Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • Skipping Across The Water: 20 Places To See By Boat

      Perhaps its my proximity to water at the moment, or perhaps the heavy influence of the crew of Fayaway on my thinking the last few days, but I’ve been thinking about places best seen by boat lately.  For when you combine water and beautiful scenery you can quickly build a list of must-see places that are perfectly situated to or only possible to see by boat.  I’ve managed a few of these in my lifetime, the rest are bucket list items for the right moment, should it come along.  But we all have to have hope for a future where we can once again explore the world, don’t we?

      Interesting if only to me, many of the places I want to go to most are in cold climates.  The tropical destinations are nice, but I’m a Northern bird and appreciate a bit of snow and ice in my life too.  And then there are the places I’ve been to before that I secretly plot to return to again as soon as possible.  You know you’ve fallen in love when a place haunts you for decades after visiting, and a few on this list qualify.

      Without further ado, here are twenty places best seen from the water for your consideration:

      The Outer Hebrides  Begin with Scotland?  I should think so.

      The Faroe Islands Stunning and remote?  Sign me up!

      Westfjords, Iceland – but why stop there?  The rest of the country whispers to me too.

      Iceberg watching between Newfoundland and Labrador (any excuse to return to Newfoundland works for me, and Labrador offers a world of remote exploration all its own.

      Easter Island, Chile to visit those Moai characters at sunrise and contemplate the extraordinary.

      Isla del Cocos National Park, Costa Rica – diving with hammerhead sharks?  Maybe.

      Nahuel Huapi Lake & Nahuel Huapi National Park, Argentina for the glory of the Patagonian Andes from the water.

      Whales and icebergs in Disko Bugt (Disko Bay), Greenland, and maybe a polar bear or two from afar.

      St Helena – maybe because its so remote, or maybe because of Napoleon, or the useless airport?  Whatever the reason, I’m interested in getting to St Helena someday.

      Carribean island hopping: Dominica, Martinique, Grenada, Saba, Barbados, etc. for all the reasons you’d expect.

      White water rafting through the Grand Canyon.  Because once was not enough.

      Inside Passage Alaska, and also because once was not enough.

      Revisiting the Statue of Liberty and New York Harbor again someday when the world is normal, or at least a little more normal.

      A cultural immersion in Okinawa, Japan for all that this place offers, from the historical perspective of Shurijo Castle and the WWII sites to slowing down in Sefa-utaki.  I have riding a bicycle across the Irabu Ohashi bridge on my short list of activities for someday, maybe.

      Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound in Fiordland, New Zealand remains on that evasive list of places to get to as soon as reasonably possible.  I fear that I might just want to stay in New Zealand should I ever visit, but its a chance I’ll have to take.

      Visiting Sydney Harbor and climbing that bridge are high on my list of things to do.

      Mo’orea, French Polynesia – and while you’re in the neighborhood, who doesn’t dream of visiting Tahiti, Bora Bora, Marquesas?  A visit to Mo’orea necessitates lingering to see more.

      Li River cruise China – China is a mystery to me, but a place I’d love to explore someday.  And I can think of no better place to start than on the water cruising the Li River.

      Cruising down the St. Lawrence Seaway and through the Great Lakes has been on my mind for some time.  If there were a reason to get another sailboat, it would be to do this trip.

      Last but not least and closer to home, sailing Lake Champlain is something I’ve contemplated since I was a teenager seeing sailboats moored along the shore with the Adirondacks rising in the distance.  And my fascination with the early history of this region makes it a must-do for me.  Early October would be sublime with the foliage.

      So there you go: twenty bucket list places to see from the water.  All we need is time and a way to get there.  A chance to skip across the water like a stone and see parts of the world you can’t always get to from land.  A mix of salt water and fresh water destinations just ready to explore.  Are you ready?  This list could take some time.

       

    • Be Less Comfortable

      “It takes many hours to make what you want to make.  The hours don’t suddenly appear.  You have to steal them from comfort.  Whatever you were doing before was comfortable.  This is not.  This will be really uncomfortable.” – Derek Sivers, Where To Find The Hours To Make It Happen

      This phrase, stealing hours from comfort, was  plucked from a blog post Sivers wrote last October and highlighted yesterday by Seth Godin, borrowing for one of his own blog posts.  And so I pay it forward here.  For there’s genius in the phrasing, isn’t there?  We all have the same amount of hours in the day, and those who do exceptional things with their lives do so by stealing hours otherwise spent on comfortable things like binge-watching Ozark or SV Delos YouTube videos (guilty x 2).  In the meantime the great novel in your head slides sideways into the abyss.  The language you might have learned remains a mystery to you.  The belly gets soft.  The community volunteers carry on without you.  The work is accomplished by others, and we look on in awe at what they achieved.

