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!