On the Eve of a Road Trip

Tomorrow, I get on a couple of planes and head south to Alabama for a series of work related meetings next week. I've been feeling quite rushed in my daily practice over the last couple of weeks catching up after the Christmas holiday, so I'm planning on trying to keep things as low key and focused as I can next week.

In spite of the rush, I got in just a touch over the required distance I need to keep just ahead of the threshold goal for the month. I covered the eleven mile distance all in one shot, and although the pace lagged what I'd like, a nagging tendon irritation in my left foot seems to be waning. It was good to cover a medium distance all in one go, and I really feel like it's getting to be time to practice a relatively long day sometime in the near future.

In addition to the format, the temperature was quite a bit more temperate than it was earlier in the week. There were even hints of blue sky which is always a welcome surprise this time of year in the Mid-Atlantic region.

College Creek Reflecting the Hint of Blue Sky

I have really grown to appreciate the quality of the reflections on the water from in this part of the world when the air is calm. I've heard it said that the master painters used to travel to the Mediterranean because of the quality of the light. My own theory holds that it was the quality of the beaches and Spanish and Italian women as well as the wine and that the light was just a convenient excuse. My own hypothesis aside, if it truly was the quality of the light, I suspect they would have found the same sort of effects here in the coastal Chesapeake regions of Virginia and Maryland. The proliferation of calm water really amplifies the effects seen in the sky and add a richness to the natural lighting that I've only seen duplicated in Hawaii and Key West, FL.

It is a wonderful thing to be treated to the riches of nature on such a regular basis, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to experience it. 

Gratitude Friday

The last three posts took  a bit out of me to get down on paper, so I think I'll keep this one pretty short. I started off several weeks ago with the best intentions to keep one day a week for listing things that I'm grateful for to make part of my recurring practice.  I've not kept that up the way I intended, so I'll try to kick start that habit again today.

Night on the Anacostia with the USS Barry

I am grateful for my health that I enjoy today. Being relatively healthy is foundational for my walking, and the fact that I enjoy that health has facilitated my ability to see so many fantastic things over the last year. It's a blessing that I too often take for granted and is far from assured.

I'm grateful for my living arrangements. The fact that I was born here in the United States is another one of those things that I find all too easy to take for granted. If anyone should know better, I should since I've been afforded the opportunity to travel at least a little across most of the rest of the world. Africa and Central Asia were particularly eye opening experiences. We live in an incredibly wealthy and safe country compared to millions if not billions of others who can only dream of the advantages we enjoy just by the luck of the draw on where we are born.

I am grateful for winter. The cold is refreshing and it keeps the mosquitos at bay. If we're lucky we'll get at least one good snow storm to allow for some sledding. A good fast toboggan run is an experience that should not be missed if the weather makes the least move to accommodate it.

Night on the Anacostia with a Barge Crane

Finally, I'm grateful for reliable transportation, even when it is just the feet attached to the ends of my legs. In just a little over a year, I've walked a few miles north of 5000, and the things that I've seen and experienced during those travels have been luxuries of the first order.

I'm grateful for good shoes for obvious reasons.

Today was another fantastic day, and I look forward to seeing what tomorrow may bring.

Endings and Beginnings

Today ended well.  I caught the distance to keep my threshold goal for the month on track, and the 33 degree weather this morning seemed balmy compared to the last couple of days.  I walked my normal routes, and the day unfolded along the standard lines.

Night on the Anacostia with the USS Barry

It was a rather unremarkable day when viewed through the lens that is normally used to judge these thing, but the gift of being alive made it extraordinary.

The third and final day that we spent in the hospital with our daughter  was two years ago today, and by this time in the evening we had come home from the hospital without her. She would never come home again.

The night before that final day was a much more bearable experience for me than the previous evening. In retrospect, I am deeply grateful that the organ donation coordinator asked us to wait to remove her from life support, and that we agreed with this arrangement. For reasons that I don't understand completely the anxiety of time passing too quickly and simultaneously seeming to drag on for an eternity had left. I guess that I had begun to come to terms with the situation, and because of that change I was able to more effectively soak in the moments as they moved past my experience.

We held her, and my wife finally was able to get some sleep.  She laid down with our daughter in her bed and they rested together. I took some pictures and talked with her night nurse. Kyle was a remarkable man. I find it difficult to comprehend the grit it must take to come to work and care for very ill children and their grieving parents day after day. I don't remember all the details we discussed, but I do remember remarking as he changed the collection bag attached to our daughter's catheter that the recruiting brochure that had lured him into nursing probably didn't feature that part of the job as a picture anywhere inside it. There was a pause for a beat, and we both laughed loudly in a genuine way.

