50inthefifties.com

July 17, 2020, Garrett’s birthday

Since cancelling my trip to Crested Butte March 12, I have been holed up, at home. My trip to Wisconsin canceled. My flights were canceled first, then the trip itself. My friend Jackie decided to take a posting overseas with the DOD, so we will shoot for next year. With 7 states still to go, I’m running out of time.

Speaking of running, I no longer run. Without soccer, there seems to be little reason to pretend I enjoy it… Same for writing. It feels like pulling teeth. I remember the freedom with which I wrote my soccer blogs, the joy of linking my Pennsylvania bike ride with the Wright Brothers, and I’m just not feeling it now. I don’t want to work that hard or dig that deep: I am just logging words like I log miles. Don’t want to think too deeply about the craziness of COVID and BLM and our dangerous disgrace of a president. I have the time, but not the inclination.

Nonetheless, I have been keeping myself very busy. I painted all the trim on the first and second floors. I painted the south side of the barn. I painted the tin ceiling. Then I moved on to the yard. I had all the foundation plantings removed, then created a native species garden in front of the sunroom. Now, instead of boring, prickly barberry, I have bee balm and butterflies and bees and hummingbirds.

I came up with the idea of a garden honoring the Class of 2020 downtown, and am heading up that project.

I volunteered at the Farmer’s Market as it changed locations, but I have abandoned that in favor of working on trail maintenance and invasive species eradication at Raritan Headwaters every Thursday. At first, this left me so exhausted that I had to nap. I have adjusted to the heat, however, and I enjoy the challenge much more than I relished standing on the pavement for 3 straight hours at the Market. The meadows are full of native species, especially poison ivy. But it warms my heart to see butterfly weed and bayberry, to catch a whiff of mountain mint and bee balm. I also got a crew together and we attacked the knotweed at the Borough Pond. Still more work to do there.

This month, I have been biking up a storm. I am aiming for 500 miles for the month of July, a Trek challenge. That is a big stretch for me. Normally, 400 miles is a big monthly total. Unable to travel safely, with COVID spreading in the states I need to garner, I craved a challenge to keep me fit and pushing myself.

This week, I biked 7 days in a row, and am now due for a day off. I am way ahead of pace, but didn’t want to waste any good days. Rain and heat waves do happen. Update: I hit my goal on Sunday, July 26th! I have biked to our Maine house and beyond!

Lately on the road, I have been hit by strong feelings of deja vu, thinking I am in Maine. We will head there in a couple weeks. I think my brain knows it’s time. The house is in the midst of being rebuilt, and every day, there is a new surprise. Oh, now we need a roof, too, and do you want to change the dormer windows? Geez, I thought you already bought the windows! I am learning mom was right about Maine contractors…

I have been planting native trees in the front yard, swamp white oaks, redbuds, and persimmons. They are tiny babies, but an expression of hope for the future. It’s hard work, so I start my days in the cool just after dawn by planting a tree. Seems like a good way to kick off a day.

Emily has moved home and applied to grad school at NYU to study school counseling. I’m so happy that she has found a pursuit she is excited about and knows she is good at. Laura and Joe just completed a wild week of rafting in the Frank Church Wilderness of Idaho. Wish I had been there. I’m going to have to hit the road this fall, bike in tow, and just get after it. I can sleep in my tent and drive to Nebraska. I am sure of it.

We have wood thrushes in the back, can hear grey tree frogs after every rain, and there are nesting green herons at Twin Lakes. Life goes on, attenuated, concentrated, pinpointed in Bernardsville. I have reacquainted myself with the front yard, and fallen in love with it all over again, inspired by environmental readings, especially Nature’s Best Hope, by Douglas Tallamy. In a nutshell, if we all reduced the size of our lawns and replaced that dead zone with native trees, shrubs, and flowers, we could save the planet.

If we won the lottery, Kip and I agreed we would clear out the privet and barberry from the back woods and deer fence it and create our own NJ forest. Maybe someday. Meanwhile, I have my little baby trees in the front, as I start to transform one side of the field to a woodland.

It’s the last cool day for a while. Think I will wander over to the Borough pond and cut back the knotweed. If you take a look around, there is plenty to do, right in your own little neck o the woods!

State 43, March 1, 2020, Detroit, Michigan :The Fight for Air Climb

Ok, so I had planned to go to Michigan in late July and volunteer with the Sierra Club, doing trail maintenance at Isle Royale National Park. For a plethora of reasons, I bailed out in late February.

Most importantly, I was getting queasy about the leadership on the trip. The leader had a health scare, and then seemed slow to respond and unclear on travel details. Nothing was in writing. I don’t want to be in the wilderness with a leader I question.

Oh, and this used to be our house in Maine. Now, it’s just a money pit.

Lastly, I did a day’s trail work with the Raritan Headwaters in New Jersey, and my left foot was screaming at me to stop and reconsider. I can do most anything and not aggravate my Morton’s neuroma, but apparently I can’t stand all day on uneven ground cutting vines and hauling brush. My trusty hiking boots don’t seem to agree with my feet anymore…

I notified the Sierra Club, forfeited my $100 deposit, but saved $800 other dollars on the trip, plus airfare. I will find another way to use my new tent and sleeping bag. I have to listen to my body. I am six years older than I was when I started this quest. Still feel very good, want to keep it that way.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I was antsy about completing the 8 states remaining in my challenge. They are far afield, and I have to keep going. Last year, I only got two states. I Googled Detroit, and saw that it was only 9 hours from New Jersey. That’s doable!

Next, I found an event I was excited about: the American Lung Association was sponsoring a fundraiser to climb the 42- story Ally Building, second tallest in Detroit. I decided to do it in memory of my friend Duncan, who succumbed to pulmonary fibrosis some years ago. It’s a terrible disease, a slow suffocation. At the end, he did’t want to live anymore. And he had been a man of broad smile and booming laugh… I miss him, and think about him every time I bike past his drive.

I found an Air BNB home for the weekend and hopped into the car on a Friday morning. I hadn’t driven route 80 West past the Poconos for many years. The road is only two lanes, but there was no traffic at all, and I was happy to note that an area of Pennsylvania with no billboards and no rest stops and no services at all is now prominently labeled Wilds of Pennsylvania. There is an exit somewhere in the Wilds for a town called Jersey Shore. I’m sure that causes many a double-take and chuckle for drivers.

I love to drive, and it was a perfect day. It was the very last weekend of February, the tail end of Black History Month, and I was heading to Detroit, a city with a large African-American population, to live for a time in a neighborhood just beginning to recover from the 2008 recession and get a sense of the city from that spot.

When I stopped for gas, my rest stop was marked as the location of a stop on the Underground Railroad. I had the feeling that the trip was meant to be. When the stars align like this, I get really excited. The miles flew by, and by mid afternoon, I was pulling up in front of my home for the weekend.

I was greeted by a friendly neighbor and my host, and I could hear the shouts of kids playing basketball at a school across the street. The house was under construction and vintage, with a steep staircase which had a few cracked treads, but I felt safe in the neighborhood and was just a few minutes from Belle Isle Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmstead and the pride of Detroit, akin to Central Park in Manhattan.

It was a chilly day with a biting wind. It’s Detroit in the winter, after all. Snow had drifted back over some streets, and the park was nearly deserted. Some of the buildings need renovation, but the conservatory was open, and warm enough for tropical plants and for me.

I drove a lazy circle round the island and then headed back over the bridge to catch an early dinner at a Moroccan restaurant called Saffron De Twah, which as been named one of the 30 best new eateries in the country. I got the tip from a magazine called Afar. My sister had handed it to me before I set off, and I was using it as the basis for my explorations. That first day, I checked off two items on their list: Belle Isle, and Saffron De Twah. I snuggled into bed with plans to do more on the morrow.

Saturday dawned pretty darned cold with a biting wind. After breakfast, I wandered back down to the water and happened upon a birding group led by the Detroit River Conservancy. I learned that the Detroit River is not a river at all, but a strait: it links Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie. Lake St. Clair looks small on the map, but only because its neighbors are Great Lakes.

It was far too cold for birds, but there is a lovely waterside path linking parks up and down the US side of the strait. Back in the day, the waterfront was lined by huge piles of gravel. These have been supplanted by a multi-use trail, native grasses and shrubs, and a growing network of outdoor spaces.

Brrr. Time to find an indoor pursuit. How about a bookstore: John K. King Used and Rare Books. What an adventure. Floors upon floors, stacks upon stacks, all suffused with the scent of knowledge aging in place.

We interrupt this post to bring you a special message from the Emergency Broadcast System. The Corona virus has exploded in America, and as of yesterday, March 26, our domestic case counts are the highest in the world. New York City is the epicenter of a global health care crisis. Other hot zones are New Orleans, due to Mardi Gras; Chicago, Atlanta and Denver, loci of air travel; and community living spaces, such as nursing homes, prisons, and assisted living facilities. We lack ICU beds and ventilators, and health care personnel are falling ill and DYING. We are largely confined to our homes throughout much of the world. Boris Johnson has the virus. So does Jackson Browne. Sports are cancelled. Schools are closed. The Olympics have been postponed to 2021.

Detroit is an emerging hot spot. All Fight for Air Climbs nationwide are cancelled… Oh, and the stock market cratered to levels of 2016. It has clawed back some, because, well, there will be huge corporate bailouts, tempered by some help to hospitals, small business, and ordinary people. Initial unemployment claims last week were 3.5 million. An ordinary week might see just under 200,000.

Much of the world is largely or entirely confined to their homes. Locally, Starbucks is closed. All non-essential businesses are shuttered. Natirar Park is overrun. Kip and I are staying home, together. We order takeout from Bernardsville restaurants so they don’t go bankrupt. We buy gift certificates to our bookstore and beloved gift shop. Morgan gets his daily car ride and walk. I go out once a day to ride the bike or run. I paint windows and doors to stay busy. We disinfect doorknobs. I have added my name to the list of volunteers to help Bernardsville OEM, though I have no real skills beyond robust (for now…)health.

So just like I bailed on the Sierra Club trip, I am bailing on continuing this detailed blog. Suffice to say, I climbed the 42 story Ally Tower, I ran back down. At the bottom, I felt like I could have done it again.

Good thing I didn’t, though, because after driving home, I spent the next five days barely able to walk. Delayed reaction, with my legs saying, “What the F was that?!?” We had a week of relative calm, the virus stretching and swelling. I was to leave March 12 to visit Laura and Joe in Crested Butte. At 5 am, I had a feeling it wasn’t right. Much like the Sierra Trip. I cancelled my flight. And March 13, the virus leaped up and grabbed us all.

I like to insert maps of the US showing the states I have conquered in 50inthefifties. Today, I wanted to change that to a Corona virus map. But the malware miscreants and the hacking hellions have seized on this pandemic to use Corona maps to spread their own evil viruses. So I leave it to your imagination. Imagine a map of the nation with second and degree burns spread over 90 percent of the land mass. Wait, make that 95%, 96… You get the idea. In lieu of that, here’s my current map:

When I started this blog perhaps two weeks ago, when the world was a different place, I centered it on Black History Month and the sense that I was embarking on a civil rights journey. I’ve done that before- the Living History March from Selma to Montgomery, my trip to Little Rock Central High, even my recent jaunt to Des Moines for the caucuses. Let me circle back. I learned that Detroit was the terminus of many Underground Railroad routes. Canada is just across the strait. Once the Fugitive Slave Act was enacted in 1850, residents of northern states were obligated to return runaway slaves to their masters to be tortured. So Michigan wasn’t safe. One had to cross the water to be free.

