Category Archives: Travel

Character, co-dependence, Fiction is Truth, Goals and Dreams, Hiking and outdoor beauty, Metaphor, Those who can teach, Travel, Write

It’s a Book: Precious Journey releases at long last

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It is an allegory. It is steampunk. It is a little bit novel. It is now available from Amazon and other major book distributors – also from your favoite bookstore – ask for it. Here is a sample of my favorite characters and my favorite chapter.

Stalking the Sleuth

Traveler was being followed.  He sensed it from the moment he exited the train.  It was a new sensation. For the traveler, open and transparent as he was, was still used to being nearly invisible, sleuthing from the sidelines.  It did not feel like a malicious sort of stalking, it was more like shadowing, anticipating. For instance, how did this person whom he had not yet seen – merely felt the eyes and their constant following of his every move – how did this person know he would be on the train? Traveler had not known himself whether he would drive or ride until a few hours before departure. Traveler stood for a moment on the station platform and wished he had his Convie. What am I thinking, he asked himself.  I have two sturdy legs and walking is so beneficial to clarity of conclusion.

Followed or not, he was hungry. He turned into his favorite establishment on the wharf and ordered a basket of fish and chips and half a pint of the local ale.  Fishing nets and colorful floats adorned the walls. Over the years, hardwood floorboards had been worn to a patina by the constant comings and goings of locals and tourists.  Places this popular rarely have extraneous personal space. Every inch was shared with a constantly undulating crowd.  Traveler was no sooner seated at a table then he was joined in quick succession by three other persons, two male, one female, constantly in motion changing places like musical chairs as an order number was announced or someone spied a friend, waved, and changed position.

Receiving his order, Traveler closed his eyes and savored the fried sea aroma curling up from the steam. Another basket slid onto the table and a sinewy male eased expertly into the neighboring seat.

“What is your interest in my sister?”

            Traveler looked up into cool and intelligent blue eyes and held their gaze for a few seconds.

“Sean Journey, analyst,” said the man, extending a hand.

The traveler shook hands silently, reached for the malt vinegar, fingered a chip and waited.

“You show up in the city and ask background questions of the flakey receptionist. Next, on a road trip, you stop at a little café that just happens to be owned by my parents.  No doubt, they gave you volumes of information couched in opinion. Assuming you were capable of distilling the information from the opinion; your next stop was obviously here, where my sister spent some of the most enjoyable and enlightening years of her life.”

“You have tracked me this far, including following me from the train station. You are an analyst.” Traveler met Sean’s eyes again and continued, “You have to ask what my interest is in your sister?” he paused. “I wear a trench coat, I have a fedora, how is it you did not assume I am a private investigator hired by the man himself to track Precious?”

“Puh!” The analyst nearly spat. “That man never had a modicum of initiative. He could find her easily enough on his own if he cared to take the trouble.”

“He wants her back.”

“He wants her to come back, you mean –without him lifting a finger.”

“You have a close connection with your sister.” It was a statement, not a question.

“My sister is kind and caring. Growing up twenty months apart, it felt like we were twins. She protected me. She is a very loyal person.”

Traveler began, “You say Precious is kind, caring and loyal.  It seems so out of character for her – from what I have learned of her character – that she would leave the man.” Again, it was an observation, not a question, and the traveler took time to bite off a portion of batter-dipped cod and chew thoughtfully.

The analyst fetched a checkered napkin, wiped his mouth and again made eye contact.

“Precious has an Achilles heel.”

Traveler raised an eyebrow.

  “She can’t help rescuing people.”

“That is the compassionate thing to do,” shrugged the traveler.

“Once she rescues them, they make her feel responsible to care for them. When she draws a line and is no longer responsive to plaintive whining, they accuse her of being insensitive.”

Traveler thought back to the helpless wail that first drew his attention to the cave.

“How did she come to connect with the man in the first place?”

“It was here, at the Western Conservatory of Earth Studies. Precious had a work-study assignment in the botany department. She was building the terrace at Salt Park.  It looks out over the bay. The botany department was eradicating noxious weeds and studying plants native to the area. The man, as you already know, was a botany student.  His field study and her work shifts overlapped.

“She was cute.  She had a fascinating set of tools, so he followed her around like a puppy. And she responded to his needs, encouraging him, complimenting him, building him up.”

