April 10, 2023

A couple years ago, Annette and I participated in a Wilderness Volunteers (WV) project at the City of Rocks National Reserve in southern Idaho. Wildernessvolunteers.org projects help land managers maintain and protect the types of places that are special to us. They are the kind of volunteer activity we found very meaningful, and which we hoped to continue doing for many more years. Unfortunately, Annette’s cancer recurred shortly after our first project, preventing us from doing another.

This was one of my motivations to sign up for three WV projects this year. As well, this will also help to push me out of the house, meet new friends, reconnect with old ones, explore both new places and familiar ones, and help me create a new identity while engaging in activities meaningful to me. From a book I read on heartbreak (see New Years Eve post) I also learned that social and environmental connection, along with the ability to feel awe and experience beauty will help counter the feelings of loss and help me move forward into my life’s next chapter.

So, a few days after my last post in mid-February, my van packed up, I headed out to my first WV project of the year in Joshua Tree National Park. Our 11-person group spanned 50 years in age, from 38 (one of the 2 trip leaders) to 88! The eldest—Winchester (Win)—is a volunteer backcountry ranger in the Steamboat Springs area and had no trouble keeping pace with everyone else. Spending a week working, camping, sharing meals and enjoying evening campfires with these fine folks was very enjoyable, and I have many new friends; some of whom I will see on future projects over the coming years in different areas of the country. This project had us pounding in signposts that directed backpackers to backcountry campsites and cutting back the many thorny plants growing into the trails. It was a fun and meaningful way to experience the park.

Along the way to and from the project, I visited my good friends Scotty and Linden in Olympia, WA, Dave Sakoda—a friend from college I’ve known for nearly 50 years—on his sailboat in Coos Bay, OR, Annette’s nephew Collin in Tempe, AZ, her sister Lorri and brother-in-law Paul in Bosque Farms, NM, and her niece Sara and husband Mike in Sandia Park, NM. Though relatively short visits, the feeling of connection I have with these amazing people is so great for my soul. I was also blessed to have a colleague of mine from Wisconsin and her husband meet me for several days of hiking in Joshua Tree after the project. I hadn’t seen Cindy and Chris for over 20 years, so that was especially nice! I think it’s the first time we’ve hiked together, but hopefully not the last.

In between visits I also stopped in many other beautiful areas. In Death Valley National Park, I spent a day hiking in three different areas, and then watched it rain in the driest place in North America the following day. On the way back from New Mexico, I camped at the Little Painted Desert near Winslow, AZ, and repeated an off-trail hike in Petrified Forest National Park that Annette and I had done a couple years ago. I also camped at Canyon de Chelly National Park and Monument Valley and took in the amazing views of these areas. My last stop was in Arches National Park where I repeated one of the many hikes Annette and I did in this area four years ago.

As I drove down California’s central valley on the way to Joshua Tree, I reflected on Annette and my first trip together to California 42 years ago, how incredible new love felt and how exciting it was to begin our life together. As I visit and hiked in some of the many places we’ve been to over the past forty-plus years, I continue to be so very grateful for how magical and full my life with her continued to be, right up to the day she left this world just shy of 8 months ago. But I am also scattering some of her ashes along the way, so she is now forever part of these incredible places she so loved. These now include five National Parks (among other beautiful places)—Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Petrified Forest, and Arches.

Now it’s off in a few days to another project, more beautiful and amazing places, and visits with many more friends and family.

Darkness does ultimately make way for the dawn...

“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” ~Rachel Carson