Newbies on the Kootenay

Having been a fan, in my youth, of many a water flume ride, I often wondered if white water rafting was merely a few degrees higher on the dial of the same animal, or an entirely different adventure, not the least because it was off a metal track and in the open outdoors.
I now have [...]

Stumbles with bears

Recent flashback in the woods:
It was our second day of hiking in Glacier National Park. In the morning we’d tooled around the west side, what I like to call the “smooth stone side” of the tectonic plate collision. Much of this was on a raised, wooden platform that curled through enormous cedar trees. We had [...]

Cherries jubilee

It sounded like a fun little outing, going to our friend’s aunt’s house, an hour away, to pick cherries. I think of things like picking strawberries, down at one’s feet, where I can walk away whenever I think I have enough, or picking blueberries, right at torso height and brambleless.
Cherry picking is not those things. [...]

Your car is your cage

Driving from the east coast to Walla Walla, we stayed in all manner of hotel accommodations. The overdone casino hotel on the reservation in Niagara Falls to the bare but tidy room in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, we had pretty much seen it all, or so we thought. Spending one night in the lodge on McDonald Lake [...]