Detroit is a beautiful city, rough around the edges, filled with friendly people, a burgeoning arts scene, excellent food at reasonable prices, and the kind of creativity and strength that exemplifies the American spirit. We are going to need to use all of our collective will, empathy, and genius to get us through the Corona virus pandemic. Ironically, the disease is a respiratory one. Patients are fighting for air. Surely some of the $300,000 raised by the Detroit Fight for Air Climb will be used to keep Detroiters alive. Detroiters like Tyree Guyton, the artist responsible for the Heidelberg Project, an outdoor sculpture installation that takes up a few city blocks around his house.

I did some other stuff, saw some other cool sites, but I’ll tell ya later.

Stay home, wash your hands, don’t hoard food and supplies, help the elderly, the alone, the infirm, and listen to the medical professionals. That’s it. Easy. Be a good person.

How to begin to describe the 2020 Iowa caucuses and the weekend leading up to the confusion, the chaos, the cacophony…

I’ll start with bald eagles. Eagles are more common than blue jays in Iowa, at least that’s how it seemed to me. I saw several bald eagles in five days, and I wasn’t even looking. The only other bird that made its presence known was a barred owl that I heard Sunday morning in Cedar Rapids. No blue jays, no sparrows, no starlings: no average birds.

Eagles and owls: the quintessential symbols of America and wisdom.  I came to the center of this state, the center of the union, and, for these five days(and counting, still counting!), the center of the universe, seeking America, seeking knowledge, seeking wisdom. I found seven human eagles: Pete, Amy, Elizabeth, Bernie, Tom, Joe, and Andrew, and a wise owl named Bill Weld.

I logged 398 miles on this trip, from Des Moines to Davenport, from Bettendorf to Iowa City, from Coralville to Cedar Rapids, then back to Des Moines, chasing these eagles, trying to catch up with this owl. Only one eagle eluded me- Andrew Yang. He was flying around at the far northern reaches of the state, while I was on a flyway that stretched east from Des Moines, then circled back like a homing pigeon bearing slightly north, perhaps from the magnetic pull of the Pole.

Accompanying me were a gaggle of avians I had never heard of before, but who welcomed me into their flock: the Varied Caucus Tourist Birds. This species appears in Iowa every four years in late January and early February, then returns to its home range, scattered all over the globe, until the next Caucus season.

Scientists posit that they do not mate during this iruption. Instead, they chatter and flit. Some are here to write or photograph, some are just curious. Others exhibit peculiar door knocking behavior thought to benefit the eagles in some way. Oddly, these woodpecker- like door knockers tend to be young birds or birds at or past middle age.

I met and was interviewed by journalists from Australia and Holland and Cedar Rapids and Slate Magazine. and I hung out with other birds like me from Portland, Oregon, Montclair and Summit, NJ, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Minnesota, Indiana, and a group of three female birds who made the long trip up from Texas by car. Nothing can stop this species from congregating for a raucous caucus.

This trip was unlike any of my previous 50 in the Fifties jaunts. Since the candidates’ schedules were constantly evolving, and the four senators who were still in the race had to be in Washington for the Impeachment Trial of Donald J. Trump, I left all my options open for as long as I possibly could. I wasn’t at all sure I would see Sanders, Warren, or Klobuchar. Bennett was not planning any events.  He is staking his hopes on New Hampshire.

A few days before departure, I decided to track down Eagle 1, Pete Buttegieg, in Davenport my first night. I had to land in Des Moines and drive to the Mississippi River more than 169 miles east, but at least I was sure he would show up! By the time I arrived at his rally, I had already seen my first bald eagle, swooping low over the broad expanse of the river.

Mayor Pete’s event at a local college was packed. I had to park on a snow cluttered residential street a few blocks away. It seems the reason there is no traffic in Iowa is that everyone is parked and attending campaign events. I was beyond excited and ran the distance to the gym.

The only veteran in the race. The only millenial. The only candidate of Maltese descent. The only gay candidate. The only candidate who speaks seven languages. The only concert pianist. But no longer the only mayor (Mike Bloomberg).

Pete struck me as funny, confident, solid without being stolid. Like me, he looks forward to the day when he wakes up in the morning and Trump is no longer president. The last three years have filled me with anxiety. What has Trump said or tweeted or done overnight? Never before have I felt compelled to think about the president, to worry about him. Every. Single. Day.

Pete is young, but 38 is not that young. Heck, twenty years ago, I was 38! He doesn’t have as much experience as others, but he is a very smart dude, a Rhodes Scholar, a quick study for sure.  I wouldn’t dismiss him out of hand.

Neither did Iowa. He WON. I think… He thinks so, too. More on this later.

Saturday

The next morning, I woke up to coffee and homemade waffles served up by my Air BNB host family, followed by a rousing game of floor hockey with their 3 (and a half) year old son.  They were ardent Bernie supporters. I was considering a trip up to Clinton, Iowa to run a 4 mile race at noon, but at the last second, I checked the Senate Impeachment Trial Schedule. The Senators had the weekend off! That meant Amy would be in Bettendorf, 8 minutes away, at 10:30 that morning. I can run 4 miles anywhere at any time. I was in Iowa for something different, something historic, something I couldn’t accomplish anywhere else. I threw my bags in the car and headed straight for Bikes N Brew.

The early  bird gets the worm… in this case a chance to be first in line, first in the door, and first to view the Varied Caucus Bird up close. Michael, Marie, Robert, and I took a table front and center and I bought coffee for all, including I am Not Arthur, who lives in Iowa and blogs for the Daily Kos.

Amy was introduced by local politicians and by her daughter, Abigail, who has been making Amy’s ground beef and tater tot hot dish and hosting parties for Amy while she does jury duty for the Trump trial.

Amy is amiable and energetic. She is one of three candidates in the top tier in Iowa who is neither Medicare-eligible nor young (Tom Steyer and Andrew Yang are the others.) She has won every election since fourth grade, though she admitted to ditching her campaign slogan from that first run: Go All the Way with Amy K. She has shown the ability to win in red districts and blue districts. She has passed 100 bills in her time in the Senate, which shows she is effective, even when in the minority. Bernie cannot knock her off that perch.

I found myself drawn to her. She’s genuine, quick on her feet, and approachable. Like you could definitely have a beer with her if it wasn’t 10:30 am.  Seems my endorsement doesn’t do a candidate much good, however. She was 5th, I think, which is as much as anyone knows. But she said she is punching above her weight. Or at least she did when she had to guess how well she had done on caucus night. More on that later.

What is it going to take for us to elect a woman? Are we there yet?

Next up for me was a drive to Iowa City to net another Senator and woman, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Even after a trip to Panera Bread and a gander at 8 bald eagles in one tree, I was still early enough to be first in line. There is nothing wrong with being early. I met an ardent Elizabeth supporter named Katie who was planning to caucus for her. I also met a boy of around fourteen who was sitting on the polished floor of the high school, arms and legs akimbo, waiting with his mom. He told me he is a climate striker, and has skipped school to protest our failure to address climate change. His mom told me that he wrote to Greta Thunberg and told her that the Iowa River floods in Coralville, and the situation is serious. He asked her to come to Iowa City.

Greta Thunberg read the letter, and she took a sailboat across the Atlantic Ocean, and she came to Iowa City. All because of a kid who wasn’t afraid to ask.

When the gym doors finally opened, Katie and I found ourselves in the second row of seats, right behind a reserved section. We thought perhaps we were going to be stuck behind some reporters and unable to see over their cameras. Nooooo. We were seated right behind Senator Warren’s husband, son, and, most importantly, her dog.

Bailey is campaigning hard to be first dog. He is in a tight race with Buddy and Truman Buttegieg. Not sure if the other candidates have dogs, but if not, they should get some.

Ayanna Pressley introduced Senator Warren. She is just incredible. Wow’d the crowd. An amazing young talent. After she spoke, she sat down RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. I didn’t expect to be so close to the action. I was star struck. There was no place on earth I’d rather have been.

Senator Warren was running late, pretty darn late, so she had to put Bailey on selfie duty, and I wasn’t able to get a handshake or a photo. (That’s why I don’t feel like I am on a first name basis with her.) She dreamed of being a teacher since second grade. She was married young, and divorced, had many years as a single mom. She worked and raised her kids and graduated from Harvard Law. Later on, she met Bruce, and they have been together ever since. In 2010, she was tapped by President Obama to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She wanted to stop manufacturers from making unsafe products, like the toaster oven that almost burned her house down.

Senator Warren stands as a left- of- center candidate. Compared to Bernie Sanders, she is the less extreme alternative on the left side of the party. Her over-arching campaign theme is that we have to end the corruption in Washington, but I feel she could highlight that more. She supports Medicare for all, but rather than imploding the current system, she proposes a large-scale demonstration project. Adept at explaining complex issues for people outside the beltway, Warren is particularly concerned about the mental health and substance abuse crisis in our nation, and would allocate $100 billion to address it.  She wants a 2 cent tax on accumulated fortunes of $50 million and above. Something tells me the minute that legislation takes effect, no one will have anything above $49.999 million.

I think she would make a fine president. She could certainly teach us a thing or two. She has a plan for everything. She is organized, steady, and caring. If all this sounds like faint praise, it kind of is. There is nothing wrong with Warren. But in a very strong, and especially, NUMEROUS flock, her plumage didn’t stand out.

Elizabeth Warren finished third in Iowa.

I took off after this event and had to fly straightaway to my Bed and Breakfast in Cedar Rapids. This bird was hungry and tired and dehydrated, but hey, if the candidates can do it, so can I. Luckily, I was under two miles from Bernie’s evening event, a free concert with Vampire Weekend. What a brilliant political move. He had 3,000 people in the arena. No telling how many were really for him, and how many just wanted to hear the acoustic concert, but it sure looked good on camera.

Filmmaker Michael Moore spoke, as did three members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Ilhan Omar.  Cornel West was next. He was a very controversial professor when I was at Princeton, partly for his views, and partly for the color of his skin. (There were very few blacks on the faculty in the 1980s.)

Finally, Jane Sanders spoke, and introduced her husband. The crowd went wild. But my late arrival had put me in nosebleed seats; I couldn’t hear any of the substance, and I was really afraid that if I stayed for the music I would never get out of the parking garage. I knew, thanks to the iowademocrats.org, that Bernie was speaking the following day at his Cedar Rapids campaign headquarters. I would give him another chance there.

I went to bed in a carriage house at the top of a hill, too hungry and wired to sleep. And the following morning, I arose to greet a warm winter’s day, soothed by the call of a barred owl. “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?” Luckily for me and the couple from Illinois who were in town canvassing for Amy, and the three millenials who were knocking for Bernie, our innkeeper prepared a three course breakfast for us.

Sunday

So many people showed up to hear Bernie at his campaign headquarters that they had to move the event to the parking lot. I had plenty of time to make new friends, like the super tall and enthusiastic Bernie supporter who kept opening his phone to the website and showing me pages upon pages of detail on the Green New Deal and other platform positions. He was up on his toes and talking fast. I found it easier to talk to Vicky, whom I noted worked hard to draw others into the conversation by asking, “What is the most important issue to YOU in this election?” She and I bonded over 50 in the fifties, and especially my nude 5k in Oklahoma. She fessed up to having modeled for an art class in her college days to earn money. It was only after she said yes that it dawned on her that clothes were not part of the bargain!

There. I’ve come out and said it. I have been dancing around the nature of my naturist run last May, but no more. I no longer have my election to worry about. I admit it; I ran in a naked 5k in Oklahoma at a naturist resort.

