Rory Turns Seventy Six

Today was Rory Conlan's seventy sixth birthday. You heard that right folks...a seventy six year old is contemplating walking across the country in the Newport to Newport Transcontinental Pilgrimage. It will be a real gift if we can pull off this feat. We talked briefly on the phone, but I am really looking forward to spending some time out on the open trail with him. I believe it will be good for both of us to get out and see where the chips may fall.

Till then, I suppose we'll both have to get by on what the universe sends our way.  Today in Maryland it was a magnificent sunset.

Sunset Fishing on the Severn River - Annapolis, MD

The sunset as seen from Jonas Green Park on the Severn River proved to be an amazing event tonight.  When I snapped this photo of the fishermen in the foreground, I was pretty sure that I'd captured the best light for the evening. That's not how things worked out in the end.

It Just Kept Getting Better - Severn River Sunset

Ten minutes after I thought I'd seen the best that the universe had to offer, the sky was alight with the fiery expiration of the sun. Suffice it to say that I think the little beach down at Jonas Green Park in Annapolis is positioned quite nicely for a Key West style sunset festival or perhaps a luau.

I hope that Rory's day ended on the same high note that mine did. Soon enough, I hope, we'll be able to compare notes on the unfolding of the path at our feet. Until then, we'll bot keep our eyes open for what tomorrow may have in store.

Transitions Into a New Future

Today the morning's walk was marked by a great sunrise over the Anacostia. It proved to be an auspicious start to a day where I felt that the transition to a different and I believe better life moving forward gained some significant headway.

Sunrise over the Anacostia

Deep into the third round of thirty day minimalism, the practice is finally getting into a comfortable rhythm, and I'm really liking the results. Meeting new people is starting to gain some traction, and I'm mostly keeping up with a solid effort at previous incarnations of the thirty day principles.

A year ago, I was beginning to sense that major lifestyle shifts might be possible. Now I know they are a reality with some relatively simple rule sets, and that knowledge is giving me a great deal of confidence that almost no goal is out of reach if you make small steps in the right direction and keep it up over time.

Acting the way to right thinking has been the key in unlocking this previously untapped resource for me, and I'm grateful that my focus has shifted from a lethargic intellectual approach to a more active physical approach. I'm also grateful that I've had a great partner in this journey in Rory Conlan. I believe we've supported each other in making some significant changes, and that relationship has really been a bedrock of some of the great things that are happening around both of us.

Today we spent over an hour discussing the walking route between Newport, RI and Newport, OR.  We both approached the challenge in our own way. He tackled it with paper maps in a Rand McNally road atlas, and I took a more digital approach with Google Maps. Regardless of the reference material, this action and discussion helped solidify the path forward in our march toward what I hope will be a collective adventure of a lifetime.

I haven't the faintest idea what tomorrow might bring, but I'm excited to experience the unfolding of what promises to be another great day.

Endurance

There is a certain resilience in the act of endurance. Keeping up the practice with some degree of endurance is the point today.

First Day of September - Anacostia River - Washington, DC

Tomorrow's path will not be the same as today's, though I expect it will rhyme a little.

Shipyard Sunrise

Northern Wisconsin is fading into the distance this time around, but before leaving, I was blessed to capture the sunrise behind Fincantieri Marinette Marine.

Shipyard Sunrise - Marinette, WI

I've had a long day on the road, so I'm going to keep this short. Today was another great day.  Good sunrise, good walk, good daily practices, and I got to meet an interesting gentleman that taught me some things I didn't know about Green Bay, Wisconsin.

I'm looking forward to what tomorrow may reveal.

Getting Sucked In

I managed to let myself get sucked into my day job, career, or profession if you like today more than is normal for me.  As such, there were no really spectacular or even passable photos. Today felt a little like marking time, but I did get in some more walking than I've managed to put together in the recent past.  I also explored some new areas of Marinette, WI this afternoon.

