Posts Tagged ‘adventure’
Heading Somewhere
Apparently, if my recent dreams are any indication, there is somewhere I’m trying to reach, but circumstances keep delaying my readiness to depart. But, isn’t that just an inherent existential dilemma? Why are we here?
It’s the journey, right? Not just the destination.
I love a good adventure, but the truth is, I’m not all that fond of traveling. One common thread of people’s stories about their travels are the hassles and struggles faced along the way. Getting through airport security, navigating the unknowns of destination ports, communicating through language barriers.
It’s all part of the package of traveling. Choosing to see those parts of the journey in a more positive light than as just being hassles, goes a long way toward helping a person accept them as pleasurable, as in, a puzzle to be solved. If you like puzzling, I mean.
If you are not traveling, you are still headed somewhere. Are the everyday challenges being navigated, hassles? Or are they puzzles being solved?
Are we trying to get ready to depart, or are these little conflicts actually the journey, itself?
Where the heck are we heading, anyway?
To a better place. Free from pains, both physical and mental. We are looking for peace and love.
Don’t just be a consumer of those commodities, though. Be a distributor, as well.
Yesterday, after my well-health check-up physical with my doctor, I needed to visit our local pharmacy. To my surprise, I was offered the option of trying out a short-term regimen of an oral corticosteroid to see if it would settle the lung congestion left over from my recent cold. This, in contrast to the usual long-term (and much more expensive) daily inhaled asthma treatment.
Without thinking fast enough, I let them transmit the prescription to an Ellsworth pharmacy that Cyndie recently discovered was not functioning well. They are understaffed, overburdened, and may be headed out of business.
We phoned to see if they had my common prescription ready for pickup. So far, so good.
They’ve closed the drive through (because it’s too cold outside?), so I had to go in. I was not surprised to see a queue of visibly frustrated customers waiting. The angst in the vicinity was palpable.
Armed with prior warning, I was not flapped by this. I brought love and peace. Calmness. Understanding. Smiling. My energy smoothed some of their rough edges, while I accepted the process of waiting.
I enjoyed an added bonus of being able to find someone on my way out, and tell them they had forgotten their insurance card, which I had witnessed the staff fretting over.
Where are we heading?
Oh, yeah. To peace and love.
And better health, too. What an adventure!
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Mixed Tracks
The thing about aging, especially complaining about the less than glamorous aspects associated with it, is that there are always going to be people older than you for whom the whining will appear inconsequential.
“You think that’s bad, just wait until…”
We each have our moments in time. It’s natural to try comparing, but it’s also natural, to discount each other’s comparisons.
I used to be able to write my name in the snow when peeing. Now I just make Pollock style splatter painting designs.
At least I can still pee.
Speaking of tracks in the snow, I captured a cute combination of chicken traffic along with what I’m assuming were prints of a local prowling outdoor cat.
I’m not sure who was there first, but it is unlikely they were actually wandering around together.
If you pay close enough attention, you will see the tracks of the chickens are pointing in opposite directions.
I also think the paw print is a double exposure. It seems like too many toes, but I suspect it is a function of two feet being placed in the same spot.
Watching Delilah on walks, and often wanting to capture pictures of her paw prints, I have come to notice how often her back feet step in the same place as her front feet did. I think the cat was doing the same thing.
I am reminded of a snowy morning during my trek in Nepal when two of my travel mates were pestering the Sherpa guides to find us some tracks from an elusive snow leopard.
Eventually, (we think) they used the old trick of making some rather convincing prints in the snow with their own hands.
Everybody had a good laugh over it, although no admissions were ever offered, and a question over authenticity lingered unresolved. We were happy to imagine the excitement of what such evidence implied, if it had been real.
My mind has returned to my 2009 Himalayan trek because we watched a Netflix DVD last night called, “The Himalayas,” which dramatically told the story of South Korean climber, Um Hong-Gil, leading an expedition in 2005 to attempt recovering the bodies of three friends who died there a year earlier.
I find such expedition movies fun for the brief few minute glimpses they almost always include of the flight to Lukla, the swinging bridges, the rocky trails through rhododendron trees, the shrines, prayer flags, and initial views of Everest that are all the very places I walked.
Even though we weren’t on a mountain climbing expedition, those who were, traveled the same route we did, to get where they were going.
We all made mixed tracks in the snow on the trails.
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Fine Love
I was clinging to life yesterday, what with an intermittent drippy nose and a congestion headache invading my otherwise stellar health, and from beneath my snuggly blanket, I kept hearing lyrics from a John Hiatt song, over and over in my head.