“So Precious encourages people and builds them up?”

“Yes, she is always adapting and giving the benefit of the doubt. As a result, people depend on her.”

“It is a credit to her strength of character that your mother has not prevailed on her to move back home.”

“Yes. And one of the greatest disappointments of my mother’s life to find that they are not joined at the hip in every opinion.”

Salt Water Park

Traveler’s basket was empty. The two men rose together in a sort of natural synchrony and headed out the door. Traveler set a course for Salt Water Park and Sean Journey fell into step beside him.

“We have dined together with perceptive conversation,” stated Journey, “but you have not yet identified yourself and your interest.”

Again Traveler mused on the oft-asked question. He preferred not to answer directly. There is no succinct and simple way to reply; “I am a traveler, scribe and cycloptic seer for the core.”  It leads only to complication. First, most people think you are joking. The common man, meaning the majority of homo sapiens populating the earth, would guffaw and snort, “You think you go around seeing Cyclops?” Sean Journey was a human of no ordinary intellect. He had shared honestly. The ball was now in Traveler’s court.

“I am a traveler, scribe, and cycloptic seer for the core,” he replied.

“Meaning you work for the Cranial Reservoir,” stated Sean. “Why the qualifier, cycloptic?”

“I am a visionary of only one eye,” said Traveler.  “Were I to see with both eyes, I would be omniscient, omnipotent. As it is, I observe wisdom. I am able to see imperfectly into the behavior and motivation of others. Once glimpsed, the motivation and personality fascinates me. I travel to ferret out the needed wisdom for each relationship observed.  I scribe. The results of seeing and scribing are uploaded to the global Cranial Reservoir – all the collected wisdom of the ages.”

“You upload directly to the Cranial Reservoir?” queried Sean.

Traveler smiled, “There is a good bit of residue and affinity for the past in me.  I first make my notes on papyrus tablet. The very act of writing is stimulating to thought – therapeutic to confusion. Once I reach the conclusion, my results teletransport to the core cranium.”

“They pay you to upload facts?”

“Sometimes hard facts; more often truth couched in myth.”

“I have accessed the Cranial Reservoir many times in my profession – more often in the classifications of military behavior.”

“My work is about relationships.”

As the analytical silence grew, the men sat musing with similarity of mind. Sean absently caressed a Michaelmas aster and then hefted a black volcaniclastic rock the size of a bowling ball. Fire glass.

“All that rot about Precious loving rocks inordinately? The goblin princess accusation?” said Sean. “Precious loves rocks for what they are, a normal part of our earth surroundings. She also, as you know, loves jewels and gold and silver – for their excellence. The man, he tends to objectify.  He loved rocks only because they were pretty – and because Precious was good at rocks.  He is a covetous being.  He craves for himself everything someone else has.  Precious was naturally gifted with the ability to know just which rock fit in which space as she built that terrace with our father, Petros. Then, she went to college and graduate school to find out the latest techniques for identifying gold and minerals.  The man, on the other hand, absorbed Precious’s successes for himself along with appropriating her tools.  He seemed to think whatever Precious did, he could do better just because he was the masculine portion of the team.  He wanted to stay home and enjoy rocks without having made any effort to learn about them.”

Again, Sean and the Traveler rose from their flagstone seats in tandem. As though with one mind, they headed toward the beach. As they walked, Sean probed for more details about Traveler’s work. “What do you consider your most valuable contribution to the Core – to the Cranium?” asked the analyst.

“Frankly, I come to many conclusions that I choose not to upload to the Cranial Reservoir.”

 “You remain covert? You withhold information?” queried the analyst, almost, but not quite accusingly.

“That is one thing I would never willingly do: withhold a discovery that would make life better for all.  But there is significant danger in serving up truth before the time is right. Precipitous truth could cause a Lady MacBeth situation on your hands.

“You understand the process, of course.  After much research and observation, information is uploaded / teleported to the Reservoir. Everyone has access to the Reservoir — and the Cranium, but few go to the bother to digest and think.  It is much easier to let others digest the information and broadcast it in 60-second sound bites.  Besides, the process to final truth and familiarity with the Universal Cranium is life-long and seems unrewarding to the average seeker.