      And the answer, of course, is to be less comfortable.  To challenge yourself more.  To do the work that must be done to get from this place of relative comfort to a better place of greater meaning and contribution.  To stop scraping by at the bare minimum and double down on your effort.  For all that is worthwhile in this world requires an investment in time and a healthy dose of discomfort to earn it.  But we have to remind ourselves of this daily, because comfort is a dangerous temptress.  And before we know it the days, weeks and years fly by and the dreams remain only dreams.  So toughen up, buttercup!  A bit less comfort is the answer to the question of where will you find the time?

      As Jackson Browne sings, I’ve been aware of the time going by…  and so I’m trying to invest my time in less comfortable things.  Hiking with intent, writing more, working more focused hours in my career, and slowly chipping away at expanding the possible of today.  But I’m still too comfortable.  When there’s so much more to do in the time we have left, isn’t it essential we get to it already?  And in some ways the pandemic offers us a reason to make profound shifts towards the uncomfortable.  To break from the routine and tackle the meaningful.  A catalyst for change just in the nick of time – in this, our critical moment.  For if not now, when?

    • A Perfect Cup of Coffee

      I’m deep into a phase of life where I invest time in the ritual of making excellent coffee. That doesn’t mean investing in expensive coffee making equipment. No, that would be absurd and counter to what a ritual should be. You should be able to make a great coffee anywhere you can boil water – camping, on a boat, in a hotel room, in your office (remember those?), on the side if the road or maybe even at home. And I’ve found the trio of products that make the ritual of making java easy, and dare I say, a meditative experience.

      Readers of this blog know of my affinity for AeroPress. The AeroPress has raised the standard of what great coffee can be. After years of dealing with frustrating French presses, drip coffee makers and slow-as-molasses single serving drip rigs, the AeroPress took the best features of each and rolled them into a highly functional, highly efficient coffee press. Fun fact: the inventor of the AeroPress also invented the Aerobie frisbee. You can see it referenced in the design of the AeroPress.

      I’ve raved about the AeroPress since I started using it.. What makes the experience a ritual is the grinding of the beans while you wait for the water to boil. I use a compact ceramic burr hand grinder made by Hario to do the job. I’ve had this device for a few years, but it was only when I started using the AeroPress that I found it made sense. Since the hand grinder takes one or two scoops of coffee at a time, it pairs well with the AeroPress. Combined with an electric kettle to boil water and you’ve got all the ingredients for a perfect cup of coffee. The water boils in roughly the time it takes to scoop your favorite coffee beans into the grinder, hand grind the beans and set up the AeroPress. There’s no rushing, no loud electric grinder waking up the neighborhood, and simple cleanup afterwards. It’s perfect.

      If it seems I’ve carried on a bit too long about making a cup of coffee in a world of chaos and pandemics and injustice, well, it’s because I have. All that stuff will still be there in your face when you walk out the door or turn on the news (please: don’t), but this perfect ritual of coffee-making zen quiets the mind for a few minutes. And that’s a lovely way to start or re-set your day.

      Okay, who’s ready for another cup?

    • Change of State: Crickets & Krummholz

      In late July the crickets start chirping again, announcing the height of summer in New Hampshire. Early mornings just feel different month-to-month.  Sure, temperatures and the progress of the garden are a consideration, but beyond that the soundtrack at 5:30 is completely different in late July than it was in May or June.  Its all different really, beginning with those crickets.  But I’ve been here before, and know the seasons and the changes that will come over the next few months.  Changes come, but its all familiar change.

      Saturday, as I began my ascent above treeline, I took a few breaths of Balsam Fir-scented air and thought of Christmas.  When you get up in between the boreal and alpine zones where the 4000 footers dance in the windblown snow and ice, the trees are stunted and twisted and tough as nails.  Trees in this zone are called Krummholz, regardless of the species, and sometimes the term Krummholz describes this in-between zone too.  At treeline they’re typically Black Spruce and Balsam Firs and a few adventurous others like an occasional birch looking for a way out of the madness it rooted itself to.  Spruce are stoic but don’t flavor the air with aroma.  Firs make you feel like its Christmas in July.  Both struggle for footing and survival in the acidic, hard ground.  I’m a guest in their home, and silently offer gratitude for allowing me a visit.