The night passed onward into history, and preparations began to be made to transport our daughter to the operating room. The plan was to stage her there, remove the respirator, let us hold her on what we all knew would be the final moments of her journey here on earth, and proceed with the organ donation that we'd agreed was the best path forward. She was supposed to go in at around 0830, but like most things in the hospital things were running a bit behind. We both held her again, and at around 1030 the time had come to make the journey to the OR together.

We got to the OR, and they settled us into a set of chairs and passed our daughter to our wife. I remember thinking that the temperature was quite cold. It wasn't just me. The temperatures are actually chilled to facilitate the procedures in the room. The lights were very dim, but the details I could make out were not at all in keeping with the bright shiny pictures of these places that I've seen depicted in movies and television. The room was painted white of course, but the operating theater was much larger than I expected. It was utilitarian and set up with anything and everything one might need to successfully cut into a living human, repair their sickness, and bring them back from the brink of death. That wasn't going to be the story of our trip there, but it was a room that was all business and professionalism.

I'm not sure what anyone expected to happen when they removed our daughter from the respirator. I know I didn't. They stopped the machine and started the stop watch. The resident that had been with us from the beginning and her night nurse Kyle kept watch over the pulse oximeter and EKG that were tracking her vital signs. Kyle was supposed to go off shift at 0630, but he requested that he be allowed to stay till the end. I will be forever grateful for the care her provided to us all and his solidarity with our family was a great comfort during a very difficult time. The screens were facing away from us and the alarms were on mute.

I would like to say that I handled the situation with grace, but I really did not. From the moment they removed the respirator, I began to wonder what the next moment or second or hour would hold. Our daughter continued to breath, but it was not very long until it became apparent to me that her breathing rate was slowly...ever so slowly getting slower and shallower.  She was a tough little chica and held on to her life rather tenaciously. She didn't appear to be suffering, and she hung on in her mother's arms for just a touch over thirty minutes. She took her last breath quietly, we both gave her a hug and a kiss, and then we handed her body over to the surgical team that was standing by to allow her death to bring life to others that we did not know.

After that, there was not too much to do. We signed a few forms, took the information we needed to have to give to a funeral home we had not yet selected, packed up our things from the last several days, and collected the small parcel of our daughter's personal effects.

I had a few moments to speak with Kyle, and I thanked him for staying. He actually thanked us for allowing him to walk through our daughter's death with us. He said that the experience was a sacred moment. He'd put words to the experience that perfectly characterized both the deep sadness and loss coupled with the hope for others that she'd accomplished through her final act of living.

I don't really know what else there is to say about that day even with the passage of time. I left the hospital feeling empty and spent. I didn't feel like I was even in my own body as we walked out to our car. I don't remember driving home, and I don't remember how the rest of the day unfolded.

Looking back on it now, the process of organ donation gave a sense of meaning to the experience that even today I hold dearly as an anchor in an ocean of loss. When we walked out of the hospital, her flag was still flying, and that represented the hope going forward that I needed to have then and I'm grateful for now.

Our Daughter's Flag Among Others

Today was a good day. It was good because life is a gift, and it's a gift that carries no promise of another. Our daughter's last days began to lay the foundation on which I'd start to build a true appreciation for the gift of life. That's still a work in progress, but I learned a good many lessons from those tearful and joyful, empty and full days that we walked the final walk on this earth with our youngest. The chief among those lessons is to get out and live.

A Second Long Day

Today, I finished the actions that were at my disposal to complete my record that will be evaluated for promotion later this year.  I feel good that I've done what I can at this point.  Truth be told, I'm not really sure I want the promotion, but I've decided to turn that decision making over to others and the universe in general. There are a few reasons for this that involve a sense of duty or obligation, but mostly I believe that letting my will take charge and removing myself from the running at this point would be an exercise of ego for the most part. I'm not really confident that declining to compete would be a good decision, so I've put that call in the hands of fate.

I got a late start this morning, and my walking for the day suffered a bit.  I probably needed the rest more than I was willing to admit, and since I'm still on track for the threshold goal this month I suspect things worked out just as they should have worked out.