“Once the information reaches the Cranium, it goes through an extensive process.  Anything that is not precise truth is sloughed off. Unscrupulous – or maybe just ignorant- individuals harvest the debris and make their living – and their power – from it. It is this detritus in the hands of well-meaning, but misguided individuals that can inadvertently cause spiritual abuse or emotional abuse.  Detritus adds a lot of pressure, stress to the lives of sensitive souls. I want to be overly careful. That is why I withhold; until I am sure – sure that everything I upload is precise – so that I do not add to the detritus.

“There are things that people believe so heartily to be truth they would stake their life on it – maybe your life too.  For instance: you must have meat and eggs for breakfast before you have pie.” Traveler paused, and then asked the rhetorical question, “Is it wise to eat a healthful breakfast before pie?  Yes.  Might an omelet serve the purpose just as well – or better- than biscuits and gravy?” Traveler raised his eyebrows into question marks.

The analyst gave a rueful smile.

Traveler continued, “Is it imperative that children respect their parents? Yes. Must adult children follow every word of advice that falls from the lips of antiquated ancestors in order to show that respect?” Traveler paused for a moment and let the question hover. “Myths that hold the essence of truth may cause simple minds to make a shrine of the shell.  They worship the vehicle of truth rather than the truth. They make sacred the cow rather than simply being nourished by the meat.”

It was not often Sean Journey found himself in the presence of someone both safe and intellectual. He proffered a rare insight from his personal life. “I respect my dad for his philosophical, good-hearted patience and perseverance. I love my mother because she gave birth to me and nourished me, meeting my basic needs when I was young. But very seldom do I find it comfortable to visit Castle Rook.”

Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Hiking and outdoor beauty, Mountains, Travel

She Knows Beauty

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Already she had been from her western Colorado hometown as far to the northwest as Olympia and Seattle and even on into British Columbia. She had travelled down Highway 1 to visit relatives in L.A. and Fresno and San Diego and flown all the way to Guam and Tokyo in one direction and New York and Frankfurt in the other. She had lived in San Antonio and Chicago and Oklahoma, but always returned to Colorado. And then she climbed on the backseat of a motorcycle and spent 21 days traveling to other places. She slept in a wheatfield in Kansas and saw the fabled Poconos and the outskirts of Philadelphia and the inskirts of Manhattan and almost ran out of gas in the lower tip of Michigan. She camped on a beach in Massachusetts and felt guilty; not merely because the sign said it was illegal to camp on the beach overnight, but because she had traveled far and wide from the western most boundary of Colorado all the way to New England and had not yet done the State of Colorado justice – did not yet know her own home state like the back of her hand. So, over the decades that followed, she attempted to remedy that. She saw the Colorado side of Dinosaur National Monument, she hiked all the trails at Colorado National Monument, she visited Rocky Mountain National Park and hiked to the headwaters of the Colorado River, she rode the train from Denver to Grand Junction and down Ruby Canyon into Utah. She camped in State Parks and saw the Royal Gorge and almost burned her feet at the Sand Dunes. She lost herself for awhile and drifted all the way down the Colorado River through Arches and Moab and Canyonlands and straight on into Arizona and saw the new London Bridge way out in the desert and dipped her feet in the Colorado River anywhere she could until it finally died somewhere out in California. And then she came back, determined to hike every trail, and climb every mountain, and paddle every stream that she could before she met her final goal of dying in a beautiful place. Nowadays her adventures are peppered with descriptive sounding places like Silverton, Ice Lakes, Highland Mary, Treasure Falls, Weminuche Wilderness, Lake City, Animas River, Cataract Gorge, Alpine Loop, Red Mountain, Grand Mesa. And you know what? She still doesn’t know her home state like the back of her hand, but what she does know is beauty.

Character, Emotional Health, Family, Health and Long Life, Travel

Presumed Introvert

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He was the one who went straight to the car after Sunday evening church service, often taking one of the children – whichever was most sleepy or squirmy – with him while her mother chatted with friends, attended to choir business or emergency young peoples or women’s board meetings. Oh, she had heard him be noisy, coaching from the sidelines without benefit of in-ear amplification; training basketball players who were running gym laps, calling instructions from the bench as needed. But for as long as she had known him – and that was all her life – she had presumed him a quiet introvert who favored being alone.

