the Thursday afternoon #MINI post: #travelinyourownbackyard #travelswithmydad

Remember the #MINI post is inspired by the #MINI--short, fast and fun to drive. (And let's not forget easy on the eye.) Today's #MINI combines two of my favorite features, #travelinyourownbackyard and #travelswithmydad.

I have a theory (which is mine.) My theory (which is mine) says that that you can not escape problems by running away. All solutions come from within. This theory (which is mine) has a corollary: when you are searching for places to go, look in your backyard, because you have surely overlooked something right under your nose. This was certainly the case in 1999 when my father and I were attending a week long medical conference in Phoenix, Arizona. The lectures finished early in the afternoon, giving the attendees plenty of time to have some fun--as long as that fun didn't involve driving very far. My father wasn't actually attending the conference--although he did go to several lectures out of interest--and spent the morning researching our afternoon adventures. When class was dismissed, he was was waiting in front of school with the rental car, packs at the ready. There was even a snack for the car ride.

And off we would go. Dad would use car ride to go over the research he had done on the #hikeoftheday, and I would listen and nibble on Fig Newtons. Realizing I wouldn't be in the mood for making notes, he had prepared his own and left them next to the water bottles--which he had filled with water and plenty of ice. (What can I say: he was a great dad.) When we arrived at the trail head, we wasted no time because daylight was-a-wastin'. There was never any real worries--for me--as my father had already studied the trail map and calculated the best route for the remaining hours of light and the current meteorological conditions. And we enjoyed some great hikes, highlighted by the discovery of a shooting range for automatic weapons in the middle of the desert, dozens of rattlesnakes and scorpions, and the fact that no one--except us--hikes in Arizona without carrying a firearm. (We never learned why: I suspect there isn't any real answer.) And we say a lot of cacti--some as tall as silos. I would be remiss in omitting that we stumbled into a cluster of primitive dwellings guarded by rough-looking people carrying AK-47s, and I only barely talked my father out of cutting right through the middle of the compound. 'But that's where the trail goes.' We took the long way round and got back to the car in the pitch black, but without bullet holes.

When I got to talking with some of the local docs at the conference the next morning, I was surprised to learn that most had never hiked any of these trails; some had never even heard of them--and not one was more than 30 minutes away. One of our favorites, Camelback Mountain, was literally right inside the city of Phoenix. There is something about people that makes them poo-poo the things that they have, and build up the things that they don't. I will never understand it, because there are wonderful places everywhere you go, even #inyourownbackyard.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Father's Day Tribute to my Father

Image
It's Father's Day and, as usual, that means I think about my late father, and wish he was still with me. So, this year, I have decided to put my thoughts to words and publish them in my blog, if for no other reason than writing about him is the best way for me to spend some time with him, and I would give anything in the world to do that. My father was a deliberate and methodical person; when he used a particular word in a certain circumstance, it was because he had thought about the context, mulled over the way the word sounded, and considered the possible interpretations of the word by his audience before uttering it. (No, he was not given over to quick responses.) And if he couldn't think of the exact word he wanted, he would ruminate about it until the perfect word became clear in his head. If rumination didn't work, he even stooped to research--his favorite book was Webster's Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (you know, that massive thing you see in
Read more

More than Twenty Years in the Making: The Genesis of The Intern

Image
It was 2015 by the time I sat down to write the book that would eventually become my first published novel ( The Intern , TouchPoint Press, April 13, 2020) a solid twenty years after meeting the twelve-year-old boy who inspired me to write his story. Maya Angelou said that “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel,” and she was dead on, because I can’t remember many of the things he said and did, but I can remember, with complete and absolute clarity, the way he made me feel, the punched-in-the-gut feeling that has stayed with me all these years. It was the spring of my internship, April, 1994, and the skies in Syracuse, New York were leaden and grey, doing nothing to improve my mood which had become dour with the long hours, lack of sleep and the never-ending scutwork. I was on Pediatric call for the weekend, meaning that the never-ending scutwork had now been multiplied by four, and I’d just
Read more

June is National Crime Reading Month

Image
Hello All,  Sorry it's been a while, but I can explain... we have a puppy. Enzo Ferrari Hogenkamp has entered our lives, which are never to be the same again. But the show must go on, and June is National Crime Reading Month. So, I wrote a short piece about my new book, The Woman From Death Row (Tirgearr Publishing, June 2023.) And please don't forget to preorder the book,  Link to Pre-Order the book , which is only 1.49$ during the pre-order period, and sails to 5.99$ once the book is released. (It's also good for the book when pre-orders are strong, as it makes the book more visible on Amazon.) Anyway, can't wait for you to meet Jade and Mark, the main characters. Here's a little preview: People make mistakes. They fail, often epically. But they can also pick themselves by their bootstraps, get going again and redeem themselves, if they have the desire and the mettle to do so. By my way of thinking, there is nothing more dramatic than redemption, and no better way
Read more