      Hiking reinforces for me what I don’t know.  I can sit in my backyard in New Hampshire and pick out different trees and birds and bugs and generally know what they are because I live with them every day.  I can feel or hear the changes in seasons just by hearing some crickets announcing they’re back.  But my visits to the mountains are infrequent in comparison, and I’m less familiar with the migration patterns of birds and the trees themselves across the northern forest.  I heard a few bird calls on my last few hikes that are unfamiliar.  I looked at the forest and sedges and rushes and Mountain Cranberries and recognize that I don’t really know them all that well and couldn’t tell you one from the other.  I scanned the peaks on a clear day and recognize the famous Presidents, but not many of the others.  I was in the same state (New Hampshire), but in a completely different state (uncertainty).

      I’m feeling restless in the familiar lately – a sure sign that I need to get out and see more.  A few hours in a different zone reminded me that the unfamiliar isn’t all that far away.  And I’m reminded again of something Pico Iyer wrote that I quoted a few posts ago: “ecstasy” (“ex-stasis”) tells us that our highest moments come when we’re not stationary”.  To honor the restless spirit inside of us and just get out there to find our highest moments.  It seems a noble pursuit on this random Monday.  The crickets have announced that time is indeed moving along, and the Krummholz remind us that life isn’t always easy but if you hold on you might just survive long enough to see a few things.  Surely a good reminder for this crazy year when the familiar isn’t all that familiar and we’re all a bit restless.

    • All That’s Beautiful…

      “I heard the old, old men say, ‘Everything alters, And one by one we drop away.’
      … I heard the old, old men say, ‘All that’s beautiful drifts away Like the waters.’ – WB Yeats

      Most people don’t like change.  They want to stay in the same comfortable place indefinitely, go to a time share vacation at Disney World every year or to the same beach to have the same experience they had last summer.  Familiar and enjoyable, so why not do it again next year?  And that’s why people buy time shares and beach cottages and permanent camp sites for their Airstream.  There’s a lot to be said for the tried and true.  Immersion for one: Really getting to know a place by going there often.  I’ve really gotten to know a small corner of Buzzards Bay in this way, and find that I still don’t know it as well as I thought I did last time I visited.  Yes, there’s clearly benefit in returning again and again.

      But as Yeats points out, everything alters.  I look at the neighborhood I live in that once had a roving pack of 50 kids riding bicycles and playing games in each other’s yards (a rare phenomenon in the last 20 years).  All those kids are grown up and moved on.  Some new families have moved in, I don’t really know their names, and have started raising the next generation of kids.  Maybe someday the neighborhood will have those packs of kids playing again.  I hope so – otherwise all that Halloween candy goes in my mouth.

      In general I’m a big fan of change.  I’ve changed jobs when it didn’t feel right staying at a place and longer.  I moved primary residences ten times before settling on the place I currently live in, where I’ve been living for 21 years.  But I’ve painted every room in this house a different color at least twice, and some four times.  Change is part of the deal, whether we move or not.  Embrace the changes that happen around us and adapt in ways that make it work for you.  Nobody misses rotary phones, which made your finger numb when you had to dial a long number.  Nobody misses the days when you had to go into a bank to make a deposit or withdrawal instead of using an app on your phone or Venmo to complete a transaction.  Some change is good.  Its progress – the progression of humanity from one stage to another in our technological development.

      “I see my folks, they’re getting old
      And I watch their bodies change
      I know they see the same in me
      And it makes us both feel strange
      No matter how you tell yourself
      It’s what we all go through
      Those eyes are pretty hard to take
      When they’re staring’ back at you”
      – Bonnie Raitt, Nick of Time

      Then there’s the changes that happen with aging.  The progression of decline in our bodies as we grow older.  Aches and pains we didn’t have when we were kids.  Seeing those around us again as well and recognizing the path we’re all on.  I’ve got a heightened sense of awareness of this now more than ever.  We’ve considered moving to a faraway place just to change things up a bit.  Scotland, Iceland, the Azores, the Faroe Islands, Dominica and New Zealand all remain tantalizing places to relocate to for me.  Sailing around the world sounds attractive when the world is open for business, but what do we leave behind when we slip away from the dock?  I think a younger me might have made the leap had the younger me known the stakes.  The me before kids, before aging parents, and such things.  Now I’m not as sure.  But aging doesn’t mean you have to break down quickly.  Fitness is a way to stem the tide and live well in the time we have left.