When she planned for a long road trip to visit family, she opted for out -of- the- way solitude, quiet airbnbs that suited her need to be away from the crowd. It was near the end of COVID-19. Old people had been vaccinated. Hope was beginning to dawn. But still, out of caution and scrupulous attention to rules and suggestions, she pursued contactless check in, single family lodging, places where families could cook their own food, avoid crowded diners, stay in their own bubble and not brush shoulders with strangers.

But Dad didn’t see it that way. On a preliminary trip to Capitol Reef, just before the second wave of COVID, while bnbs were barely making a comeback, but doing it with contactless check-in, it worried him that he never saw the hosts. Once the long road trip commenced, he inquired at every stay for the names of the hosts, worried at their absence, began to suggest stops for meals at this roadside café or that diner. A high point for him was exiting the interstate somewhere in Idaho and breakfasting at a restaurant with an intriguing name and a chatty server. Violia was of late middle-age and knew how to joke in the old-fashioned way trading cliches and rolling with whatever eccentricities came from the lips of an 88-year-old man with half his hearing intact. He remembered this as one of the highlights of the trip.

On the other hand, highlights of the trip for his 66-year-old daughter and millennial granddaughter included staying at isolated mountain cabins, lighting wood stove fires, and hiking alone to rainforest beaches. He was gleeful about having met a host accidently on a gravel walkway whilst taking out the trash. He loved to see people. He loved to see faces – even if they wore masks – but especially if they didn’t. He reveled in talking with strangers though he saw and heard only half of what they did and said. 

In reflecting on the trip, she realized that for many of the miles and days, she and her dad had unwittingly been at cross-purposes. While she had been industriously planning social distance and solitude, he had been deeply longing for close contact and society – not just with the family members they were carefully trying to visit, but with people, strangers, hosts, waitpersons, the vast outside world that had too long been withheld from him – most lately by a pandemic, but cruelly for the preceding years while he and his invalid wife became increasingly shut-in.

This was so clearly brought home to the daughter – she who craved solitude and independence – on the return trip. In Leavenworth Washington, in lieu of the desired secluded single-family cabin with kitchen, she booked an old motel turned Airbnb, complete with – well, it wasn’t complete at all-it boasted only a microwave and dishes were washed in the bathroom sink. Her dad inquired as to the name of the host. Jessica. She reminded him this was a contactless check-in and they would not see the host.

Whereupon Dad replied philosophically, “Well, miracles do happen.” 

Character, Family, Health and Long Life, Hiking and outdoor beauty, Metaphor, River, The Cabin, Travel

Dad For The Touchdown!

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He was a guard on the varsity basketball team, one of five starters on the first ever Warrior, the first senior class, the first Central High School – at that time housed in the WPA building on 29 Road. At 5’6” he weighed 125 pounds. He was sharp and attentive and rightfully earned the nickname “Live Wire.” They were a scrappy team, they exercised sportsmanship. That was 71 years ago.

He was the coach at Olathe Junior High and then Clifton and later Bookcliff Junior High He was well-loved. He coached a winning church basketball team. That was in the decade known as the 60s. As a player or as a coach of multiple sports he understood two important principles: Keep your eye on the ball. Tuck that football into you so you don’t fumble.

We’re taking a stupendous road trip, this 88-year-old erstwhile athlete and I. We’re enjoying the vast farmland and calculating the worth of cattle herds and mammoth irrigation systems in Wyoming and Idaho and Montana and eastern Washington. When I was young, and yes, this is a trip of memories, we always counted the cattle on a thousand hills and claimed them for Dad’s ranch. After all, he was raised on farms and ranches and he understands the value of each haystack and each cow. 

When we reach Montana, I am smitten by the mountains and conifers and lakes and rivers. Though I like to think of myself as finally in my prime and I also pride myself on averaging three miles of hiking or walking each day, we are not traveling alone. My 88-year-old father and I are accompanied by our own private wilderness guide and martial arts devotee in the person of my 32-year-old daughter. She drives, and does our cooking for us, and is there to pick us up if we fall. I am the planner and navigator – a baton I have inherited from my father – although he still figures the gas mileage and total cost and suggests routes.

