Alexandersmap

    Category: Travel

    • A Cape Cod Time Warp

      We slipped back into old Cape Cod for a quiet walk on the trails of Little Bay and Monks Park in Bourne, Massachusetts yesterday.  From a perspective of scale this park is of modest size, and the loop is quick, but from the perspective of getting you out of modern Cape Cod and back into a time before the place was built up it served us well.  A time capsule of sorts, onto shady paths of sand and scrub pine needles with surprising variations in elevation from sea level to 70 feet.  Not exactly the White Mountains, but a pleasant departure from the usual flat walks.

      The variation in flora matched the elevation changes, with sassafras, scrub pine, oak, highbush blueberries and a fair amount of poison ivy dominated the landscape, with salt marsh and views of the bay sprinkled in.  In some ways this feels like its always been this way.  But there are hints to other uses in the flora as well.  A pair of large beech trees guard the entrance to the park on Valley Bars Road, planted at some point maybe a hundred years ago.  A holly on the Loop Trail looks to be out of place in the landscape as well, perhaps planted by someone before this became conservation land in 1980, perhaps by someone taking a walk in the woods who wanted a home for a shrub.  The holly keeps her secret from me.

      All of this land is preserved because of the work of the Bourne Conservation Trust, which saw the explosion of development on the Cape in 1980 and decided to do something about it.  This land was once part of the estate of George Augustus Gardner, brother of Isabella Stuart Gardner, giving it a hint of Boston Brahmin.  This area was pretty exclusive back in the day, with President Grover Cleveland summering just up the road.  He bequeathed it to his daughter Olga Eliza, who married a man named George Howard Monks, which is where the name Monks Park comes from.  The family sold the land when Olga passed away, and thankfully it was purchased by the Bourne Conservation Trust.

      The Loop Trail is roughly 1.5 miles, with a few trails that cut straight across the land providing a shortcut of sorts.  If you were to walk this trail in late fall or winter the water views would be spectacular.  In summer the oak leaves obscure much of the view, making you earn it with a walk down steep grade to the beach from the trail, or simply walk under the railroad bridge from the parking lots.  Not the longest trail, but you could walk the loop a few times and try the side trails for variation if you wanted a longer walk.  This place is a gem hidden in plain site on busy Shore Road, and worth a visit.  A quiet connection to old Cape Cod, to the wealthy who acquired the land, and to those progressive people who saved it from ever being developed. Consider a donation to their future efforts, as Little Bay and Monks Park demonstrates just how much good a few people can do.

    • 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?

    • Getting There In Spirit

      “I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walking

      Rising up before the dawn has its advantages.  Mostly in solitude, but also in that dance with light that happens whether you join in or not.  I prefer to join in.

      I walked down to the water to watch the crescendo before the light washed out with the sunrise.  I was struck by the number of boats moored in the bay.  More than I recall in other summers, but there are more people holing up near the water this year for all the reasons you’re familiar with.

      I come to Buzzards Bay to watch the dance between water and light.  Sometimes the water rises up to meet the light, and sometimes it quietly pulls back and waits for the light to come to it, but the dance is beautiful just the same.  The reunion of the two offers a performance that can take your breath away.  Like a lingering kiss of fire to water, you expect a hiss when they touch.  The moments when the sun is just below the water is the most beautiful time of all, either rising up from its depths or rejoining at the end of the day.

      “As trees evoke sound from the wind, your eyes evoke light from fire.” – Alan Watts, Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown

      I haven’t quite immersed myself in the bay yet, but I’m trying to walk that mile.  The restlessness that I’ve felt for days hasn’t subsided, despite time on mountaintops and deep in the woods and now awash in salt water and early morning light.  Perhaps more time swirling about in that salt water would do the trick.  Like the lime in my rum drink at the end of the day.  But I think it comes down to the year we’re living through, where casual escape isn’t as easy as it might have been before.

      I’ve written and deleted more words than I’m keeping in today’s post.  Perhaps letting the picture stand alone as the post would have said more than me jumbling together words.  Surely worth a thousand words?  Its hard to capture light in words when you’re looking inward too much.  The root of restlessness is derived from too much time in one’s own head.  If you look back on this post the last four paragraphs begin with I.  And that “I” needs to be diluted with salt water and sweat and others of consequence.

    • 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.