I am not weird. I just knew that this race was the right challenge for me in the state of Oklahoma. I learned that no one is naked if everyone’s naked. And my mom was proved right. She always told us, “Parts is parts.” That is a truism. And I am true to myself. As are the candidates in this race. And Mitt Romney, as it turns out. We all know this is a developing story!

Ok, so, back to Bernie. On this day, he was introduced by Ohio State Senator Nina Turner. She is somethin’ else.

She strutted round the parking lot, firing up the crowd, hitting the rhythms of a preacher, “He may be 78 now, but we about to make him 46! Hello Somebody!”

“I’m feelin’ good today. I wish there was enough room here so I could run!”

The crowd swelled and yelled and chanted Bernie! Bernie! Bernie! And I turned to the three girls who had driven up from Texas and I said, “There’s something happening here.”

They were too young to know the reference, but under my breath, I said to myself, “What it is ain’t exactly clear…”

You say you want a revolution? Bernie is your man, but it’s not about him, or up to him. It’s up to US. Who is us? His predominately young army of supporters. They are untroubled by his age. They are still in the invincible phase of life. He isn’t, and has had a very recent heart attack. If he is the nominee, and he very well may be, he needs a young, strong VP. He will never pick Steyer (another billionaire), but there is some symmetry there. Warren? But she is 70… And that’s two east coast liberals. Oh, this is so hard! And I wander…

Bernie is cranky and committed, smiles rarely. He delivers his stump speech in a gruff monotone. He promises so much. He wants to overthrow it all. A huge piece of the economy- the health care industry everyone loves to hate. It won’t go without a fight. Free college, free child care, expanded Medicare for all, with dental and vision and hearing and long term care. College debt erased. I don’t see this happening in my lifetime. But he has the best ground game here, the most fervent supporters. After the speech and the coveted handshake, I was asked three times if I was heading out to knock doors for Bernie.

In a perfect world, I think I am in favor of a Bernie world. It would be a more perfect union. But this world is imperfect, and we are not creating a system from scratch. I do agree that the super rich and the corporations who are not paying their share of the taxes should pay more. How can Amazon pay nothing? All the other Democratic candidates agree on this as well.

Here’s the thing. As I let the event wash over me, a strange and uncomfortable sensation welled up in my chest and belly, and it persisted for a good long time after he spoke. Was it excitement, anxiety, or the fight or flight response?

I knew in my gut that he was going to win. But I wasn’t sure if that sat well with me. I felt like I was in the front row of a megachurch, or ensnared in a cult…  The vicious online attacks I have seen from Bernie supporters against anyone who would disagree or dare to support another candidate scare me. I want no part of that, but they make me fear that we will end up with Trump for another 4 years if I (we) don’t get in line. Would we be exchanging one coersive, caustic president and group of supporters for another? On the other hand, is he the One who can defeat Trump? Is there only one One? I am more worried about Bernie’s Bros than the man himself.

The difference, Bernie would say, is that Trump rallies for Trump and Bernie rallies for and with us. I’m just sayin’ it feels weird. If this is Feeling the Bern, it feels like heartburn.

Update: Bernie Sanders has had to distance himself from some of the things Nina Turner has said about other candidates. He needs to be careful that his surrogates do not become the story… This is why he makes me nervous.

Bernie won the Iowa popular vote, Pete has two more delegates. I don’t understand the math. I don’t think anyone does. It is a statistical tie. Bernie and Pete are neck and neck. Some delegates were awarded by coin toss. Think about that…

Based on what I’ve seen here this weekend, there is no other candidate that compels an emotional response. if it is going to take passion to win this election, Bernie is the one.

No time to sit and think, or sit and feel the Bern. Gotta fly. Tom Steyer is next up.

Tom Steyer is not going to be our next president. His mom was a preschool teacher in New York City, his dad, first generation college. His grandfather was a plumber. Tom is a self-made billionaire who has pledged to give away the bulk of his fortune. He and his wife have a regenerative agriculture farm in California. He would work to put together coalitions to fight back against corporate power, and has already been successful on that front, helping to stop the Keystone pipeline and other projects. He has never lost a fight against a corporation. Looks likely he will lose this fight (race is a nicer way to put it) against his fellow Democrats.

Tom has come out in favor of reparations for slavery. His overarching theme is environmental justice, which is a combination of fighting climate change and recognizing that the bulk of the ill effects of our lack of care for the Earth fall on people of color and those at the bottom rung of the economic ladder. He supports term limits and the establishment of a formal commission on race to both attack economic inequality and recognize the profound positive effect Black and Native Americans have had on the moral fiber of our nation.

Trump is running on the economy. He wants to attack Trump on the same economy and demonstrate that the stock market is not the economy, stupid.

Personable, smart, a can-do guy. Tom differs from Amy and Pete in that he doesn’t think we can sway any moderate Republicans. He doesn’t think there are any. He says we can’t work with the current crop of Republican senators, so we have to win this election at all levels. At the New Hampshire debate, Tom kept stressing that everyone on the stage agreed with each other on many of the issues, and the only issue that matters is winning. Right.

Tom Steyer left Iowa with no delegates. And I left Cedar Rapids, heading for a pre-Super Bowl event for Joseph P. Biden back in Des Moines.

I checked into my Air BNB and met Chuck, a retired Des Moines cop and a veteran. This photo sits just inside his front door:

It was great chatting with Chuck, who is an ardent Biden supporter. He gave me directions to the Biden event at a local middle school. My only wish is that I had encountered some Trump supporters on this trip. I was surprised, honestly. Iowa is a deeply red state. I think it would have been a good opportunity to talk. I know talk is almost impossible… but I had hopes. Someday soon, I hope we can get to an era of civility and recognition of shared values and humanity.

That’s what Joe Biden wants. His sister Valerie and lovely wife Dr. Jill Biden were in Iowa with him. He has the support of the firefighters and at least three Iowa congressional representatives and John Kerry, and Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture under Obama. All spoke of his empathy and ability to get things done, to be ready on day one for a complicated world.

Joe spoke of our need to restore a moral code in the White House. Training kindergarteners to duck and cover and zig zag in the hallways when faced with an active school shooter is morally bankrupt. He promotes hope over fear, science over fiction, unity over division, truth over lies. He is on a first name basis with all world leaders and has their respect. He want to replace Trump and eliminate Trumpism. He has the experience for the job, and he has the support of the African American community which will be crucial to winning. Iowa will not be the place to prove that.

Once again, I found myself in the right place at the right time, and I had a conversation with the candidate. I told him that I ran in NJ, and lost. He asked where, and I told him, and he said he knew Bernardsville. He was very gracious and kind. When I showed this picture to Chuck later that evening, tears welled in his eyes:

Chuck told me the picture was priceless and asked me if I knew why.

“He SEES you. He is WITH you.”

It did feel in that moment like I was the only person in the room.

Some people find the photo creepy. They weren’t there. It wasn’t creepy.

It was empathy.

My head spinning, I left the gym and called my husband to talk myself through it. This journey is second only to my march from Selma to Montgomery in 2015 in terms of personal impact from a 50 in the Fifties trip.

My heart full, I drove crosstown to Amy Klobuchar’s Super Bowl Party.  Just as I walked in the door, she was finishing up her speech. She dashed by on her way to the airport.

I bellied up to the bar and after several minutes was able to flag down the bartender. I ordered a local beer for me and snagged a dark beer for a woman who had been thirsty for quite some time. Her husband bought my beer. Next, I ordered a half rack of ribs with sides. I didn’t get a chance to eat any of it, because I found myself deep in a conversation/interview with an Australian journalist named Miranda Devine. She was really psyched about 50 in the Fifties. She said I should write a book. She took my phone number. (Update: Four interviews, but I don’t think I got a single word in print. It’s ok. I am not the star of this weekend. And I could be wrong. I don’t know which Australian or Dutch paper to check…)

Meanwhile, the Super Bowl got to halftime and then beyond and we missed all the commercials, missed everything, until we looked up with two minutes to go and we saw the Chiefs come from behind to win. And then, I tried to pay for my food, but it was all free, paid for, by the Klobuchar campaign, perhaps, or by Miranda’s husband, who felt bad that I didn’t get to eat it. I tried to get him to eat it! So I tipped the bartenders twenty bucks and floated out the door.

What a Super Sunday!

Caucus Day

I left Chuck and his wife, who had flown in the day before from China and just missed the Corona virus quarantine, and headed out for coffee. I have had zero time to get to know the towns I have visited here, but I have noticed two things. One, they do not use lawn signs. I saw only a handful in five days. I suppose when you caucus with your neighbors and everyone sees how you vote, you don’t need to advertise it in advance.

Number two, there are local coffee shops here. No Starbucks! This, I love. At the first shop that day, I was asked which candidate’s coffee I wanted. They keep a tally all day, and whichever candidate’s pot gets emptied the most wins the Coffee Caucus. I chose Amy. The server said she might very well be arriving any moment! I waited, got another cup of Amy, but I think she was in Washington dealing with the impeachment of the likely Republican candidate. One customer asked for Steyer, and when he was told, “Steyer’s not viable right now. Would you like to pick another candidate?”, he politely declined. He waited until they brewed another pot of Steyer.

You might have noted that I referred to Trump as the likely Republican candidate. That’s not because I think he is going to be convicted by the Senate. It’s because there are two Republicans running against him: Tea Party leader Joe Walsh, and former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld. I could only have coffee with one of them, and I chose Governor Weld.

I thanked him for running what is surely a difficult and futile campaign. I told him I ran locally this election cycle and lost. He said he lost his first election by such a wide margin that he was told that he was through. He would never get anywhere. Then, when he ran for governor, he was “less than an asterisk” in the beginning, and he WON. The moral speaks for itself, so I won’t repeat it. I have some time to think about another local run for office. Or perhaps aiming higher, as some friends have suggested.

It took mere minutes for the Republicans to call their caucus for Donald J. Trump, the impeached incumbent. Governor Weld eventually garnered 1.5 percent. The Democratic Caucus was a whole ‘nother story.

I showed up early to observe “my” caucus at Lincoln High School, home of the Railsplitters. In the vast and domed gym, I could not find my contact. It took me more than an hour to find out why.

As the line got long, a man in a brown sweater pointed at a woman he knew and he asked her if she would check people in. It seemed they did not have enough people. She agreed and sat at the registration table. I climbed to the upper bleachers and watched the local NBC affiliate begin their coverage. I sat down with an Amy supporter on one side of the gym. She was the only person in the Amy section. She taught me that there were two precincts in the room, and her’s, 68, was very small. Across the way, 66 was bigger and would be where the action was. I saw no signs indicating that one side was 68 and the other, 66. An Amy supporter came to join her, but it turned out, he belonged in 66… It was not looking good to me.

Turns out the guy in the brown sweater had stepped up after two other people had taken sick and not showed up. He had never run a caucus before. He was also the most soft-spoken person I have ever met. As the voting in 66 got underway, he was fortunate to have a man with a loud voice volunteer to serve as secretary, then get elected by those in attendance. A woman who spoke clearly and loudly also stepped up to help. She said, “Please be patient. This is Democracy.” I could think of a few other words to describe it.

As Thomas Jefferson said in the play Hamilton, “Democracy is messy, and now is the time to stand.” All the voters in precinct 66 were directed to stand. Why? Because the volunteers who had run the check in had never delivered the count of voters who showed up to the man in the brown sweater. No one knew how many voters there were, until each section, Warren, Klobuchar, Biden, Buttegieg, Yang, Sanders, and Steyer stood up, and then sat down as they were counted. It looked like a 5th grade gym class choosing up sides for dodgeball.

