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Tea, museums and Ben Platt!

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 I will be leaving in 10 days for the longest trip of my lifetime. 3.5 weeks. London. UK by rail. Exploring Scotland. When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was travel. My biggest dream was to be a foreign correspondent someday and report on stories as I worked my way around the globe.  When we were raising the family, there wasn't a lot of time or resources for that.  So once the kids were launched, I decided to go after the travel dream... hard. In the last decade I have been to many places: France, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany, etc.  I have generally gone somewhere in Europe every two years and my list has been growing.  Much of it I have done with my daughters, some with Bob. But a good portion has been on my own. For this trip, I will be spending seven days alone in London and another week exploring the UK before Bob joins me for another 10 days in Scotland. If you had to ask me what I am most excited about this very moment, it would be Midnight a...
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It can be a real adventure ... having a life.

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    Sedona! -------------------------  The headline for this blog is a quote from "The World According to Garp." It has always stuck with me. And now, as I pursue adventure after adventure through travel, I often find myself smiling. The whole idea of pursuing adventure through travel got stuck in my head when I was a kid. In fact, I wanted be an international journalist (thank you, All the President's Men).  I wanted to report from Russia and travel the world.  Life had other plans, of course. I had a great career in journalism, politics, public relations and nonprofit leadership. And, in a move NO ONE would have ever predicted, I took about a decade off to be home with the kids when they were little.   So this affected the travel budget, as you could imagine.  I didn't really start pursuing the travel dreams until the kids were done with school. Since then, I have been to Paris, Rome, Venice, Florence, Prague, Lisbon, Seville, Vienna, Salzburg a...
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Surviving bad travel karma

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The last day has been... interesting. Let's start with Seattle.  I was booked on American (I know, I always do Alaska or Delta.  Now I know why?).  I was ready to depart for my adventure at 11 a.m. when we learned there were plane problems. Everyone was booted from 11 am until a flight at 8 pm, which would have really affected my short vacation. So I asked to be put on another plane, and they switched me to Alaska, leaving at 1:45.  That's when the fun began.  American made the arrangements and told me to go to Alaska (two terminals/subway away) to make sure it was all arranged.  I got there and no dice.  Alaska told me to go back and tell American it had not worked.  Two iterations followed, lots of walking and subway before I finally got it all squared away, after a lot of waiting in lines (I had to go to the back every time), lots of tense people, lots of tempers.  But I did it. I got on the Alaska flight.  But I decided to just go to...
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Grand Canyon, Here I Come!

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 One of the most amazing parts of teaching has been the fellowship I have found.  I have made friends, mentors, colleagues and advisors since I came to this profession late in life. I have found colleagues who help me with designing courses or people I go to when I need advice.  And I have also found PIC. PIC, for those who don't know, stands for Public Interest Communications. This is the field in which I got my Master's a couple of years ago. It's the field I am called to, where I have spent much of my career. And I have also found an amazing network of colleagues who also care about communications to drive change.      This is from the Petrified Forest - at the start of my trip! And... this same group gathers each May for the Public Interest Communications Summer Institute, when faculty from around the country gather to talk about the field, as well as catch up with one another.  This has become my favorite conference of the year. It has brought me...
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It goes so fast

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In the last several years, I have been so blessed to have wonderful adventures.  I have kayaked near Crater Lake, explored Europe, hiked in old growth, snowshoed.  I have seen some amazing things and taken a lot of photos.  But I don't know that I have ever seen anything as beautiful as Fern Canyon in the Redwoods. I have read about Fern Canyon for years and always wanted to visit.  I am still giggling over my visit earlier today. After a long and VERY bumpy road, you get to this beautiful canyon of green. Hikers walk around as if in a daze, taking in the canyons on all sides.  There's a reason movies have been filmed there.  Fern Canyon was the start to my day.  Then I went to Ladybird Johnson Grove, a beautiful old growth grove with a tribute to First Lady Johnson, who fought for the Redwoods. (backpack again for scale in photo below. Those darned trees are hard to capture.). Then it was off to the fabulous town of Eureka, which has a crazy beautiful...
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Lighthouses and turning garbage into art

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 I have always had a thing for lighthouses. And Oregon is all about their lighthouses.   Driving down the Coast of this beautiful state gives a person plenty of chances to visit these lovely old places. They all feel like they could tell stories.  I love how they are carefully maintained by their local communities and how each lighthouse lists all of the keepers who lived there.  In the last several days I saw the lighthouse at Heceta Head (near Florence.  The photo from far away feels very dreamlike, which mist shrowding the lighthouse. Today, I saw the lighthouse at the Coquille River (near Bandon) and the beautiful one at Cape Blanco.     Other trip highlights so far: I reunited with a couple of old friends of mine on the beach in Newport.  It felt really good to see each other after all these years (and yeah, it was windy out there!) I stayed on a riverboat in Newport, which was utterly beautiful. The fog rolled in while I was there. The ...
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An ode to pursuing adventure

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As I write this, the Oregon Coast is under a tsunami warning, linked to an earthquake in Russia.  And - get this - my hotel is as far out on the dunes as any hotel in Seaside, Oregon.  And I am on the first floor.  Facing west. Families are packing up and leaving, as folks are pretty rattled by the warning. I started to spiral a bit before the updated tsunami alert said we were talking waves about a foot over average. It is supposed to hit around midnight. Still, as I called Bob and we started crafting my emergency plan (pack up before bed and drive somewhere away from water to wait it out a bit), I cannot deny what I was feeling: It was adrenaline. I mean, as we age, we avoid risk. We avoid too much excitement or craziness. And sometimes, it means we don't have adventures anymore.   Haystack Rock this morning - a Cannon Beach treasure This part of the aging journey has always petrified me. I remember sitting in a Denny's when I was 21. I was studying with my be...
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