I’ve had a bit of a blast to the past this past week when an old friend stumbled across my blog, emailed me and re entered back into my life. I spent much of the weekend thinking about old times and trying to piece people, places and stories back together.  I’ll likely be writing more about that later, but in this process I spent some time with my old Alaska to Moab journey. I pulled all my old content from the archives of my old website and put it in one place. I am not sure what or how I’m going to use it, but I plan to do something with it. I had always said I was going to write a book with it. I also had justified buying a slide and photo scanner so I could do something with the images. Regardless of what I end up doing with the content, I came across a post and a few pictures that I’d like to share with you today. One is a journal entry dated Sept 9th, 2003.

“To Bike Ridin’ and Livin’!”

T.S.

Well, that pretty much sums it ups doesn’t it? These words were spoken at the Wonder Lake Campground Shelter. It rained again today and we ended up doing a short hike, did a short ride on the gravel road, and hung out. We were running out of food and having fun. That day, the bus dropped off another load of campers. In today’s drop off was a very fun and entertaining fellow with the initials of T.S.

I won’t write his full name here because in all honesty, he may be wanted by the P-O-L-I-C-E. He wasn’t a bad individual, but there was certainly something about him that made both John and I wonder. This guy not only spoke the words I wrote above, but he also left me with another saying that I will never forget.

I grew up in a small town in northern MN. We were a farming family and we often went camping, hunting and fishing. Well, Alaska is filled with hunters and hunting isn’t exactly what it used to be. Hunters end up driving all over on ATV’s with guns strapped to them. Some hire spotters that fly around in planes to find the perfect kill.

As we all hung out and told stories that night, there was quite a debate over hunting. T.S. spoke these words. “You drop a guy out in the wilderness naked with some basics to survive, if he walks out with a dead animal and some clothing, he’s a hunter!”

Enough said.

I also want to share with you a few pictures from Alaska’s Inside Passage. Makes me think I really should do something with this journal and my images.  These images where shot on film (likely Tmax 100) and scanned. To say Alaska is filled with stunning scenery is an understatement.

Anyway, all this nostalgia has me really thinking about my past, those folks that came in and out of my life and just how all this stuff influenced me to make me who I am today.

Spread the word!

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