Let the counting begin. The precinct captains for each candidate huddled with the man in the brown sweater and, one by one, under the sharp eyes of all, the standers were converted to sitters, one group at a time. There were 376 people in the bleachers. Some could have been observers like me, because there was no system of checks in place. We were on an honor system, which we upheld…

The results of the first tally:

Elizabeth 67 Amy 39 Joe 57 Pete 98 Yang 11 Bernie 93 Tom 13

When the Bernie captain was counting his folks, he got to the end and counted himself, and then he yelled, “92. That’s 92. Where is Dave? Dave!!!”

Dave was behind the wall on the other end of the gym. I kid you not. So then, they were 93. Talk about neighborhood politics!

Amy, Tom, and Andrew were not viable. If one voter for Joe had stayed home, he would not have been, either. Next, the captains for the 4 viables had one minute each to make their case. Then the voters had 15 minutes to realign. Meanwhile, envelopes were being passed around to collect donations for the locals Dem party because “All of this isn’t free.” I felt like it should have been, or maybe people should be paid to be there! Just kidding, but, like, crazy stuff.

Most people signed off on their cards and left. The gym had largely emptied out when I spoke to a black man who had been in the Amy group. He had signed off for Elizabeth. He said he wants honesty and integrity and that he feels if we can get that, the policies will play themselves out. I can get on board that train.

There were only 4 people of color in the room where it happened. There was one person in a motorized wheelchair. There was no one even approaching age 80, very few over 70. I think the process is too grueling for the older people or folks with disabilities. And this, on a night when the weather was good. Turnout was up in the room since 2016, folks said.

I was not shocked when I woke up the next morning to see there were still no numbers. Based on my precinct experience, it figured. One interesting tidbit from another caucus: When Joe Biden was two votes short of viability, two Warren supporters moved to Joe in the first round to enable him to go forward.  Wow. 

At the airport, I met up with my new friend Steve from Summit and a photographer from NBC and some Pete supporters who all said their caucuses went smoothly and that there was a wristband system to identify voters who had checked in. So the problems I observed were not universal. But I am sure they occurred elsewhere, especially since, as I now finish my report on Sunday the 10th, there are still inconsistencies.

As I waited, as I always do, for Group 4 to board, I noticed a tall and distinguished looking man making his way onto the plane in Group 2. It was Governor William Weld, quietly making his way to the ramp, anonymous.

There may never be another Iowa caucus. I hope there won’t. I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything… except a president I can respect. Any of the candidates I heard, saw, met would fill the bill.

The candidates are on to New Hampshire. I am headed home, to Bernardsville and someone who missed me terribly:

Happy New Year!

I lost the election. I accepted this result with outward grace but inner turmoil. I had to hide that first day. I bawled my eyes out. There was nothing anyone could say or do.  I felt like I had a big L plastered across my forehead for all to see. Now I know why people congratulate losing candidates for “putting themselves out there,” because you really truly do. And the rejection hurts. Especially the day after.

I started the day by heading out to remove my campaign signs from the side of the road. This is a sad, sad chore. Luckily, I have an amazing husband, who not only pulled six hours of poll watching duty beginning at 6 am, but also jumped in the car and got ALL of my signs down. After that, I just hid and cried. It was like losing a loved one. Ridiculous, I know, but that is how it felt: full-blown mourning.

Since I didn’t lose a loved one, each day got a little better, and eventually I was able to look people in the eye, as long as they didn’t say anything like “Thank you for running.” And I learned that even though I felt really visible and well-known, having knocked on 1,000 doors, most people did not know who I was. Just like before! I could slip back into anonymity. Though I admit that I haven’t attended any Council meetings since Election Day. All in good time.

Turns out that some people took notice of me. Running brought me to the attention of the County Freeholders. I was appointed to serve a one-year term on the Somerset County Open Space Advisory Committee. In addition, I was asked to join the Board of Directors of the Raritan Headwaters Association, a well known environmental group here in Jersey that safeguards ground and surface water quality for 2 million Jerseyites living in two big watersheds. I can’t wait to serve as an ambassador for this fantastic group.

One door gets slammed in your face. Another opens to reveal a new opportunity.

I logged 3,154.65 miles of cycling, running, hiking, and walks this year, an 11 percent increase over last year’s effort. I rode the grueling 65 mile New Jersey Fondo, representing Raritan Headwaters, in memory of two local bike gurus whom we lost this year, Greg and Marty. I have purchased every bike I have ever owned from one of these two guys.

I attended the Boston Marathon, though as a mere spectator. Perhaps next year I will complete the bike ride of the 26.2 mile course which takes place at midnight the night before the race.

I garnered two states, Minnesota and Oklahoma. I went winter camping on a frozen lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, and I ran a 5K trail race under truly unique conditions. I may not have run a winning campaign, but I have the guts to bear it all and run!

I explored Greece with Kip and Italy with an amazing assortment of girlfriends. I ran for office. I saved my little dog’s life. He is ten now and doing well. I know it’s not forever, but it’s wonderful to have him by my side… although he has become rather pushy about getting his favorite things right on schedule. It’s a bit like having a newborn again, or living with an elderly parent. It’s family… it’s love.

What’s ahead? I’m flying to Iowa for the last weekend before the caucuses. I managed to fly in to the wrong city, for the second time in a row, but I will make it work. I feel a bit stupid because if I had not become too excited and rushed, I might have been able to get Wisconsin… or Nebraska, for that matter. No worries. I am hoping to explore and run or hike in the mornings and chase candidates as they chase votes in the final run up to the caucus.

That will leave 8 states to go, 2 years… I have plans to go to Michigan in late July. I found a community service trip through the Sierra Club. More on that this summer!

I had better pick up the pace if I am going to meet this challenge.

Time to write a catch up blog! 2019 is flying along. Since the Minnesota trip, I have only racked up one state: Oklahoma.

Oklahoma was the only state of my remaining ten that wasn’t scrunched up along the northern border of the nation. I flew down to catch a glimpse of the Cherokee Nation, among many other draws. I visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial and was moved to tears by the heart-wrenching and immersive museum bearing witness to the terrorist attack of April, 1995.

I hung out in the Paseo Arts district at Holey Rollers, a coffee shop featuring homemade donuts, an art gallery, and a bookstore. I bought my Oklahoma materials… poetry, short stories featuring poor folk in Oklahoma, and the book recommended by basically everyone, Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann. This is the gripping true life crime story of a series of murders of Osage people in the 1920s. The FBI was formed to solve these crimes.

I drove to Tulsa and its environs and spent a day in the Cherokee Nation, visiting the museum, taking a guided tour through the re-created Cherokee village, and visited the palatial home of a Cherokee descendant.

I went to a town called Skiatook, which is completely off the tourist beat. Why? Because my favorite children’s book of all time is Black Gold, by Marguerite Henry. The author of the more famous Misty of Chincoteague wrote this gripping, TRUE story about the winner of the 1924 Kentucky Derby.

The woman who bred him and campaigned him was an Osage Indian named Rosa Hoots. She had land in Skiatook, and oil was discovered in the area. A vast quantity. Like many other Osage at the time, Rosa found herself wealthy, and she sent her quick little mare U-See-It to Kentucky to be bred to a stallion named Black Toney. Black Gold was a most inspired name for the colt born eleven months later.

All of this I have known since I was nine, but to find Skiatook and see that Black Gold permeates life there, from the museum, to the antique store, to the pawn shop, was a thrill and a treat. Even writing this, months, later, I can feel my heart smiling. If you have a child who loves horses, curl up in an easy chair with him or her and read this book. If you don’t have a child who loves horses, curl up in a chair yourself. I guarantee it will touch your heart.

I wasn’t able to visit the antique store due to some unusual operating hours on the day I was there, so I wended my way northwest toward my planned endurance event. I did a trail run in the middle of nowhere that evening, my sneakers barely surviving the challenge of deep mud, open water, and rock, some slick, some jagged. I ran with care, as a fall would have been especially painful,  but I was still able to be the second place woman and first in my age group. State 41 was in the Bag!

This race presented a unique challenge, the strengths and weaknesses of all the runners on vivid display. The course caroomed downhill at the start, and many runners barely made it back up to the finish. Regardless, the winners cheered those who struggled in, mud up to their ears. No one threw in the towel, though everyone had one. My new friend John gifted me a casino towel, a really ugly brown one.  I will treasure it as much as I do my age group win.

Looking back, I realize this is the first running race I have counted amongst my 50inthefifties.  That’s incredible, one out of 41 states.

After indulging in an outdoor shower, we all shared a post-race meal of burgers and dogs, but I skipped the dance scheduled for that evening. I still had ground to cover.

I spent as much time as I could on the way back to Oklahoma City on Route 66. I love these old American highways, festooned with glimmers of the past.

 

Since May, the following things have happened…

I committed to run for Borough Council. This has proven to be big commitment. My back neighbor, who has served a term, asked me if I knew what I was getting myself into.  Probably not, but I am embracing the challenge and the change, campaigning door to door every day, like Aaron Burr. It is both draining and invigorating. Two weeks left now, and I have knocked on about 600 doors. Every day, I’m out there. I give everything my best shot, and having done so, hope to accept the outcome with grace, either way.

 

Morgan was diagnosed with kidney disease in July, and was hospitalized for four miserable days, which didn’t help at all. We somehow made it through the summer, though we didn’t get up to Maine until nearly August, and there were days when I thought I was going to lose him. My champ of an eater who used to leap with joy for plain kibble suddenly was turning his nose up at filet mignon. As of this writing, mid-October, he is doing much better, but he has to go to the vet twice a week for subcutaneous fluids. Hopefully he can continue to enjoy doing all of his favorite things.

Kip and I went to Greece for two weeks in June, celebrating his 6oth birthday. It was the first time in 32 years of marriage that we have been to Europe together. 

I went to Italy with 10 girlfriends in October, taking a much appreciated break from the campaign trail.

Now I am back home, 2 weeks to go, raring to go!

So it has been pert nigh impossible to rack up states since May. Life intervenes, in both positive and negative ways. Nine states await; I will be able to make plans after November 5. Oh, and we are hosting Thanksgiving, and both our girls are going to be home for the first time in three or four years!

 

 

 

State 40: Minnesota
Winter camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area

February 19-24, 2019

Women’s Wilderness Discovery, Peta Barrett, Guide and Owner

Reading List: The Singing Wilderness, by Sigurd Olsen; In the Lake of the Woods, by Tim O’Brien

Winter is my 4th favorite season, and February is the cruelest month. Wet, grey, downcast days, stuck inside, watching the water drip from the boulder in the basement and trickle across the floor to the sump pit. You get my drift.

Dragging myself up the cellar stairs and out of the doldrums, I thought, “Why not go in search of snowdrifts?

My mind harkened back to the day I came across a Facebook page for Women’s Wilderness Discovery, based in Ely, Minnesota.

www.womenswildernessdiscovery.com

Peta Barrett runs this women-centered outfitter. I could tell from the tone of her writing voice that she and I would get along well, so right away, I put a note on her page, saying, simply, “I’m going to do this.” She jumped right on it, asking if I wanted to do summer canoeing or winter camping. Well, summer for me means Maine, and besides, I had never tried winter camping. I waited till the calendar page turned to 2019, and got back in touch.

Time for some expedition planning, NOLS Grad Style!

Who? Me, of course, and Peta to keep me alive out there, and… what would camping be without Jackie Vail, my new NOLS buddy? Luckily, she found a way to say YES despite a full-time job, a government shutdown, a ten year old son, and four graduate school courses in Adventure-Based Therapy. She and I set out for some adventure therapy of our own.

What? 3 days, 2 nights camping in a snow shedder tent equipped with a wood stove and -20 degree rated sleeping bags.

