Crossing the Date Line

Crossing the Date Line is a colorful, romp through 16 countries, from Argentina to Alaska, from Algeria to New Zealand. It weaves together real-life adventure with a little geology, a touch of history, a bit of humor and a fascinating assortment of some unforgettable characters. The book describes living and working in foreign countries and dealing with the various cultures, habits, languages and customs. His wife sometimes traveled with him, setting up homes in a jungle village in northern Argentina, a small town in South Korea, a construction camp in the Himalayan foothills and a fishing village along the southeastern coast of mainland China.

Crossing the Date Line is a colorful, romp through 16 countries, from Argentina to Alaska, from Algeria to New Zealand. It weaves together real-life adventure with a little geology, a touch of history, a bit of humor and a fascinating assortment of some unforgettable characters. The book describes living and working in foreign countries and dealing with the various cultures, habits, languages and customs. The memoir takes the reader to a bat-invested tunnel in Sikkim high in the Himalaya, to a steamy Indonesian jungle where a 30-foot-long python visited the work camp, to the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea where the author worked alongside natives with bones in their noses. He drove through a Siberian blizzard in Korea, was chased by a mama grizzly in the wilds of Alaska, ran for his life from a pack of dogs in Algeria, and was overrun by crickets while living in a shed-like building on the banks of the Narmada River in central India. He ate monkey and snake meat fresh from the Laotian jungle and had a heart-stopping moment as the helicopter he was riding in malfunctioned one foggy day in Alaska.

John Sollo is a retired engineering geologist who spent 36 years traveling the world, conducting design investigations and helping to build large-scale engineered structures. After studying geology at St. Joseph’s College in Indiana and Northern Illinois University, Mr. Sollo spent four years in the U.S. Air Force before migrating to San Francisco where he worked for an international engineering company. He now resides in Roseville, California with his wife, Samantha, and his golf clubs.