Presidential Memories

Well, my foot is still too sore to go on any real hikes yet, although I hope to do a few short ones in the next week or 10 days. So in the meantime, I thought I'd take a hike down memory lane, mostly in photos.

Four years ago, almost to the day, my brother and I joined a friend of mine for a three day hike in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains in New Hampshire. My friend Dick was 82 at the time and had been in the Whites dozens of times. For my brother and I, it was just our second time to hike up Mount Washington, the highest peak in the Northeast. Our first had been 40 years before when we were in highschool and our dad took us up. I decided it was time to do it again, to celebrate being alive 40 years later and to mark five years surviving lymphoma.

It was a fantastic trip. We slept in the huts and had great meals prepared by the AMC "Cru." Mount Washington's fabled "worst weather in the world" took a vacation and we had three glorious sunny and calm days. It was a trip I will always remember, and I share memories of it here in this link, in a series of 100 photos in a slide show, if you are interested. Enjoy my presidential memories!

I plan on doing it again. Hiking the presidential range and climbing Mount Washington again will surely be on my "Do It Now Decade" to do list! And I hope I am still hiking strong when I am 82!

What to do in My “Do It Now Decade”

Here’s where I would love some reader comments.

So, I just hit the Big Six-O! My friend Betty, who is 62, calls this the “Do It Now Decade.” Her line of reasoning is that the 60’s could be the last decade of your life where you are still vital and strong enough to really enjoy life. So if there are things you’ve been putting off, things you really want to do, then you’d better do them now. We could debate whether the 60’s is the last good decade of one’s life, but that is not the point. The point is that none of us really knows how much sand is in the top of that hourglass that we call our life. Sure, we can see all the sand piled up in the bottom – sixty years and two days worth in my case – but the top of the hourglass is painted the deepest midnight black. So don’t assume how much time is left – live it!Betty and two other friends bought me lunch today to celebrate, and Betty gave me a card and a tiny notebook with 80 pages in it. The notebook is maybe 2.5 by 3.5 inches. On the cover, she wrote “Art’s Do It Now Decade Notebook.” She said “Write down sixty things you want to do in the next 10 years, any order, anything. It might be something huge, or it might be a small thing – like visit a specific restaurant, write a poem. Write one thing per page, and as you do it, write some notes about it.”

I like this idea and started writing a few things in it already. It occurred to me that even though we assume we will live a full decade at age 60, nothing is guaranteed, so I may want to prioritize my final list. I also thought that there are definite categories of things that I would love to do over the next 60 years, such as travel, family, volunteer, athletic, personal growth, and outdoors to name some.

Since I love the outdoors so much, no doubt my “Do It Now Decade” list will have at least 15-20 things of that genre. It will take me a couple of weeks to list all 60 of my ideas, but when I do, I’ll share the outdoor oriented list items in this blog. In the meantime, what types of things would you love to do in the great outdoors in the next 10 years of your life? Take into account your interests, fitness level, finances, and time availability to come up with a list that is feasible for you. Make a blog comment to this post with the things you would like to do, or send me an email. Maybe I will get inspiration from things on your list and some of them will end up on mine!

I started my list today by writing on five pages of the little notebook. One of my initial five ideas is outdoors oriented – to backpack Isle Royale National Park again. There will be many more on there when I am finished.

Final Fifties Hike

The Big 6-0 comes roaring in for me in less than a week, closing out an amazing decade in my life. I decided, sore foot or not, that I needed to get in one last little hike while I am still fifty something. So I went to Maymont, a combination flower garden - wildlife display - landscaping - nature center - historic home property along the James River. I walked about two and a third miles, going at a nice, slow 20 minutes per mile pace. While this hike can't match so many of the ones I've done in my 50's - Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Glacier NP, Mount Rainier, White Mountains, Shenandoah - it was a nice little walk on a hot day, and a fun way to close out another decade of traveling on my feet.

My route is shown in blue. I started and ended at the upper left of the image. The red track along the bottom is part of last fall's hike along the Northside Trail and Buttermilk Springs Trail. (photos here). Maymont is fairly hilly, as seen by this elevation profile. The elevation range here is about 120 feet.