Where? Start in Ely, Minnesota, snowshoe 4 miles, the length of Moose Lake and across Newfound Lake, dragging 7-foot toboggans laden with gear, set up camp, procure water and wood the old fashioned way, then enjoy one full day in the wilderness before breaking camp and retracing our steps, although our footprints were well buried in fresh snow.

When? The first set of dates we considered turned out to be smack in the middle of the Polar Vortex. This sounds like a puffy jacket but is not. It’s a period of extreme cold brought on by a freak weather pattern. Minnesota was at 40 below zero with wind chills about 60 below overnight. Luckily, we chose the second set of dates, missing both the PV and the GS (Government Shutdown). This meant that not only were our planes on time and the TSA fully staffed, but the temperatures rose to what could only be described as Minnesota Nice. And we all know how nice Minnesotans are.

How? We had a day and a half to kick around Ely and get our outfits together. Within the first hour, Jackie started thinking she would retire there. She always does that.

We rented boots and anoraks from Wintergreen Northern Wear. The anoraks are the most awesome jackets ever, no bull. They are manufactured right in Ely and are just plain cool. I wore mine nonstop. The pockets can hold everything you need on trail plus huge handfuls of gummy bears. The boots were huge and heavy, but warm.

We both were tempted to buy mukluks at Steger, another wonderful store and factory in Ely, but we will have to do so at www.mukluks.com

Pragis is another fabulous store where we got gifts and gloves and layers. Upstairs they have a bookstore. Jackie bought many stuffed animals. I bought some wild rice, which is grown in Minnesota by Native Americans. We also shopped at a toy store, the best I’ve seen anywhere, and it also featured a huge selection of candy. Every child’s dream store.

We took our in-town dinners at Insula. Terrific place. Get the cheesecake. If they don’t have it, the chocolate cake is also excellent. Jackie made it through the final day’s hike imagining herself drinking prosecco and eating cheesecake at Insula.

We met up with Peta at WWD (Women’s Wilderness Discovery, not Women’s Wear Daily!) headquarters the night before our trip, where we found Peta had already loaded most of the gear. She was pleased to see that we had very little personal gear, having been well schooled at NOLS Alaska. Final preps involved the issue of compasses and headlamps and Jackie’s purchase of four bags of gummy bears and a box of red wine. We all were to thank her for both instances of expedition behavior.

The following morning, we got an early start and drove to the trailhead in Peta’s car, which was stuffed with our three toboggans, three shovels, two saws, one axe, and one ice breaker pole called a Redneck. It was red. We managed to drop only one of the sleds while offloading the car, then we wrestled our way into our snowshoes. This chore was difficult enough to count as a 50inthefifties challenge in and of itself. I was positive that I would never be able to accomplish it alone, but I did, with much sweating and muttering and cramping as accompaniment.

Off we strode, confidently leaning into our traces like workhorses, lugging our loads to the center of snow-covered Moose Lake, with Peta leading the way, breaking trail while hauling the heaviest sled, which also bore the strongest resemblance to a dead body.

After four miles of hard work, we arrived at a likely spot for a campsite, where the hard work began in earnest. First order of business was to find a place to do our business, i.e., a privy. All three of us clambered up a steep hillside draped in four feet of snow, looking for a drift of snow that was strangely circular and oddly man- made. Peta found it and began to dig it out. I finished the job so she and Jackie could slide back down the cliff to start setting up the tent. Once we had it erected and the bottom eight inches of it dug down to the ice and then re-covered with snow, Peta sent Jackie and I out for wood, and also, I suspect, to get us out of her way for a while. She said we could stop at any time for lunch or to take a break, but we refused to quit. Dead wood, we can absolutely find that: I worked at an insurance company and Jackie is working for the government.

After substantial effort, we had this to show for it:

Ok, so if that wasn’t wood, we decided to have a snack and change chores. We ate cheese sticks and drank water and had a few gummies. Peta said if we were not into getting wood (we were into getting wood, but alas, what we found was not wood…), we could go fetch water. We looked for a tap…

No. We trundled out to the middle of the bay armed with a shovel and the Redneck. We cleared off the snow, hit ice, then started hitting the ice with the Redneck, switching off as we tired. Which we did. Some two feet down, we busted through and sweet, savory, icy cold water bubbled up.

Flush with exertion and success, we returned to the tent to find that Peta had removed several inches of powdery snow from its interior to create two raised ice beds, a single and a double, and lugged the woodstove in and set it up in the corner. She shaded her eyes against the lowering winter sun and pointed to a dead tree in the distance. She wanted it for her own. Jackie and I arranged a scouting party.

While not exactly a John Muir style redwood, it was a substantial tree, about 14 inches in diameter. It was two hundred yards from the tent. Even if it were possible to cut it down with a handsaw without ending up a dead body lashed inside the biggest sled, I thought we should report back to our leader and gauge her tolerance for having trees fall on her clients. Jackie just didn’t want to fail. Eventually we decided to head back, forlorn and empty-handed.

Peta agreed the tree was too big, but she also said that we would have to go find wood on the morrow instead of trekking to the open water otter playground on Sucker Lake. She stated we would have just as much fun getting wood. We weren’t entirely sure of that but were willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Jackie had found one good-sized log. We would live through the night. We had a smattering of wood, a source of water, and… we had a bag of red wine that looked like an IV drip of whole blood. What more could we ask? We made one last trip to the privy, wrested our feet from our snowshoes, and walked into our lovely, heated tent.

Peta made yummy trail pizza, smothered with fresh veggies, for dinner, and we toasted a successful first day with red wine, toasty toes, and gummy bears for dessert. By seven, we were falling asleep, dreaming of dead wood in abundance.

Morning broke soon after the raucous calls of two pileated woodpeckers drew me from sleep. As I pulled on my boots, Peta unzipped her bag and greeted me with a cheery “Hiya!”, and we set about our chores. The simplicity of life out on the lake is very reassuring.

Put on snowshoes. Hike to the privy. Marvel at the tracks of snowshoe hare. Grab the Redneck, break the ice, get the water. Remove snowshoes. Drink camp coffee and eat a good hot eggy breakfast, expertly prepared by our leader. Wrestle with snowshoes once again. And head out together, with a five foot sled, to Horseshoe Island, which we hoped would yield a good crop of firewood.

Bingo! I sawed through a tree about six inches in diameter, yielding actual logs for Peta to split with her extremely sharp axe. Jackie literally twisted a three inch tree off its stump. We women have water, wine, and, finally, wood, so much that we were able to leave a nice supply at the edge of the lake for the next lucky campers to edge into our bay, whether on snowshoes or in canoes.

Peta was right: we did have fun gathering wood, once we found a viable source. Chores accomplished before noon, Jackie and I set off on a circumnavigation of Horseshoe Island, a feat we are pretty sure no one has accomplished. Ever. Or, at least, this winter. We had to blaze a fresh trail, breaking trail much of the way, except when we could follow in the footsteps of a moose. We discovered an unnamed island, just big enough for the two of us, and we sat under the shade of its trees, scarfing down venison sausage, made from a deer Peta shot last season. Yum. It’s so good that Jackie is considering taking up hunting and bagging a doe.

After returning triumphantly to camp, we three spent the late afternoon standing about in the Minnesota sunshine with our snowshoes off, talking and laughing. As soon as my watch said 4:01, I remembered that it was in fact 5 o’clock somewhere, and we poured the wine into our tin cups. Dinner that night was a thick and satisfying sausage gumbo, which left my puffy jacket redolent of wood smoke and smoked sausage. I may never wash it. We slept even better than the first night on our ice mattresses, though we could hear the forecasted snow shedding from our tent.

The next morning, after eggs and hash browns, we set about breaking camp. It’s hard work, and I proved especially adept at the “breaking” part. As Jackie and I struggled to loose the ice that served as insulation at the bottom of the tent, Peta suggested I try hitting it with the backside of the aforementioned extremely sharp axe. I went to town on it, brushed away some ice shards, and set back to work. I heard a little rip. I stopped, stunned. I said, “Something is wrong.” Peta glanced my way. She said, “No. Hit it hard.” I did. RIP RIP. Somehow, I had turned the axe. The extremely sharp edge broke free of its protective cover and attacked the tent.

I felt bad, had been careless in my fatigue. Peta said she could and would fix it. I have no doubt of that, since she had MacGyver’d several solutions to problems earlier in the trip. After fretting an hour or so and breaking trail in penance, I took her advice, and I let go of the guilt.

Hard work done, it was time for the hard work of hiking out. Four miles, into the wind, hauling sleds, breaking trail, two feet of snow. With determination as steely as the edge of the axe, we slogged a mile before hitting the blessed relief of a dogsled trail and getting a chance to talk to the mushers and pet the pups, our only close human (and canine)encounter of the three day trip.

At the tiny land crossing between lakes Newfound and Moose, we three shared venison sticks and gummies, and took shelter under large pines. I felt it before I heard it.

I said, “Everybody be quiet.” And there it was. The intermittent rustle of the wind through a white pine. The little pings of snowflakes hitting our anoraks. The whoosh of the swaying spruces. The distant croak of a raven. The song of the wilderness serenading us, as it has for centuries before the coming of the voyageurs, as it will for centuries to come. If we protect it.

We set our shoulders to the burden of our possessions and headed for home.

WHO: Kip n Kerry, aka chicken curry

WHAT: Fifty in the Fifties

WHERE: Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana (States 37, 38, 39)

WHEN: September 27-October 1, 2018

WHY: Inspired by Grant, the latest biography by Ron Chernow. Warriors Don’t Cry, by Melba Patillo Beals, follow-up reading after visiting Little Rock Central High School NHS. Besides, these are states, right?

HOW: 1)20 miles cycling the Arkansas River Trail to a hiking ascent of Pinnacle Mountain; 2)Bricks and Spokes metric century ride split between MS and LA

Highlights, Trails, Trials, and Travails:

Little Rock, Arkansas- The Clinton Presidential Library and Museum features a presidential bike. President Clinton was not an avid cyclist. He didn’t learn to ride a bike until he studied abroad at Oxford. That didn’t stop a cheeky someone from gifting him this sweet ride:

I shouldn’t disparage his skill on a bike. I managed to fall off my rented bike within the first half mile, scaping my knees, arms, chin, pretty much anything that had not been scraped in my fall three weeks prior. But since this is Fifty in the Fifties, and I wasn’t even really bleeding, I decided to stick with the plan and bike to Pinnacle.  I’m determined, if not very smart.

I rode over the Big Dam Bridge on the day before thousands of others did the same in a century ride of the same name. Unlike them, I had this view to myself. Pinnacle is the volcano-like pinnacle in the distance.

(I will add a photo if the website ever cooperates. There are others I would like to add, but it’s time to go ahead and publish.)

Kip and I met at the East Summit trailhead for Pinnacle. The trail disappeared, so we blazed our own trail. Straight up, through the brush, over the boulders, across the scree.

Hiked 3.5 miles total, then returned to Little Rock to check out the WWII submarine USS Razorback. It was hard to imagine that over one hundred sailors would live aboard for months at a time in one hundred degree heat. Not bothering to shower. A friendly submariner gave me bandaids for my skinned knees, which had turned a most alarming shade of red.

Once we emerged from the belly of the sub,we hit the road for Vicksburg, Mississippi, intent on exploring the National Military Park. Along the way, we stopped in Onward, Mississippi, which gets my vote for the best place name EVER. It is reputed to be the place where Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear, inspiring the creation of the Teddy Bear. There is nothing in Onward except a general store and inspiration. I decided then and there that I would ride the metric century the following day, despite my fracture and my fall. Onward, miss!

