Lake Padden

It was a beautiful fall. The summer went late. I was swimming in the sound and in the lake through September. Now, it's raining, although yesterday a sunny day. I walked to Marine Park, followed the railroad tracks to the dog park, then back along the inner-urban trail to Fairhaven.

I'm a sorry wanderer, I guess. If it's very rainy and windy, I won't go outside. I remember having to shove the cats out and then once out, Ozzie hanging close to the glass door, looking in at me with pathetic eyes. Well, it's the same for me. I did buy a new hat, and I do own a raincoat--not rain gear, just a coat that looks fashionable and repels rain. It's a must around here.

I've decided on a trip to Spokane for Christmas, spend some time in the snow. Perhaps buying snowshoes would be a good thing. I have skis from the 70s. They're pretty funky now, but still keep me on top of powder snow. Snowshoeing last winter was a first for me. It was strenuous an the next day, I was beat. Now, I'm in better shape, so maybe, some long treks are in order.

David is in Antarctica. The weather there has been extreme. Blowing sideways snow and very cold. He has to bundle completely, face covered, doubled up mitts. And still, it's cold out on the ice, standing there as a guard to the penguins for 2 or 3 hours. Yikes. Me baby!

I admire his adventurous nature and would like to have a little more of my own. I've decided, I'm just plain scared, a lot of the time. I mean, even to go to Post Point along the tracks. Why a train could come. I'm one of those folks who does the worst case scenario thing. Always something could happen. But--you don have to be prepared, right? I mean, driving across the pass and the snow and ice, etc. You could go off the road. There could be an avalanche. These are real things and they do happen. I had a friend lose both parents in an avalanche. They were asleep in a winter cabin, snow came down the hill behind them. With that in mind, I have agreed to go sleep in a snow cave on Mt. Baker. Stupid? Maybe, but David has done it many times and says he will protect me. Which means, I guess, that he wouldn't dig the cave in an avalanche area. What about cold? What about getting up in the night to go to the bathroom? What about...?

Anyway, it's adventurous even to go shopping--especially on Black Friday. You're not getting me out there.

My next plan for travel is to go to Hawaii. There are some birds there that can't be seen anywhere else in the world. This seems like the type of adventure I get sink my teeth into. So off to somewhere warm, probably not immediately, so will have to do winter for awhile. I'll let you know how it goes.

Peace,

Traveling Nan

Chain Lakes at Mt. Baker

In the mountains there are these tiny lakes that are fed by melting snow. A set of lakes that can be easily walked around, a path leaving from the parking lot up by where the groomers park at the Mt. Baker ski area. The higher parking area, up by Artist point, is now closed. There has been 6-10 inches of snow recently, but on Saturday, there'd been enough warming for the ground to be mostly bare. My friend and I walked around the lakes, staying height on the right side, which I suppose would be east and then across a snow field at the end, and then back on scree--which had a light skiff of snow on it. There were these cute little pica prints all over the snow. Wow, a beautiful day, not a hard hike, getting over a cold, but a nice time with my honey.

I'm thinking about some changes of the heart that have occurred for me over the full moon. The biggest thing is realizing how my mother, who I believed was weak, really had no choice in how she lived. She was married to a man who was very controlling. This ended up being a life sentence for her, since her "daddy" and that's what she called him, was in charge, high up in the military, and believed children where to be seen not heard. So I'm guessing, me be a rebellious child, didn't go well with the men who she picked. I'm sure they were all men in control, and me being the rebel, had a big struggle to overcome. I've mostly overcome oppression. She never did.

What does this have to do with travels? Well, travels for me are physical, emotional, and spiritual. Recently I hiked around a reflective lake in the mountains with my new backpack on my back. I ate mountain huckleberries that had frozen and thawed, and froze again. They tasted just as delicious as when they were firm. What fun, November and eating huckleberries. In the mountains, the noise in my head drops away. I'm sensitive to the car noise, train, bus, even the wi-fi that is everywhere in Fairhaven. Anyway, the mountains give me a reprieve from noise in and around me. I can think straight, which is what my mother always said.

Freedom. This is important for an Aries. Freedom from oppression. Freedom to be who I am, authentically me all the time. It feels right when I can do it. It feels wrong when I let myself cave, to shape with what someone else wants.

So other hikes? Recently I made a trip up to Fragrance Lake and back. It was a pretty easy climb for me, although four years ago, before Pilates, I had trouble with it. My knees hurt like crazy on the way back down. We can get better. We can get stronger, even as we get close to 60. Just get moving, that's my hit on it all.

Okay then, what are you doing to change and heal your life?

Peace,

Traveling Nan

Sunny Mountain Day

Th

at's Mt. Shuksan in the background and that's David--I didn't realize he was so tall. We are looking at Mt. Baker, just finishing up a hike along Ptarmigan Ridge. You know the Ptarmigan is brown grouse-like and turns white this time of year. A camo for the winter months. We didn't see any, unfortuately.

