Blog

Be discerning about where you spend your energy (reading, doing, watching, eating). My husband Nelson and I are both self-employed. When our friends approached us in January of 2013 to ask us if we wanted to claim two seats on a 16-day, 225-mile Grand Canyon trip, we said YES almost without thinking about it. Rafting […]

Take the time, get quiet, feel into it. Immerse yourself. Grand Canyon is a harsh place, full of extremes, but is also a place of profound beauty. Part of the magic of such an immersive trip as the Grand Canyon is the opportunity to get off the water and explore the Canyon by foot. There […]

Getting organized is work. Staying organized is habit. On any epic trip, but especially on Grand Canyon trips, there’s so much to organize and plan: Gear (backpacks, sleeping gear, boats, etc.) Food Emergency equipment People (and in some cases oarsmen and oars women) Where to stop for lunch and where the group sleeps Where the […]

Two minutes now saves hours later A no-brainer on the Canyon is to spend two minutes checking ropes and tie-downs before running any rapids. There are horror stories of tie-downs that weren’t checked. The raft flips in a rapid and the entire contents of, say, a kitchen box are lost to the river. On a […]

  It is easier to keep up than to catch up. Admittedly, the part of my Grand Canyon trip that I found least appealing was packing and unpacking the boats each day. The set up and tear down routines took time, effort, and coordination. Especially at the beginning of the trip, I struggled to carry […]

Make Some Room Chapter One: Your brain is not for remembering. “Never memorize something you can look up.” Albert Einstein My group of 16 brave souls floated, rowed, and paddled the emerald waters of the Colorado River through Grand Canyon for 16 days. We covered 225 river miles (plus many more miles of hiking on […]