I’ve seen an angel or two before
but I never asked one to be my wife
Cyndie and I have taken turns caring for each other over the years, and when it’s my turn to be the patient, Cyndie becomes an angel of mercy for me.
She took this picture yesterday morning that gives the impression of some kind of energy emanating from our barn. I expect it is a couple of dissolving jet contrails that painted the morning sky in such dramatic fashion, but I’m happy to imagine that it means something about our place.
Love is one of the pillars by which we live our lives, and it continues to inspire our imaginings of what might be possible on our precious property in the rural countryside. The last few years have been a struggle, in a variety of unrelated ways, not the least of which was the passing of our herd-leading horse, Legacy.
The ongoing painful dysfunction of our government that for over two years has been providing a daily scourge of depressing results hasn’t helped, either.
Cyndie and I are in a bit of a holding pattern as to what comes next. It was a response to her discoveries working with horses, and our time spent with Ian in Portugal that brought us to this property. I was happy to join her in this adventure to unknown possibilities.
Back to John Hiatt’s song…
I left my map way back there baby
I don’t know where we are
But I’m gonna pull my pony up
Hitch my wagon to your star
“Real Fine Love” Written by: JOHN HIATT Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
I’m not sure what comes next, but it seems to me that it would likely have a focus that emanates from that barn.
Whatever it is, it will be infused with a real fine love.
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Festivities Continue
This time, the party moved to our house. All of Cyndie’s brothers came over, bringing some of their kids, along with the Fisknes family from Norway. When our kids learned of everyone’s plans, they decided to make the trip, too. We all had a great time hanging around the fireplace, eating an impressive lunch buffet Cyndie set out, walking the labyrinth, feeding the horses and chickens, and playing card games.
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Eventually, the American contingents all headed back to the Twin Cities, but the Norwegians stayed for a sleep-over at the ranch. That was always in the plan, but we rearranged the days a little to avoid the rain we are expecting today.
We decided weather like that was more fitting for shopping at the Mall of America.
The main highlight of their visit (among many), was seeing the girls succeed wonderfully for their first attempt at making pasta from scratch.
The fresh pasta turned out great and made for a scrumptious dinner. I even got in on the kitchen activity, (an uncharacteristic place for me) sautéing vegetables while the actual family cook was busy with the more important task of teaching the art of home-made pasta.
It was a perfect way to fend off the onset of the wet weather we are expecting to face today and tomorrow.
It all felt downright festive, if I do say so myself.
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Two Trails
Did I mention how beautiful the weekend sticky snowfall was? See for yourself.
Which trail would you choose?
Heading south?
Or heading north?
I love the extremity of contrast between scenes like these, compared to how these woods look in the summer.
We aren’t teasing when we brag about doing all four seasons of the year around these parts.
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Kitchen Aromas
Honestly, I don’t feel worthy of the aromas that greeted me from Cyndie’s kitchen when I walked in the door after work yesterday. She pulled me all the way into some of my fondest November memories with a robust batch of fresh Chex mix roasting in the oven.
Threw me back to Thanksgiving day parades, afternoon football games, and my dear ol’ mom.
I don’t know which came first. Did my love of cereal lead to an overwhelming attachment to Chex mix, or did my fondness for Chex mix lead to my mind-boggling passion for cereal?
No sooner does the mix come out of the oven and Cyndie puts in a pizza crust to pre-bake.
Not one to avoid a challenge, she was working her magic on an untested recipe for an adventurous fresh cranberry balsamic white pizza.
I can sincerely say that this did not bring back a single memory or aroma from my past. I can take, or leave, an arugula salad on my pizza, but ricotta cheese in place of a good salty tomato sauce left this experiment lacking.
It looked tantalizing, though.
Just needed more sauce and maybe a heaping crown of mozzarella cheese for my tastes. And bacon.
What?
That was Cyndie’s idea. We read somewhere that the most common ingredient in contest-winning recipes happens to be bacon flavor in some shape or form.
We both got a chuckle out of that.
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Just Riffing
‘Twas the night before Halloween, when all thro’ the house… I’m pretty sure creatures were stirring, because I could hear them in the walls. I’m hoping we don’t get any neighbors stopping by for treats tomorrow night, because I haven’t hunted down any of Cyndie’s hidden candy stashes and she is now out-of-town.
I drove her to the airport in the early darkness this morning to catch a plane for a visit with Dunia and family in Guatemala. Last night, instead of packing for her trip, she was cleaning the house, vacuuming, making me food for the week, …you know, mentally preparing for being away.
