Love, Pure and Simple: Remembering Koa

Koa, the guiding star of our lives and frequently the star of this blog, loved Maine.  Florida’s extreme heat, profusion of venomous snakes, and beach regulations kept her life there fairly sedate.  In Maine, every chipmunk chirp was a call to arms.  She was free to plunge hurly burly through the pines and splash around in every brook.  What a joy to see that vitality unleashed.  She even took up paddle boarding.

One day, in the midst of this fun, she slowed down, found the shade of a red maple, and quietly passed away in my arms.  It was a stroke, and she was gone within minutes.  We have not yet ceased being shocked.  A family of two just doesn’t square in our hearts and minds.  It has been difficult to enjoy any of our usual outdoor pursuits without her, but we try anyway. 

Knowing that there will come a day when warm, happy memories will resume center stage, I am preparing a compendium of Koa’s many exploits.  For an emaciated, pregnant and near-to-death stray, she landed a glorious life.  We have expressed the true worth of this chapter in our lives in providing such a rich life for her.   

I will never forget the unclouded purity of love in her eyes as she gazed at me, or the way she would nuzzle my neck.  No one was immune to that look and she had many, many admirers.  Thank you to all of you who were kind to Koa.  Thank you, especially, to those who cared for her over these past seven years. Stacy, Donna and Tracy, Jan and David, Amy and Cess: thank you. 

Here are a few of the last photos we took of our “baby Moa”.  Safe travels to my best friend and constant companion.  Go get ‘em, Koa. 

New New Englanders

Summer in the other Portland:

one of its fine lighthouses, the miracles the sea works on ancient granite, 

a huzza of wildflowers, and a 1758 summer home on Swan Island (Aaron Burr slept here!).

Two days after returning from our western odyssey, it was time to drive 1900 miles north of Naples.  After a respite in North Carolina for some southern Appalachia mountain biking, we pushed on to Portland, Maine.  We call it “The Antidote”, in that it is a beautiful, coastal city devoid of traffic and rife with young people and good food.  It has also been a good base camp for weekend excursions to the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and northern Maine’s Acadia National Park.  New England is unlike anyplace we’ve ever been, every corner of the bucolic country dotted with historic villages, whitewashed churches and family cemeteries.  Nothing about the preposterously rocky and rooted trails – or local tales of bitter winters and black flies with the thaw – suggest this is an easy place to live.  But we are certainly grateful to experience the best of what the northeast can offer in a single season.  Wishing these summer days lasted as long as they seem to for children…

Hiking with friends through Berkshire meadows, careful to not trample the odd five-lined skink. Plus, an abandoned factory complex turned art and music venue.  Thank you, MOMA and Wilco.

Looking out on the islands of Acadia; 

freeing a damselfly from the carnivorous snares of sundew.

 High in the Whites, and a trailside discovery.

Whistlestop West

Grand Junction: cruising with my biker gang and taking in the verticality of 

Colorado National Monument.

In May, Danielle and I embarked on an ambitious three-week tour of the West in which we reconnected with nearly everyone in our circle.  It felt good to revive our wanderlust, and even better to soak in the unfailing love of our nearest and dearest.  Thank you to cousin Abbey for graduating high school and providing the impetus for our return.  Piecing together planes, trains, and rental cars, we made stops in Colorado, California and Oregon.  Forgoing the innumerable photos of smiling people with arms around one another, here are a few glimpses of the grand tour.  

Relishing that cold Truckee air, and high altitude bocce with Danielle's dad, JD. 

 

Back in the City of Roses, enjoying a Forest Park walk with my Dad, Mike.  

One too-brief night on the coast, reconnecting with friends.

Spring Fed

Gulf shore, Naples 

Injury and an exacting, mercurial work schedule kept Danielle sidelined, recreationally speaking, this spring.  Nevertheless, cool weather in south Florida is short-lived and I rushed to get outside before the humidity and monsoons returned.  Paddle boarding with friends (and their kids), floating gin-colored freshwater springs, and "mountain" biking.  Granted, Florida is the flattest state in the union, but the tailings of rapacious phosphate miners and the ingenuity of trail builders makes for surprisingly fun riding.

Silver and Rainbow Springs

  Building new trail through a swamp curtained in poison ivy.  

My (very) youthful guide to the terrain parks at Santos.