      All that’s beautiful drifts away, whether we like it or not.  But its replaced by new beauty, if we only open our eyes to it.  We’re all breathing in the dust of eternity, and exhale a part of ourselves back into the universe, which makes us all connected, really.  All part of the timeless wave of humanity, surely, but also all matter.  We all have our minds wrapped around our own mind and body, but we’re just matter and energy with a soul.  The matter and energy move on in time.  Beauty doesn’t disappear, it just moves on down the chain.  We’re just links trying to jealously hold onto to it as long as possible.  But the soul is ours alone, here today, but where will it be tomorrow?  Time will tell.  Anyone who tells you they have the answer is conning you.

      My wife got a call from her mother yesterday, telling her the bad news about one of their neighbor’s kids who has cancer all over their body and isn’t expected to live more than another 18 months.  I suppose that got me thinking about old Mr. Yeats and his poem.  We’re all drifting away eventually, and sometimes much sooner than we’d prefer.  A good reminder to get on with living already, changes and all.  Life is more than a weekly paycheck and a house with a pool in the backyard and a familiar spot on the beach every summer.  Life is about making the most of ourselves in the time we have left.  Live beautifully alive, changes and all.

    • To Visit All the Celebrated Places

      “Now is the time to visit all the celebrated places in the country, and fill our heads with what we have seen, so that when we become old and bald we will have something to talk about over the teacups.” – Jippensha Ikku

      Credit to Smithsonian Magazine for the Ikku quote, for it made me smile when I read it.  Ikku lived in Japan during a fairly important period in American history (1766-1831) so its easy to overlook what might have been happening in other places in the world.  The quote reminds me that our feelings about travel and aging are timeless.  We all hope to see the world while we’re young and full of vigor, that we might have epic stories to tell over a favorite beverage when we’re older and less mobile.

      The travel list of celebrated places is ready, and all earnest travelers wait for the starting gun to set us free to explore once again.  We’re all rooting for a vaccine and some level of herd immunity, some measure of personal responsibility from society at large and perhaps stronger political leadership to set policy that makes sense.  May we see it sooner than later.  But in the meantime, I’m traveling as Thoreau traveled: exploring the place where I am in ways that I hadn’t before.  Walking fully aware in the woods, or the mountains and shores of New Hampshire, stopping at local landmarks previously unknown to me, and exploring space  while looking up at the stars to pick out planets and constellations.  For the adventurous spirit, there’s no shortage of opportunities to explore, even in a pandemic.

      “Travel spins us round in two ways at once: It shows us the sights and values and issues that we might ordinarily ignore; but it also, and more deeply, shows us all the parts of ourselves that might otherwise grow rusty. For in traveling to a truly foreign place, we inevitably travel to moods and states of mind and hidden inward passages that we’d otherwise seldom have cause to visit.

      All [great travel writers]… believed in “being moved” as one of the points of taking trips, and “being transported” by private as well as public means; all saw that “ecstasy” (“ex-stasis”) tells us that our highest moments come when we’re not stationary, and that epiphany can follow movement as much as it precipitates it.

      Travel, then, is a voyage into that famously subjective zone, the imagination, and what the traveler brings back is — and has to be — an ineffable compound of himself and the place, what’s really there and what’s only in him.” – Pico Iyer, Why We Travel

      While nice on the surface, I chafe when spending too much time at resorts because I’m not looking for pampering or losing myself in a cartoon world.  Travel at its best isn’t distraction, but exploration.  It isn’t running away from ourselves, but finding ourselves.  And that can happen anywhere if we let it.  Our highest moments come when we’re not stationary…  and so we hear the call to explore.  I’m conspiring to travel locally over the next couple of weeks to places near, while foregoing far.  At least for now.  For there’s so much to see right in our own backyards that we rarely celebrate.  Over the next few weeks I’ll explore some of those places in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.  And as you might expect having read any of this blog, explore hidden inward passages too.

