New Title, New Image, New Outlook...

So...

I have changed the title of this Blog to be more fitting. "The Adventures of Kev" was kind of cute, and yet, I realize I have grown out of the title as well.

Yes, I still have plenty of adventures... but after a climbing trip to the Tetons, I felt refreshed, renewed, and, looking back to ask the question :where am I at right now?" I think this title is more appropriate... After I have achieved a new perspective, I come to find another, and another..... and another. Maybe there are a few valleys along the way, offering a lull in perspective, a time of living in the present... but for me the summits are all about reflection- looking at where I once was. making sense of the valley of the daily task that I had just climbed out of. Does this make sense? I can go on rants that seem totally clear to me, but not so seen by others... kind of like route finding without a guidebook...

So I say to you my friends... you are missed. From the summits past and present of my crazy, work-filled, currently-nomadic, experiential/crazy life... I chose this path. Sometimes that means I am lonely on these peaks. I can always peer in to the valleys below and know that you all are there.... doing well. I may not be able to shout back to where you are? and you may not be able to see me way far above the treeline... but we're all still here... just spread out a little bit.

I close this entry with a quote from the french poet Rene Daumal:

One cannot stay on the summit forever -
One has to come down again.
So why bother in the first place? Just this.
What is above knows what is below -
But what is below does not know what is above

One climb, one sees-
One descends and sees no longer
But one has seen!

There is an art of conducting one's self in
The lower regions by the memory of
What one saw higher up.

When one can no longer see,
One does at least still know.


So there you have it, I will not always be on the summit. Someday I must come down. This journey is rich with life, and yet vacant all the same. At times I feel enriched by the solitude of adventure, and other times, I lament for the summit is a cold, lonely place.


May I always remember what I saw higher up... As we will always be beckoned to climb the summits beyond.


- Good night




image from: http://www.presscluboftibet.org/UserFiles/Mount_Everest.jpg

"One way to pick a future is to believe it's inevitable. "

It has been a long while since my last entry and I received this quote in my e-mail inbox from the "Outward Bound Daily Quote" e-mail that I receive. This quote seemed quite appropriate for me to share considering what I have been through in the past month...


I started off with a climbing trip beginning in the Grand Tetons. Alpine climbing at its finest- late August storms brought a wintery mix, including upwards of three feet of snow above 10,000 feet. So, my climbing party decided that we should head out of dodge... We then went to Devil's Tower and on to the Needles of South Dakota's Black Hills. I will post some pictures at some point- it was challenging great fun, and I truly learned a lot.

But, what really sparked my influence from this quote is the 12-hour adventure race I did this past weekend. Sponsored by the TralBlazers Adventure Racing club, this race took place in the hills of northern Georgia, near the Tallulah Gorge... I was able to race with my friends Zach and Donna- two of my greatest friends from college... point being, without bogging you down with too many details just yet, we raced for a personal team total of 15 hours and 19 minutes (not including a two hour deduction searching for a missing checkpoint marker- equaling an actual 13 hours and 15 minutes of racing).

During the race, I flipped over the handle bars of my bike, significantly injuring my left thigh- a pretty deep muscle bruise on the mid quadracep (right where the two top thigh muscles meet)... However, we knew we were finishing. It was ou first adventure race, so we went conservative on obtaining optionl checkpoints- choosin to stick with just required check-ins. At any rate. For me to finish the race I had to tell myself that my leg didn't hurt, and that it was necessary to run like I was,or to jog like I was, or to shrug off the newly acquired incapacity of upper left leg.

So, I did determine my future...that completing this race was just like facing bad weather in the Tetons; "It's gonna be okay," "You are going to finish safely..."

From the sharp end of the rope to the adventure racing circuit... the power of the human mind, body, and spirit never ceases to amaze me.

More to come later, glad to be back on the scene...

Much love,


Kevin


p.s. Racing with two of my great friends only helped me realize how much missing of my friends I actually do. Yeah - crazy... I think I have a litle bit of "uh oh are we all going to grow apart" anxiety..... any suggestions?

Well Hello Again... Sea Kayaking Revealed!

Hello friends, family, members of society from the countryside...

I have had several days of" support staff" work around base after returning from my sea kayaking course. One of my students, Zakiya, just posted a lot of pictures from her camera that she took on our sea kayaking course. This inspired me to write a new blog entry, share some of her photos and some of mine too. We paddled for six days out in the field, one day at base in the beginning, and a closing morning on base for day 8. Although these pictures do not begin to encompass what we experienced, it will at least depict memories from our journey through the adventures of renewal. This course was called an "Adult Life Renewal" course. People from ages 30 to ages 63 or so... Challenging

themselves in the present, to reflect on their past and commit to some action plans to investigate and create their future.

