by Nancy McDaniel
Back on the beautiful beach on Florida’s Gulf Coast, I walked. And thought. And thought. And walked some more. It’s quite lovely here and I am bored out of my mind. The city girl in me rebels against resort-ism. The wilderness girl in me rebels against the over-the-top trappings of extreme affluenza. So, as usual, my mind raced and raised questions I hadn’t thought about in a long time. If ever.
by Nancy McDaniel
Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote of “the restorative idleness of solitude” in his excruciatingly beautiful novel, Love in the Time of Cholera. I was profoundly struck by the poignancy of those words. How beautifully, if incongruously, they flowed. However, it was more personally important to me, how apt they were in describing a certain phase of my life.
by Nancy McDaniel
How many of us are fortunate enough in our lives to meet someone who has been a true hero of ours? Not a known hero such as a parent who selflessly raised us safely and successfully. Not an unknown but “everyday” hero such as a firefighter who risks his or her life everyday to protect us, but a larger-than-life hero whose books are twinkling stars of words that light up the pages and whose accomplishments in the natural world make life better for all of us. Even for those of us who don’t even realize it.
by Nancy McDaniel
An important thing to know about me is that, as a child growing up in the suburbs, I was a “dog person.” And nearly everyone I knew was also a dog person. “Cat people” were different; I didn’t play with them (neither the people nor their cats). Actually, I thought I hated cats. That seemed to be the politically correct opinion to hold in my homogeneous, affluent suburb. It may well have even been a question on the mortgage applications for houses in 60’s Hinsdale:
by Nancy McDaniel
There I was, a city girl disguised as a hiker in the mountains of Colorado. I pretty much looked the part, even if my backpack was spanking clean and newly purchased from Target (but it is called Cherokee and is khaki color so it seems pretty authentic. Sort of). But the hiking boots were well worn and well traveled – broken in from trips to Western Australia, Botswana, Uganda and I don’t remember where else. With burrs still stuck in the laces even after many washings. They even used to have bird guano from Tanzania’s Lake Eyasi too, but that finally and thankfully washed out.
Continue reading → Hiker Chick & The Mount of the Holy Cross
by Nancy McDaniel
I’m at that age, “A Woman of a Certain Age” (Isn’t that what The French call middle age? Or is it semi-old age? I think we need a new term for us Boomers. Fifty-two can’t be middle age because that would mean I would live until 104. This is not likely, especially with the not-so-great genes I inherited. Besides, although I like Willard Scott quite a bit– even better when he was Ronald McDonald many years ago — I don’t like him well enough to live past 100 just to get a Smucker’s birthday salute. So if 52 is not middle age, then what is it? Certainly not golden age – what a dreadful term. Centrum calls it silver; they ask “isn’t it great to be silver?” I’d rather be platinum, I think. Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s “going platinum.” Kind of like selling a lot of records. But not actually selling them, really just being old enough to have bought a lot of them — 45s and even 78s mostly)
by Nancy McDaniel
Not very long ago, in the Botswana bush far far away, Russell, The Guide, and Trudi, The Hostess, asked where I got all my energy. This is not a question that people in Chicago often ask me. In Chicago, I often fall asleep while watching the 10 p.m. news. In Botswana, in the Okavango Delta, the crown jewel of the African Bush, I never want to sleep. In fact, I resent ever having to go to bed.
by Nancy McDaniel
So many times I’ve been on safari in Africa and I’ve always seen many wondrous things. People ask me if I go to see the animals. Of course I do. But there’s so much more to see than just the animals, remarkable as they are. On my most recent safari to Botswana, I saw little miracles every day. But I also heard them, smelled them, and felt them. I’ve never been so in touch with all my senses as I was on this trip.
A Magical Place Named Okavango
Our first camp was in the Okavango Delta, on the tip of Chief’s Island, at a place called Mombo Trails. The Okavango Delta is a magnificent place, lying in the midst of the Kalahari Desert, the largest continuous stretch of sand in the world. The Delta is a “magical 18,000 square kilometer wonderland of waterways, floodplains, islands and forests.” (Adrian Bailey, “Okavango: Africa’s Wetland Wilderness”) This is a place I’d been wanting to come to for the past several years. I was not to be disappointed.
At “Little Mombo,” we saw everything we hoped for – and more. We saw all the big cats: lions, leopard and cheetah, all closer than I’ve ever seen them before. Our Land Rover was the only vehicle around, so we were able to follow the animals closely, without disrupting them. Here, unlike in east Africa, when we came upon a cheetah mother and cub, it was just us, not a convoy of ten safari vehicles encircling the cats. We could experience their behavior, not just their presence.
by Nancy McDaniel
Clouds have always fascinated me. It doesn’t matter what I learned about them as a child in school. I believe they are magical. I believe they are somehow spiritual. I believe I can sit on them. I believe that they speak to me, as their shapes form, as they move toward me. Always toward me, never away.
by Nancy McDaniel
The reason I first went to Zimbabwe had nothing to do with one of those infomercials, the ones that show crying, hungry children and ask you to send money to feed them. Instead, it had to do with two statistics I read:
(1) about 500,000 women die in Africa each year of pregnancy-related problems, some attributed to inadequate nutrition and prenatal care and
(2) in Zimbabwe, out of every 1000 children born, about 70 die, many an indirect result of maternal malnutrition. The health of the children, the babies, is due in large part to that of their mother. If she is not well nourished, her whole family suffers.
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