    • Hiking Pierce and Eisenhower

      201 years ago, in 1819, a father and son team of Abel and Ethan Allen Crawford cut an 8.5-mile hiking trail from what is today called Crawford Notch to the summit of Mount Washington’s summit.  A year later, Ethan Allen would guide an expedition up that trail, which became known then and to today as Crawford’s Path.  That group would name most of the mountains they saw after the early United States Presidents: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. That we hiked on the oldest continuously maintained hiking trail in the United States wasn’t lost on me.  People have been walking or riding horses on this path since many of the Founding Fathers were alive.  The Crawford Path is a bridge of sorts, and 200 years later I hiked part of it to traverse the summits named for two Presidents who came after the trail was first cut: Mount Pierce and Mount Eisenhower.

      Franklin Pierce was the 14th man to be President, and the only one ever born in New Hampshire.  He was President between 1853 and 1857, and was well aware of the threat that the abolitionists from the southern states posed to the young United States of America.  Pierce was a compromise candidate nominated to appease the south, but he wasn’t a particularly popular President, making controversial decisions like nullifying the Missouri Purchase (if we can have anti-slavery Maine be a state we let pro-slavery Missouri be one too) by signing the Kansas–Nebraska Act.  That may be a post for another day, but the act essentially fueled the vigorous anti-slavery movement that led to the Civil War.

      “After the White House what is there to do but drink?” – Franklin Pierce

      Pierce wasn’t a great President when the United States needed one.  He was also a vocal critic of Abraham Lincoln, which didn’t endear him to most northerners then or today.  But he is a native son, and New Hampshire named a 4310 peak in his honor.  It would be the first of two 4000 footers I’d climb for the day.  The second would be the 4780 foot Mount Eisenhower.

      Dwight D Eisenhower was, like George Washington, a great General who became a relatively great American President.  He opposed McCarthyism, promoted civil rights, expanded Social Security and built the nations interstate Highway System.  He was a two-term war hero President who bridged the relatively peaceful decade between the Korean War and American escalation in Vietnam.  When he passed away New Hampshire took an existing mountain in the Presidential Range, Mount Pleasant, and re-named it Mount Eisenhower in his honor.

      “This world of ours… must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.” – Dwight D Eisenhower

      Enough history, let’s get to the hiking.  Hiked up the Crawford Connector Trail to meet up with the Crawford Path, and made a point of stopping for a look at Gibbs Falls. I rarely pass up a visit to a waterfall, and today wasn’t going to be an exception.

      From there we hiked up to Pierce and then Eisenhower. There was a lot of company on each summit (being a beautiful Saturday) but we managed to find a spot to stop for a quick break at each before moving on. Checked two peaks off the list of 48 and had a great day with three great people. We left Crawford’s Path for the Eisenhower Loop, summiting relatively quickly, had our quick lunch and descended via the Edmands Path, a rocky, wet trail that wasn’t a favorite. But it did the job of bringing us back to the quiet road that led to our car and cold beverages and hot showers. A long day, but a heck of a day. And I’ll publish this and enjoy the rest of a great Saturday.

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • The Wild Amongst Us

      “Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher ‘standard of living’ is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free.” – Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

      Last week I drove up the street I live on and saw a bobcat cross the road with its freshly-killed dinner dangling from its mouth. Looked like an unlucky chipmunk to me, but might have been a small rabbit. Honestly I was focused on the bobcat. For I’d never seen one before, and even though I knew right away what it was I still called my friend Tom to validate what I believed I’d just seen.

      The next day my daughter and I were looking out the window and saw a red-tailed hawk land on the umbrella next to the pool, look around for a moment and then fly off to another vantage point. Its search for lunch momentarily overlapped in our world. I sit under that umbrella writing now, as I often do.

      Yesterday, while mowing the lawn, I glanced up the street and saw a doe carefully crossing the street at roughly the spot my car was when I saw that bobcat. She was escorting three fawns across the road. Two were more spry, the third a bit awkward on the legs, as if just born. They disappeared into the brush on the other side of the road, just as the bobcat had a few days before.

