“-est”… That’s how I’d describe Alaska. It’s the United States’ furthest northwest state, with the Aleutian Islands reaching further west than Hawaii. It has North America’s highest mountain – Mount McKinley - the largest national park, the largest national forest, the globe’s third longest river system, and the world’s largest sub-polar ice field. The state is larger than most nations: divided in half, each half would still make the largest state in the Union. Lake Hood, four miles outside Anchorage, is the largest float-plane base in the world. Alaska boasts the northernmost railroad, in Fairbanks, the continent’s northernmost town, Barrow, and the southernmost tidewater glacier, Le Conte. It’s the lightest, darkest and perhaps boldest, harshest, prettiest place on the planet.

I heard the groans and felt the snap of calving glaciers.

My first trip to Alaska revealed characteristics of the Divine I’d never before imagined. Laden with supplies, I hiked across spongy tundra trying to imagine empty-handed Alaska Natives dwelling for more than 3,000 years in what appeared to be useless, barren land. I witnessed a bold land of non-stop daylight, heliotrope flowers, soaring eagles, black bears, blond grizzlies, moose, foxes, Dall sheep, caribou, snow hare, jumping salmon, humpback whales, puffins, and more. I heard the groans and felt the snap of calving glaciers. I watched forty-foot tides sweep over the deadly mud flats surrounding Cook Inlet and viewed lingering evidence of the 1964 earthquake - the most powerful quake in North American history.

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A little knowledge can be dangerous, and when it comes to travel, I’m downright lethal. So I guess the opposite argument can also be made: ignorance is bliss. Why my travel companions don’t take away my navigation tasks is beyond me. Perhaps they don’t realize that I’m also blundering along looking for some recognizable landmark. I think they’re content that I lead.

I didn’t mind running with the locals when trains suddenly changed tracks. But there was one incident that I wasn’t prepared for.

A recent post I read here about how the low points of your travels are where your best stories come from reminded me of a summer I spent in Europe. I wasn’t new to travel, and didn’t mind staring at posted train times or running with the locals when trains suddenly changed tracks. I could figure out which trains would stop at which cities, and which were direct. But there was one incident that I wasn’t prepared for.

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I believe one way to turn travel into a more fulfilling adventure is to embark on a mission. I met Coloradan Lynette Collins at a book event, where she read an inspiring email she’d written about her recent mission to Honduras. She and her dentist husband had joined the East Chapel Hill Rotary Club of North Carolina for a medical/dental mission. Lynette kindly agreed to let me share her email here. The written content is unaltered, with the exception of a few words of clarification:

One way to turn travel into a more fulfilling adventure is to embark on a mission. A medical/dental mission to Honduras is just one of many possibilities.

LYNETTE’S EMAIL

Hi everyone!

I wanted to let you know that we returned early this morning and we are well… no malaria yet like George Clooney contracted in Sudan! Bozo. He should have taken pills and received his shots like we did!

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My decision to leave and travel around the world with a 13-year-old was not impulsive but directed. At the time, I hardly realized the impact on everyone who was involved with this journey. The gift of telling the story from my current perspective is interesting in that so much more of it is understood.

I truly expected this painting to fall apart by now, but it’s fine.

The date was September 10, 1997, and I will never forget the morning my husband dropped our youngest daughter and myself off at the bus stop on our way to JFK airport and the world. I had never traveled by myself or been out of the country more than stepping over the Canadian border one time. But when you know you have to do something, courage finds a place in your heart. We left with too much stuff and started a process of getting rid of things in Chile that lasted all the way to Thailand. I was traveling with a portable wooden easel and 20 pounds of oil paints. I didn’t realize when I left how hard it would be to find mineral spirits when I didn’t understand the language. It was a constant challenge in each country that we went to, but we were eventually able to find it every time.

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I set off on a five-day trek to see Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia, in the company of two perfect strangers… and everyone else on the crowded trails. I had heard of the pristine beauty of Torres del Paine, and the amazing view at the end, but the real reason I was on this trek was my determination to make my South American adventure a real adventure, not just about beach hopping and bar hopping.

I threw up in the washroom of the administration office, and began the 32-kilometer stretch to Glacier Grey.

So, after a few hours on an ancient bus, I hopped off at the trailhead, threw up in the washroom of the administration office, and began the 32-kilometer stretch to Glacier Grey with nothing but a backpack full of granola bars, instant coffee, a kettle, and a different flavor of rice for each night. And a camera, of course!