Anacostia sunrise with the USS Barry

Because I was running behind, I passed my usual picture spot in the magical moments just before sunrise. The air was brittle with cold and and there was not a hint of a breeze. The sun was rising just behind the ex-USS Barry, the reflection off the calm water was magnificent, and the waning moon and Venus cut through the inky blue twilight like a couple of magnesium mirrors.  This is one of the most spectacular vistas that I've ever observed at this location

The second day really started for me when we met with our daughter's neurologist and one of the residents from the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) to discuss her injuries and prognosis. It seems to me that this was just after rounds near 0830, but this is just an impression and could be entirely wrong. The news we received at that meeting was not at all hopeful.

The neurologist related that the brain damage that was typical in cases with similar CAT scan findings twelve hours into the ordeal was almost certainly fatal. It was hard news to hear, and because our daughter appeared to be resting peacefully and might at any moment open her eyes and resume being a normal five year old (or at least normal for her) it was difficult to believe and accept. We asked some probing questions, and the neurologist admitted that certainty was impossible, but within the limits of medical knowledge there was zero real hope for any meaningful recovery. The swelling of her brain had probably not yet reached the maximum magnitude, but the damage that had already been done had reduced her neurological function down to the most basic subconscious functions required to maintain clinical life.  In fact, they had removed her from the respirator, and her breathing rate on her own was ultimately insufficient to sustain life had they not put her back on the machine.

The neurologist suggested that we may want to start considering the possibility that a decision to remove her from life support might be required in the future. She was on the respirator, she was being given a host of medications to moderate vital functions like blood pressure, she was sedated to block pain to the extent that we understand how that process works, but her life had been taken by the experience she had endured and her death was inevitable in the short term.

I don't remember the details of what happened over the next couple of hours. I think we talked about how we didn't want to give up too early even in the face of what we'd been told. We talked about the removing life support and things that we wanted to do before making that decision. We talked about sadness and disbelief. We asked for another CAT scan, and it was performed. The diagnosis of a fatal anoxic brain injury was confirmed. At some point in time one of us mentioned the possibility of organ donation and what that process might entail. I think we asked our nurse in the PICU about it. I believe he took our question to the doctor. More questions passed between us and the doctor. We decided to get more information. We decided that we did not wish to delay the inevitable outcome any longer than necessary, but we wanted her brothers and sister the chance to say goodby. We called my wife's brother and mom, and we made arrangements to bring the siblings to the hospital.

At some point in the process we spoke to a social worker about the possibility of organ donation, and she also agreed to interact with our daughter's brothers and sister when they came in. She arranged for us to meet with the hospital ethics advisor to be interviewed about the possibility of organ donation. We cried, and laughed, and joked, and cried.

A little after noon we talked to the hospital ethics advisor. She interviewed us and asked a series of questions that puzzled me a little. She did ask the standard questions about whether we understood our daughter's condition and the extremely unlikely possibility for any recovery. She asked about where we'd heard about organ donation. She asked if ANY of the hospital staff had mentioned the possibility of organ donation. Throughout the whole ordeal, none of them had mentioned a word about it. Organ donation was not raised once, and I found this also to be a little strange. I finally asked the hospital ethics advisor why she had basically interrogated us (gently of course) on this topic, and she told me that if any of the hospital staff had mentioned the possibility that the hospital would not have allowed us to pursue this option.

After about an hour of discussion, the hospital ethics advisor cleared us to talk to the non-profit organization that coordinates organ donors and recipient candidates in that geographic area. We'd signed numerous documents at this point, spoke to two hospital chaplains, one of whom we dismissed and asked to never see again. That request was honored. The other chaplain happened to be Muslim, and she was exceedingly comforting for me. I think my wife liked her as well.

More decisions about organ donation were presented to us. After a fairly long time considering the matter we made the decision that we would pursue an unrestricted path to donation. This cleared the path for any part of our daughter that might be used to help someone else could be used. Corneas, organs, bone marrow, bone, ligaments, and skin were going to be made available for transplant.

We were presented with the decision to remove life support or wait for a declaration of brain death. Due to hospital protocols, a diagnosis of brain death had the potential to take weeks or months to play out. We decided to remove life support, but first had to consider how this decision would impact the decision to allow organ donation. Removing life support would likely preclude a diagnosis of brain death and lead to cardiac death if her breathing rate proved insufficient to sustain life. Both of these paths impact the potential for viable organ donation. An organ recipient would not be able to use our daughter's heart if she experienced cardiac death. Also, if she sustained her own life for greater than one hour after being removed from life support, none of her organs could be considered viable for transplant. A diagnosis of brain death would potentially take weeks or months, and if at any time, she experienced cardiac death waiting on the required protocols to be met to permit that diagnosis, it was very likely that an operating room and the right surgeons would  not be available in time to permit her other organs to remain viable. We decided that we would accept the uncertainties associated with removing life support. I know I felt that was the more predictable outcome at the time we made that decision.

