“Who would have thought I’d feel like such a rule-breaker for having a scone and a cup of coffee. Yet there I was, delighting in these things while idling in the cocoon of my car on the city street, seeing people — people!—walk by, jog by, drive by.”
“Endearing” is a very apt word for penguins. The memory of visiting their southern, antarctic realm and witnessing the lives they lead is a pleasure. Sharing some of those distant opportunities (just last November: eons ago!) is perhaps a welcome distraction from the unending onslaught of COVID-19 news.”
“One of my favorite Facebook posts of the pandemic was the one in which the human world exclaims, “There’s no way we can shut everything down in order to lower emissions, slow climate change, and protect the environment.” Mother Nature’s reply: “Here’s a virus. Practice.”
“When someone who otherwise self-identifies as a good human knows that a term can be offensive to another human nonetheless uses such hurtful words, I fail to understand why. This question has now reared its ugly head with the use of the term, “Chinese virus.”
“The variety and vastness of the ice of Antarctica is humbling, haunting, and naturally powerful to me. Ice in Antarctica is like nowhere else on earth. The “Frozen Continent” is defined by it.”
Daily life and regular plans were set aside recently and a full-house church of people came together in Denver to honor a man I was honored to call my step-dad.
“Seldom has the raw power of nature asserted itself on all my senses as did two mornings on elephant seal beaches in South Georgia…”
“If the Falkland Islands seemed remote to me when anticipating a November expedition to the southernmost seas, then South Georgia was a bit mind-blowing…”
“It was early spring when our journey began… The remote Falklands archipelago consists of two main islands and more than 775 smaller islands, only a handful of which are populated by humans.”
“I pondered for weeks over how to best present the immensity of my latest adventure when it (far) exceeds easy expression. For starters, there are more than 6,000 images from my cameras to sift through in a frustrating effort to pick the best ones…”
“Valparaiso is built on 42 hills (and they are steep)! We wandered the communities on the hillsides on our own, stumbling across dozens of examples of this beautiful artform.”
“…While deeply appreciative of all winged creatures, I haven’t (yet) made time to learn their names and details… Still, it was mesmerizing to watch the birds as we crossed the Bering Sea…”
“One thing I have learned while on a wilderness adventure is to harness expectations and just wait and see how things unfold. This is especially true of wildlife viewing.”
“Does your work in emergency care need a streetsense infusion? Try Streetsense IV – that is, the 4th edition of this longtime participant within the ranks of EMS literature! Often referred to (by others) as an “EMS classic”.
“This watery world yields an exciting brew of critters! Lots of them are just cruising through seasonally… making for great wildlife viewing when steaming across the Bering Sea.”
“It’s something special to pause under a stand of quaking aspens, eyes and ears drenched in overload from the natural beauty of it all.”
“Our approach to St. Matthew Island was tantalizing, as a draping fog slowly lifted to reveal a vivid green jewel with thousand-foot cliff faces, craggy and crowded with seabird nests.”
“It began for me on September 12, but that was back in 1986. Ever since, this has been a week-long stretch of honoring things past. After all, one loses one’s mother only once.”
“After many trips to our 49th state, I’ve found that every nook and cranny is wonderful in its particular way.”
“We traversed the expansive Victoria Park and rounded a corner to see Bath’s famous Royal Crescent, foregrounded by one of the final way markers for the Cotswold Way.”
