The morning view from the cabin in the Roosevelt National Forest. Photo by Stephanie Reighart.
The fierce wind blows down the mountain at Eldora, Colorado, across the frozen water of Peterson Lake and makes the Forester sway in its parking spot. Logic tells me that once we cross the road and enter the tree cover, the wind’s power will lessen, as will our risk of hypothermia.
Logic also suggests that in less than an hour’s effort — just two miles — we will be at the cabin where split wood need only be lit to make heat and drive away the cold Colorado night.
But sitting in the car, watching the world disappear and reappear as the wind pushes clouds of snow down the valley and we are swallowed in a whiteout, then released, swallowed, then released; two miles has never seemed so far. Continue reading →
From our hot air balloon ride over Serengeti National Park. Photo by Stephanie Reighart.
Our finals days in Tanzania were spent in the Serengeti National Park. This beautiful space has been fully preserved since 1951 (and partially so in earlier efforts by the British government).
The park is so special because it, and surrounding protected game areas, are home to the 1.2 million wildebeest who migrate annually through it.
Our trip perfectly matched with the migration in the southeastern corner of the park, so we were able to drive through the migration and share the space with an enormous number of wildebeest. Continue reading →
Our first look into the Ngorongoro Crater. Photo by Stephanie Reighart.
The Ngorongoro Crater is “the world’s largest inactive, intact, and unfilled volcanic caldera,” according to the journal Biological Conservation. The crater was created when a large volcano exploded and collapsed on itself two or three million years ago.
I recently visited Volcanoes National Park in Hawai’i and it’s hard to imagine a spewing, roiling crater of lava ever becoming a wildlife habitat. I guess it just takes two million years.
The Ngorongoro Crater is home to about 25,000 large animals and so many more birds. There were thousands of Adhim’s Stork; you’d think it was the epicenter of human creation. Continue reading →
I try to read for pleasure every day, but that doesn’t always happen. Life and TV (on the Internet) usually get in the way.
I also try to plan a Reading Day once a month. On Reading Day, I do not exercise or attempt to try an elaborate new recipe. I do not write or edit or report. I do not go to the movies or watch TV. Instead, I wake up to a pile of neglected books and magazines and spend the day pouring through them.
Sometimes, it is necessary to plan ahead for a Reading Day. If I’m not careful, life will get in the way of this glorious day. But my favorite Reading Days are the ones that just happen. My Karma bank account is full enough and the planets align. All the items on my to do list are flexible and pushing them back feels so right. Continue reading →
This is one of our guides, Elisa, as I usually saw him: with his eyes to the landscape looking for animals to show us and his hands on the reference book ready to give us even more details on the spotted animal than he could recite off the top of his head. Photo by Stephanie Reighart.
I wake on Tuesday morning early. Like 4:30 a.m. That’s too early to try to get up, so I listen to old episodes of the podcast “Too Beautiful to Live,” and wait for my alarm to go off.
When my alarm goes off, Mom turns on the light and the day starts.
I check my email and am happy to note that the Internet works well when no one else is using it at 5:30 a.m.
I understand that this is a developing country and that access to Internet is expensive and even electricity is a luxury. But sometimes it’s just a matter of expectations.
When I travel with Richard, we do not usually stay at 4-star, luxury hotels where the employees do not expect you to carry your our bags, pull out your own chair, pour your own coffee or lift anything. (This is not to say that the employees at our accommodations were not lovely people. They were.* It’s just, I like to cut my own omelet.)
And so, when Richard and I travel, I do not expect to have access to Internet, electricity, running water, etc.
But, when I stay at a flippin’ nice place that boasts of Internet access, then I expect Internet access.
Anyway, the lesson is, use it at 5:30 a.m. It’s great. Continue reading →
I hate cooking. Now that I have the flexible job when it comes to time and locale, I have to defer to Richard’s job. That means, I have to do the cooking. I hate cooking.
Here’s an example of how much I hate cooking: on the nights that Richard is not around for me to cook for, I will go to bed hungry rather than make a grilled cheese or reheat leftovers or microwave a potato.
To add to the challenge of that thing I hate, I very rarely have access to a stove or oven because we are currently living out of hotels. So the only way I can generate heat or cook anything is the microwave, which is, generally speaking, the tool real cooks like least.
I could take the super easy road and buy TV dinners, aka food that was designed around the microwave. But they’re expensive and rarely made with ingredients that required more farmers than chemists. Continue reading →
Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania. Photo by Stephanie Reighart
Our arrival, and my first impressions of Tanzania, were hazy with fatigue, but the excitement of being in a new country (and continent) kept me awake through it all.
We were met at the Kilomanjaro International Airport by our guide, David Bygott, a wonderful gentleman with decades of experience in and love for Tanzania.
Unfortunately, our bags did not catch up with us at the airport. When leaving Columbus, our flight was delayed for four hours. That meant we barely made the connecting flight out of New York. It was there that our bags were left behind. It took them about 36 hours to catch up. Not too shabby. Continue reading →
I am leaving for Tanzania tomorrow. I am very excited for the 10-day tour and the glimpse it will provide into the culture of this unique place.
In preparation for my trip, I was prescribed a malaria prophylaxis to be taken two weeks prior to departure, throughout our travels and for a few weeks after.
While this particular drug, mefloquine, has numerous common — and generally harmless — side effects, the most interesting one for me so far has been the vivid dreaming.
Since taking mefloquine, my dreams have been varied and very entertaining. Fortunately, none have been nightmares, but they have involved intense emotions of anger at Dream Richard for not letting me keep a puppy; running with Dream Richard away from government goons who were after us for discovering secrets buried deep within the administration; missing movies with my best friend because we decided to meet at a theater hours from where either of us lives; etc.
Okay. They’re not all exciting.
However, each night I look forward to sleep in a way I never have before. Continue reading →
Richard and I will start our Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike attempt in just over two months. See you soon, April 17!
To be perfectly honest, I had not given much thought to the exact date we would begin. I knew it would fall into place as we got closer to April, finished buying all the gear, completed test hikes and, you know, bought airplane tickets out there.
But there is a new step in the preparation process for 2015 thru-hikers. The Pacific Crest Trail Association will limit the number of thru-hikers who can start each day this year to 50.
It is not new that thru-hikers need a long-distance hiking permit, but limiting the number of hikers who can start on a given day, is brand new.
The process is not hard, time-consuming or expensive (READ: it’s free!). But it’s an interesting strategy. Continue reading →