Night three of our road trip, we stayed in a beautiful alpine-like cabin. I packed and unpacked. Andrea chopped wood, lit the fireplace, and cooked. Dad sat in the recliner and did the books and composed an email to my brother on his laptop. Yes, we are all internet savvy and each hauled along our essential Macbook Pro for various uses.

Next morning I readied myself for a morning exploration of the exquisite mountain property; the pond, the spring, the evergreen trees, the creek-sized river running through the lower regions. Dad announced that he would go out and walk around the cabin while I was out. The ground and steps from car to cabin were uneven and slick with an overnight skiff of snow. Dad has limited vision with his coke-bottle glasses and macular degeneration. I pondered for one quick moment and determined to accompany him on a walk first and then return him to the safety of the recliner before I meandered further. 

We walked down the decline. He wanted to do it himself. Without help. He didn’t want to take my hand lest he fall and pull me down. I showed him how to use his walking stick with one hand and place his other hand on my shoulder. We walked down to the pond with ease and stood contemplating on the tuffets of grass at the bank. The grass was the color of golden wheat, not yet greening for the spring; the buds on the weeping willow trees and cottonwoods so chartreuse they look neon yellow against the pine trees; the bare stems of the infant willow switches a brilliant red. The day was chilly and frosty like an old-fashioned root beer mug placed in the freezer overnight.

We turned and headed our laborious trudge back up the hill, always moving forward – sometimes at an imperceptible pace. Scattered about our feet were ostrich egg sized pinecones – newly fallen and still red brown. I spied a perfect one. Stooping, I picked it up for closer examination but fumbled it off my cold fingers. Dad snatched it out of the air, cradling it securely to him like a mini football.

“Well look there,” he said proudly with delight. Once again, it’s Dad for the win!

Health and Long Life, Hiking and outdoor beauty, Travel

Friends don’t let friends miss out on all the good things in life

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Friends don’t let friends miss out on all the good things in life – or – Purple Bliss is just an Emotion on the Water

The first thing you need to know about Janice is that she is older than I – by about four days. This is not the case with so many of my friends. I have a friend of 43 years who never lets me forget she is younger – by four months.  Yet I will forgive her generously for this age bias because she accompanies me on beautiful hikes – even invites me. We have enjoyed many adventures together. Thank God for my newer friends who admit they are older. But the thing about friends – older and newer, younger or elder – is that friends don’t let friends miss out on all the good things in life.

Yes, I have friends with an uncanny ability to sniff out the best things in life and then foist them on me. Take Linda, for instance, she tracked me down in Canyonlands and proceeded to hike me to her favorite places in my own backyard. Then, she came to visit me at Glen Canyon and beguiled me with stories from her Lake Powell memories. But more importantly, we kayaked down 11 miles of the John Wesley Powell route of the Colorado River from Ferry Swale to Lee’s Ferry and I have pictures to prove it.

Janice and I have more things in common than just our June birthdays. I met her through Sweet Adelines so it may be safely assumed we both love to sing. But what, I ask you, is ever safe about singing? It is such a gateway drug. First you are sitting on chairs and then practicing on risers and before you know it you are preforming on stages and soon you find yourself not only singing in the streets, but dancing in the streets. I have made many unique friends in this way.

So yes, Janice and I have a June birthday month in common, we are both about 5 foot three or four depending on how you round it, we love to hike and travel, we share a love for singing – and we were both working in public schools at the time we first met – I as a music specialist and Janice as a resource teacher. But in one area, Janice and I are complementary opposites.  Janice is a champion foister. I am the foisted upon. Definitely to my benefit.

After my first stint with Sweet Adelines, I moved to Seattle. Janice kept in touch. When she found out I was coming back to Colorado, she immediately engaged her recruiting persuasion. Why would I not want to sing tenor in a newly minted quartet? Sigh. Four of us made beautiful Musique together. But no. Singing and dressing alike was not enough. We must do bonding activities together – the chorus that plays together stays together. Janice and two other Sweet Adelines were going kayaking on the Colorado, would I come?  

I was stubborn and full of lame excuses like not having a kayak or PFD. But Janice knows how to foist. She had an extra kayak and PFD. She told me when to show up. She gave me specific instructions on what to wear and what to bring. Those Adelines laced me into the PFD, seated me in a vessel, handed me a paddle and shoved me off. Up ahead, Janice led in her Purple Bliss. Bringing up the rear, I floated in Janice’s original hunter green kayak, taking to the water like a duck.