I love sea kayaking. The northern everglades are a beautiful place to do it. Check out the following photos... if there is a "Z" near the photo Zakiya took it. If there is a "K" by it, I took it. Word. I hope you enjoy this peek into my life as an NCOBS instructor down in Florida.... it's a wild place- really...


Z - First of all, I worked with two amazing women: Kelly and Merle. Here we are relaing, NCOBS style.


Z- A curious pelican wonders if these are her multi-colored cousins... At our put-in site.


Z- But, before we left on our journey we had to explain all of the group gear... the night before we set off for the put-in.


Z- Before we could really do some adventuring, we taught students naviagtion. Here Kelly (right), teaches a lesson on chart reading. From there students were expected to navigate self-reliantly with little guidance from instructors.


Z- Here I am teaching about Tides. Did you know that in South Florida, we have semi-diurnal tides? That means we have not one high and low tide, but TWO high tides and Two low tides per day! Who knew?!
After learning anbout tides, the crew could make more effective float plans for the day. This would influence the "final" phase of their expedition, where they crafted their own path home...


Z- Here I am with some wild hair, and Jamie, sitting next to me has his bug net on. The no-see-ums were pretty intense that day. The crew had just come off from Solo- a time of intentional reflection. A few hours later and they were on "final"


Z- A little late night "Ambiance" at the Outward Bound Cafe


Z- a few of our students: Jeff (above)


Z- Barrett


Z- Zakiya & Kelly (one of my co-instructors)


Z- and Joel serving breakfast at the "Outward Bound Cafe"

So, needless to say - a lot of fun was had, challenges met, and renewal was realized. I hope that my new friends whom I had the pleasure of instructing, hanging out with, and getting to know are back in their homes... making a difference in their communities... and in their lives.

A few other shots from my camera...


K- my kayak, the Necky Elaho HV. a great boat to paddle on the swells and whitecaps of the Gulf of Mexico.


Kelly taking a picture of Jeff consturcting a lesson about the development and poor resource mamagement of South Florida



K- ME!


K- The whole crewjust before departing the island at course end:
Front Row (L-R): Zakiya, Joel, and Merle
Middle Row (L-R): Susan, Me, Kelly, Sarah, Ted, and Dana
Back Row: Jeff, Jamie, and Barrett

Yep...

So,


me and two buddies from NCOBS (Lee & Bernie) drove to Marathon Key to see my friends Jessica and Thomas and Dan. We did. It was awesome. Then, we went to Key West for the night. It took me a second to remember the layout of the place, but after all of that? I remembered. It was fun. We stayed the night at a hotel on Duval St. fun times... We drove back through a monsoon. It flooded our base camp and made ouyr power go out. Scary. ...


Love,


Kshon

Back again...

Wonderful folks,


Hello, from Sunset Island, Florida!
I am back once again, yet going back to the field tomorrow. I completed the second session of Ransom Everglades... chilled for a day after post-course shenanigans.... then only to plan for a four day personal sea kayaking trip.

It was great to be in a sea kayak again with some of my good NCOBS friends. Well- I mean, I was in the kayak by myself- but there were five of us (each in our own kayak). We saw so many of the amazing south florida things to see: Dolphins fishing, a shark, sea turtles, sunsets, waves, sun, field food leftovers mixed with amazing freshly-bought veggies... But this wonder wouldn't be reality without mentioning the "bug hour" full of no-see-ums, mosquitos, and racoons that plague the human condition every evening as the sun goes down.


My buddy, Josh Harris, and I worked a lot on our bracing and sculling and other paddle work. It reminded how beautiful the kinesthetic art of paddle work can be. We paddled from our base camp toward an area called Goodland- over twenty miles travel total. We started off in some back bays and paddled towards the gulf. We hung out in the gulf of Mexico until the last four mile sof our trip and it was amazing. Simply amazing!

Many of the dolphins we saw were fishing for prey about 4 feet off of our bows...
At any rate. I have no photos of this trip -- but my buddy bernie took some I think... so if he gets them developed I'll post them here. Life is good at Sunset island and I miss many of you lots. Pleae drop me a line when you can... I'll try to do the same. More later!


Kevster

p.s. Courses are going great too!!!!!