Footsteps

 

 Kokosing Gap Trail: Flying on a Bike [1:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Sometimes it’s best to take the offense on a birthday.  Like with the one I had last week…  I wasn’t excited.  In fact my enthusiasm was basically undetectable.  Which seemed kind of pathetic in light of the limited nature of birthdays…   In the end though, I had to square my shoulders and face it down.

A leisurely patio lunch with my grandma and a couple of sisters wasn’t so bad.  We laughed a lot and blushed a little (no one can embarrass you like a sister)…

And I rode Kokosing Gap Trail, one my favorite rail-to-trail bike paths.

Kokosing follows an old Pennsylvania Railroad line and can get you to the “middle of nowhere” fast.   The trail first rolls along beside the Kokosing River through shaded woods and over intricately patterned ironwork bridges.  The scenery then alternates between woods and farmland as the trail takes you from Mt Vernon to Gambier, Howard, and then finally, to its dead-end in Danville Ohio.

Official points of interest include the Brown Family Environmental Center, a restored and fun-to-explore Alco steam locomotive, Kenyon College, the Howard tunnel, numerous bridges and a playground.

Unofficial items of interest that I shared with my friend that afternoon were the spot where a large box turtle had sat the last time I rode through, the farm field where I’d watched a kid driving lap after lap in a dilapidated blue sedan, and the devoted cadre of volunteers who maintain sections of the path with baskets of garden tools on the backs of their bikes.

The 28-mile ride flew by far too quickly.  Next time we’ll ride up into the Kenyon College campus, bring a lunch and hike a side trail.  But it made for a really wonderful afternoon.  My friend commented that I smiled even when racing as fast as I could go.  Truth is, I was probably smiling because I was riding as fast as I could.

I couldn’t outrace another birthday, but at least I can keep up with it.

Next: More hiking in Utah and a long weekend in California…

Tags: Heart-to-Heart, Adventures, "In-Town Tourist", Audio MP3, Photographs by Heather
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 Ugh. (Birthdays...) [1:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’m struggling against a bit of personal hypocrisy. It’s an odd little hold-out in my war against trivial worry, and I stare it down with varying success on an annual basis.

I honestly mean it when I tell you that “your age is just a number” and that “you’re only as old as you feel”. While most clichés are… well… “cliché,” I can recite those words without compunction because I fervently believe them. Generalities bother me. “Lazy thinking.”  And classifying anyone by how old or young they might be seems but a variation on judgments arrived at via other externals such as skin color or gender…

But, it’s my birthday, darn it. And while I’m perfectly fine with celebrating yours, I’m having a hard time generating a happy face over my own.

The kids are excited. Back in August, I started hearing, “Somebody has a birthday coming up…” My first reaction was, “Really? Who?” I then chose to be impressed that “mom’s birthday” had permanently registered -one of those “admire the picture; ignore the mess” moments.

But it’s been bugging me for no good reason at all…

I like my life. Where I am…  Who I am…  I’m more comfortable with how I look now than I ever was in my twenties. And I wouldn’t trade a thing I’ve learned for a later birth date. But as the next birthday looms on the near horizon, I’m fighting an urge to take shelter until it passes over -while feeling slightly ridiculous for letting such a minor detail snag me…

I guess I need to tap into my inner ten-year old. But with the grateful wisdom of a woman “my age…” There’s no need to pass out birthday treats at business appointments, but a long bike ride does seem preferable to hiding out under a heavy table in the basement. And a lot more fun…

I wrote myself a note a couple of years ago: “Choose your wrinkles wisely.” It is just a number. And, it would be kind of ironic if worrying about getting older made me look or feel older, now wouldn’t it?

More “UTAH“ coming up… (Next:  Capitol Reef National Park)

Tags: Heart-to-Heart, Table for One, Audio MP3, Photographs, 1 Adult/3 Children by Heather
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 Windstorm! [2:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Last Sunday began as “the day I forgot to put the coffee pot under the coffee maker” and brewed a big aromatic mess all over my kitchen counter.  Until Matt’s afternoon football game…   Sunday then became “the day we encountered the remnants of Hurricane Ike” and gained a first-hand understanding of wind power.

By the time Matt’s team lost in overtime (a moment of sympathetic silence, please) the gusty winds had blustered into a steady surge that rocked vehicles and snapped trees. The kids and I dropped their dad off at his condo and began what would normally be a twenty-five minute drive home.

A street sign blew by. We drove by a completely caved-in garage door. Sapling-sized branches flew overhead and dropped beside us as we crept along in the slowed traffic. Trees bent down at unnatural angles, and the sky was littered with fragments of leaves. Riveting stuff.

When we finally reached the road that would be our straight-shot home it was emphatically blocked by a massive sycamore. We gamely turned left only to be flagged down by a weary motorist warning of more of the same up that road. By the time we finally rolled into our driveway an hour and a half later, we felt we’d conquered a vehicular version of the autumnal corn maze. Fallen trees, dead traffic lights, falling power lines… A firefighter at our last roadblock summed it up well as he listed all of the fallen tree reports for the area and advised me to make good time on the one route left open to us. Hopefully, we could cross it before a power line or tree blocked it off to us. My “worst case” imaginings involved remote parking and somehow hiking home (at least Matt would be protected by football pads)…

Of course, the house had no power. No complaints, though. Our neighborhood was restored just a little more than a day later. We lost some food and a good night’s sleep but gained a “boardgame by candlelight” night and a freshly cleaned refrigerator (when you have to take everything out anyway…).