When I know it’s right, you don’t have to ask me twice – but they did. We also floated the Gunnison that summer. And I spent a fair amount of time kayak shopping in local sporting goods stores.

Seven years later I was still single and kayakless, but I now had a good deal of experience under my belt having rented all manner and style of kayaks for recreation. Sit in. Sit on. Inflate. Deflate. Lake. River. Back-haul. U-haul. Tie in the truck. Shove in the van. Mount in the kayak carrier. Kayak carrier – what a great concept! Janice bought one – a kayak rack – for her motorhome. The rack was second hand – and came with two kayaks. Worst of all for Janice – and best of all for me – Purple Bliss would not fit in the carrier. She was too skinny – at both ends.

And then Janice began her attempts to foist Purple Bliss on me. It took her two years. During that time she visited me twice at Lone Rock. She dined me, tried to wine me, hiked with me and once even lent me the hunter green kayak to go exploring slots in the nether regions of Lake Powell. Every time I mentioned kayaking on social media, she followed up by promoting Purple Bliss to me. 

In early October I arranged to meet Janice at her place, ostensibly to sign two of my books which she had ordered on Amazon, but with a covert motive to kayak shop – to see if the purple kayak would ride on top my car. Janice let me do it myself. It fits and rides charmingly. We finally agreed on a price. The transfer took place ten days ago. Janice has released her favorite vessel and I am adoption happy. I have been on the water four times in less than a fortnight. 

Purple Bliss is a specialty kayak built by Emotion and brokered by REI. She is designed especially for a small woman. She weighs only 34 pounds. She is a thing of both beauty and independence. I can hoist her to the rooftop of my Rav4 (aka Silvergirl) and take her down – after all, she weighs less than a grandchild – even if she is 10 feet long. We go everywhere together – just the two of us – with a step stool and a purple and red paddle and a red PFD. Friends don’t let friends miss out on all the good things in life.

Character, Emotional Health, Health and Long Life, Hiking and Outdoor Beauty, Travel, Uncategorized

What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life?

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What are you doing the rest of your life?
She was the up-lake, district interpretive ranger and had been a back-country ranger in Bullfrog for many years previous. We had several interactions during the three years I was with Glen Canyon Conservancy. Valerie and I were not close, but I knew her well enough to attend her retirement party last fall. It was there I heard long term officemates sing her praises. What a varied and adventurous life she lived!
Valerie died on September 15 of this year. That knowledge has shaken me and made me reexamine my goals. Why? Valerie would have been 66 in October. She is four months younger than I. Valerie had only ten months of retirement.

Looking at my maternal line, I figure I have roughly 20 more years of life at most. My mother died this spring at the age of 86 outliving her older sister by nearly three years. Their mother died at 65. I’ve already outlived grandma and great grandma before her. So what will I do with that remaining fifteen or twenty years? What would I do if I knew I had only a year? I would retire. I would throw my efforts into the things I love to do and long to do. I would hike every day. I would write. I would make music. I would spend time with those I love and like. I would travel. How about you? What are you doing the rest of your life? Let’s do it!

Emotional Health, Health and Long Life, Travel, Uncategorized

Denim Corsets and Fashion Ennui

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Really, was it any surprise when the chest spasms seized her somewhere on the lonely road between Page and Kaibeto? She straightened her posture, took a few measured breaths, felt no constriction and slackened not her pace.

She had been under a lot of stress for the past few days. Leaving a job. Packing a Subaru to the gills. Traveling 260 miles. Return. Repeat. And then of course, the last straw when the Subaru, fully loaded complete with car top carrier, coughed and died and left her renting a U-haul truck and repacking her final load. Nonetheless, repack she did.

She slept and got a fresh start the next morning; showered, pulled on her skinny Levis and flannel shirt so as to look respectable when returning her condo key; sallied forth in a 15-foot truck.

Again a spasm hit and she reflected for a moment on being 65. She had now out-lived her grandmother by 5 months – the maternal grandmother who succumbed to heart disease at 65. She took stock of her vitals again as she continued to drive. No difficulty breathing. No pain in the left shoulder or arm. Refreshing, deep breaths.