At about 1630, we brought her brothers and sister in to say their goodbyes. Hugs and kisses were exchanged. We held our sweet girls hands. We loved her. We gave her cards and some of her favorite stuffed animals. We cried, and laughed, and smiled, and cried.  We whispered to her and told her we loved her and that we were proud of her.

We expected that we would remove life support later that evening, and once we'd completed that hard and soulful exchange of farewells, we went out to the hospital flagpole.  Our daughter's brothers and sister were given the opportunity to raise the "Give Life" flag in honor of the sister's upcoming gift of a better life to someone else. The flag would fly as long as our daughter remained in the hospital and for twenty four hours after her death. If you ever see that flag outside of a hospital it probably means that someone there is having one of the hardest days of their lives and that someone else is getting some of the best news they've gotten in a very long time. It tore at the heart, but also gave hope. The mixture of sadness and triumph is the most spiritual thing I have ever experienced.

During our goodbyes and the flag raising, the organ donation coordinator had arranged for a series of lab tests and medical measurements to be taken and transmitted to the organ donor and recipient network to find possible matches. When the results came in, life intervened. A potential recipient's surgeon had asked if we could delay removing life support until the following morning to allow the best opportunity for a successful transplant to their patient. The doctors and organ donation coordinator told us that we did not have to wait if we did not want to, and that all involved would try to make things work in accordance with our wishes.  Life intervened, and we decided to spend one more night with our beautiful girl.

A Very Long Day

This morning, winter announced its presence with some degree (17 degrees as a matter of fact) of authority. On the upside, there was very little wind, but even at that the lowest temperature of the season so far tended toward bracing.

Anacostia River in the Evening with the USS Barry

I put in a pretty long day at work and walked just a touch over eleven miles today. All of that has become a matter of course, and that's not the source of this post's title.  To understand that, you have to turn back the clock two years.

Two years ago today, our youngest daughter left our house in an ambulance for a trip to the hospital from which she would not return. This is an eyewitness account, and I have to state up front that it is undoubtedly inaccurate in relating some of the details. Others who witnessed the events unfold will have different recollections. This is a brief telling of what happened from my perspective filtered through time.

I was awakened by an alarm from the pulse oximeter that she wore due to some chronic health challenges. We had been advised by more than one doctor that the use of the pulse oximeter was not really necessary but it did provide a degree of comfort that we'd know if something changed while she was sleeping. False alarms were not uncommon. When I entered the door of her room, I remember a sinking feeling as I looked at the machine and saw only dashed lines where her blood oxygen percentage and pulse normally registered.

I remember calling rather loudly for help and rushing to the side of her bed where I flipped her over and began feeling for breath and a pulse.  I could not find either.  Help began to arrive, and an ordered chaos ensued. Someone went to the phone and called 911. Someone set up the oxygen bottle and attached it to the ambu bag. I started CPR with my wife handling respiration via an ambu bag being fed by supplemental oxygen with the regulator open to full flow.  I think it was 5 L/min, but I'm not sure.

For some reason when I started chest compressions, I also started the stopwatch on my Timex. Her face had a bluish tint that pretty quickly began to get better as we progressed with CPR. The pulse oximeter that was still attached to her toe registered a pulse of 84 and a blood oxygen content that recovered to the 70% range pretty quickly and then continued up into the low 90% range.  We worked on her for a little over 12 minutes before the ambulance arrived.

The paramedics responded quickly and professionally, and collectively we managed to load her onto a stretcher while maintaining CPR.  The handoff lasted a little over five minutes before she was on the stretcher with the paramedics performing CPR and headed to the ambulance for transfer to the hospital.  The ambulance rolled out at approximately 20 minutes from the time I started my watch. Her mom rode with her in the ambulance.

A family member had been called out of bed to stay with the other kiddos, but she hadn't yet arrived.  Once the ambulance left, the police who came as well asked me if they could do anything. After I described the arrangements that had been hastily put together, the told me that if I needed anything I could call them back and they made their departure.

As I waited on the arrival of the other family member, I was at a loss. I talked to our oldest daughter who'd been so brave over the preceding half hour or so setting up medical equipment, turning on lights, getting the phone, and probably a whole host of things that I don't recall. We were both frightened.

