A blog post at last

Hello from your long-lost writer and many apologies for the months of silence. I last left you in France, an eternity ago, and certainly have some catching up to do.

After spending most of the summer of 2017 shepherding Upwards from tender manuscript to the polished published version, I promised myself that the summer of 2018 would be for travel and adventure. Let’s see if my promise came true!

John Meader snapped this picture of me during his photography workshop at the Maine Canoe Symposium. Nursing some bruised ribs, I did not get out on the water, but enjoyed both presenting and learning, as well as trying out my new camera, a Canon point and shoot that can zoom to 25X.

As school ended, I headed south, to camp in Shenandoah National Park with my kids and extend my book tour into the Adirondacks. Waterfalls in full torrent joined several bears in making this a memorable visit. Driving in along the Skyline Drive, a curious cub stood watching from some tall grass, just a quick connection, then I was past. A mother with two cubs, in steadily growing rain above Dark Hollow Falls, and later a lumbering, unconcerned young bear right on the manicured gravel-and-bench civilization of the Limberlost Trail made my week. We hiked, made pizza and peach cobbler in the reflector oven, and wisely retreated home one night when it simply poured.

Our family has not been blessed with any babies for around a decade, so we were thrilled to discover we had a new little cousin on the way. Stopping to see the mother-to-be in NJ in June, I brought some of my family’s favorite books, of course!

Epilogue – We welcomed Emmett Archer into the family on September 22, 2018! 

July was intense. At last, after three long years, another expedition was on the calendar. A combination backpacking and canoeing challenge, it would prove to be the heart of my next writing project. Off the grid most of the time, I chose not to blog, but promise to share the story in detail with everyone who has been hoping for another book.

 

Then, of course, there is the thrill and pull of the author life. I’m still in love with it and there’s no end to the stories that I could tell. Meeting thru-paddlers and people who’ve climbed Everest, famous authors and readers with heart-wrenching stories of challenge and loss. I loved my recent review in the Adirondack magazine LOCALadk, by J.T. Hall, whom I met at the Adirondack Paddlefest back in May.

(Proving that my life is way too busy, I had scheduled this post and not quite finished it, when it posted itself right on schedule this morning. I promise…more soon!)