We stayed in The Duff-Green Mansion in Vicksburg. This palatial residence was spared the shelling during the siege because it served as a hospital for Union and Confederate soldiers. We were treated to a lavish breakfast in the dining room and a tour of the home. Outside, it features a swimming pool and a Cialis tub.

On the Saturday, I rode the Bricks and Spokes, over the old Mississippi Bridge and into the cotton fields of Louisiana. I pedaled mostly alone for that 35 miles or so, sharing intermittent company with friendly riders. It was flat and pleasant, and I was making good time, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the slaves who picked that cotton in the unrelenting southern sun and humidity for their entire lives..

I made it to the rest stop just at the entrance of the NMP, rubbed my foot, and prepared myself for the hills of Vicksburg National Military Park. They are of variable steepness, punctuated by hundreds of stirring monuments to the men, boys, and even some girls who fought here on both sides of the slavery divide.

As I ascended towards Grant’s headquarters, I heard feminine laughter behind me. Waiting up a minute or so at the memorial to the Negro Soldiers, I met the three Ds- Dee, Diana, and Dandee, going mobile, from Mobile, Alabama.

We climbed all of the hills together and bemoaned the poor road markings and signage, before finishing up in downtown Vburg and settling in for rice n beans n beer. My brakes were failing by the end, and I was glad to be finished, but proud to have completed what I set out to do, despite injury and flagging confidence. Two falls in three weeks will do that to a person.

After the ride, Kip and I returned to the park and saw the incredible ironclad USS Cairo, which was staffed by immigrants and saw a year of service before being sunk by a mine (then called a torpedo) in 1862. It was raised from the muck at the bottom of the Mississippi in 1964. After more than one hundred years, much of her original wood and iron survives. You have to see it to believe it. It reminded me of my favorite Clive Cussler novel, Raise the Titanic, only that was fantasy- This is Reality.

That night, back at the Duff Mansion, my cast was so stinky that it jolted me from sleep every time I turned over and inhaled its perfume. It was doubtless similar to the way the sailors smelled on the USS Razorback.

Sunday morning, we began our return leg to Little Rock, and took an alternate route through northeast Louisiana so that we could visit the Poverty Point Unesco World Historic Site. In the most rural surroundings imaginable rise the remains of an advanced civilization that dates from a period younger than the Great Pyramids but older than the Aztec and Inca cities. Using baskets woven from willows, ancient peoples carted tons upon tons of soil and erected a one hundred foot high mound in the shape of a bird in flight. In its shadow one can detect the presence of four enormous concentric raised rings, upon which the people constructed their homes. Archaeologists continue to excavate the site and delve into its mysteries.

Before this trip, I located Poverty Point, a tiny dot on the map of Louisiana in my Rand McNally Road Atlas. Thanks to 50inthefifties, I made it to this corner of the world and learned something that otherwise would have been lost to me. I can’t adequately explain how much this quest has added to my life. The  places you experience first hand, and then write about, are forever etched in your mind.

Back in Little Rock, on our final day, we toured Little Rock Central High. In September of 1957, nine black teenagers stood up to a spitting, shoving, kicking mob and climbed the imposing steps of what was then billed as the nation’s most beautiful school. Once inside, protected in the hallways by the 101st Airborne, they were kept alive, but barely so, since the Airborne could not accompany them into the classrooms, cafeteria, or gym. Although a few white students tried to be friendly, the vast majority were either quietly hostile and dismissive, or, at worst, openly violent. Day, after day, after endless day.

Touring the school, and later reading Warriors Don’t Cry, by one of the Nine, Melba Beals Patillo, was a lesson in social change. It doesn’t happen without immense effort and sacrifice, and it doesn’t happen quickly. As we face continuing racism, misogyny, and the backlash against the MeToo movement, I am reminded of Dr. King’s words:

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

I believe we can’t just sit back and wait for it to bend. We must actively demand justice. We must get involved. If the Little Rock Nine can put their very lives on the line, I can at a minimum show the courage of my convictions, vote, support candidates who will help us regain our moral footing as a nation, and call out bigotry and vitriol when I see it. I need to both dream bigger and act bigger in my life. To that end, I will once again volunteer as a challenger in the elections. But I’m kicking myself over an opportunity that I passed up a few days ago. I saw a gaggle of middle school boys from the local Catholic school wending their way down the sidewalk to the library. As an Hispanic man passed by below them, one boy yelled, “Hey! Do you like America?” I didn’t think fast enough; I wasn’t close enough; I have plenty of excuses. But I wished I had asked that boy, “Do you? Just who do you think you are?”

I can do better. We can do better. Onward!

 

 

Ok, so I fell off my bike, or, rather, with my bike, on September 8. My right hand, arm, and knee were bloodied, and my helmet was battered and scratched, but I felt well enough to ride the two remaining miles home.

My left hand felt like it needed to click. I had lost grip strength. Kip and I went to the pharmacy and got a wrist splint and gauze pads and large Band Aids. Two days later, I rode thirteen miles, testing my hand. It seemed okay. The next day, I rode fifty miles and had only minor discomfort. But there was swelling, and heat. My sister convinced me to go to urgent care. Diagnosis: transverse fracture of the fifth metacarpal, left hand.  I ended up with this rigid,  cumbersome, fingerless glove:

The next two weeks are going to be a challenge. Kip and I are leaving in a week for Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. I planned to ride a bike there, including a metric century in Vicksburg. My orthopedist cleared me to bike, but this cast is mega-awkward. I’m going to spend the next few days deciding which type of bike is easiest to handle in my current condition, a road bike, a mountain bike, or even a beach cruiser. Then I will contact the rental shop and make a change if I have to.  The tickets are non-refundable, I didn’t buy trip insurance, and besides, we have our hearts set on going. If I can’t bike, we can hike.

Heartworks, a local charity down the road, posted a sign this week that said, “Embrace change, even when you don’t want to.” I knew from the start that injuries could easily and frequently derail my plans. I made it to Oregon and Washington despite a hamstring strain. I made it to Florida despite a mastectomy. And I will make it to the Deep South one more time despite a broken hand. Stay tuned. I’ll keep you posted on my travels and travails.

Returning from Alaska, I got myself organized in Jersey for a few days, then motored to Maine, bicycle in tow, and spent the summer riding the hilly terrain of Boothbay Harbor and Southport. I never rode more than thirty miles in a day and was frequently riding 10 to 15, but I was surprised how difficult I found it. I thought I was fit from all my hiking in Alaska, but my body schooled me again. Every sport asks something different of your muscles and aerobic capacity. My most memorable ride of the summer was the one I shared with Laura. Two beautiful saddlebred youngsters whinnied when they saw us and galloped over to spend time with us.

I did some open water swimming, which was very tough when the water was chilly, and much more pleasant when the temps rose. Each day, with wind and tide, the water was different. No telling what you were facing until you jumped in. I worked my way up to around a quarter mile, maybe a half. Sharing the longest one with a friend (thanks, Eric!) made it much more fun. Oh, and I went on one three mile run. Has it ever been too long since I did that!

But wildlife was the story of the summer. We saw a whale in the Harbor between Tumbler and Burnt Islands. Big, like forty feet long. What a treat. One blow, and it sounded, and that was it. We saw a bald eagle right near the dock, sitting in a tree, and another time, he swooped down to the water and came up with a fish, harried by an osprey the whole way. The place seemed lousy with eagles. Each night at the Summer House, an eagle would do a fly by, from the yacht club, across the pool to the Sauduc’s dock, like a teenage tough cruising the neighborhood in a Corvette. Other birds graced us with their presence: black-crowned night herons on Landing Road, a black guillemot in West Harbor, goldfinches on the thistle feeder, hummingbirds on the porch. Black-throated green warblers by the Morgan’s house, hermit thrushes in the woods near Hendrick’s Head Beach and Rachel Carson’s house.

The biggest thrill of all was a baby seal Laura and I spotted while kayaking to Powderhorn Island. It appeared to be spyhopping, but as we edged closer, we saw its eyes were closed. It was napping. We were close enough to watch its eyes slowly open, and it looked at us, dazed, obviously not fully awake. Then it came to, and we could see it thinking, “Oh. There you are. You look different, but you must be Mom.” It swam right up to the red, seal-shaped double kayak. Every fiber of my being ached to touch it, but I did not. Its teeth were like little pegs in a smiling mouth. It started to make chuffing, sneezy noises, like a dog begging for a treat. It seemed to be trying to nurse off the boat. We worried that it might be sick. We said, “We have to get it to the beach! Amazingly, it followed us for a while before disappearing. in retrospect, we think it just had been left to sleep while its mom hunted, and that she surely returned for it. Oh, to be so close to such a beautiful wild animal, and to have it imprint on us!

The one negative of the summer is confirmation that my fear of sailing is still there and as strong as ever. I am perfectly happy to crew and have become truly expert at catching the mooring, but taking the tiller in any kind of iffy conditions, whether on a sunfish or the somewhat larger Mimiday, sends my heart rate flying, steals my voice, and sends me into a panic. It’s just not my thing. While I would love to be able to do a NOLS Sailing course in Greece with Kip, I don’t think it would be fair to the other sailors unless I were medicated!

After Labor Day, we loaded up the dog and the Hibiscuses and the hanging baskets and window boxes, and took everyone home to Bernardsville, where the temperature was 94 degrees.  Three days later, it was 54 degrees. The plants were in shock, more so after the deer started eating them. The dog was in shock when I took him to the vet for a teeth cleaning. Kip was freezing when the house hit 64 degrees, and I managed to fall off my bike and hurt my hand and my arm, but not my head.  The helmet saved me.  Time for a new helmet and a new adventure.

Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, here we come!

 

 

DATELINE: July 1-8, 2018

Somewhere in the southern Talkeetna Mountains, Alaska. (Get out your topo map, and use the mountains and rivers you see to establish your position. But remember, rivers change course, and your map is from 1948, revised 1974… Trust the mountains.)

AKT-2, National Outdoor Leadership School, Women’s Backpacking – (Past Your)Prime

Thirty to forty miles hiked with a fifty-ish pound pack, in the company of nine super cool women, two of them 56 years old, three of them named Jackie. Miles as the crow flies: perhaps nineteen, but that doesn’t matter, because we aren’t crows. We may be flying bears…

I signed up for  NOLS’s Alaska Prime Women’s Backpacking course back in November. My daughter, Laura, had done a NOLS course in Utah, and both my brothers had done NOLS and raved about it.  Of course, they were all in their early twenties when they did it, but I figured, hey, I am in better shape at fifty-six than I was in my twenties, so why not? I further figured that if NOLS can’t teach me to backpack and guide me safely through grizzly country, no one can.

Since I had never backpacked, I took preparation seriously. I borrowed my husband’s pack and loaded it down with forty pounds of free weights, which sagged at the bottom of the pack and banged against my butt, but no matter. I AM A BACKPACKER. I hiked a seven mile loop at Morristown National Historical Park a few times a week. I rode my bicycle for 20 to 65 mile routes on alternate days. I did hill repeats with the pack on. Physically, I felt as ready as I could possibly be. Mentally and emotionally, I had my doubts. Why was NOLS slow in signing off on my medical form? Was I too old in their eyes? And if accepted, would I be able to remain positive in the face of uncertainty and adversity? Would my foot problems cripple me? Would I fall? Would I FAIL?

I flew in to Anchorage on June 29, and Krista, the owner of a most amazing bed and breakfast, Alaska House of Jade, was there to meet me. She and her husband, Zach, are star innkeepers, and provide both breakfast and dinner, rides to NOLS courses, rides to and from the airport, bus directions, tons of laughs, and a real home to travelers in Anchorage. I couldn’t imagine a better place to stay.

