Watching the Ken Burns national parks doc with half an eye. It’s all about Yosemite at the moment, a place where I spent one heartening summer, teaching children how to keep brown bears out of their packs and flush grody camp toilets with your feet.
John Muir is such an interesting man, someone about whom I would love to read more. I can remember telling the children I led through Yosemite that he died of a broken heart when they flooded Hetch Hetchy valley. That was part of the standard speech on how the reservoir came to be. I’m interested to see what Ken Burns has to say about that bit of melodrama. Tuolumne Meadows is one of the quintessential places. The hike to Yosemite Falls is one of the toughest this suburban chick has ever done. They keep throwing these place names at me, and memories flood. I feel guilty sitting here with a laptop. Soft. In those days I slept without a tent, just a sleeping bag under the stars. I had a cheap plastic travel mug which served as cup, bowl, plate; wore sarongs and camis with Chaco sandals EVERY SINGLE DAY; and spent my bleary-eyed mornings French braiding middle school girls’ hair while they gossiped to me about which boys were cute and who liked who. It was a pretty much completely terrific.
"Wildness is an essential part of ourselves that our ordinary lives tempt us to forget," says someone on the tv. They talk of being nerve-shaken, and overcivilized. High-flying rhetoric always gets my goat.
John Muir is such an interesting man, someone about whom I would love to read more. I can remember telling the children I led through Yosemite that he died of a broken heart when they flooded Hetch Hetchy valley. That was part of the standard speech on how the reservoir came to be. I’m interested to see what Ken Burns has to say about that bit of melodrama. Tuolumne Meadows is one of the quintessential places. The hike to Yosemite Falls is one of the toughest this suburban chick has ever done. They keep throwing these place names at me, and memories flood. I feel guilty sitting here with a laptop. Soft. In those days I slept without a tent, just a sleeping bag under the stars. I had a cheap plastic travel mug which served as cup, bowl, plate; wore sarongs and camis with Chaco sandals EVERY SINGLE DAY; and spent my bleary-eyed mornings French braiding middle school girls’ hair while they gossiped to me about which boys were cute and who liked who. It was a pretty much completely terrific.
"Wildness is an essential part of ourselves that our ordinary lives tempt us to forget," says someone on the tv. They talk of being nerve-shaken, and overcivilized. High-flying rhetoric always gets my goat.
Anybody else feel like going camping this weekend?