A lot of Maymont is open ground.

There are lots of beautiful flowers in the gardens here:

This nanny goat lives at the childrens petting zoo here.

I rarely get to see this gray fox, but he or she was out an alert today.

This great horned owl was somehow injured and cannot live in the wild.

The black bears here are very popular and have a huge enclosure. This point is meters from the Northside Trail shown in the map above.

There is a beautiful Japanese Garden here, with lots of streams and ponds,

some of which contain large coy:

One of the stately buildings on the property:

This hollow tree was large enough for me to comfortably lie down in, had I so chosen:

Visualizing a Hike

Two and a half months into plantar fasciitis, hiking is still out of the question unless I want to make it worse and put up with even more foot pain. So I thought I would visualize a hike on this pretty July day. On Independence Day, I hope that I can soon be independent of foot pain.

My first long hike after surviving lymphoma was to Rip Rap Hollow in Shenandoah National Park. This was in July, 2003, and was my statement that I was strong enough to hike again, even though the long uphill at the end felt like it was going to kill me. I’ve been back every summer since then to celebrate life and survival. This year, it looks like I won’t make it, so I will visualize the hike.

I leave my home early, and so arrive at the trailhead by 8:30. The morning is still cool at over 3,000 feet on the ridge line. I park at the Wildcat Ridge parking lot, lace on my boots, and shoulder my pack. As I step out, I am thankful to be walking without the awful heel pain that has been plaguing me for months. In minutes, I am hiking north along the Appalachian Trail.

I’m too late to catch the blooms of the mountain laurel that are so common here, but the cool green of the forest is soothing to the spirit. I keep my eyes and ears peeled for wildlife, but all I hear right now the is the call of a distant oven bird: “Teacher, teacher, teacher, …” Then, I hear the call of an Eastern wood peewee somewhere out in the green canopy. The trail undulates up and down, but is easy hiking all the way to the Rip Rap Parking lot, where the AT climbs steeply to meet the Rip Rap Hollow trail.

I leave the AT here, climbing some more and passing through a more open forest with some nice views at Calvary Rocks and Chimney Rocks. I pause and eat some GORP, and reflect on life for a few minutes. What a miracle it is to be alive! That this collection of chemicals that is me has emotions, memories, thoughts, feelings, wishes, dreams! We truly take so much for granted each and every day. I think back to my first time at this spot since cancer – how amazing it felt to be hiking, to feel well again, to not feel sick every single day for months and months. I bow my head a bit and give thanks.

I’ve come along a dry and sunny part of the trail as it descends steeply. I once came across a bear here. Staying alert, I am rewarded when a deer crosses the trail just ahead. It melts into the forest, and when I arrive at the spot where it crossed just seconds later, it is as if it the deer is invisible. I wonder how many animals we walk past on any given hike and never have a clue that they are there, yet we probably sound, and smell, like a huge and easily detectable being to them. I move along, the combination of the sun and lower elevation heating things up quite a bit. Then suddenly, I am back in a cool forest as the trail bottoms out.

As I walk along, I suddenly see the first water – a small spring. I’ve reached Cool Spring Hollow. It is so pleasant here, and quite the contrast to the hot and dry area just minutes ago. An old box turtle, some of the colored plates missing from its shell, pulls its head and legs into its shell, and closes up as tight as a drum. I always love seeing these increasingly scarce turtles! I leave the old turtle and move along, walking besides more and more water. There are little cascades from time to time, and it is so beautiful! I pause to admire the view from a little rise, and am startled by a crashing sound just behind me. I whip around just in time to see the black form of a young bear disappearing into the foliage. He had been gorging on berries just feet from the trail, and I never saw him!

My pulse returns to normal as I cross the now-wide stream several times, heading to the hollow that I love so much. I arrive at the deep pool, and because of my early start, I am the only person there. As much as I would like to skinny dip here, it is much too popular a spot, so I move into the woods and change into a swim suit. I come back to the pool and examine it. The moss surrounding it makes it look like it is encrusted with emeralds. Small brook trout swim in its depths as the sun glints off of their bejeweled sides. I slowly step into the pool, glad that I didn’t put on bug repellent that must be washed off first.

