Why I wrote what I wrote when I wrote it

If you've followed this blog for the past year, you know the story of why it began. But if you've just stumbled upon this gem of outdoor insanity, let me fill you in. Once upon a time, in a land far, far away....

Are you insane?!” My co-worker stared at me in horror as if I’d just told her I pitchfork puppies as a hobby. “You want to quit work to walk?” ‘Walk’ came out as if the word tasted bad. “Not walk,” I said, “backpack, travel, write. Write about backpacking and travel.” She shook her head and walked away. Almost without exception this was the response I received when I shared the news of my impending self-employment.


One the eve of my forty-ninth birthday I went to my spouse and moaned, “I haven’t done anything outstanding in my life. I want to quit my job, and travel and write for one year. Oh, and sleep. I’d really like to get some sleep.”
Fortunately, my husband’s response was quite different from my coworkers when he told me in his inimitably gentle way,“Look, old gal, living life is your outstanding talent. Living it fully, and drawing the rest of us in. If you want to write, get after it and quit interrupting my ball game. We’ll figure it out.”

And so I wrote. I began a blog and daily I chronicled adventures large and small.
Was this a midlife crisis? No, because I’m a mom and we don’t have time for those. We have moments of re-invention.

Sometimes explaining my hiking and writing to people is difficult. Where am I walking to? Why spend all that time writing if it doesn’t pay?  Both are so much a part of me and what I do, that I really had to stop to consider a response.  It was as if someone had asked “why do you breathe?”  There is no walking to or writing for- the value of both activities is intrinsic in the doing. DUH.

And I blog because I'm lazy. Because I cannot, for the life of me, make myself write a daily entry in my dairy. I cannot discipline myself to put my most private thoughts into a personal journal seen only by my eyes. But put everything my family does on display for the entire world to see?  Share private, intimate moments and embarrassing tidbits? Bare it all, barring nothing?

Oh, yeah, baby, I'm there!!

Read on!

What we found in the Sabine

Being a dyed-in-the-wool Sooner, I took a solemn oath to dislike all things Texan, particularly anything shaped like a Texas football fan, player or longhorn.

Therefore I am making a disclaimer that this is not a "liking", merely an objective review of one of the best National Forests I've been in. It's merely a unbiased bragging about one of the coolest places on earth. It is a dispassionate discussion about a place where I exercised my passion. An unprepossesed mention of place.

The campsites here are generous, roomy, widely spaced wonders on the edge of the water.  Who are those guys and why do they keep following me?

It was delightfully green and warmer than Oklahoma. It also has my favorite trail to date:

It has woods, and water, and beach, and trails. It had great people staying there. I didn't meet a single Texan. It had frisbee fanatics. These are frisbee fanatics whose frisbee don't float.

It had the largest mosquito and nocturnal insect population in the entire world. It had blue-tailed lizardy things. Lizardy things are less creepy than swarms of insects carrying off poodles.

It had amazing sunrises.

Texas may have redeemed itself...

Shady Lake to the Sabine

Sometimes when we pack an infinite number of activities into a finite space, I get a little lost. Like really, truly lost.

For instance, I know this is Shady Lake. I know that it is peaceful, and restful, and a great place to wake up. I just don't know what state it's in, so I'll probably never find it again.

I did figure out that this was Toledo Bend Lake, and that on the other side of it was Louisiana. I figured that out because of the 17 million pictures I took last week on our expedition, I labeled one folder. One.

I know that Louisiana is on the other side of it because when I asked where Louisiana was, I got that "you're a dumbass" look and someone pointed. Who knew? It's an imaginary line through the lake, not like I could see it!

The lake kind of has an ocean feel to it, right down to the cute boys playing frisbee on the beach. I'm pretty sure I saw these guys loitering around my campground...

It has that same ocean smell. It has sea monsters.

I think this washed up from the Louisiana side...After all the warnings about alligators, I was getting a little jumpy.

Ok, so it's not really bones, but it was pretty fun to tell people it was, especially small children. Kept the beach clear for picture taking.

And pelicans. Pelicans mean ocean, right?

And waves. Which would have made a wonderful sound to fall asleep to if we could have heard it over the insects.

yeah, insects. As dusk fell we started to hear a hum, and thought maybe it was the breeze through the spanish moss in the trees. We don't have spanish moss in my part of the country. It's kind of a romantic looking angiosperm. I thought maybe it made a different sound than wind in the cottonwoods.

