Ten Thousand Islands

A still-water mirror en route to Lulu Key.  

At sunset, a sky pregnant with showers.

A nearly full moon made for a very low tide at dawn, and a chance to glimpse the temporarily-exposed domain of echinoderms and gastropods.

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I had the rare opportunity to ring in the New Year on a 3-day kayak camping trip through the Ten Thousand Islands -- a portion of which lies inside Everglades National Park.  Such an adventure requires acceptance, and tolerance, of biting insects, sticky air, the drone of passing boats, and the visual monotony of the countless mangrove islands.  But the rewards are many: the sound of forced exhales as sea turtles and otters surface, the escalating chatter of osprey overhead, the serenity of easy passage on a strong flood tide, a sky full of color at dawn and dusk, and the camaraderie of fellow paddlers.  

Over the next few decades, the sea will rise steadily. This, like Arctic sea ice, is an imperiled landscape.  To take it all in now -- at a quiet, leisurely pace -- was a privilege.  

Kissimmee Prairie

Koa is only a "bird dog" in the sense that she's very patient while we're birding.

Sunset with a strand of palms in the distance.

Sunrise and warm color on the Florida prairie.  

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Kissimmee Prairie.  Pronounced "ki-SIH-me".  As close to a wide-open, western landscape as you can find in Florida.  A former Air Force property, given over to equestrians, the odd hiker and the preservation of endangered grasshopper sparrows.  I had been feeling claustrophobic, hemmed in by commercial development, and lacking a sense of scale.  No vistas, no mountains in the distance to lift one's spirits.  So, the Florida prairie was a revelation.  To look out over miles and miles of untrammeled nature, to look up at a night sky ripe with stars, was like rising for a deep breath after a long underwater swim.  

Novelist and essayist Wallace Stegner wrote it is "not an unusual life-curve for Westerners -- to live in and be shaped by the bigness, sparseness, space, clarity, and hopefulness of the West, to go away for study and enlargement and the perspective that distance and dissatisfaction can give, and then to return to what pleases the sight and enlists the loyalty and demands the commitment".  

Stegner lived for a time in Iowa and New England to mature his writing, but he soon turned homeward to a region defined by aridity, expansiveness, and boundless (if sometimes short-sighted and ill conceived) dreams.  I am also a Westerner.  I'll never shake that enchantment.  A purpose and a calling brought me East, but I know it is not forever.  For now, I'm relieved to have found this prairie, and the feel of home.  

Making a Home in La Flowery Land

To everyone who has been checking here, again and again, only to find no news: my apologies and thank you for your patience.  For all of our friends, family, and well-wishers, I am hereby reviving this blog.

I had music professors in college who called me "The Wanderer", a less than complimentary nod to persistent tardiness and dissipative focus (and a reference to a Franz Schubert piece).  Now I feel proud to wear that badge, stitched to the center of my chest for all to see.  Looking back over nearly three years of posts, reflecting on all the cultures, the landscapes and the people we encountered, I am a lucky man to have learned so much so quickly.  Keep it coming.  There's more planet to see.

As for my silence this fall...  Danielle and I are forever optimists, not realists.  A change of career, a change of scene, some income stability to open a new chapter in our lives -- it sounded good!  In typical fashion, we underestimated everything about the transition: the epic cross-country drive, the not insignificant culture shock, the humidity, the loneliness of working and living apart the first few months, the demands of new workplaces, the difficulty finding reasonable housing, and on and on. Add to that Koa being badly wounded by an aggressive dog, and you'd forgive us for feeling unwelcome.

But all things ebb and flow, and on this balmy Christmas Eve I am happy to report, finally, that we are alive and well.  And I dig the new job.  I enjoy the students and have been busy crafting a number of ways to get them outside -- outside, literally, and way outside their work-a-day experiences.  I am also happy to return to this blog, for it has always been an exercise in gratitude.  Gratitude for this very unlikely life, for nature's terrifying diversity and dazzling splendor.  I seldom write, for the public, unless my heart is brimming with stories and affection.  Today I am feeling more muted, as this is normally a day for extended family, but I'm keen to see what awaits us in 2015.

It's that curiosity that continues to drive me and Danielle.  There are standup paddleboards in place of a couch in our new apartment, and Christmas Day will find us camping somewhere remote and unusual.  So, you can trust us to continue to amuse and surprise.  And I hope that your curiosity leads you to keep checking in, to stay in touch.

Micah

Enjoying the Gulf shore.

Exploring the water-logged mangroves.

Encountering the denizens of Florida's pine flatwoods and hardwood hammocks.

Harvesting the sun's bounty.  A warm retirement for Koa, and handfuls of oranges.

A subtropical Christmas; the tide's delicate ornaments.

  Happy New Year everyone!

The Air Up There

In light of our imminent departure for the flattest state in the Union, Danielle and I made our "60 Day Challenge" -- a pledge to play outside every day.  We have lingered in Colorado just long enough to get up to the highest elevations, and we've faithfully logged each day's adventure on our wall calendar. Just when fatigue is nipping at our heels, we remember the tundra bursting in blooms, or the staggering views from the surrounding peaks, and we head out again.  This month we also spent some time in the Crested Butte area (pictured above) and we both took downhill mountain biking lessons.  Danielle was a sight to see, suited up in armor and ripping confidently through the curves.  Safe to say it was the most fun we've ever had.

An evening hike near Gold Mountain, Ouray.

Relishing the diverse wildflowers, clean air and idyllic views at Blue Lakes (San Juan Mountains).

Backpacking in the seldom visited West Elks Range.  Tim mended his pack with rope and soldiered on, while loyal Koa was the liquor porter.  Even now, the morning light in the flower-strewn meadows and aspen groves lingers in my mind's eye.  

Cousin Ron and his son Ben, Aunt Irene and I took a long 4x4 journey over Baxter Pass, passing into a remote corner of Utah.  The Uintah Railway, the steepest and most ingenious narrow gauge railway of its day, used to snake its way up and over these cliffs, delivering my grandparents to and from the gilsonite mines.  We found the remains of the towns and the mines -- Dragon, Rainbow, Watson -- and used our photos and maps to pinpoint their stories.  Where they met, where they fell in love, where the lived together as a young married couple. Cement foundations, broken glass, buttons, bed springs, and an old stove constituted the meager remains.  But in simple act of standing there, sharing their view, my late grandparents came into sharper relief -- more real, more close.  Being in Colorado has helped me understand my place.  My place in a long continuum of love, birth, death and story.  In a word, home.

A new chapter is about to begin, but Danielle and I have any number of schemes to reside in Colorado part-time.  In her words, "it fits like a favorite t-shirt".  We'll be back.