Man, is that cold! I move deeper – calf depth, mid-thigh depth. The deepest part is just ahead, and gathering my courage, I take a deep breath and plunge in face first. In seconds, my head breaks the surface and am nearly hyperventilating with the cold, but shortly after, it is more comfortable and I dive down to the bottom to explore it a little bit. The trout have vanished, although now and then, I can see one of them flash by at my eye level in the crystal-clear water.

I climb out of the pool on the other side, and wade up the stream that is feeding the pool. I look under rocks for salamanders and snakes, but find none. I once saw a water snake catch a trout not far from here. Returning downstream, I swim across the pool and climb out, sunning myself on a rock to partially dry. There has not been a soul here other than myself, which is very rare. After a while, I go back in the woods to strip and finish drying, put back on my hiking clothes, and reluctantly, start the hike out. I’ll stop for lunch along the way, because it is still too early to eat due to my early start today.

I hike along the last level stretch of this hike, along the scenic stream. I go slowly, looking for more bear, and making sure not to step on a timber rattler, which I once nearly did along this very trail. Eventually, I cross the stream again – there are several more crossings to go – and start the steep hike out up the Wildcat Ridge Trail. I’d love to see a wildcat, but never have, although I wonder how many times I’ve unknowingly walked near them in my travels. I stop along one of the last stream crossings to rest and eat my sandwich – peanut butter – and apple. With this setting that I am enjoying, a king would not have a finer meal in his palace.

After lunch, I continue the steep hike out of the hollow. It is a climb of about 1,500 feet back to the car. I watch for wildlife, but all I see is a garter snake that rushes away as I inadvertently disturb its siesta. I pause to drink from my canteen several times and take a few short rest breaks, but mostly, I just continue my hike out. It is a far cry from that first post-cancer hike in 2003, when it seemed I had to stop and rest here every 10 minutes. The body knows how to heal itself much of the time, if we do the right things.

All too soon, I cross the AT again, and minutes later, I am back at my car. My lovely virtual hike to Rip Rap Hollow has ended!

Fogbound in Maine

May 29. Well, this was not exactly an epic trip, but with my incredibly sore foot, it is probably the best I can do for a while. We were on a cruise with a friend for a week, from Boston to Montreal, and the second day out included a stop in Bar Harbor, Maine. We took a bus tour for a couple of hours that included several stops in Acadia National Park, one my favorite places in the world. One stop was on top of Cadillac Mountain, the highest point on the Atlantic Coast north of Rio. On a clear day, the views here are spectacular, but this was a fogbound morning in Maine, with visibility less than 200 feet.

There was a short and paved loop trail at the top, about a half kilometer. I was the only one on the bus to walk it. You could barely see a thing, but it felt good to have boots on the ground in Maine (home once in a past lifetime for a lot of years) once again!

You could see relatively clearly for maybe 20 feet, and after that shapes looked like ghosts. Because of the paved path, you really couldn't get lost:

Maine granite in the fog:

Even these pretty purple flowers were muted by fog:

Back at sea level, I snapped a shop of Bar Island. At low tide, as it is now, you can walk to the island across this bar that gives Bar Harbor it's name. It is a popular thing to do, as you can see. But stay alert, because if the tide comes in - 12 foot range - you'd better be able to swim in the 50 degree water, or you're staying on the island for a while.

No, I've Not Fallen Off the Earth

I've not fallen off the earth. I'm just not hiking. When every step with one's left foot feels like a nail is being driven into your left heel, it takes some of the pleasure out of walking and hiking. This plantar fasciitis is no fun at all, and I've missed prime hiking weather this spring.

Other than that, many visits to my sister Ann, and her death on Memorial Day - I will miss her until I take my final breath some day - have taken time and desire away from other things. But I have faith that ultimately, I will heal my heel, and get out racing for a cure and hiking again. With only 107 days until my 3-Day, 60 mile walk, it has to happen soon.

Until then, Oh to be Hiking!!!!!!!

