Adventures

Nicatous Lake

Recently Dave and I were invited to a dinner party with some friends of his.  I was wondering who else might be there so Bob sent an email of the roster.  He mentioned the different people attending and offered a little bit about each one.  He spoke of an "adventure seeking couple" who would be there.  Dave and I were reading this email together and both of us were intrigued by who this couple might be and wondering what adventures they may have to share ... and then we read further ... this couple was us!

But, I guess, it's true.  I have been off on many adventures with this man in a years time. I grew up in Maine; spending my winters exploring the mountains of the Oxford Hills area and my summers with my face hovering over tide pools on the beaches in Scarborough.  But I have never really seen the Maine that Dave has started to take me to; the lakes and rivers of the north woods.

Quetzal

Growing up in that small town of Norway I would read National Geographic and become fixated with all those far off lands of turqoise colored oceans, dazzling exotic birds or snow-capped, jagged peaks of mountains.  I wanted to go.  My dad would say "you can travel anywhere in the world with a book or these pages of the National Geographic."  But I wanted to feel it.  I wanted to swim in that luxurious looking sea, to hear the caw of that bird and to stand in the thin air of those mountains.

Jim in the Himalayas

I met Jim Daniels when I was twenty one.  Jim shared with me that same adventurous spirit and he wanted to see these same lands.  Jim was the kind of man that when he put his mind to something it would come to be his reality. With his work as a photojournalist he began to travel all over the world where he documented the lives and struggles of the people of distant lands.  And I got to travel with him on many of these adventures.  I got to stand on a pass in the Himalayas at 17,000+ feet and feel the effects of that thin air in my lungs.  I got to watch the flight of the exotic Quetzal with its iridescent green and red plumage in the cloud forest of Costa Rica.  I got to swim with sea lions in the green waters of the Galapagos Islands and to hold the tiny hand of an inquisitive child of the Kachin people in Burma.

It was an amazing time with an amazing man and I hold all those memories very dear.  I accept how my life has changed .. or has it?  I am with another amazing man whose friend calls us the "adventure seeking couple."  And we are!  It's just that now I am exploring the exotic lands of my own state and country with a partner who finds adventure in every day.  I am camping on white beaches of quiet lakes and swimming in their silky warmth.  I'm bushwacking with snowshoes up ravines of mountains in western Maine and rafting the white waters of the Colorado river through its Grand Canyon.  I'm learning the different calls and intelligence of a family of jet-black crows who have decided to come to me when I speak to them.

I feel incredibly blessed for all this love, past and present.  I feel blessed for all the adventures I have had ... and for all the adventures still to come.

Loving you all back,
Mary