As my wife and I approached the border into Tijuana, our van threading the barricades at the checkpoint, both of us, and all the members of our youth group seated behind us for that matter, had the same question. “No sé dónde está el baño?” Later, I would ask that question again, this time of […]
Letter: Tears On The Trail – “A Sacred Journey”
I write a lot I know about my wife, not having her hand anymore to hold, not able to share the events of the day, not huddled together as I read to her there toward the end, not contemplating in awestruck silence the beauty before us as we come around a bend in a trail. […]
Letter: Rings Without Diamonds
“How much farther?” I have often thought on the trail of posing myself that question of other hikers. When the two young ladies asked the question of me, I replied, “You don’t want to ask.” They laughed, I think a bit nervously, and headed on down the trail as I labored on up the ever […]
Letter: One Last Row
The treasure of my life answered my call. “Would you come pick me up? I hit a big metal buoy and sunk my boat.” My partner on this adventure called marriage we launched 41 years ago retrieved me from the side of the road and the day after Christmas that year she helped me re-launch […]
Letter: Where Robert Frost and I Part Company
In Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, there is a lone wagon driver who pauses at dusk in his travel to watch snow falling in the woods. That part I get. To be where beauty abounds, where quiet pervades, where silence is broken by nothing at all because it’s just you, no […]
Letter: Just Walking Each Other Home
Seven years ago yesterday my wife and I bought two of the remaining limited-time significantly discounted “America the Beautiful Lifetime National Parks and Federal Lands Pass” thinking not only was it a good deal (my wife was Dutch and therefore frugal and definitely the brains in the family), but also that we would together return […]
Letter: When the Forest Weeps
There is such incredible beauty when the forest weeps. Though the far shore of the tiny high mountain lake had disappeared in the mist seen wafting down over the top of the ridge and descending wraith-like upon the little meadow, the near shore was resplendent in splashes of color dominated by beautiful blue lupin but […]
Letter: This was for You
“Do you know where the mountain is?” I was standing at the signpost that read Pacific Crest Trail with my map spread out before me, a pack carrying all my essentials for the next two days on my back (although I had forgotten water), and generally wondering if I had gone the way that for […]
Letter: My Hiding Place
In one sense – I admit it – I go to the mountains, the forests, the rivers, the coastline, to hide. Some might say I’m avoiding the troublesome world that demands we do this and say that, protest, wave signs, get involved, rally and generally roll up our sleeves. I do roll up my sleeves. […]