The other family member arrived at the house and after a hasty status update and handoff, I proceeded to the hospital. When I got to the pediatric ER, the emergency medicine team was still performing CPR.  I looked at my Timex and the clock was still running.  It had been over one hour and twenty minutes.

It became pretty clear that the doctor in charge of the resuscitation efforts was moving in the direction of calling off the efforts and declaring our daughter dead. My insides were a dark hole of nothingness.  My wife went to the head of our daughter and whispered something in her ear. I don't know what she said, but almost immediately after over an hour and a half of CPR her heartbeat returned. Dark emptiness was replaced with hope. Once established again, her heartbeat recovered nicely even though she still required respiratory support.  

When she'd arrived at the first hospital, a call had been made to another hospital in a city about 45 minutes away by car that specialized in treating pediatric emergencies. Because of the weather that night, the helicopter that would have normally been used to transport a patient in our daughter's condition could not fly, so another ambulance was already on its way when her heartbeat returned.  She and her mother rode the ambulance north, and I went home to get both of us some clothes and toiletries for an indeterminate vigil.

When she arrived at the second hospital a number of diagnostic tests were run, and we spent most of the rest of that Sunday waiting for results, watching the machines track her heartbeat and help her with her breathing. By the evening of the fifth of January the preliminary results were in, and although the doctors were reluctant to be definitive this early in the fight for her life it was clear to me that they were not particularly hopeful for a positive outcome. A CAT scan of her brain revealed significant swelling consistent with anoxic brain injury. At the time, all hope was not gone and the extent of the damage would be revealed over the next 12 to 24 hours. The night of 05 January 2014 was simultaneously the longest night of my life. I did not want it to end because I was afraid of what the morning might reveal, and I did not want it to go on any longer because of the crushing uncertainty.  Minutes dragged on for an eternity and the hours flew by with an alarming rapidity.

That day had been a very long day.

I learned some valuable lessons that day. It was not the kind of abstract learning that you might get from books or study. It was the kind of tangible learning that comes from experience. I remember back to my classes on CPR, and I distinctly remember wondering if I'd actually be able to perform the required actions on a living person. CPR is a violent set of actions that during the practices in class felt intensely unnatural to me.  Two years ago today when faced with a situation that demanded that those doubts be put aside, I learned that I could do those things required. It did not feel natural or unnatural...it just was something that had to be done. 

I learned that CPR works. I'd heard the stories and read the statistics. I left all of those abstract experiences with a slight feeling of skepticism. When I saw that the pulse oximeter registered a pulse in her toe and that her blood oxygen content recovered to greater than 90%, I became a true believer in the stories I'd been told.  It was as if a switch had been flipped, and seeing the quick turn of events...from a complete and total flatline to objective evidence of replacing the efforts of our daughter's heart and lungs with our own efforts...gave me hope and the feedback that I needed to press on.  I'm grateful that we had that equipment.  When faced with a situation like this, almost no one else will. If you're doing what you've been taught, have faith that it's working and working quickly. I saw it with my own eyes.

I learned the value of not giving up, and the value of telling the universe what you want it to do for you. Although I still don't know what my wife told my daughter, her subsequent recovery of a pulse is evidence enough for me that something much bigger than the physical efforts being exerted in that room reached down out of the ether and turned the tide of the events in that moment. Her speech to our daughter was an act of pure faith, and the universe will often respond to that kind of raw spirituality. None of that would have been possible without a great number of people to continue to act in the face of very grave odds against success, and I'm grateful to them for their tenacity and refusal to give up.

Today was a good day, and with any manner of good luck, I'll be back again tomorrow to share how the events from two years ago continued to develop.  Unfortunately, you know what's coming at the end of this chapter, but like life itself the value is not as much in the destination as it is in the journey.  Thanks for walking this one with me.

Monday with a Dash of Melancholy

I returned from the holiday break to a pretty significant stack of work on this fine Monday morning.  Before I really hit my stride in the cubicle farm, I did get out and worry the asphalt a little this morning in what I'd characterize as the first "real" winter day that we've had this season.

Anacostia Morning with the USS Barry

Being a Monday, I ground out a little over seven miles before hitting the shower, and I saw the first snow flurries waft lightly through the air.  The temperature wasn't truly biting being in the mid to low thirties with no wind, but it never really got significantly warmer all afternoon, and I suspect that the clear sky this evening portents a pretty brisk experience tomorrow.