She ate an apple – that will keep the doctor away – and wondered if she should be eating anything at all given the spasms. Should you eat before a massive coronary? If you gotta go, massive and instant would be the way to go.

Six more times a contraction hit, a bit like Braxton Hicks, strong enough to make her involuntarily say, “ouch,” and suck in her breath.

Somewhere outside of Shonto she reached down and flipped the latch on her web belt, released the button on her 711s, and relaxed the zipper by two inches.

She hasn’t had a chest spasm since. Denim corsets, who knew?

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co-dependence, Hiking and outdoor beauty, Relationships, Travel, Uncategorized

WANTED: Hiking Buddy

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Wanted: Hiking Buddy
Generally – as is commonly repeated – I savor silence. I embrace solitude. A walk is a meditation. I almost prefer to hike alone.
Generally, I follow the thinking of a young female ranger who once pointed out to me, “Cherry, I have found there are places I will never get to go if I wait until someone can go with me.” And so it happens that I travel alone. I go to movies alone. I take myself out to dinner table for one. I kayak alone. I spontaneously lace on my hiking boots and head out my front door – or I park the Subaru at a likely trailhead and commence exploring. Still, I am a cautious being; and, I like to think, wise. I long to touch the Colorado River – dip my toes in- everywhere I can – all the way from Lulu City Colorado to the backwash of the Salton Sea and the Gulf of California. When I swim in Lake Powell, I think of it as dipping my toes in the Colorado River. Soon after my arrival in Northern Arizona, I learned of Cathedral Wash, a moderate hike of about 4 miles beginning in Glen Canyon National Recreation area and ending on the Colorado River about two and a half river miles downstream from the Paria Riffle. One day I parked my car and headed down the wash. It was a negotiable route until I reached a pour off. The drop was only five feet or so – easy going down, but what of the return trip? I needed a hiking buddy-not a tall one- just someone to lean on-someone to boost – someone to pull. Yesterday I departed from my flat on foot. Half a mile later I was in a gray sandstone slot canyon that stretches from Highway 89 down to Wahweap Bay. Coming from the neighborhood, I accessed the wash at mid-point, hiked toward the bay until I hit a 25-foot drop off. Rather than find a route around, I hiked back toward Highway 89 to ascertain landmarks for the beginning of the route. This route is well known to a group known as The Happy Hikers, and multiple footprints were evident in the bottom of the canyon. As I progressed up the wash, I came to a place where the slot narrowed, where I climbed into a sort of lemon squeezer, no footpath on the bottom so butt scooting became necessary. There was an obstruction. There was light on the other side. Could I cross over? Yes. Should I cross over? Probably not. If only I had a hiking buddy. Unfamiliar with the route, I did not know what came next and I might soon have to reverse the route. Already the rock I had moved to climb into the lemon squeezer had crumbled, being only of mudstone. I had passed multiple small rock falls in the canyon. I backtracked and caught the first available steep climb out of the canyon and followed a coyote trail along the rim, reconnoitering as I went. Yes, the butt scoot would have been possible, but to no avail. Immediately thereafter were two twenty-foot pour offs to circumvent. As it turns out, I made the right decisions. In addition, I have recently discovered a route around the pour off in Cathedral Wash. Maybe I don’t need a hiking buddy after all? But then again, it has been fun going longer distances with the Martys and Lindas and Johannas and Janices in my life. Solitude is fine, but society has its merits. The best things in life are shared. Hiking Buddy wanted!

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(Image is at nine o’clock, tools are obstinate)

Character, co-dependence, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Relationships, Spiritual Well Being, The Petty Pace, Travel, Uncategorized

Detour to self care

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Surprise!  I took a detour on the way home! It’s about time!  At the ripe of age of 60, I am finally learning how to take care of myself.

