It’s Been a Year

One of my long time blog followers, Sandy, recently reminded me, “It’s been a year.” She was of course referring to the date of my last blog post. But those words hold so much more meaning than just milestones on the calendar. As we round the one year mark of the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the struggle for peace continues with no hope for the fog of war to lift in sight. As I grow older, looking back on my own personal past which seemed so simple to what lies ahead can also sometimes feel like no peace on the horizon. I thought these were supposed to be the “Golden Years,” yet the older I get the faster it comes, and the less it feels like gold and more like lead. Continue reading

My Pandemic Paradigm

I often see articles written asking, “What would you would say if you could write a letter from the present you to your younger self?” I have lots of things I would tell myself such as “Learn as many foreign languages as you can, as early as you can, because the older you get, the harder it gets.”

Also, I would encourage my younger self to take more risks and embark on more strenuous adventures while the body is young, resilient, and flexible. “Move, you must! If you stop, you’ll rust!”

But the one thing I wish I could go back and tell my younger self, something I have tried Continue reading

Unprecedented!

It’s been an unprecedented amount of time since I last updated this blog. In fact, it took a couple of minutes for the WordPress process to come back to me. As always, thanks to those friends and family who have touched base via email and messaging.

Here we are with well over half of the summer gone…well over half the year gone. And I’ve got nothing to show for it. After having lost almost a year in 2020 with no goals achieved, I didn’t anticipate being halfway through 2021 in the same boat. In future years, I am going to look back on this time and wonder, “Why don’t I have something to show for the entire half of the year?” It was understandable in 2020. However, 2021 takes a bit of explaining. Or at least rationalizing. Continue reading

It’s A New Dawn, it’s a New Day….

Warning: Political Post Ahead. If that sort of thing offends you, I understand. Either scroll through and just look at the photos and captions of the amazing Catwalk Recreation Area in New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness, or pass altogether. But this is my personal blog, meant to be a personal account of what I am feeling at any given moment. And today, Inauguration Day, January 20th, 2021, as the song goes, “I’m feelin’ good.” Continue reading

Waiting, Waiting on the World to Change

So.  Here we are at last.  December 31st, the day I’ve been waiting to roll around for the better part of 2020.  There are so many words to be said about the passage of this year, yet I wonder if attaching such significance to a date on the calendar is a good thing.

I look back to New Years Eve 2019 as a published a post from the United Airlines departure lounge on my way to Khartoum. I shutter to look back on those words I wrote that night, setting my intentions for the coming year. “…the promise of a new decade in the year 2020 feels like a great step toward restoring some balance to our lives. As a Libra who needs everything to balance, I can’t think of a better year to offer the promise of hope than “2020!” Continue reading

View from the Flight Deck

Despite the fact that I have two avid “birders” in my family, I have never been able to drum up much interest in birds beyond marveling at nature’s creative palette pertaining to their feathers. I have long joked that my bird “life list” includes black birds, brown birds, white birds, red birds, yellow birds, etc. I would travel out of my way to see a bird Continue reading

ABQ: How Low Can You Go?

After 7 glorious days of near-perfect weather, I left the Bisti Badlands sooner than I would have liked. There was a cold front on the way, and temps were predicted to drop below freezing. The Winnie was not winterized, and since this appeared to be a fast moving front with temps returning to the 70’s on the back end, I didn’t want to go to the trouble and inconvenience of emptying the tanks and blowing out the lines for just a Continue reading

Aliens in the Ah-shi-sle-pah Wilderness

As I mentioned in my previous post, the only time I ran into another person at the “Egg Hatchery” was when I encountered a photographer in the area at sunset. I had recorded the most direct route as a track on my Gaia GPS app to be certain I could retrace my steps. And I had timed the two mile journey on more than one occasion to maximize my “golden hour” time at the eggs, while still having plenty of time to return to the parking lot with enough light to see the terrain. In addition, I loaded my backpack with all sorts of Continue reading

Bisti Badlands Bewilderness

I’ve never been one to ask the question, “What can possibly go wrong next??” as I often find that as soon as I ask the question, I am shown the answer. The year 2020 has turned out to be one of the worst of my lifetime, second only to 2015 when I lost both my youngest brother and my Dad within 3 months of each other. Still overall, I am reminded its been a good life.

But when thinking about bad news, which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Does bad stuff keep happening because I have written off this entire year to suck? Or is it a bad year because bad stuff keeps happening? In other words, can a “year” have a self-fulfilling prophecy? Continue reading

Facing Ghosts at Ghost Ranch

When I visited northern New Mexico last summer, I was in a hurry. I had tickets to the Santa Fe Opera in mid August, and reservations in Port Townsend for the end of August. That’s was a lot of miles to cover in a little over two weeks. So I just hit the highlights, covering all the “must visit” stops.

Still feeling enamored after the opera tribute to Georgia O’Keeffe, “Letters from Georgia,” I wanted to visit her home and studio in Abiquiu, hike in some of the areas such as Plaza Blanca where she found inspiration for her paintings, and take a tour of Continue reading