In addition to the normal work (generally consisting of moving paper from one side of the country to another) ramping up after an extended break for a good number of the folks in the office, I'm facing a bit of a reckoning in that now is the promotion season for people of my vintage. I'm tracking down evaluations and kudos, and other administrative type paperwork in support of this effort and I discovered that about ten weeks of my time over the last nineteen and a half years seems to have been officially undocumented. People I trust tell me that this is a pretty big deal to these sorts of promotion activities, but I'm having a bit of a hard time reconciling that stance.  My reaction to that reality is to revert to a contemplative and a bit melancholy mood.

Ten weeks represents a little less than one percent of the time that I've given over to my current profession, and I find it hard to believe that the time period in question, one that should rightfully be documented by a piece of paper acknowledging that my boss at the time simply did not have enough time to observe my performance due to the circumstances surrounding both of our comings and goings, is much of a who-haw at all. The circumstances really make me question whether I want to continue in the employment of an organization with a focus on that kind of value.

Truth be told, the walking started off as I've admitted in the past, as a bit of an escape fantasy. These types of circumstances, among a host of others, make that level of escapism seem pretty rational to me.

We'll see where this all lands, and it's been good to be presented with these dilemmas to contemplate. I will also do what I can to fill the gap in the documentation, but frankly, I'm finding it difficult to muster much of a damn if I'm successful or not.

Until then, I'll keep hitting the trail on a journey that has become more of an adventure of discovery rather than an escapist retreat. If the weather forecast holds for tomorrow, the 18 degree temperature will be a good first test of my willingness to break out several layers of the appropriate clothing.

Back Again after a Day of Rest

The pace I was taking during the month of December finally caught up with me yesterday, and I ended up falling asleep on the couch and didn't manage to get anything written. I thought about finishing something up earlier this morning, but decided against it and let things ride for a day.  That left me with two panoramic shots from yesterday that I'll go ahead and post in keeping with my loose rule set, but frankly they're not close to my favorite photographic work to date.  I suppose the weariness was being reflected in just about everything I did yesterday.

Severn River from Triton Light

The day was crisp, but clear and the sun was a welcome addition from the recent spate of cloudiness. Although Triton Light is more than a little washed out from the sun, the flying gull was a happy surprise.  I did not realize at the time I'd caught one in the air.

Fitch Bridge over College Creek at Night

The clarity of the day extended into the evening hours leading to some bracing temperatures, but during the walk that led to this relatively uninspiring shot I saw a great many stars for the first time in a very long time. Orion, the Hunter, was low in the eastern sky, and it was warming in spite of the cold to have the suns of other solar systems back in my sights.

After some much needed rest, today was a much better day. It worries me some that although I'm putting in some credible distances a month of less than half the N2N-TCP goal leads to a degree of weariness that, so far, is quite difficult to push through.  Be that as it may, the only thing for it is to keep pressing I suppose.

Severn River Sunrise

I happened to be crossing the bridge in the foreground of the last photo just at sunrise this morning, and at about the mid-span point I decided to turn around and try to capture some of the unfolding grandeur from a park on the northeast side of the Severn River.

Sunrise over the Severn River

The content of the last two photos is similar, and I waffle between which one I like better than the other. The warmth of the second shot is enticing, but I think the first picture more accurately captures the calm cold feeling of the morning.

Abandoned Docks in the Shadow of the Baltimore-Annapolis Boulevard Bridge

The abandoned docks on the banks of the Severn in the shadow of the Baltimore-Annapolis Boulevard high bridge over the river bring me back to a simpler time when the watermen of the Chesapeake plied their trade to harvest the bounty of the Bay. There is no doubt that the industrialization of these activities has allowed more efficient use of folks time, but it seems to me that we've lost some of the connection to the natural beauty and connection to our environment in the process.

Boat Stored for the Winter on the Severn

This boat in its left has become part of the landscape for me. I actually don't ever remember seeing this boat lift empty. It's something that I'll have to watch for going forward because a boat out of water most of the time strikes me as a little sad. She seems like she wants to run, and I'd like to see her out there cutting the water.

New Day on the Severn

This picture capture the beginning of what turned out to be a remarkable January day on the Severn River. The air was still crisp, but the golden sun rising out of the east telegraphed the warmth with a bit of a nip that would follow for about the next seven hours or so.  Although I hadn't yet hit the trail, I like to think that the practice of walking prepped me for taking the moments required to witness the sun ushering in a new day. Being well rested didn't hurt a bit either.