The directors of the Arboretum, where I spent a not-small amount of my childhood pretending I was an eagle making a nest, eventually retired and moved up to Colorado. As they were family friends, we would occasionally stop in to visit as we took trips around or past Dolores. On one such trip, we […]
When we took a trip to the Olympics during my study abroad in Italy, because the Olympics were in Italy, so obviously, we did a few events together such as following the landlady through traffic on her bike, attending and being the loud obnoxious fans at Olympic curling (my request), and wandering the . Olympic […]
As I ended up at the top of the Taiwanese Central Mountains frequently between both doing research there for my master’s degree and them standing in the way of my adopted family at Sun Moon Lake, I started to pause when I could and do some peak bagging. This started with HeHuanShan, a=the mountain […]
The summer after Italy, I was determined to rectify the small sore point that my parents, Brendan, and I had gone to Yellowstone without my sister. She was on her way to work in Crater Lake, and I was on my way to school…the long way. Instead of heading down to Tucson, we […]
Before traveling to a country that spoke a language I didn’t in Europe, I would pull out my trusty European Phrasebook in 14 languages my brother had given me and learn a few useful phrases like “I would like a ticket to______.”, “Where is the bathroom.” , And “I am looking for______.” While preparing for […]
My third year at BASIS Flagstaff, I was bait-and-switched into coaching high school cross country. We were starting a full athletic program, joining the state association that would let us compete in the regional and state competitions against other schools, and the cross country coach was looking for volunteers to help run with the kids. […]
My dad began taking me on exploratory adventures on the fair weather weekends for the last few years of high school. This was probably his way of spending some quality time with his last son before the graduation and departure for the great beyond. Who knew I would end up buying his house and live […]
As a twelve year old entrepreneur, I had the grand ambition of pet sitting for some spare cash. I made some fliers, walked around our neighborhood and that next to us, and found myself with three whole customers. That was ok as being a twelve year old didn’t lend itself to a busy work schedule […]