Return to the Great Blue Herons

May 11. I'd walked an easy mile and a half yesterday to see how the plantar fasciitis would do, and it was not bad. I'd gone past the heron rookery on the James River in downtown Richmond, and seen lots of great blue herons out fishing to provide for their ravenous youngsters. So I decided to return today (May 11) with a camera. I also learned that a mile and half two days in a row was amazingly painful for my sore foot, and have taken it very easy since then, but that is another story. Here are some photos of the herons (and one egret) along the James, along with a northern water snake - the wild side of a big city. As I watched traffic zipping by in the distance over the I-95 bridge, I wondered how many of the drivers had an inkling what they were driving right by just up-river!

These little ducklings seemed to be frantically searching for mom:

Northern water snake sunning itself amid rubble:

Paying My Respects

I got up yesterday at 4AM to catch the 5AM train to Washington, DC for a one day conference. It was ending at 3:30, and the training coming back wasn’t until 7PM, so I knew I would have about two and half hours to enjoy in our Capital. So I took my newly purchased New Balance shoes, a change of clothes, a book to read on the train, a windbreaker, and my camera all stuffed in a little day pack. But what should I do? I came up with four options, considering I am having a lot of pain from my plantar fasciitis and should not be on my feet a lot. In order of low to high stress on my feet, here were my choices:

1. Take the Metro to a place with a nice outdoor café, and nurse a beer or two as the world goes by, then head to Union Station.

2. Visit one of the many great museums within a half mile of my seminar site – American History was literally across the street from the Ronald Reagan building. Then catch the Metro to a café for a beer.

3. Take the Metro to Woodley, walk a half mile to the National Zoo, and spend a couple of hours walking slowly around the zoo before walking back to the Metro.

4. Oh, the heck with this inactivity stuff! Walk about seven miles seeing some of the great sites of our Capital City, even though it might cause me a lot of misery and pain later.

I think you can figure out what my choice was!

So, where to walk to? Well, I decided to walk to Arlington National Cemetery – you will see why later – and see some of the sights along the way. Yeah, I’m an idiot, and Mother Nature is now telling me to stay off my feet for a while, but my seven mile walk was enjoyable and well worth it. Here is what I saw during my time in Washington before catching the Metro to Union Station at 6:00. With Memorial Day later this month, I decided to concentrate on memorials and monuments to our country’s warriors.

The Washington Monument is always an impressive sight. I wonder what General Washington would say, by George?
The World War II Memorial is always impressive. When you are a kid watching war movies, it makes war look kind of adventuresome and fun. The good guys always win. When people die it looks painless and very quick. Even the wounded guys don’t look so bad – a little blood on their shirt, give ‘em a cigarette, and they are fine. I would guess that in reality, war is a pretty awful experience. The collective sacrifice of our World War II Vets is staggering, and this memorial attempts to pay tribute to them.Words of Admiral Nimitz on the WW II Memorial:My Stepdad, Stuart Silverman, was a World War II Vet, serving in New Guinea. He got to see this memorial three years before his death in 2008, and I will never forget how emotional it was for him, and for the rest of us present with him. He stood and saluted this part of the monument – saluting his long-gone comrades in arms – his body trembling with the stress of standing there as an elderly and infirm man.One of our “forgotten” wars is Korea. My godfather, Paul Edwards, was a soldier in this war.I walked past the Lincoln Memorial. What would our country be like had we never had the “Great Emancipator” or George Washington?The “Wall” at the Vietnam Memorial is always moving. There was a note and photos there at one spot addressed to a long gone father – maybe a father never known – that was really sad. My older brother spent a year in Vietnam in the US Army. He visited this place with a friend once, who asked what he felt when he saw the “Wall.” My brother said he replied, “Truthfully, I’m just glad my name isn’t up there.”This poignant statue honors the nurses during the Vietnam War. It is one of two monuments I can remember – the other being the Civil Rights Monument in Richmond – that features a woman (and an African-American woman):I walked over the Memorial Bridge to Arlington National Cemetery. On the way, I watched this boat cruise up-river towards Roosevelt Island, a memorial to Theodore Roosevelt. This island has wonderful hiking trails, and if I had a few more hours (and two good feet) I would have headed there next. Where would conservation be in this country had we never had TR?By now, I had walked about four miles, and even at a much slower pace than my normal walking speed, back of my left foot was hurting with every step. But by this time, I was determined to walk into Arlington National Cemetery, for the main reason I decided to do this: to pay respects to a former neighbor: Shane Adcock.