      All of these interactions with the wild amongst us would be familiar to countless generations of humans who lived on this land. They’d be far more taken aback by the swimming pools, lawn mowers and cars parked in driveways than the wildlife I find so fascinating. The question is whether they’ve been here all along or if they’re just returning in greater numbers as they adapt to the world we’ve dropped down in their neighborhood. Surely the deer and hawks have grown in numbers in my lifetime. But what of the predators like bobcat, fisher cats, mountain lions, coyotes and wolves? Evidence shows they’re returning to the land too. My encounter with the bobcat isn’t uncommon anymore, what was uncommon was the years when it would have been.

      All this points to a relatively healthy ecosystem surrounding the development I live in. Granted, it might have been even healthier were this development not dropped into the woods 22 years ago, but it was, and over time the land adjusts and the wild creatures return. The difference here was a requirement for open, undeveloped space allocated around house lots. Less profitable for the developer, but more attuned to the land. And that land serves as a highway for all sorts of wildlife, and in turn keeps me here, rooted to the land in ways I hadn’t expected when we sunk a foundation onto this plot. And so it is that I serve my tenure as watchman for the land, and wild amongst us. May I serve it well.

    • Collecting Daily Microadventures

      I heard a Rolf Potts podcast interview with Alastair Humphreys during a long walk around town.  I listen to podcasts when walking on loud roads because I can never fully immerse myself in nature when heavy objects traveling at terminal velocity are close enough to know the deodorant of choice of the driver.  Of course, I always keep an eye on the driver and the relative distance between their passenger mirror and my rib cage.  But a podcast gives me something else to think about during this regular dance on the narrow shoulders of New Hampshire roads.

      Potts and Humphreys captured my imagination during my dance with the drivers with a discussion of microadventures.  Microadventures is Humphreys’ term, but the pursuit of adventures isn’t a new concept.  I’ve been doing many of the things he lists on his site already, and think of them as exclamation points on a day of living on this planet.  But impressively he does take it to another level.  This well-made video explains the concept, or do a deeper dive on his web site (I felt a bit of web site envy visiting his site, and it once again prompted me to up my alexandersmap.com game.  You can see my ongoing progress on the site).  There are many microadventures available for the able and willing, I could get in my car and drive to the White Mountains for a hike, or drive to a waterfall for a shower under bracingly cold water, or camp out on a sleepy beach for sunrise.  But I wanted something close to home and on a somewhat smaller scale as a nod to the spirit of microadventuring.

      And so it was that I found myself getting in my car with a camera and tripod and driving a couple of miles away from home to an entirely different world: the soccer fields my kids once competed on, which last night transformed into a dark and mysterious upside down world with vaguely familiar fences and sheds providing anchors of bearing.  I was challenged by three separate people to go out and see the Comet Neowise, dancing just below the Big Dipper just after sunset.  It seems people have noticed my affinity for the stars over the years.  I’ve silently been plotting a viewing all along, but the weather proved frustratingly unreliable for comet gazing.  Last night was a micro adventure of comet hunting, confirming that my Nikon Coolpix B500 camera wasn’t up to the task (or more likely its owner), and learning from the experience.  Perhaps I’ll get that evasive picture tonight or in the next few days before Neowise travels on for another thousand generations, or maybe I’ll just bring the binoculars out and just view it.  Plenty of better photographers are taking stunning photos of Neowise already.   My micro adventure wasn’t for a picture anyway, but for the experience of trying something new right in my own town.  It was me alone in a dark field, strange noises in the forest beyond, constellations and planets spinning above and satellites zipping past.  Memorable even without a digital image to post on social media.

      Here’s the thing: we get caught up in the big bucket list stuff.  Hiking the Appalachian Trail, sailing across the ocean, hiking to Machu Picchu, visits to Amsterdam, Paris, London and a hundred other great cities.  Heck, even hiking the 48 NH 4000 footers in my home state requires time investment and planning on a larger scale than a simple microadventure.  Life should be full of the great exclamation points that a bucket list offers, but lifetimes are made up of a collection of days.  Why not downsize the scale of the adventure and do something interesting today?  So when someone asks you tomorrow what you did last night, you aren’t replaying the same old soundtrack of streaming Netflix series or watching YouTube videos of other people’s adventures.  Yesterday, in between the traditional fare of a random Wednesday, I began my day with a plunge in the pool at 6 AM and ended it with a hunt for Comet Neowise until past my bedtime.  So a memorable yesterday, if only for the endcaps.  So what shall today bring?