Changes I’m back after a hiatus (explanation below) and am making a few changes. First, I’m switching to a weekly rather than semi-daily Appalachian Trail journal to focus a larger portion of my daily writing time on more time-intensive articles and book reviews. This week’s journal brings me just past the halfway point, a fitting...
Once making that commitment, I feel unable to change course. Broadly, putting constraint on freedom, I believe, makes the journey more difficult and also more rewarding.
The Earth renews itself with fresh winds and rain. I returned from a lovely visit to Harrisonburg VA with my uncle, aunt, and cousin rejuvenated. The trail greeted me with rain and cool. Color swelled in leaves. Vigor replaced arduousness, vibrancy displacing a miry sky. A visit with family in Harrisonburg Shenandoah National Park is...
For now, we will experience a year or so of El Niño, which is like a short-term climate change preview. It gives us a rapid year-over-year increase in global average temperature, with the associated local consequences
Look left 2 months past. 2 months of traveling this well-trodden path. 2 months of chasing a dream, one of thousands on a great migration northward. 2 months and 884 miles lie behind, when I look to the left. 2 months of trail towns, of benefiting from the generosity of others, of forming relationships in...
On day 29, I wrote a post on national parks arguing that discounting our participation, particularly historic Native American participation, in natural systems harms and deludes us. I wrote another post making a related argument through the lens of Leave No Trace principles instead of national parks. I tinkered with this article for a long...