After walking to the Alaska Botanical Garden and witnessing the release into the wild of a boreal owl, I returned before dinner and met the first of my three Jackies: Jackie. (Since there was only one so far, no need for nicknames.) We got on like old friends from the start, and in no time flat, we were laughing hysterically over nothing and finishing off a bottle of wine. We made plans to watch the World Cup the following morning as a kind of last TV request, and then spent some time talking with Devon, who had just finished a two week Prime NOLS coed trip. She told us we were in for some kind of challenge. Sleeping in snow at the top of a mountain, long hard days of hiking, bushwhacking, all kinds of weather. Her group did not make it to their objective… She summed it all up by saying, “It’s Alaska!” No arguing with that.

Somewhat unnerved by Devon’s assessment of the course, Jackie and I compared notes on our physical training. I told her that I had hiked and biked my ass off for months, done maybe a thousand crunches. Jackie said she had worn her hiking boots to work. Twice. Ok, so pretty much the same, when you factor in the 20-year age difference. We decided we were going to start a new company offering travel for people over 35 called Past Your Prime Adventures. Preparation would involve mandatory wine tastings and massages.

At breakfast the following morning, we met a couple who were about to explore Alaska in a more conventional way: on a cruise ship. When Jackie and I told them what we were about to do, i.e., go out into the wilderness carrying all our food and water for a week, sleep on the ground, cook over a tiny stove, poop in groups of four, and utilize bear spray to save our own lives should the need arise, they just could not stop laughing. Neither could we. I mean, it’s either laugh or cry, right?

We still had twenty four hours or so to live, so we got on bus 25 with Caroline, who was on our NOLS course but not in our group, and we hit the mean streets of Anchorage. We ate reindeer sausage, visited the Farmer’s Market, drank local beers, saw an airshow, toured the excellent Native Heritage Center, learned to sing and dance the Hokey Pokey in the Yupik language, and got sunburned before the trip had even started. Oh, by the way, don’t even get me started on the weather. If I based my opinion of Alaska summers solely on the weather we experienced, I would say every day in Alaska is sunny, starts out cool but ends up warm, threatens rain every afternoon around 5 pm but heavy rain never materializes, and the nights are sunlit and cool, with refreshing breezes. Oh, and NO BUGS. No mosquitoes. No black flies. No. no. never. no more.

There are two possible explanations for the complete lack of biting insects. The way I see it, Alaska has a predominately male population of humans. If the same hold true for mosquitoes, and I can’t think of a reason why it wouldn’t (most females prefer a more southern latitude), then the lack of bites makes perfect sense, since male mosquitoes do not bite. Only females bite.

Or, maybe we just got very lucky.

At 7 a.m. on Sunday, July 1, Zach dropped the three of us off at the train station so we could board the bus to NOLS Alaska headquarters in Palmer. So far, this trip seems like a sequel to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, but after just one more ride in a bush plane, we will leave all forms of transportation beyond our own two feet in the proverbial rear-view mirror.

Boarding the bus, I was psyched to note two other women of a certain age- oh, say, approximately 56. I was hoping to be in their group. Our bus driver pulled over so we could take pictures at a scenic overlook. We ooh’d and ahh’d over this view, because we didn’t know then that we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

NOLS Alaska is headquartered at a beautiful organic farm. This is base camp for outfitting, rations, departing and returning courses, and satellite communications with course leadership (if necessary). I felt right at home immediately when I saw this:

But I had no time for soccer (yet). The moment had come for us to meet our leaders and teammates…

Leaders: Mara and Patty

Mara is from Wyoming, grew up teething on mountains, and graduated from Middlebury with a degree in Environmental Science. She climbs mountains in sneakers, sometimes in sandals. She had never worked a women -only course before, but relished the opportunity. Also enjoys working with Annapolis plebs and elite forces.

Patty is Chilean. She has summited the Seven Summits and was the first South American woman to summit Everest. When people look at her, they don’t think it is possible that anyone who looks like her could climb mountains. She can, and does, with the best in the world. She loves to hike, and to work with teenagers. God bless her for that!

Cook/Tent Group One:

 

1)Tall Jackie, 56, recently retired from a thirty year career in Education Administration. Has vast experience in the formation of temporary close-knit groups. Lives in Bend, Oregon with her now famous dog, Oliver, and her wife and total soulmate,

2)Monica,56,  who has served on the NOLS Board of Directors, summitted Aconcaugua, probably others I am not aware of, and has had a knee replacement and several other surgeries. She was Chief Operating Officer of the SUNY college system in New York State, responsible for billions of dollars and thousands of students.

3)Jordan, 23, from West Virginia. She is about to enter Dental School so she can serve the people of her home state. She also hopes to join the Army. She and her dad play practical jokes on each other that are very impractical and truly remarkable. Like one time she had to go to the bathroom when they were stuck in traffic so he bet her she could get out and go and get back to the car. But when she took a couple minutes and the traffic started moving again, he just kept driving, and she had to run to the baseball stadium herself.

4)Kate, 37, active duty, United States Marine Corps. She looks like a Marine, strength personified.  Born to lead, but also shares Mother Hen duties with Tall Jackie. An absolute failure at the game in which you try not to laugh or smile.  Impossible for her.

Cook/Tent Group 2:

Kerry, 56. Working on an endurance challenge in retirement. Mother of two daughters. Absentminded, keeps wandering off alone to the kitchen, ignoring bear protocols. Kate keeps half an eye on her at all times. Has more fear of the camp stove than any physical challenge. Serves as tent alarm clock.

Jackie Vail, AKA Medium Jackie, turned 37 on July 3, (Mara and Patty baked her a cake.) Works for the Department of  Defense, after service in the US Navy as a linguist.  Played college soccer at Holy Cross, hasn’t lost her touch. Has total grasp of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan and can make Cinnabon-quality cinnamon buns on a camp stove. Sharpshooter, not a fan of heights. Mother of a ten- year-old son.

Laura, in her twenties. Dartmouth graduate, works for Facebook. Lives in San Francisco. Needs lots of clothes and blankets in the tent, ear plugs, eye covers. Great smile, strong leadership qualities, can put in the extra miles as long as she gets coffee. Excellent at locating rocks under the tent. Not a fan of grizzly bears.

Small Jackie, 24. Northwestern grad, lives in Chicago, but travels extensively in her position as a stage manager for youth theater competitions and camps. Leader, able to juggle a million balls at once and deal with uncertainty in terms of her next assignment.  Likes to wake up gradually (Fat Chance). Her excellence with the map is genetic: her grandfather is a cartographer.

 

Funny how I am writing about the people, not the hiking. At this rate, I will never get to the hiking. But so much of a NOLS course ends up being about the people you share it with.  There are not many people in adult life with whom we will ever spend as much quality and quantity time. Sure, we go to work, but in the workplace there are walls up around each of us limiting the amount we share personally. In the wilderness, there are no physical or figurative walls. Facing our fears, drawing on each other’s strengths, building each other up in spite of our weaknesses, we draw closer than one would think possible in just one week. And so ten different I’s become one WE. This is OUR trip.

Day One: We learned our cooking and camping groups and were issued rations and rental gear. We spread everything out in our assigned bay and tried to fathom how we were going to fit it into our packs. Mara demonstrated the stuffing of a four-person tent into the tiny air pockets left once she had loaded a sleeping bag, a pad, a week’s worth of clothes, and a week’s worth of food into the pack.  Lucky me, I was in charge of the tent, and the “stuff your tent into the spare air pockets method” awakened my arthritis. My hands and wrists got cranky. I took advil(s). Mara and I wrestled the pack onto the scale. Oh, good, still under fifty pounds. Let’s top it off with a cannister of cooking gas.

Next, eighteen women, four leaders, and twenty-two heavy packs jostled for space on the bus ride to Mike Meekin’s Air Service. Mike is the top notch bush pilot who was responsible for ferrying us all to our start points. My group was to hike the southern Talkeetna Mountains, and the other group the Chugatch Mountains, across the river. I noted that the Chugatch looked higher and snowier. This was ok by me.

After a quick dinner on what would have been the tarmac if there was any tarmac, we had class. Bear spray class. One of the leaders from the other group played the part of the bear. If it weren’t for her floral long underwear, she could easily have been mistaken for a full grown sow bear and shot.

We all practiced unholstering, removing the safety, and firing the bear spray. Things were starting to get real. We would wear bear spray at our waist every second that we were outside the tents. We would talk, loudly, we would sing, some tuneful, some woeful, we would call out rhythmically.

Bear calls are personal. I favored “Marco…Polo.’ Tall Jackie screamed OLIVER! so regularly that on day six a boy asked her if we had managed to lose someone from our group… Patty would call “Yogi!” and I would say “Berra.” Mara seemed to actively flirt with the bears, yelling, :Hey, Bear!” in a come-hither way. Someone noted that once you took the lead of the group, you tended to call out more often.

Because we did such an amazing job with bear calls, we saw neither hide nor hair of bear.

Ok, so back to Day 1. Jordan, Jackie Vail, and I were the third pair to climb into the plane behind Mike and fly off, tottering and low, into the Talkeetnas. the two J’s were terrified, I was projecting calm. I’m not afraid of little planes, and I have had a good enough and long enough life that the idea of death in the abstract doesn’t frighten me. As I hinted before, I was more worried about cooking in the backcountry than anything else. I’d rather die than appear inept. One is abstract, the other, inevitable. Well, both are inevitable, but one is , well, extremely likely on a minute to minute basis.

After we ten had all landed on Mike’s makeshift airstrip twenty mountainous and awe-inspiring flight minutes from any other human, we shouldered our packs and picked our way down a field of tundra and mosses to a steeper slope of rocks, a ravine, and a riverbed, which would serve as Camp One. It was about 7:30 or 8 pm, full daylight, as we set up our tents in a wrist- straining procedure that left me breathless with the pain. Lesson One, Day One. Do not take the cup end when inserting the tent poles. I scrambled in my pack for the advil stash, then we lugged our packs to the kitchen to unload the food and leave it in the there for the night, along with our sunscreen, toothpaste, bug spray, and anything else that had an odor other than BO. Alas, we had to take that to the tents with us. I found I had a real talent for Leave No Trace toothbrushing. I was able to create a full-on aerosol of foam, particles undetectable without a microscope.

It took me about 15 minutes to forget the bear protocol I had just learned and head back to the kitchen for something I had forgotten. Mara reminded me that we needed to be in pairs to the kitchen, and fours to go poop. That was because the poop station was up on top of a ridge, invisible from the tents and the kitchen, and open to any bears who might be sauntering down the runway. Luckily, I was not planning to poop very often. My body clams up when I travel. But I made many a poop run, making up a foursome for my tent- and course- mates. Foursomes are for bridge, golf, and poop runs.

I stretched out in the tent with my new friends, punchy and giggling like summer campers. Looking up at the tent roof, I noted that the patterns from the wind outside and the continuing sunshine looked like the Northern Lights. Lulled by the river rushing  by just steps away, I slept well, thanks to my newly purchased air mattress. Lesson Two- pay up for the air mattress.

Days two through eight flew by, and while each hike was memorable and special, I am going to give my readers a flavor of the rhythm of each day, and combine some of the highlights of the trip into a single totally amazing red letter day.

