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| Plateau Point, Grand Canyon, November 2021. Photo by Helen Ranney. |
As the new year dawns, I realize that I’ve neglected to update this blog. Blame it on the pandemic and the resulting lack of travel, these tedious times, or any other reason. I’m aware of it and it’s not with any pleasure, especially looking back at the detailed and lengthy posts I’ve typed here before (I wouldn’t post if I had nothing to say). I’ve also been thinking about what the next phase of this online blog will be. In this new year, I expect that my readers (if there are any left) will continue to see posts about my love for geology and travel. But I also expect more personal reflections. Let me explain.
While it seems like everyone is hoping, hoping, praying and begging that this new year will accomplish everything the past few years failed to do, for me, it’s a little more. 2023 will be the beginning of a long string of 50 anniversaries that will define the beginning of my life as an independent adult. In the coming years, I will be celebrating the half-century anniversary of my first amazing hitchhiking expedition across a continent, my love of river rafting and backpacking, and my life in and around the Grand Canyon, all while being completely consumed by an insatiable gratitude for the never-ending flow of time.
The impetus for this brief introduction is the sudden realization that it was in 1973, 50 years ago, that I took my first steps as an adult, leaving my beloved hometown in Southern California to explore the wider world beyond the “California Dream”. I have always been proud to be a California native. My childhood was filled with outdoor adventures in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and the last remaining orange groves in the region. My brothers and I caught wild frogs to feed to our pet snake. I crisscrossed my hometown on my bike, only to return just in time for dinner. As a high school freshman, I found a red-tailed hawk chick that had strayed from its nest and raised it to adulthood. I was a child of nature, raised amid a burgeoning urban tide.
But by the time I graduated from high school, urban California had lost its appeal, so in 1973 I set off on the start of a truly amazing adventure. Starting this year, I want to share these stories with you.
Thank you for sticking with me to the end. If this isn’t why you came to this blog, I understand and won’t be offended if you leave. But maybe this is just the beginning of my life story.
