Welcome, October: Fall Foliage, Tour Bus Flotillas, Wild Snakes, Hurricanes, Rescue Dogs, and Another Trip Reveal
Welcome, October: Fall Foliage, Tour Bus Flotillas, Wild Snakes, Hurricanes, Rescue Dogs, and Another Trip Reveal
How we are giving back after Hurricane Helene
This is a special October kickoff letter. It’s for both paid and free subscribers. This is one of two October letters available for free readers. Paying subscribers, you’ll receive more posts than usual this month as we include photos and stories highlighting our fall foliage and more trip previews.
The problem with September is that she leaves us just when she’s getting interesting here in the White Mountains. Thankfully, she also delivers us into the arms of northern New England’s best, most audacious month, October.
It may surprise you, especially after one died and snarled traffic in a choked North Conway Village yesterday, that one of my favorite parts of fall foliage is the nonstop caravans of leaf-peeper-filled buses from points south.
As soon as the first leaf blushes red, these buses begin, and I welcome them, for they are filled with folks who may not otherwise have an opportunity to see our signature scenery. I think back to my days working and volunteering in nursing homes and senior facilities and consider how many on the buses simply cannot drive any longer.
It brings a smile knowing they get to glimpse the foliage, what it may spur in their memories, and how, for some, it may be their last visit to a place that always meant much to them. For others, it could be their first and only visit.
These buses rumble along, sometimes a few in a row, and everyone in the Mount Washington Valley knows what it is like being stuck behind them on a narrow country lane. As frustration mounts, I consider how happy I am for the passengers and how grateful I am to be able to escape the roads with Samwise and Emily.
And then I think about how freeing travel is and how it took a stroke, along with heart and kidney failure, for me to enjoy it. Now I am hooked, and entire worlds seem to have opened for Samwise, Emily, and me.
Travel plays a huge role in our lives, and its romance inspires us. It’s true that once you travel, you never stop. Even when you return home, trips continue to take you back to beloved places.
Isn't it amazing that while Emily is currently seven and Samwise is eight, they’ve spent more than a combined two years on the road with me? It's a joy to share these experiences with them, and I'm excited for what's to come.
Our travels are never designed simply for me. Itineraries are based on research, letting me know where Sam and Emi can roam freely along trails across landscapes sublime and foreign to us. And if we find ourselves in the rare city, we simply rise at 3 am to do our off-leash exploring when no one else is out.
The other day, when a snake reared up on the trail at Samwise and then me, when I asked him to return to my side, I couldn’t help but think how well he and Emily travel. Here, we deal with black bears, moose, deer, porcupines, skunks, and now, apparently, a spicy snake. And through all interactions, I completely trust that Samwise and Emily will carry themselves well.
This translates importantly to our miles in the American West, where our animal brethren are much more dangerous. And yet, Samwise and Emily have acted peaceably and respectfully off-leash around javelinas, mountain lions, bison, elk, rattlesnakes, wild horses, and coyotes.
(We’ve yet to encounter a grizzly, and that’s because of careful planning. But if we did, I’d have my bear spray ready, and I know full well that Samwise and Emily would stay behind me upon request, just as they did with our not-so-friendly snake or many of the black bears we’ve seen in our neighboring woods.)
How rare and wondrous it is to be with those we know and trust so deeply—no matter the species.
Tolkien will forever be the perfect read for great quests and the hero’s/heroine’s journey. He was right about the unknowns of leaving home.
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,” he used to say. “You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to. Do you realize that this is the very path that goes through Mirkwood, and that if you let it, it might take you to the Lonely Mountain or even further and to worse places?”
No matter where I’m swept off to with my dear friends, I know we’ll handle it as a pack bound by love and trust, and that is a comfort.
Another aspect of travel, one we share with those buses filled with leaf peepers, is that travel makes the world more familiar. When I read the news about California wildfires, what voters in South Dakota are thinking, or a hurricane battering the South, I feel it more. I can empathize better and feel a familiarity with faces and places we’ve encountered along the way.
How horrifying Hurricane Helene is for our nation. We’ve traveled through many of the places seen on the news. We have had author events in some. Poor Asheville is now unrecognizable, and it makes my northern heart ache.
The storm has changed our travel plans for our upcoming five-month wonder-filled odyssey. A family-run motel with cabins I reserved two weeks ago no longer exists. Those poor folks! Their cabins have been in the family for generations, and now they don’t know if they’ll rebuild or even if they can.
Samwise, Emily, and I are so blessed by the lives we live. I understand our privilege, even as I understand what we’ve each dealt with. Samwise was in a Texarkana kill shelter within 24 hours of dying, a couple of weeks after doctors never thought I’d make it out of Maine Med alive. Sweet and lively Emily was unwanted because of her hyperactivity and inability to listen. On top of that, Emily came to us because of a Houston hurricane. The shelters were emptied, and dogs and cats were shipped north to create room for the expected glut of homeless animals.
This feels like a good time to give back while celebrating what is to come. This week, we’re running one of our specials on annual subscriptions: 20% off. The same goes for gift subscriptions. Fifty percent of the money will go to animal rescue efforts in states impacted by Hurricane Helene.
Not only will you be helping animals in need, but you’ll also be traveling with us on another great American coddiwomple. Our departure date is December 7, and we’ll travel and hike for five months.
I’ve already announced two stops, trip anchors if you will: two weeks in Kanab, Utah, and six days along the stunning Oregon Coast in Port Orford.
Ready for a third reveal? A sunrise hike up West Mountain in Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas. We’ve hiked West Mountain before but have not returned for a few years. Last time, we did not see another soul until we returned to the parking lot.
The senior gentleman we met was married to a woman with similar health issues to mine. We talked about how his wife and I owed our lives to a doctor we’d never met. We all followed Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn’s Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease diet.
This upcoming road trip will have many highlights, but none more significant than Samwise, Emily, and I finally meeting the good Dr. Esselstyn when we stop and visit for a few days with him, his inspiring wife Ann, their incredible daughter Jane, and Jane’s husband, Brian, who I feel a long-distant kinship with, even if he is an Eagles fan.
It will be an emotional meeting. I know this because I already have tears as I write this.
My life over the last seven years—that doctors told me I would not survive—has been a gift from Dr. Esselstyn.
How’s that to cap off five months on the road? I get to spend time with the family who showed me how to save my life and made everything possible again.
Onward, my friends, by all means.
And here’s to the people, dogs, and cats of Florida, the Carolinas, and everyone else impacted by Hurricane Helene. We are honored to give back, for the three of us have so much.
Random Travel Photos
