In 2012, I turned 30 and hit my 50th state! Bring on 2013!
Hey Everybody! I’m winding down 2012 in a rare state of relative repose, spending these last chilly days of the year hanging out with my family. With my parents in Pennsylvania, my sister in Germany, my brother in California and me all over the map, we’re rarely all in the same place at the same time. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are gearing up for an epic start to 2013!
In 2012, I started the New Year in Germany, celebrated my 30th birthday with a 5-day backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon, fell in love at first sight with a Teardrop camper in Texas and bought my very own less than a month later, took it for a 3-week test drive in Utah, got chased by an angry moose and wrestled alligators in Colorado, found an abandoned filly and Butch Cassidy’s hideout in Wyoming, drove the Loneliest Road in America across Nevada, made new friends in Tahoe, spent a week with my siblings in San Francisco, met a master on the Lost Coast, revisited my post-college cabin in Oregon, met some ski-mountaineers in Washington, crossed into British Columbia, picked up charming Canadian hitchhikers, crossed off my 50th state: Alaska!, hiked up a disappearing glacier, took a geo-pilgrimage to the Burgess Shale fossils (and wrote about it for the January issue of EARTH magazine), climbed an epic mountain above Banff, was welcomed back into the US, visited old friends and favorite trails in Montana and North Dakota, drove east across the US, landed in a house in the Virginia woods right next to the Appalachian Trail, just in time for fall, attended Bridge Day in WV, went backpacking on the AT with old friends, hit Niagara Falls, my 5th Great Lake and the Adirondacks on a road trip, spent 3-weeks housesitting in Vermont where I hiked to Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory and to the summit of Camel’s Hump and then landed back in PA for the holidays. What a year!
The road into Monument Valley, one of my all-time favorite drives.
In honor of an awesome 2012, here are links to this year’s five most popular posts:
1. Teardrop Dreams/ Teardrop Dreams…Coming True!
The Raven & the Rattler visit Capitol Reef National Park in Utah
2. Back To the Turquoise Trail
Bowie & the Blonde Coyote by the coyote skull in the juniper tree.
3. Boondocking 101: How To Camp For Free In Beautiful Places
Free campsite in Cedar Breaks National Forest, Utah
4. How To Wrangle an Alligator!
Mary vs. Alligator. I won!
5. Grand Canyon- Day 5: Bright Angel Snowstorm!
Hiking up the Bright Angel Trail in a blizzard!
Writing is meant to be read and each day, several hundred people visit the Blonde Coyote. I know that’s not a lot on the scale of the World Wide Web, but I’ve always believed in the importance and power of individuals and triple digit visitor statistics never cease to amaze me.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to everybody who has taken the time to read and comment on my posts! You guys are awesome. I hope that you’ve all been inspired to see more of the World.
So far on my 2013 calendar: a road trip to the Florida Keys, visiting the Trinity Site in New Mexico, spring in Utah, summer in the Rockies, and an August alligator rodeo in Colorado. What else? We’ll see! I am open to any and all possibilities! My resolution this year is, as always, to see more of the World and in 2013, I’ll be taking you all with me via the Blonde Coyote. So stay tuned! Happy New Year! MCM
Crossing the Tonto Bench in the Grand Canyon
