latest issue of @hinterlandnonfiction. Thank you to Hinterland for giving a landing place for the most personal thing I've written, "Roller Shades, Deconstructed." Get your copy of Issue 17 at hinterlandmagazine.com. #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
#battleborn #Nevadaday
Nevada LitCrawl! All day tomorrow, Saturday Septem Nevada LitCrawl! All day tomorrow, Saturday September 13th. Come see your favorite writer (hey ma, that's me and definitely not @zgearey) or find a new one. What's that? You only have availability from 2:15 to 3:15? No problem! Come see me at the 1864 Tavern where I and three fellow panelists will talk about writing memoirs. I might even share a story about Ichiro. #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe #nevadalitcrawl @nevada_humanities
25 years of our annual big boy's weekend! My golf 25 years of our annual big boy's weekend! My golf game still sucks, but that's hardly the point. #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
First day on the flyrod, first fish! Don't F with First day on the flyrod, first fish! Don't F with the lefty's swing. #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe #prosserreservoir #flyfishnevada (I know it's not NV, but it should be)
Now you're just sucking up Truckee River! I promis Now you're just sucking up Truckee River! I promise I won't call you bad names anymore.

#rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
Yeah buddy, I was as surprised as you were. I mov Yeah buddy, I was as surprised as you were.

I moved back home to Nevada for lots of reasons, but finding a place 200 feet from the Truckee River was a huge bonus. "The Truckee is full of big fish," they told me. "Great!," I thought. "I will catch them."

I had a big fish on the first day I walked into the river, maybe on the fourth or fifth cast. I saw him. Her. It. It was beautiful, a shiny pink rainbow, as big as anything I caught in the canyons of New Mexico, half its body out of the water before it decided to shake loose from my fly. No matter; I was elated. This was surely a great omen for my new life as an urban flyfisherpersonguy. A stoic professional quietly walking through the neighborhood with flyrod in hand, baseball cap or rakish felt cattleman's hat shielding sunglassed face from the sun, on a weekday no less ("what does that stoic professional even do for a living? How can he fish on weekdays?"). I would walk to the river, or maybe even ride my 2001 Schwinn Moab upstream on the Tahoe-Pyramid Trail searching for a bend in the river I had not yet conquered. "What do I for a living? I slay fish sir. This is what I do. Not for a living, but for living."

And then...nothing. How many times have I fished this river since I moved here in mid-December? Five for sure. At least 10. Maybe 20? And since that first day, not. One. Bite. The Truckee had become my white whale, my nemesis. Call me Ishmael indeed, banished from catching fish in my own backyard.

But not today Satan! Today, Truckee River, we are friends again.

#TruckeeRiverFlyFishing
#rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
#rememberwhoyouwantedtobe #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
Liban! How I missed you, with your sea to sky road Liban! How I missed you, with your sea to sky roads, compulsory overeating, human mosaics (looky here, it's Ramadan from Sudan, rocking the Wolf Pack hoodie), near militant generosity, and resilience for days. May 2025 bring less need for that last one. #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
It's no kishmish, but perhaps this lamoon me'asfar It's no kishmish, but perhaps this lamoon me'asfar will be just as delicious. Or it will be rotten! We'll find out in two weeks. #FosterDrivestreetfood #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
"It took me too many years to fully embrace the fa "It took me too many years to fully embrace the fact that it is experiences and not things that make us happy. Or at least a longer-lasting happy."

This from "Kraków", my latest essay at threesaintsroad.com (link in bio) and #2 in my "City" series. #travelwriting #travelmore #krakow

Check it out, subscribe, share. And #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
Surprises still exist. Avoid Google. Take some ris Surprises still exist. Avoid Google. Take some risks. Eat the food. Get scammed, just a little bit. Stumble into your own Midaq Alley. #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
This from that: Some of my ma's old fence; new (sp This from that: Some of my ma's old fence; new (spectacular) art from Colorado artist @dolangeiman; and Adelita, one of my favorite folk heroes. #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
New post @ threesaintsroad.com (link in bio) "The New post @ threesaintsroad.com (link in bio)

"The rising sun casts giant halos and penumbras and nimbuses and aureolas around ancient structures, hundred million-year-old chunks of stone chiseled and shaved and stacked and polished, 2,400 years ago, into the buildings I see now."

It's been difficult to get back into the writing groove, but four days in a new city was helpful. #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
All the Cathenians are fat cats (get it? Cats. In All the Cathenians are fat cats (get it? Cats. In Athens). #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
Greetings from the Biggest Little City, nee Fuller Greetings from the Biggest Little City, nee Fullers Crossing, nee Lake Crossing, future nee "Redneck Portland" (that one's mine, and lest you judge, I write you from my favorite coffee shop where a gentleman in a Carhartt vest, neatly groomed moustache, and straight bill baseball cap just ordered a coffee drink that began with "frosted maple"), aka Reno, aka "my new home".

I've long been a homer for Nevada and now it's home once again (last stopover of more than three weeks? 1989). Feels pretty GD good.

I will be blessing you with observations from the Battle Born state, the state with the most mountain ranges (suck it Alaska!), the 7th biggest state in the Union but #1 in your hearts, and I assure you they are all endearing. And yes, I currently smell slightly of a wet horse blanket.

#homemeansnevada #rememberwhoyouwantedtobe
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