At some point in time as we chatted while hiking Crow Pass, I mentioned to Jenny that I hadn’t been active for all that many years. It was only as a middle-aged adult that I started being more athletic. I knew what event precipitated the whole odyssey, but I wasn’t sure exactly when. This evening, I was sorting through some old journals, which I really only keep when I’m traveling, and found the one for... Continue reading

After a completely sleepless night on the gravel near Icicle Creek, I was ready to be up at 5:00 and on the trail. With oatmeal and coffee to sustain us, Jenny and I were off before 7:00 to complete the last six miles to the Eagle River Nature Center and the end of the trail. Within half a mile we figured out that we could have had a comfy campsite at Heritage Falls. If we’d... Continue reading

“I saw the brush moving in the middle of the night and was sure it was a bear going after our food,” Jenny said after I’d pulled our intact food bags up from where she’d hung them off the side of the bridge over Turbid Creek. “I kept imagining that we were having a huge earthquake and the bridge got taken out. We were on opposite sides and couldn’t hear each other over the river.”... Continue reading

As Jenny Kelly and I posed for a photo by the Chugach National Forest sign at the Girdwood end of Crow Pass Trail at 10:00 on the morning of July 29, I was giddy with excitement and nerves. We were about to embark on an adventure that would accomplish two things for me: put a tick mark on my life bucket list and fulfill my July Year of Fear goal. The other end of the... Continue reading

I understand how the caribou feel. The madness that causes mid-summer herds to careen across the tundra and plunge into icy rivers. The drive to keep moving, moving to the point of starvation. I understand. ***** One of my Year of Fear goals has been to hike Crow Pass. The hike itself doesn't scare me, although any time I sleep in a tent in bear country I get a little nervous. No, what really makes... Continue reading

This past few days I spent my time at the Westgate casino in Las Vegas, normally never an inspiring proposition, but this week I was inspired. I was attending the biennial Nature Photography Summit of the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA). About 300 student, amateur, and professional photographers had gathered to socialize, learn, share, buy gear, and be inspired. I was told that this was one of the smallest summits in years, and, as... Continue reading

Often when I start to focus on something, that something begins to appear in front of me more often, surprising me with synchronicities. Of course, those things were there to begin with, they just slipped by me unnoticed. I worried a bit when I decided my focus word for the year was going to be fear that I might be conjuring things I didn't want to conjure. Is my life going to become more frightening... Continue reading

Choosing a word to define the upcoming year has become a popular New Year's activity over the past decade. Typically, these words are intended to focus the individual's attention on manifesting something they want to foster in their life: gratitude, creativity, love, or other positive attributes. To jump on the bandwagon, I, too, decided to choose a word to focus on in 2019: fear. According to Merriam-Webster's online site, the noun fear is defined as... Continue reading

6It’s my birthday, the last healthy one of my life. Or so The Blue Zones website tells me. Blue Zones, if you’ve been missing out as I have for the past few years, are discrete populations that are known for unusual longevity, and especially for having an unusual number of centenarians. Dan Buettner is the author of a book by the same name and giver of TED Talks, and he led teams of scientists to... Continue reading

It was like a minor miracle: the first time we applied for a permit to drive our own vehicle into Denali National Park, we got one. I have a friend who's been applying for 20 years and never gotten one. Normally, the only way to get back into the park is on one of the official National Park Service tour buses, but then you're subject to where they stop and for how long. In their... Continue reading

Okay, I wasn't really lost. I just didn't know how to get to where I wanted to be. I should know better. It was the first hike of spring. Let me start at the beginning. Cold nights followed by warm, generally sunny days have given me the idea that spring has finally deigned to make an appearance in Valdez. I've put almost 100 miles on my bike in the past week - a truly wonderful... Continue reading

In retrospect, it was fun, and that is decidedly the definition of Type 2 fun. Are you familiar with the three types of fun? I'm not sure who came up with these designations, but someone determined that: Type 1 activities are fun while you're doing them. Think riding go-cart riding, skating across a smooth lake - all those things that make you say, "Whee!" Type 2 activities maybe aren't so much fun while you're doing... Continue reading

I'm reading Montaigne in Barn Boots by Michael Perry. Near the end of the book, the 51-year-old author writes, "It seems somewhere around my current life stage, people make one of two moves: Some stiffen, dig in their heels, and attempt to block the future; others reinvigorate life by blending it with the spirit of youth." Like Perry, I am working to achieve the latter. I consider myself a reasonably active person, and I enjoy... Continue reading

One of these days I'll learn that if I say, "It'll be fun to try to get to...", it really means that I'll be dead tired after a failed attempt to get wherever it was. Today was one of those days. After a failed attempt at a winter hike up Hogsback a couple of weeks ago (I needed to go a few miles farther and about 2000 feet higher than I did), I decided it... Continue reading

"Yeah...when's the last time you did anything outside of your comfort zone?" I had to actively keep my mouth from falling open when I heard my daughter's sarcastic voice say this to me. Me. Have I failed to live my philosophy of "if it makes me nervous I should probably do it"? I don't think so, but perhaps. Of course, she could just have been a teenager trying to show off in front of her... Continue reading

I am counting today as my first day of "gainful unemployment." I made up that phrase because I'm too young to retire, I am no longer working a regular job, and I have no intention of sitting around doing nothing of utility, whether to me or others. So, I am not retired, I am gainfully unemployed. Technically, my last day of work was December 19, 2017, but since we immediately went to Hawaii for Rowan's... Continue reading

After two years of prevaricating and just a week of post-ordering waiting, the Isvidda ice skates I ordered for each of us finally came in yesterday. This afternoon, finally done with my work, I asked Thane if he wanted to go for a walk. He suggested that we go skating instead. I knew I married him for his brains! (sometimes) The skates are simply blades with bindings into which ski boots clip. This system means... Continue reading

On August 20, after not nearly enough training, I completed my first marathon. Now, let's be clear: I did not run this marathon. I walked the entire distance. 26.2 miles in 7:02. A very brisk walk for a very long time. I hurt everywhere. My quads, my feet, my calves, my flabby underarms where my skin chafed against the straps of my Camelback water bladder pack. Everywhere. One of the first things I said when... Continue reading

How many syllables does a Haiku have? I couldn’t remember while I was kayaking on Robe Lake this afternoon, but I was inspired to compose one or two or three to the wonders of autumn. Ah, yes, 17: 5, 7, 5 per line. Kayak rests in reeds. Paper rustles all around. Dragonflies dancing. There were many dragonflies out today, rustling like paper among the reeds and probing the water with their abdomens. I’ve been trying... Continue reading

Mom at the Trädgårds Föreningen rose garden in Gothenburg, Sweden. Not surprising for a Wisconsin girl, my Mom's family on both sides hails from Sweden. All of her grandparents were immigrants to the U.S. with last names like Olson and Johnson. As a result, traveling to Sweden has been a life-long dream of Mom's. Now that she's 73, and knowing she'd never go on her own, I decided it was time to fulfill that dream... Continue reading