2023 Has Arrived!

At Plateau Point, Grand Canyon, November 2021. Photo by Helen Ranney

A new year has dawned along with the realization that I have been remiss in keeping up with this blog. Blame it on the pandemic and its lack of travel, these uninspiring times, or whatever. I'm aware of it and not pleased either, especially when I look back at some of the detailed and lengthy posts I previously typed here (I simply will not post if there is nothing to say). And, I've also been contemplating what the next phase of this online blog might be? I think readers this new year (if any of you remain) will still see posts pertaining to my love of geology and travel. But I also anticipate more personal reflections. Let me explain.

While everyone seems to wish, hope, pray, and implore that this new year will be everything that the last few have not, for me it is something a bit more. 2023 marks the beginning of a long string of 50-year anniversaries for me that define the beginning my independent, adult life. For the next few years, being completely captive to my insatiable appreciation for the endless march of time, I will mark the the half-century anniversaries where I first took to some fantastic hitchhiking explorations across the continent, fell in love with river trips and backpacking, and living at and within the Grand Canyon.

What sparks this little introduction is my rather sudden awareness that it was the year 1973 - 50 years ago - that I took my first steps at being an adult, stepping away from my cherished place of origin in Southern California and began to explore the larger world that lay beyond the 'California Dream.' I've always been proud to be a native of California, where I could enjoy a childhood of outdoor explorations in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and the last of the area's orange groves. Me and my brothers caught wild frogs and fed them to our pet snakes. We rode our bikes across the entire width of our hometown and only came back in time for dinner. As a freshman in high school, I found a nestling red-tailed hawk that had become separated from its nest and raised it to adulthood. I was a child of nature in a burgeoning urban wave.

But by the time I graduated from high school, urban California had lost its charm. So, in 1973 I set out on the first of some really great adventures. I hope to share these stories with you beginning this year.

Thank you for hanging in there with me. And if this is not the reason you come here to this blog, I understand and will not be offended if you leave. But maybe this is the beginning of the story of my life.