Wake up times varied from 5:15 am to 8 am, but no matter what they were, I was up before the alarm, as is my custom. We learned after day 2 that it makes sense to clean out your tent and take it down and pack, then wander over with everything to breakfast. It seems stupid until you forget to do it and have to go fifty yards back to the tents to get your sunglasses. There is so much to accomplish every day in NOLS that you cannot waste time heading back, plus, you have to bring one to three other people with you every time you go anywhere.  I fought this idea, but soon came to see it as the best way to enjoy the day.

• We three cooking groups then gathered in the kitchen for the first course, Hot Drinks. Whichever lucky lady has charge of the stove lights it 4 to 6 times for each meal, trying hard not to ignite the sedge, the moss, the tundra, herself, or her teammates. Most NOLS accidents happen in the kitchen, not on the mountain, and for good reason. The stoves are menacing.

NOLS food is HEAVY in the packs, but it is good in the belly. We had macaroni and cheese, eggs and cheese n sausage, cheesy grits, cheesy beans and rice, cheesy quinoa, and tons of heavy peanut butter on tortillas, oatmeal, fruit, and granola.  The spice bag alone seemed to weigh close to five pounds.

We lucked out on this trip.  As an experiment, given our gender, NOLS decided to have us carry just 1.5 pounds of food per person per day; the usual load is 2 pounds.  It proved more than adequate and reduced each of our pack weights by three precious pounds. This is a blessing, because no matter how much we tried to eat the heavy stuff first and get rid of it, the packs never seemed to get lighter or less stuffed. Thanks to us guinea pigs, I bet NOLS uses 1.5 pounds as the ration for all women’s trips going forward. If you are female, and do NOLS Alaska, you can thank me later.

I made chocolate chip pancakes. I was pretty proud of myself. But I needed help lighting the stove each time. Most days, I was chief cheese and veggie chopper and clean up crew. I’m glad to have learned to cook outdoors, but if I were soloing, I would probably use freeze-dried meals and power bars.

Once we were fed and had purified drinking water and packed snacks in our rather grubby bowls to have for lunch on the trail, we hauled everything out of our backpacks so we could fit the food in,  and then we put the clothes we would need during the day on top and our sunscreen and lunch in the very top, or brain, of our packs. Then we shouldered our heavy burdens and struck out into the wilderness, four of us hiking with Mara and four with Patty.

First off, time to get our feet wet for the day.  We camped next to streams so we had water for cooking and drinking, but we always had to cross them to get where we were going. We learned several methods for crossing rivers and streams, the most thrilling of which is the Train method. We crossed a raging torrent in groups of three or four, following a strong and loud leader, who faced up into the current and yelled out instructions.  By the end of the course, we were all confidently crossing small to medium streams on our own, and had gained much in technique.

We climbed impossibly steep slopes at times, including a saddle between two peaks, at 6,000 feet. The hike to the base of this behemoth was a lovely, snowy stroll through a mountain pass. One month ago, there had been too much snow to negotiate the pass, so we were the first hikers through this season. Hiking through virgin snow and up scree piles left me feeling like, hey I got this. I CAN DO IT.

After a couple miles, Mara said, ” I think this looks like a good place for snow school. Oh goody! We were going to go sledding. Mara showed us how to climb the slope, including a technique for kicking your toe into the snow to form a step, and another way to traverse a mountain, digging in the uphill side of both feet, rolling your ankle toward the slope. Then we sledded down on our butts. Just for fun, Mara put two ski poles out and said, ok, sled down, and see if you can roll over on your belly, dig in your elbows and feet, and try to stop between these poles. We had a blast trying it, and all were able to meet the challenge. I was like, oh, that was fun. Now I am sure we are going to hike around to the left and look for a way for this mountain pass to gently continue to the river valley. WRONG.

I looked to the right, and I saw Patty’s group, who were hiking ahead and should have been out of sight, hunkered down between steep scree and steeper snow, while Patty broke trail above and tried to find a route up and over a nearly vertical slice of mountain between two peaks. I suddenly realized snow school was not about sledding at all. Mara was preparing us to save our own lives on that slope.

Our group was alarmed, seeing our friends frozen in apparent terror in a precarious situation while Patty worked a slope she obviously did not like. We looked for alternatives. What about that more direct route further right? Mara considered our ideas, gave them real weight, but then said, “No, this is going to be one of those times when I’m going to have to make the decision. We will go where Patty’s group is, but we will traverse out beyond them to not be in their rockfall. Wow.

I was right behind Mara. I kept my eyes on her footprints, and I used each and every one of them. At times, the snow was over our knees. I mirrored her every move. I used the traverse step, I dug my toes in even deeper to make a better step for my friends behind. Mara taught me the Rest Step, which is a technique for putting the weight on your bones, not your muscles, on extremely steep slopes. It worked a charm, and I had absolutely no trouble with muscle strength or breathlessness. It was a game changer for me. And the five of us summited the saddle and joined our friends, who were in various stages of euphoria, exhaustion, and acrophobia. I looked to Jackie Vail, who was in the other group that day and I knew was really scared, and offered her some encouragement. At the time, I was focused on helping her and others who were very nervous about the descent that we faced, but in retrospect, that was the moment I knew I could handle whatever Alaska was going to ask of me that trip. Bring it.

I led our group down the back side of the saddle. Mara said I did well, and I thought I did well. I laughed as I realized that I am happiest to lead on a downhill stretch. Between my pack’s pushing my head down and my ever-present Game on Dude baseball cap, I can’t see anything on the uphills…

Mara, Small Jackie, Kate, Jordan, and I had a wonderful but challenging time on the other side of that mountain, and even got to sled some more in ravines. Sometimes the best technique is also the most fun. As Monica opined, there is never a bad time to glissade! Meanwhile, Patty’s group had taken the high road and completed long and painful traverses. By the time we all converged along the river, we encountered our first trees of the trip and had to cross thick, trackless forest and wide swaths of willow shrub.

 

Bear potential was high and folks were tiring and tripping on roots and their own two feet. Breaking trail along the stream was working well for those at the front of the group, but the trail was collapsing into the river for those at the back. Mara and Patty called a halt. None of us wanted to leave the river. We had little climb left in our legs and our spirits.  Still, we wanted to continue, because if we made our goal for the day, we were going to earn a day off on the morrow.

A volunteer scouting party featuring leaders of the day Jordan and Laura, assisted by Tall Jackie and Patty, found a route. We shared it with a caribou, which led us along the riverbed at a trot, after rolling in snow to cool off. We may have been the first humans it had ever seen. It was certainly the first wild caribou we had ever seen.

While Patty took the lead and was able to sniff out even the faintest game trail, a bald eagle sat at the top of a spruce and watched us clambor around in the mud. Hey, buddy, how ’bout a little help from your bird’s eye view?

Next up, we tackled a meadow that appeared to be lush pasture but turned out to be tundra and sedge grasses and areas of dead and dying trees rising out of mud and swamp which overtopped our boots.

• • Despite the fact that birds do not exhibit expedition behavior, we made it to camp, a lovely flat spot next to the river, and after a glorious but tense and trying day in our boots, set up camp and set our socks out to dry. Stiff socks, stiff necks, stiff legs. We will need yoga tomorrow. And a day off. Woohoo!

Someone called a poop run. I was on said poop run, even though there was little to report in terms of action. While I was busy declaiming that “Did you poop?” is not in fact a yes or no question, we four heard shouts from the kitchen. Moose! We looked across the river at the steep hillside above. A full grown cow moose of impossible hugeness stood staring downhill at an angle to the left. She took off at a run, easily 25 or 30 mph, down that steep slope. We could hear her crashing through the trees and brush, heading straight for our tents. When she saw them. she stopped dead in her tracks and stared. then she looked over at us. We were about 100 yards from her. Mara said, ” Stay together, get big. Unholster your bear spray. “

I said, “Don’t make eye contact.”

Jackie Vail said, “What? I am locked on with her! Too Late!”  Panic rising in her voice. Really, none of us knew what to do. NOLS has no moose protocol. Well, maybe they do, as of this writing… Turns out you Can run from a moose. Not from a bear.

• The moose looked at us. We looked at her. She thought about it, and decided to brave the tents, not us. She passed close to the tents and then ran into the woods, right near the poop spot. We think perhaps the moose was being pursued by a wolf. We had seen large tracks that day, and our suspicions were half confirmed at the end of our course when we met a woman who said that moose have been running through her garden for the first time this year, rather than their usual saunter. She and her friend have seen wolf tracks…

After dinner, we de-briefed the day. Emotions were running high; people were sensitive and exhausted. One of the Jackies was having a particularly tough time, but I noted that Kate and Laura spent some quiet time with her, and she was soon able to rejoin the group. This is the kind of leadership that NOLS seeks to instill in students. Most of my group already had all the skills they need in that regard. I knew I needed more work, so while I prefer to follow rather than lead, I volunteered to lead on two days. Mara worked with me on reading topo maps, another area in which I needed experience, and I worked on my  tendency to rush ahead before everyone was ready to participate. NOLS is not a vacation. It really is a school.

But it is also serious fun. After debrief, we played games, giggling like teenagers.   We had a bonfire, using only dead wood and erasing all trace that a fire had ever been set.

As the days dawned and closed under the ever-present sun, we settled into a routine that got easier and easier as we each became more organized and attuned to expedition life.

On the sixth day, when we encountered other humans for the first time, and on the seventh, when we saw our first ATV trail and beer guzzling ATV driver, we experienced the shock of re-entering our own culture.  Each has their own way of enjoying the wild lands we share, but it would be nice if backpackers didn’t have to lug empty oil containers out to the roadside for disposal. Luckily, after five or six miles on trail the last full day, we found a perfect campsite under aspen trees, breezes blowing through, shade for our parched skin, and a fitting place for us to share our final circle time, each contributing memories of our time together so we wouldn’t forget the highs and lows of our communal life and adventure.

We were one short hike and a bus ride away from The Farm, with its showers and fresh vegetables, its banquet dinner in our honor with wine and tablecloths and napkins and cutlery. Jackie Vail and I played soccer against two men, losing, but scoring many goals in the process. Too bad she doesn’t live in New Jersey; I have a team for her.

We had a graduation ceremony, we all passed, and we all won awards. Mine was Most Likely to Appear in a Musical Comedy. Receiving it was one of the proudest moments of my life.  That’s intended to be tongue-in-cheek, but really, completing NOLS is a moving experience and a great accomplishment… at any age.

Circling back to the questions I asked of myself before starting… was I too old? No. Would I be able to remain positive in the face of uncertainty? Yes. Would my foot problems cripple me? No (Thanks, Vasque Boots.). Would I fall? Most assuredly, Yes. Would I fail? No.

We grew. We learned. We laughed. We cried. We hiked. And hiked. And hiked.

In the end, these are the lessons I learned. In hiking and in life:

1. Travel lightly on the land. Leave each place as good or better than you found it.
2. Take good care of each other; especially, watch out for your friend’s feet (ok, but yuck…)

   

3. Don’t go commando in your wind pants.
4. Keep your raingear handy. Even when the forecast is at its sunniest, showers and deluge can occur without warning.
5. Don’t overpack your life with possessions you don’t really need.
6. Remember to enjoy the hike. How lucky we are to share this planet with plants, animals, people. Alaska is vast, wild, and stunning. Don’t forget amidst the work to take in the scene. We may never pass this way again.
7. Eat the cheese, potatoes, and onions first. Always share the chocolate.
8. Sing. A lot.
9. Prepare for bear but don’t let the possibility of bear stop you from doing what you want to do.
10. When you say goodbye, hug.

A big hug to Mara, Patty, Jackie, Jackie, Jackie, Jordan, Laura, Kate, and Monica. Best of luck in all the amazing things you do and will do. Until we meet again on our well-earned Alumni Trips.

Kerry-oke