I interrupted her vacuuming and mentioned that I could do that after she was gone, in case she might better spend her time getting bags ready for departure. I’m a little surprised she didn’t start cleaning out the junk drawer in the kitchen, too.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
Those of you who are chuckling over this probably have a sense of recognition for this strange trait some people have, that they start organizing or cleaning drawers or closets that rarely get attention until the waning hours before leaving on a trip. What is that about?
The chickens and I benefitted from this pattern yesterday, when the normal evening chores unexpectedly blossomed into a grand chicken pasty-butt cleaning operation. I sure didn’t see that coming, but it will be nice for me that I shouldn’t have to deal with the possible negative consequences of plugged up chicken bottoms while Cyndie is away.
The things we do for our animals.
Cleaning up poopy butts was a nice distraction from the daily news, except that it wasn’t that different from what I suffered hearing about on the drive home from work yesterday. Most of what fills the headlines is pretty sh**ty lately.
It makes me dream of what it might be like if all the news organizations were to magically agree to completely ignore the person whose name I prefer not uttering for maybe five business days in a row. Imagine that. Just fill the time talking about whatever subject would bug him the most, without ever once making reference to him. And the louder he would try to shout for attention by his tweeting fits, the more distance the journalists could put between themselves and him.
Just ignore him until he goes away. But keep an eye on the cash register. Something tells me all the bluster and blather is a smoke screen to distract us from the siphoning of the public coffers that is going on. Check his pockets before he leaves.
Hey, speaking of my drive home yesterday, I had a lucky break by the weird coincidence of leaving for home earlier than usual after having needed to make an unexpected visit a customer site. As I got close to the border with Wisconsin, traffic came to a sudden halt.
I had spotted an alert on the electronic message board over the freeway warning of a crash ahead, so I was prepared to bale out at the exit to Hudson just after crossing the St. Croix River. If I had left at my normal time, the backup would have left me on the Minnesota side of the bridge.
Timing is everything.
Okay, that’s it. Now I’m on my own (with a little animal care help from some local hands in the a.m. hours of my work days) for a couple weeks. Let’s see how long I can keep my happy face on. 🙂
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Additional Pics
More images captured over the weekend, checking out Jay Cooke State Park, exploring the woods around Barb and Mike’s cabin, and watching rapid weather swings…
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Sometimes, if you venture deep enough into the trees, you just might stumble upon a stone fireplace in a clearing.
We did.
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(Full disclosure: It wasn’t exactly a surprise, as we knew what we were looking for, having visited it in the past, but it always seems to be farther away than anticipated.)
It was brilliant fun bushwhacking off trail, dodging branches, picking routes, and (re)discovering the long-abandoned remnants of a burned out cabin with an intriguing assortment of metal scraps lying about. The site was so old, the stone outlines of the structure were difficult to discern and trees had grown up through the frame of a bed.
Don’t let the picture fool you. The stone fireplace shown is not from the cabin remains we explored. It’s at the site of a former girl’s camp on Bluewater Lake.
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Good Times
When Cyndie and I got home from our respective days last Thursday, we were greeted by the sight of our hay-field being cut. When we got home yesterday from our weekend with Mike and Barb at their lake place, our hay-field was being raked into windrows.
Between those two events, we enjoyed great adventures in the northland woods.
On our drive up toward Grand Rapids, we paused for a picnic lunch and walk along the St. Louis River in Jay Cooke State Park. I had forgotten about the flooding 10″ rain that caused incredible damage in that region in 2012.
It was impressive to see how great the damage recovery looks now, this many years later.
Walking the rebuilt iconic swinging bridge over the river brought back memories of the exhilarating bridges Gary Larson and I walked in Nepal, minus the prayer flags and yak trains.
The trail along the St. Louis River offers great adventure of rough terrain navigation over roots and rocks, with gargantuan slanted rock formations providing fabulous views.
Jay Cooke State Park is a real treasure for the state of Minnesota.
In the evening on Friday, we sat out under the stars and enjoyed a roaring campfire for as long as tired eyes tolerated. Without having noticed that clouds had rolled in while we were out there, we called it a night just as rain moved in.
By morning, there was some snow on the ground, too. Cloud-burst blizzards breezed past around sunrise, interspersed with moments of bright blue sky. It was rather mountain-like conditions, also remarkably similar to weather Gary and I experienced in the Himalayas.
On Saturday, we did a lot of hiking in the woods. The tamarack trees were in glorious golden form. The rest of the fall colored leaves were past prime.
That scene is one I would gladly see made into a jigsaw puzzle.
The weekend was everything we hoped for, and more.
The animals at home were well cared for by Maddie and Lauren, two students at UW-River Falls who we’ve added to our pool of trained sitters.
Good times, indeed.
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