As my body heals and I feel ready for more adventures, I decided that I needed a new experience, so I flew to Costa Rica for the month of April to take a Spanish language immersion course through Maximo Nivel. Ever since I started traveling overseas several decades ago, I have been self-conscious of the... Continue Reading →
March 20th marked the vernal (spring) equinox, the transition from winter to spring, observed by approximately equal lengths of day and night. Nature uses winter as a time for plants and animals to withdraw from the world, with its scarce light and resources amidst the cold, and turn inward to conserve energy and rejuvenate. The... Continue Reading →
North Carolina has 41 state parks. At least a dozen of them are close enough to my home for day trips, so I occasionally choose one for a motorcycle destination. Whether on two or four wheels, I typically will do a hike while I’m there. With the gorgeous recent weather, I’ve visited five of them... Continue Reading →
I’ve been watching the leaves turn yellow to brown, and then slowly drift down from the huge poplar tree in my back yard. The dogwoods are taking on a red hue and will soon shed their leaves, almost as soon as the poplar tree is completely bare. The hummingbirds have stopped visiting my feeder, and... Continue Reading →
I took a deep breath and asked the question out loud that I had been asking for months in my head. “When can I ride my motorcycle again?” I had really behaved myself with post-surgery restrictions for the last three months. I’m not sure the word “compliant” had ever before been used in the same... Continue Reading →
My hip replacement recovery is coming along quite nicely and I’ve been feeling the travel itch strongly lately. I’m not cleared for motorcycle riding yet, so I figured 4-wheel travel will have to do, and set out west. My ultimate destination was to attend an Army friend’s retirement in San Antonio. Might as well add... Continue Reading →
It’s been three weeks since I got the first after-market part installed in me! I’ve heard lots of hippies (total hip replacement recipients 😊) report waking up from surgery in less pain than before the procedure, but that has not been the case with me. The pre-surgery pain emanating from osteoarthritis and bone-on-bone grinding has... Continue Reading →
I blinked, and a couple of months passed! I had lots of visitors and adventures in June and July, but the biggest update is that I got a new hip! The surgery I had to repair my hip four years ago didn’t really work, so the only thing left to do to relieve the pain,... Continue Reading →
How do you memorialize the fallen? If you ask 100 different veterans, you’ll get 100 different answers. Like every other demographic, veterans are not a monolith. We may have some common stereotypical traits associated with people who’ve served, but our experiences, and interpretation of those experiences, vary greatly- especially with the passage of time. Some... Continue Reading →
I knew better than to attempt riding down to Key West on Friday thru Sunday, so I completed all my Everglades area adventures throughout the weekend and enjoyed a leisurely Monday morning departure. What a great call that was! I encountered none of the parking lot traffic on US-1 that I had been hearing about... Continue Reading →
FitHippie Adventures 