When I left work on Monday night, I knew it was high time for a little self-care.  I was stressed, rattled and burned out.  It was the beginning of my weekend.  What could I do to restore my spirit? Piano practice, walk meditation and even a bit of sleep were preempted in a bid to pack, load and get on the road early Tuesday morning.  Severe weather warnings forecast snow above 10,000 feet and portions of I-70 I would be traveling. The scenery through Glenwood Canyon was gorgeous. Snow was falling to the west and the east of Vail. Georgetown Visitor Center was beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

I lingered there in Georgetown, to fortify my body and emotions for the climb through Bergen Park, Evergreen and finally to the cabin I called home for seven years. I collected my daughter Andrea and her belongings at high noon as previously agreed. 12 o’clock straight up turned out to be lunchtime, so we joined her dad for a quick sit-down meal at Qdoba and then moved forward.  At teatime, we dropped in on an old college roommate in Gunnison. We arrived at AEI basecamp at 6:00 p.m. after a few miles of power driving in the mud and were hospitably welcomed by the staff. A quick unload and a nice evening walk through the woods ended up in the chapel with a piano.  A walk. A piano. I slept well. Another mountain hike next morning continued the work of beauty and restoration on my spirits so I was not in bad shape at all as I made the descent from Black Canyon to Montrose.

And then, it happened. Spontaneously I made the best decision of the day, I turned left toward Ouray.  I checked myself in to the Wiesbaden hot springs and was the only individual in the pool and the vapor cave for nearly an hour.  The first dip had my heart and voice crying thanksgiving. Wow.

Proper self-care requires thought and work.   Good, intentional choices.

Sometimes, self-care costs a little extra in terms of logic – self-talk to keep yourself from feeling guilty. I was raised not to play until my work was done.  Not to take care of myself until I finished taking care of others. I learned early on; my work was never done.  Over the years, I discovered the needs of some others were like a black hole – the more care you lavish, the more they need. While self-sacrifice is an essential component of love, self-sacrifice as a goal in itself is not worthy.

When I am not quite at peace for known or unknown reasons, a combination of good choices seems to put me back on the right track.  Putting yourself on the right track is the only way to stay fit to care for others or work efficiently.

Good choices in self-care may entail leisure, a vacation, a favorite activity.  Many of those activities cost money.  So I work, and I work hard, to be able to afford to take care of myself.

This time my little detour cost me about $50. I had to get through the guilt of spending $50 on myself with nothing tangible to show for it.

It would not have been possible to take care of myself in this way – or even support my daughter with transportation – but for my full time job and a difficult choice I made last August.  I moved in with roommates.

It was a hard choice, because the solitude of living alone is also a way I care for myself. On the other hand, shared expenses leave more wiggle room for travel and spontaneous detours. What do you need to take care of yourself?

Music? A good book? A hike?  Travel? Sleep?  A 60-mile detour and dinner out?

Get on with it ! May you be energized by a new perspective!

Character, Emotional Health, Family, Health and Long Life, Travel

Vacations are for light and laughter

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She meant it in love, but I almost laughed in her face.  As I exited the door for my  much longed for camping vacation, my housemate admonished, “You be sure and camp where there’s enough light, now.”  She meant, be safe.  She meant; we care about you. I intended to sleep in National Parks and State Park campgrounds.  Is a million stars enough?

It is good to begin a vacation laughing. After all, absence of laugher is a critical deficit. I was burned out. Discouraged.  I needed nature. I needed therapy.  Sometimes laughter is the best medicine.

In my wanderings, I hoped to find clarity, specific guidance or maybe even a new life.   Is that too much to hope for? In place of clarity, I got peace. Rather than specific guidance, I got to travel and hike with my daughter. Sometimes the best therapist in the world is a wise daughter, sister or cousin. I didn’t get a new life, but I got to nose about in ghost towns and open spaces and contemplate old lives – including mine.  That too, brings peace.

And there was laughter.  The meal at Garbanzos was already well flavored with the humor of my two youngest before they were motivated to snap and post a selfie.  Being national siblings day, it was a legitimate social plan, rather than rude self-absorption.   As they fussed over their phones, I asked Philip if he wanted to add my leftovers to his takeout box.

He looked up and deadpanned, “We can’t talk to you right now, we’re on facebook.”

“Very well,” said I and whipped out my own cellphone.

A moment later, Philip looked up. “Mom!  Did you just voice text me?”

Yes, Son.  Yes, I did.

I may not have found clarity, specific guidance or a new life, but I loved talking with my grown children and seeing them relate.  I think I may have found myself again, for my sense of humor is intact.

As I said on facebook: Vacation is for those times your heart has come up missing, and you need to go and find it.