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In the spirit of adventure, as well as inclusiveness and hospitality, today I’m breaking with tradition and welcoming the first man ever to post on Girls Trek Too. Andrew Rooney is a fellow Denver author who loves to travel, and when he told me he had lived in Africa, how could I resist inviting him to join us here?

Spring Break in Cameroon
by A. Rooney

When we got back from our college recruiting trip to the south, it was spring break at the American University of Nigeria, where I’d been teaching since 2006. For my break, I decided to go to Cameroon, the country next door and just across from Yola, where the university was located. I borrowed someone’s car and talked two other teachers into coming along: Ward and Jean-Marcel. We took off with passports but no visas. “Who needs visas?” I said. “If they send us back, they send us back.”

For my spring break from the University of Nigeria, I decided to go to Cameroon, the country next door.

The idea was to rendezvous at the border with staff from the small wildlife college in Garoua, Cameroon. One of our crew was supposed to drop me and another teacher off when we saw them, but no wildlife college folks were there when we arrived, so we took the car on to Garoua.

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DRESS REHEARSALS

Adventures are like dress rehearsals for the real thing. I have spent my life careening from one adventure to the next - always looking for the next big trip to tick off my list. Whether climbing Kilimanjaro, trekking through Bhutan or scuba diving with sharks, I told myself that by taking great risk, I was learning to handle crisis. Of course, I never imagined the kind of crisis I might have to face.

Climbing Kilimanjaro, I told myself that by taking great risk, I was learning to handle crisis.

I told myself that perhaps if I kept moving, kept adventuring, those bad things would never find me. If I filled my life with chosen risks, then there’d be no room for the unwanted ones, as if each life had a danger quota. For years I convinced myself that by taking calculated risks I was actually forestalling calamity.

But that’s not how it worked.

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When I ask my friend Amy Callahan why she became a fire dancer, her amused look seems to say, “Duh, Cara it’s fi-re!” Aloud she says, “I saw some people doing it in a nightclub and I thought it was way cool. At the time, I was into fitness competitions and bodybuilding. I’m not terribly competitive, but I figured out I really like putting on a show in tiny costumes.” Add fire, and she finds the combo irresistible. “I get a kick out of making the crowd go, ‘Oooh! Ahhh!’”

Amy twirled batons as a girl, and she’s been a performer and athlete most of her life, including: a cheerleader, belly dancer, clown, yoga instructor, and swing dancer. So when she apprenticed with a fire performer she learned fast. Within a few weeks she was spinning flaming torches.

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When Indian activist Rita Banerji asked me to post an excerpt from my memoir on her blog, Gender Equal, I didn’t just feel humbled - I almost felt ashamed. Gender Equal seeks to raise awareness of global gender inequities. The blog is an initiative of the 50 Million Missing campaign, which is fighting female genocide in India. What could my book, about a Western woman professional empowering herself through a solo trek around the world, add to her mission? Then it occurred to me, it might offer hope: I enjoy a kind of freedom many women long for. It also occurred to me that I didn’t start out a fully-realized independent woman. At the start of my book, I was a victim of domestic violence. If you haven’t yet, I hope you’ll take this opportunity to read the opening excerpt from They Only Eat Their Husbands: A Memoir of Alaskan Love, World Travel, and the Power of Running Away. Then please read about India’s 50 Million Missing. If we want to empower other women, knowledge is a start.

Most of my friends are adventurous, with active lives, open minds, and generous hearts: they’re travelers, hikers, writers, photographers, dancers, activists, and more. Kim Kircher balances skiing, traveling, and writing - and gets paid for it. She’s on the ski patrol at Crystal Mountain in Washington, so at this time of year she skis, rides in helicopters, and sets off explosives for avalanche control. She’s an Emergency Medical Technician who has saved at least two people’s lives! Her memoir, The Next Fifteen Minutes has just been picked up by Behler Publications. It’s the story of how she applied the lessons learned in a life of adventure to help her husband through a bout with cancer. She’s fascinated with what adventure can teach all of us, and has asked me to offer my take on the subject. I hope you’ll head to her blog to read my guest post: What Adventure Has Taught Me. Then I hope you’ll check out the rest of Kim’s site. She’s amazing!