But no, it was insects. The mosquitoes were so thick they were flying in formation. It spelled out 'Blood Bank'. Then there were these mayfly looking things. They flew up your nose, in your ears, surrounded the van so you couldn't open the doors, and if you had a light on in your tent, it was like being in an Oklahoma hail storm. That was not romantic at all.

But after dousing the light, the maelstrom ceased, and we drifted off to the humming in the trees, to the tune of Louisiana Saturday Night.

          Happy Trails, and may all your adventures be hum-dingers!

Made room for randomness

The only problem with going out into the wilderness and clearing your head is that now you have room up there for a lot of random thoughts.

If you keep your brain stuffed with school schedules and work problems and stuff like "get more kitty litter" you really can't squeeze in things like "why does curdled milk fat make butter but curdled milk makes me gag?"

And where's the bus stop to the alternate universe?

And why does the Travelin' Van look much better in the light of nature?

Along the leafy path, you become more aware of your surroundings, so that you can wonder

where are the bears and alligators the sign warned me about?

In the mindful pace of the woods, one can ponder great existential questions like

what is this thing, and how did it die and is it an alligator?

In the stillness of the forest you have time to makes lists of things that matter. Not grocery lists. Not errand lists. No 'things I wish my spouse would do' lists. Not that I've ever made one of those.

Nope, you make important lists, like my "Things NOT to do" list:
#1-Get eaten by a bear.
#2-Get eaten by an alligator
#3-Marry a statistician

#7 on my NOT to do list: get hugely fat.
However, the new butterfinger bites may move this off the list.


TO DO list:
#1-Visit every Presidential library. I know, I'm a nerd. I'm comfortable in my nerdiness. I embrace my nerdiness.
#2-I need to hurry if I'm going to see every National Park before I die...
#3- Encourage and support The Whee's musical interests. The Whee is now playing bass drum. It is not a subtle instrument.
#4-Have a trail named after me. Second only to my nerdiness is my ego.

    Happy Trails, and may you always have room for adventure!

Starting to recover

After a week in the wilderness with some of the boys, I am finally returning to my normal self. Craving chocolate and DP. Blogging incessantly.

There was a van full of us. There was me, aka Mother Nature, aka Wonder Woman, aka occasional camp cook, aka the slug in the back of the van who read the whole time.

Philoboy, aka mi esposo, aka my beloved, aka my significant other, aka the guy who looks good even after 8 days of not shaving.

There was Philoboy Action Figure, aka PAF, aka Philo Mini, aka the one who thinks he has to have a sherpa, aka the only one whoever grouses on our trips.

And then there was an uncle and a cousin thrown in for good measure. They came from Kansas, we left from Oklahoma, and we rendezvoused somewhere in Arkansas. I love saying rendezvoused. It sounds so much more adventurous than saying 'we're meeting here'.

We found a rendezvous point and pitched camp. Philo's partial to National Forests because they are relatively people-free. They are also bathroom and shower free.

While we waited for the other two members of our expedition to join us, we explored (are you getting the whole National Geographic documentary feel of this blog yet?)

We found this waterfall hidden away. As dry as every place has been, I was amazed to see flowing water. Made me want to camp right under it and stake out squatter's rights.

We were in Devil's Den State Park. It was a great little park, well-used. There are caves in the park, but they were closed due to an illness among the bats called White Nose Fungus. I think my kids had that when they were little.

This is as close to a shower as Philo got the whole week. Get closer, honey, trust me, ain't nothing going to melt!"

Then it was back to camp to wait for the others. PAF was crabby about giving up his seat. "Dang it, woman, I was here first, and I got squatter's rights."

Yeah, go and squat, little man. See what happens when I sit on your lap.

Civilization is still here!!

We're back from the bayou. Survived the swamp. We are gone from the gators and national-forest free.

When I emerge from my hibernacula, I'll tell you all about it.  I plan on working the word hibernacula into every conversation for the next month.

I can give you a hint- it was wet sometimes, cold sometimes, and fun all times. Except that time I was afraid I was going to fall into the water and be eaten by a gator.

I've assembled my tools for re-entry into the civilized world:

Industrial sander for skin-check.

Motor-oil weight moisturizer-check

Weed-whacker for leg foliage-check

Five-gallon bucket of detangler for hair-check

Masseuse for multiple tender spots-HEY!  Who forgot to order the masseuse!?!?!

   Happy Trails, and may your adventures never dampen your spirits!