    • A Shelf Full of Worthy Pursuits

      “We are our choices.”  – Jean-Paul Sartre

      I found myself in a store that specializes in astronomy-related equipment like higher end telescopes and the like. I was there to upgrade my binoculars, which left a lot to be desired when hunting down that elusive Comet NEOWISE. While there he showed me a stunningly gorgeous Questar Standard 3.5 telescope that would only set me back $5000 dollars.  It was breathtaking in its detail, and I could imagine myself having it set up on the deck gazing in wonder at the universe with a glass of scotch in my hand conversing astronomy tidbits with adoring family and friends.  Enticing?  No doubt.  But I stuck with the binoculars and kept my savings account and marriage intact.  I also took his brochure on the local astronomy club and tucked that away safely on a shelf with my other worthy pursuits.  Life is about the choices we make, and Lord knows there’s an abundance of choices we can make in this country.

      “You can’t always get what you want
      But if you try sometime you find
      You get what you need”
      – The Rolling Stones, You Can’t Always Get What You Want

      You may recall a recent post about getting back into scuba diving.  I had almost the exact interaction with the dive shop I visited as the one I had at the astronomy shop, complete with cutting edge dive gear, underwater photography equipment, and that special pricing that comes when you’re in a pandemic and concessions need to be made to keep business flowing.  I’ve shelved that indefinitely as I tackle other projects, and added the brochure about scuba certification to the shelf to revisit another day. Such is the way with worthy pursuits: you can’t have it all. But you just might find you get what you need.

      “Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.” – Samuel Butler

      Those shelves that imprisoned books also hold those brochures with unfulfilled dreams of adventure travel, cooking with fire, sailing around the world, hiking the Appalachian Trail, gardening, sea kayaking and other pursuits waiting to break free, or dare I say, mastered.  Life is chock full of worthy pursuits, and full of experts to guide you down the path.  But life isn’t full of enough time to master every pursuit that strikes a fancy, and so we must choose what to live with and what to live without.  Something has to give, and the shelf is stacked with victims of the time, money and focus equation not working in their favor.  I’m very interested in astronomy, but I’m not quite there yet for jumping into the deep end on astronomy club activities and diverting $5K towards a telescope…  No, not just yet.  But hey, if we’re both still around in ten years let’s get reacquainted.

      In the casual pursuit of Comet NEOWISE, the binoculars made all the difference.  Even with wispy clouds threatening to mask the view, I was able to see the comet clearly with the new binoculars.  And here’s the reason I chose those binoculars (besides the price tag relative to the telescope of my dreams): the binoculars are small enough to fit into a backpack or a sailing bag or brought outside with a cup of coffee for backyard bird-watching.  And thus combining multiple worthy pursuits with one modest purchase.  Is that the answer when choosing the worthiest of pursuits – what offers the best bang for the buck?  Not necessarily, but surely it helps justify the initial financial step into the new-to-you.

      I may not own the title of the most interesting man in the world, but who has time to do everything anyway?  Follow your passions where they might lead you, but do it responsibly.  The world has enough attention deficit disorder with Twitter and YouTube and sound bite news.  Keep trying new things and you never know what rises to the top of the priority list.  I’m a jack-of-all-trades, who invests time to eventually master some. Or not master some but enjoy the ride anyway. I’ve seen friends drift further and further into pursuits as diverse as sailing and hiking and photography, and I recognize and admire the passion of pursuit and growing expertise within them.  Everything has its time, and some pursuits will be there when the time is right… or perhaps not at all.   There’s joy in focusing on the singular pursuit of something, and happily living with the sampler pack with other, otherwise worthy pursuits.   There’s freedom in learning to say no, not now.

    • Sailing the Gulf of Maine

      The Gulf of Maine is a corner of the Atlantic Ocean embraced by Cape Cod to the South and Nova Scotia to the Northeast.  The longest stretch of land in between is part of Maine, which gives the gulf her name.  If you look at Alexander’s map, which this blog is named for, the body of water is just below the land described as “New Englande” and “New Scot Lande”.  A land mass that I’ve grown to love, that I declared I’d explore more, and that I need to return to in earnest once this pandemic is behind us.

      cropped-54b94-alexander2527s2bmap.jpg

      Yesterday we had the opportunity to sail on Fayaway with friends.  It was an out-and-back sail with one tack.  We left the Merrimack River where they moor Fayaway when they aren’t exploring the world and sailed generally on a compass heading of 90 degrees, which took us roughly along the coast of Maine just out of sight of land.  Sail for 18 miles out one way, tack and return 18 miles the other way.  Not a lot of tactical sailing required, which was perfect for a day of conversation and contemplation on the water.  We had a secondary objective of seeing whales and maybe that evasive Comet Neowise, but each proved elusive on this trip.  A sunfish made an appearance, which was akin to an understudy playing the role when you came to see the star: Wasn’t what you came for, but turned out to be entertaining just the same.