I just got an e-mail from a friend, relegated to conducting business from an area sandwich shop until his home/office regains the rudimentary conveniences of electricity and water. Two of my sisters and one grandma are still without power, and I understand some outlying areas have been warned to expect nothing until the end of the week. I still have to contend with a thirty-five foot tree that split down the middle and landed in my neighbor’s yard. But no one was underneath when it fell and having now experienced sustained 70mph winds and our utter lack of power in the midst of a force so dynamically powerful, I think we came out just fine.

More Utah Adventures coming up (Next: Lower Calf Creek Falls in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Memorial)

Tags: USA/Canada, Heart-to-Heart, Adventures, Photographs, 1 Adult/3 Children by Heather
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 Dogs and Cars -but not Cows... [2:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I occasionally speak for Lily, as in: “Lily likes walking in the woods!” or “Lily missed you kids today” (this isn’t actual “doggie-talk” as I see it; it’s more of an interpretive thing with us). Since the “Dog Whisperer” was already in use, Hannah has settled on calling me a “Dog Lady” which is pretty funny as Lily is my first and only dog, and I cautiously backed away from most canines in the years before she became part of our family.

I had mild concerns over the “Dog Lady” designation at first, because the whole “Cat Lady” thing is totally wrong and generally ends up filed under “Odd News” stories. But Hannah assured me that a “dog lady” is several steps above, and I know her to be a bit of an animal lover herself, so I’m idling in neutral on this.

I have also been designated a “Car Lady,” because whenever possible, I try to take a philosophical view on self-centered drivers (“Well, maybe she cut me off because one of her kids is about to get sick in the back seat.”  It could happen.  Believe me… it could happen!). It keeps me calm and is based on sound reason. There’s nothing like getting flipped off for driving too slowly to your own dad’s casket viewing to give you a broader perspective on the lives of those driving beside you on the freeway… Yes, I realize that some offenders are just plain offensive. But I don’t have the time to make individual judgments, so I just kind of assume everyone is doing the best they can based on who they are at that point in their life.

It’s really just a matter of empathetic thought; tapping into common feelings and then shifting your own perspective to allow grace into the situation.

I have hit an emotional wall with cows, however. I don’t trust them. Rattlesnakes and mountain lions didn’t concern me all that much as we hiked through southern Utah last July. And the threat of a snake or wildcat never prevented Hannah and me from enjoying our daily morning run together. But a gang of cows in Boulder, Utah ended our run-every-morning streak and quenched any empathetic feelings I might have grown toward bovines.

It was all for the best. “Dog Lady” is a stretch. No one could have sold me on “Cow Woman.”

More on UTAH:  

“Adventures in Utah”

“Road to Zion (National Park, Utah)”

“Into ‘The Narrows’ (Zion National Park, Utah)”

“The Subway (Zion National Park, Utah) Part One”

“The Subway (Zion National Park, Utah) Part Two”

“Court of the Patriarchs and The Emerald Pools of Zion (National Park, Utah)”

“Hanging Gardens (Zion National Park, Utah)”

“Hoodoo Heaven” (Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah)

“Smokey the Bear and Tibetan Monks?  I Must be in Boulder (Utah)… ”

“Dogs and Cars -but not Cows…” (Boulder, Utah) 

“The Cows… Part One (Boulder, Utah)”

“The Cows… Part Two (Boulder, Utah)”

“Pictographs at Lower Calf Creek Falls (Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah)”

“The Goosenecks at Capitol Reef National Park (Utah)”

“Hiking ‘Smart’ in Grand Wash (Capitol Reef National Park, Utah)”

“The Lodge at Red River Ranch (Teasdale, Utah)”

“Of Pictographs and Petroglyphs…”

“A Reef in the Desert (Capitol Reef National Park)”

Tags: USA/Canada, Heart-to-Heart, Audio MP3, Photographs, 1 Adult/3 Children by Heather
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Us non-technical types are more comfortable moving around big heavy boxes than web files.  The labels are easier to read and misplacing a box of dishes won’t cause a whole house to evaporate into cyberspace.   If an essential web file doesn’t transfer correctly, however…

But we’re almost there!  In the unpacking stage, really…  My site’s on a new server, and we’re uploading content into the new space.   Check out the Voice Over page if you’re curious; it’s the closest to completion and will give you a feel for what we’re doing.

“Footsteps” should be mostly intact.  Let me know if you find any glitches or broken links, and check back for a new post in the Utah series tomorrow!

Next up: “The Dog Lady” (some necessary background material for upcoming posts on “Cowzilla” and Tibetan Monks…  Yes; Boulder, Utah was an interesting stop!)

Thanks for sticking around.  We’re back to (almost) normal over here…

Tags: Heart-to-Heart by Heather
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