Today is likely to be the last day that I spend in Marinette, WI for awhile, and frankly, I'm a bit sad to see things move forward.  The last several months have been difficult, but I did get to visit some new places, meet new people, and learn a thing or two about fishing in the Great Lakes area.

It's been a good experience, and it's opened my mind to being more excited than not of experiencing new adventures however unplanned they may be initially.

I'm looking forward to heading back tomorrow and getting some business resolved on the home front. I'm ready for fall, but there are a number of things left to do this summer before a new season is ushered in to take it's place.  I'm looking forward to the journey.

Five Days Into a New Thirty Day Practice

I woke up too late this morning to really catch the glory of the sunrise in digital. When I walked to the window and looked out, the colors were peaking without being washed out by too much light. By the time I made it down to the vantage point I wanted to shoot from, the lightening of the sky yielded picture results that were good but not great.  Two shot turned out pretty good, but these were not as good as the light when I first walked to the window.

Sunrise - Marinette, WI

In every location the quality of the light is just a little bit different than in other locations. You can be across town or across the country, but I've found that it takes a good bit of practice to capture the essence of the scene.

The practice piece of photography set in, and I've begun to expand the idea to other areas of my life. Today was the fifth day of a thirty day practice that requires me to introduce myself to "a stranger" and attempt to strike up enough of a conversation with them that they're memory will linger with me at least long enough to record the encounter.

Like some of the other thirty day practices that I've become involved with, this one has taken about five days to really get just a thin slice of comfort in stepping off into the unknown. Five days in, and I'm no longer dreading the discipline, and today (like some of the photography days) really turned into a great experiment.

I butted my way into a professional tour where I got to meet a federal judge, three Department of Justice attorneys, and the members of the legal team and expert witness panel from the plaintiff in the case that precipitated the tour.

Five days in, and I had one of the more fulfilling professional and personal experiences that I've had in a really long time. Today has me thinking about the next set of practice or experimentation. Since this current practice involves people, and I really like people, I'm beginning to think that in a month I'm going to have to attempt to follow up with some of these folks and establish a more enduring relationship.

We'll see if I feel the same way in a few days, but that is what today brought into my world. More than a handful of interesting folks, a great sunrise, and the opportunity to really get some much needed rest.

I'm not sure what tomorrow may hold, but, as always, I'm looking forward to finding out where the path might lead.

Fishing on the Menominee River

This is likely my last trip to Marinette, Wi.  The opportunity to combine my evening walk with a brief fishing outing on the Menominee River proved too much to resist, and I spent a very relaxing couple of hours chasing the sunset as well as a some fish.

Like the last time I was hear, I only landed one small mouth bass (colloquially known as a smallie in this area), but it was a bit better fish than I landed last time.

Smallie - Menominee River - Marinette, WI

This little guy put of a good fight, and the thrill of the catch was worth the cost of getting set up for the opportunity. Spending time out on the river was deeply relaxing, and I'm glad that I've gotten to the point in my life that fishing is a much bigger draw than spending any time at all on watching television or some other form of on screen entertainment.

After hooking this one, I spend about the next half an hour largely practicing my casting, and was rewarded at the end with another great sunset.

Sunset on the Menominee - Marinette, WI

The air has a hint of fall in the air, and there was not a breath of moving air. The sky and the river became one at the close of the day, and if it weren't for gravity, it would have been hard to tell them apart.

Today was  an exceptional day.  Safe travel covering over one thousand miles, the opportunity to pit my wits and technology against some fish, and a sunset that is really quite unbelievable when I look back at the photos. I'm not sure what tomorrow may hold, but I'm looking forward to taking another crack at another good day.  Goodness is all around us. I have not always recognized this fact, but now that I do, my life has gotten much better.  It has become a life centered around the experiences that I have...or even make...rather than the things that I own. It's a lesson that I knew once, forgot for a time, and am relearning as I grow a little more seasoned. I grateful for the relearning that's gone on over the last several years, and I continue to greet each day with the respect for the the opportunities that the day will provide if I'm open to seeing them.