      When we got out of the lee shore of Cape Ann the wave action picked up, with 3 to 6 foot swells that lifted Fayaway and reminded us we were well out at sea.  But Fayaway handles wave action well, and with her sails reefed in the 28 – 30 knots of sustained wind were comfortable for the duration.  Which invited conversation about travel and plans for the future and the kind of catching up you do when it’s just you and others and the wind and splash of waves for hours.

      I’ve learned that I’m a bit rusty with ancillary sailing terminology that goes deeper than the basic rigging, and assisted where appropriate while staying out of the way the rest of the time.  When you see a couple who have sailed together for a year covering thousands of miles you’re witnessing a well-choreographed dance.  I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer but I know enough not to be the clumsy fop who thumps onto stage mid-act.  Instead be the quiet stagehand who puts away the props when the performers are done.  I was grateful for a patient crew who recognized the rustiness in this sailor.

      There are a few highlights when you sail up the coast from the Merrimack.  You begin with the chaos of the Merrimack River with powerboats and jet-skis racing to win perceived races to get “there”.  It reminded me of aggressive drivers on the highway shifting two lanes and back to get one car ahead.  Its the antithesis of the sailing we were doing, and I greatly prefer being out of that race.  Once you clear the Mouth of the Merrimack, sails are up and you set course for nowhere in particular.  The lines of umbrella stands on Salisbury Beach and elbow-to-elbow fishermen and women on charter boats indicate that social distancing is a guideline many choose to ignore.  I’m sure plenty were doing their best to be socially responsible, while others proved more reckless.  I considered the similarities between drivers on the highway, power-boaters racing each other in a narrow channel to get to the fish first and close-talking beach umbrella bunnies in a pandemic for a moment, and released the thought onto the breeze.  We all live our lives in our own way in America, if not always responsibly.  I was observing from the vantage point of a sailboat in close proximity with another couple, but with the mutual assurance that each couple was taking appropriate measures to avoid COVID-19 exposure.  Maybe those beach throngs were doing the same thing.  I hope so.

      Soon Fayaway moves beyond umbrellas, beyond the sight of land, beyond the hum of motorboats, and we’re in our own world.  For much of the duration of our trip out and back we were completely alone other than a couple of commercial fishing vessels busily working the waters of the gulf.  Time on the water gives you time to ponder and think, and, if you let it, to look through the swirling waves deep into yourself.  And Sunday became another micro adventure for the books.  Leaving terra firma for the sea and exploring a relatively small segment of the Gulf of Maine.  It served as a reminder that I have far to go, but where I am isn’t all that bad either.

    • Setting the Tone

      I had a professor in college who pointed out that the greatest books in history had great opening lines that set the tone for the everything that followed.  He pointed out the Bible as the most unambiguous example of setting the tone for everything else that follows, but you can’t forget the brilliance of Homer or Dickens or Melville.  Consider:

      “In the beginning, God created heaven, and earth.” – The Book of Genesis, Holy Bible

      “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story” – Homer, The Odyssey

      “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

      “Call me Ishmael” – Herman Melville, Moby Dick

      I’d humbly point out that great songs have a similar tendency.  And since most people seem to have shelved their discipline of reading the classics after graduation, it may be an easier example to illustrate.  Consider the following immortal songs and how the opening line sets the tone for all that comes after:

      “Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call” – Jimmy Buffett, A Pirate Looks at Forty

      “If you could read my mind love” – Gordon Lightfoot, If You Could Read My Mind

      “Something in the way she moves” – The Beatles, Something

      “Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum” – Carolyn Leigh, The Best is Yet To Come

      “Don’t worry about a thing” – Bob Marley, Three Little Birds

      “Imagine there’s no heaven” – John Lennon, Imagine

      “There must be some way out of here” – Bob Dylan, All Along the Watchtower

      And so it is that I think about the words that set the tone for this blog, and took the immortal words of Henry David Thoreau that grace the home page of this site and made them more prominent.  For his call to action is also my own, and set the tone for all that this blog aims to be:

      “Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures.” – Henry David Thoreau

      I realized somewhere along the way that this is exactly the way I try to live; rising early, seeking adventure in this day, writing about it when it deserves consideration (and perhaps sometimes when it doesn’t), savoring the day and then putting it behind me, that I might rise from care once again tomorrow.  This isn’t head-in-the-sand optimism, it’s a calling, and some days are more adventurous and free from care than others.  But string them together and you set the tone for a life more interesting.  What sets the tone for your life?  Be bold in your selection.