When we moved to Richmond, Shane was our 13 year old next door neighbor. He was the nicest kid, always polite, never in trouble. He was a boy scout and went on campouts with his dad and his troop. He used to hop over the fence and come visit my water garden that I put in our backyard – he even added a fish to it. He went off to college at Longwood, became involved in ROTC, and got his commission in the US Army when he graduated. Eventually, he became a captain in the Army, and got married. Shortly after his wedding, he was sent with his unit to Iraq, and a couple of months later – in October, 2006 – he died when a rocket propelled grenade slammed into his Humvee. I have no doubt that his family will mourn his death for the rest of their lives.

Shane is buried now at Arlington, and I wanted to visit his grave and tell him that he is not forgotten by his neighbor of long ago. A beautiful bluebird sang and displayed in the sun near Shane’s grave. It was sad to look at this young man’s grave, and the so many tombstones near him, young men (and probably some women) killed in their prime in 2005, 2006, 2007.After paying my respect to Shane’s memory, I had just enough time left to hoof it up to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers and catch the changing of the guard. I have seen this ceremony before but not for nearly 10 years, and it is always impressive to see the precision of the soldiers guarding the tomb. From there, I walked 15 minutes back to the Metro, got to Union Station, and caught the train home. According to my pedometer, I walked 20,000 steps that day. According to my left heel, the number was closer to 200,000.

Egret At Back Bay

Usually, when I spot an egret, it flies when I get within 100 - 150 meters. But this past Sunday, as I hiked six miles in Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, one sensed I was no threat and just kept on fishing as I passed within 75 feet. I got some rare photos of this majestic bird. On my hike, I also saw coots, redwing blackbirds, Canada geese, a great blue heron (which flew), some type of duck, a red-bellied woodpecker, and the noses of many large turtles sticking out of the water. I heard, but did not see, a clapper rail - despite spending a good 15 minutes trying to spot him in the thick marsh growth.

My path involved the nature trail near headquarters, then a couple of miles down the West Dike Trail, where I left the trail and entered a wooded area for a short walk to the bay. It was in this area that I found the young copperhead almost exactly a year ago. As I walked along the nature trail, I missed a raccoon my mere minutes, as shown by his still-wet footprints on the boards of the raised path:

Red-winged blackbirds are a common sight and sound here:

I took many photos of the egret as it fished and looked for breakfast. Here are a couple of them:

A few feet in elevation makes a huge difference in habitat here, as shown by this woodland just a hundred meters from expansive marshland:

Wood Thrushes

Is there a sweeter sound than the melodious call of the wood thrush?

I've had a nasty little cold, but decided I needed at least a short walk yesterday, and I went back to Deep Run Park in the late afternoon to walk a single two mile loop. The trees are leafing out, and as I walked through the pleasant woodlands of the park, I tried picking out various bird song. One bird in particular stood out, the wood thrush. I don't think I have heard their song yet this year. They have a beautiful flute-like call. Beautiful to us, war-like and agressive to other male wood thrushes, and enticing to the females. I stood mesmerized for several minutes, listening and looking for some of the birds, which were well hidden in the forest. I wonder how many people walking and running along with headphones had any idea of the wonderful concert that they were missing. I love music as much as anyone - I am listening to Robert Schumann's magnificent Second Symphony as I write this - but also love Mother Nature's free concerts, whether it be the plaintive cries of the spring peeper that herald spring each year, or yesterday's wonderful wood thrush melodies.

This morning, I got up early, having not slept well from my cold, and walked four miles. Along the way, I came across a red eft in the path. He was maturing into a newt, because he no longer had the fiery red-orange color of a young eft. He was more of the olive-brown color that he will become as an acquatic newt, but with the little orange spots. I moved him off the concrete path so no one else who came along would trample him.

Happy Easter! This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!