We hiked about four miles, which is very short for David, for me--well, I'm getting used to longer hikes. I'm finding with any of these traveling hardships: sore muscles, bad weather, heavy pack, wet socks, you have to grin and bear it. Dad always said that to me as a kid, but I thought it was wrong. I've felt for some time we need to feel all our feelings. Of course, that's true when doing healing work from years of abuse, but in general, I think I've needed more of an attitude shift than anything. Yes, just not thinking about the suffering makes for less suffering. If this is true with all suffering, perhaps the goal of not thinking is what makes Buddhism work. Just meditate and keep going.

Well, just blabbing here as usual; I'm doing Pilates twice a week, probably mentioned that before, but strengthening the shoulder girdle has helped me to carry a pack and when I fell on the trail--my feet went out from under me on a slippery gravely place, I ended up in bridge pose, catching myself with one hand. I was impressed, not a sore muscle resulted from this fall. Strong core, strong shoulders, strong back--well worth the days I'd come home and flop on the couch, exhausted.

Hard work is tiring--perhaps I was just allergic to the hard work. Maybe my mama, from the south you see, taught me to be prime and proper and prissy. She would hardly venture outdoors, let alone walk in the woods where flies and mosquitoes might bite. Me, I'm an adventure girl now and I've got an adventure boy, and he doesn't stop--so either I keep up or I'm going to sit home and whine about my flabby condition. Voting for staying in shape here at 58. How about you?

We had another adventure after this one. Out in the San Juan Islands. More about that later.

Peace,

Traveling Nan

09-09-09

Hi Everyone,
I thought this would be a special day, and it is in someways. My sister is coming to visit from Spokane, which has only happened once before. We'll have a little dinner out with my daughter, son-in-law, and grandchild. My family gets together about once a year. I used to think this was terrible and would complain about it. Now I think it is what it is. I love them all, that is the most important thing.

And it is a special day in that I'm cooking tomatoes from my garden into soup. Nice homemade tomato soup. Also, I will have a good Italian dinner tonight. That is special.

I've been thinking today that it is important for me to get back to my art. There is a place in me that hurts because I don't do my art now. I talked to an artist friend yesterday and he was encouraging that I do art and throw it away. This feels right, so there isn't the thing about making something that someone wants, just making something. Friday I will do art. I promise.

So David is on the ship outside of Greenland. He just stopped in, in his thoughts, which I love to see. There are deep fjords there and the possibility of spotting whales, although I don't think they have. (This is me in my Icelandic scarf--fast forward photo taken after David returns.)

Here is the latest wildlife report:

"Sun is still shining in our Hearts and outside here too. Cruising through the icebergs (mongo, even by Antarctic standards...), brash ice, and red rock hilltop with Peregrine Falcon, eyrie! Male sitting on the scrape as the sun rose and a juvenile male food soliciting perched up the red cliff face above the icebergs, sea and some of our zodiac cruisers. We hiked up top and spotted ten predated Pink-footed Goose eggs, Ravens (2) flying about chased by Grines, and lovely red birch leaves low, almost vine-like on the ground along with orangey/yellow Willow leaves. Zodiac cruised afterwards among the white giants. Dimpled like golf balls, blue ice veins, oxygen escape route grooves, etc, etc. Massive caves, seracs, underwater shelves, etc.."

I can imagine this landscape, and in fact looked it up on Google Earth. Fantastic. Now to plan some travel for me. I'd like to see some unusual and awesome landscape. In the mean time, I'm looking hard at what is around me. The leaves are turning, the sunsets are purple and orange, the rain is soft, the sunflowers are bent over. It's splendid, really.

So 09-09-09 is special because my life has fallen into place.
Peace,
Traveling Nan

Hiking

Here we are on Skyline Ridge. Just a few days after David returned from the Arctic. He was a strong hiker, compared to me, and I didn't have jetleg. I'm working on getting stronger, through Pilates and daily walks. It was a foggy day, but I loked it. We took lots of photos. David was dissappointed by the fog since he wanted me to see Mt. Baker. I've seen it before, I know it would have been breathtaking, but I was happy to be hiking and be in the silence.

Before he returned from the Arctic, I had a dream one night that a polar bear was chasing me. I had a bowl of candy (I admit to my sweettooth) so I threw bars to him. That distracted him and gave me enough time to get away. I told David about this dream and he said, "That's some dream... sounds like the nighmare I was having before coming here... Ya done good gal... throw 'em something to satisfy their curiosity, shout loud as you can, get to high ground (my plan was also to throw rocks hard)... that said, if they are on the shore, they are getting hungrier by the day and if old or young, may attack without warning! Theyare very unpredictable. There are signs to watch for, but they are not100%. We had an old male today who kept us from landing at Discobukta (Kittwake Canyon). We tried for some time, but he would not leave, so we did."