    • Hiking Mount Tecumseh on a Foggy Night

      It seemed like a good idea at the time is a beginning statement that might indicate more adventure than bargained for.  And so it was that I hiked solo up Mount Tecumseh at 6:30 PM on a random Thursday, with noble intent to meet the Comet Neowise halfway by climbing a relatively easy mountain and looking at the stars.  Except that the stars were hidden in overcast, and the stakes of a solo hike ratchet up when it gets dark on a steep and wet trail.  But I had a plan B for the descent all the while, which turned out to be an epic adventure of its own.

      Mount Tecumseh is a relatively small mountain that was recently demoted from an official 4000 footer to a just short of greatness 3997 foot.  The mountain is named for the Shawnee Chief who unified tribes against settlement in the Great Lakes region and fought against America in the War of 1812.  There’s no logical connection between Tecumseh and New Hampshire that I’ve seen, but I can respect his name more than some others I’ve come across hiking.  I’ve hiked it before and remembered it as a relatively easy hike save for a steep mile of the trail known as the staircase.  This made hiking the trail as it was getting dark less concerning for me.  But the last time was in winter when Tecumseh’s famous staircase is softened by a heavy snow blanket.

      The ascent was easier than I thought it would be, which bodes well for the trend in my overall fitness level I suppose.  I arrived at the summit at 8 PM with plenty of light to see the view, if the clouds hadn’t dropped down to start blanketing the mountain anyway.  I changed into a long sleeve shirt and began my descent quickly after arriving.  I knew I had a challenging descent to deal with if I chose to hike down the Tecumseh Trail, though I had the gear necessary for a hike in the dark.  But there was that fog to consider, which makes a headlamp beam about as effective as your high beams in your car in fog.  I decided to hike as long as it was safe to do so without using the headlamp.  And after considering the Tecumseh Trail made the decision to hike the Sosman Trail on the descent.  I’ve hiked this one before and knew it was relatively easy for a descent, partially following the ski trail for Waterville Valley.

      But here’s where the story takes a twist.  The fog and darkness made it very difficult to mark the trail, and I lost it in the swirling mist at the summit of the ski lift.  And so I said my first WTF of the night, looked at the ski trail sloping down and decided to just walk down that instead.  I kept to the green trails, which are a combination of gravel road and grassy meadow in the summer.  Skiing down a slope and hiking down are very different things, and I found it slow going.  At one point I spooked a couple of large birds roosting in a tree – likely those turkey I’d been wondering about earlier in the week, and it startled me enough that I thought I might just expire right then and there.  But that would’ve been too easy.  I uttered another WTF and kept descending.

      After walking for what seemed like hours I reached the middle chair lifts at the ski area and looked down to see the lights of the ski lodge depressingly far away.  I said another WTF and made the fateful decision to follow the chair lifts down instead of the gravel access road that would add a lot of time to the hike.  And I discovered just how tall the meadow becomes on the walk down.  By now it was completely dark and I used the beam to illuminate every step and the hiking poles to probe for gopher holes and other hazards.  Eventually I made it down to the base and glanced around at just how lonely a ski area looks at 9:30 on a foggy summer night.  I arrived at my car, used the beam to check for ticks and headed home.  Not your average Thursday night.

      Lessons learned on this one.  Hiking solo in the dark wasn’t the best idea I ever had.  Even though I knew the trails I was hiking, they always look different in the dark, and especially when there’s fog.  I would’ve been better off descending the Tecumseh Trail.  Even if it was slow going its clearly defined and I would have arrived at roughly the same time as taking the Sosman Trail.  The point of this hike was to see the night sky, and I might have been better off just bagging the hike when I saw the overcast at the summit.  But I don’t panic when I hit WTF moments, I assess.  There were things that could have gone wrong but I took it slow and easy and got back safely.  I’m glad I hiked it, and all the extra drama of darkness and fog and overgrown ski trails made it memorable, if slightly reckless (but calculated reckless). Another 4000 footer completed, and a story to tell.