I heard a mainland bear story lately, a food bag not hung high enough in a tree. The bear just reached up and swiped his paw over it, riping it open. All there food was gone, except for canned goods. They were on a 10 day hike, kept going, ate little. Dangerous.

I've been around a lot of bears, mostly black bear in norther Idaho. They want the food and come down lower as the berries run out or if it isn't a good berry year. People think they are cute, but they are dangerous and making a lot of noise, getting real big, and going the other way is the best bet.

David is back in the Arctic now for two weeks, then home until November. We're planning another trip when he returns, this time perhaps to a cabin somewhere. In the meantime, I'm tending my garden, the last of the summer bringing on a lot of tomatoes and squash and beans. Nice! And swimming still in the bay. What fun!

Peace,
Traveling Nan

Me on Skyline Ridge

It was a foggy day. We'd planned this trip while David was away in the Arctic above Norway. I kept looking ahead at the weather thinking it would be a sunny day for our hike. It wasn't. At least not up above in the mountains.

We car camped on the way up to Skyline Ridge, off the road in a green clearing with lots of ferns and blackcaps and alders. It was very pretty and very quiet. It's so noisy here in Fairhaven, that when I get to the quiet, it's astounding, and I sleep deeply although I'm only lying on a small air mattress in the back of a truck/camper.

By the way, credit for this photo goes to David P. Drummond. He's not only an excellent guide, both camping and hiking, he's also a great photographer. And an amazing thing has happened since we've been seeing each other, I've been photographed. Now this is interesting, because there are lots of photos of me and home movies from when I was growing up. But I got to a point where I just didn't want my picture taken. I was angry, see. Angry over the way I was getting badgered as a child and teen. Emotional abuse. So when I had my picture taken, I just looked beat down, dull eyed, sad, mad, etc. But now, well you can see that hardship and healing can rejuvenate the soul.

Enough about how I look. How do I hike? Slowly. I take a Pilates class once a week and have good strong abs. I walk everyday, sometimes an hour, sometimes not. But I live in a place where I walk to the store and the bank, etc. So really, I walk everyday. I'm in pretty good shape, but my stamina is low. I don't know why. Sometimes I think it was because I was raised with smokers. You know, all that smoke in the car with the windows rolled up, all that smoke in the house. Too bad for my lungs, but hey, here I am building my stamina. What's to complain about.

On this hike we stopped for me to catch my breath and wipe away the sweat. I don't have all the gear; you need gear that isn't made of cotton. You need for the sweat to dry quickly, and cotton holds the wet against your skin. Very dangerous. I don't have a good pack, nor do I have a great coat. The one I'm wearing in the picture isn't bad (from the thrift store) but it is a little big and there is no lining. I just wear wool beneath if I need to be warmer.

We hiked along the ridge through the fog and I used my magic to bust the clouds, but it didn't work well, although once the clouds parted a bit. It was pretty, a glacier in the distance. I really know what Eckhart Tolle means when he talks about being in the now, because it is hiking and kayaking where I've experienced the brightness of detail, so keen the leaves and grass and water. All because I'm completely present. A state I'd like to be in more often.

Okay then, the next trip is to Lummi flats for a bicycle ride. This is after David returns from the Arctic, as he is back there now, doing his last 10 day cruise of this season.

Happy travels,

Traveling Nan

Kayaking: Silver Lake, Bellingham Bay

Ah, after awhile there is not a you, just gliding along the water. You are the water. That's what David said, or something like that. He's very experienced at kayaking. Me, I'm new. I would say I was very aware of the cold, the wind, the workout on my arms and upper back. And I could tip over, and I'd had the drill, what to do if I fell in. But what would it truly be like? Going overboard?

It's the same with healing, I guess. You never know what it will really feel like to lose someone, to go through changes with illness, divorce, moves, etc. The recent changes I've been through have left me at an interesting place. I'd say being empty is a good thing. Although at first I interpreted it as a bad thing. Really, it is where all possibility comes from. Being empty, Tableau Rosa, a blank slate. You can write anything on it. What I want written on my slate is an open heart. I want folks in my life who don't push me to fight, that I don't need to compete with, who give to me as I give to them.

I remember my dad preaching that, give to others as you want them to give to your, or something like that. But that isn't what he did. So how do we learn better behavior? Perhaps giving from the water where everything feeds everything else. Where the nourishment of life is a given. Here I am now ready to kayak again. I've been three times, I think. Each time I've done a little better. And with my Pilates workout, my arms and back and core are strong. That's what it's all about, you know.

Keep having fun. I'll be traveling soon with David and will have more to tell you.

Nan