Same time last year

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Mount Baden Powell

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Katharine Lee Bates who  wrote " America the Beautiful"  must have had  that familiar feeling of awe and wonderment every hiker experiences as she bagged Colorado's Pikes Peak in the summer of 1893.  O beautiful for spacious skies,  For Amber waves of grain,  For purple mountain majesties,  Above the fruited plain America, America  God shed His grace on thee,  And crown thy good with brotherhood  From sea ro shining sea.  It was I who have been calling on mountains. No mountains ever called me back but I love them just the same. As usual, it's just me and  myself sauntering the 40 switchbacks of the 40th hike  of the 52 hike challenge I am doing this year. Twelve more and I would complete the  challenge.  I belt out a slightly modified Rachel Platten's refrain making sure nobody was within hearing distance.  This is my fight song Take back my life song  Prove I'm not old song  My power's turned on...
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The Hoodoos of Bryce Canyon

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I never heard about hoodoos until I was on my way to the Bryce Canyon National Park. I was on a guided tour and James Marvin Phelps was the tour guide. He also  drove the minivan that I  was on with 7 other tourists. I took notes of what James Phelps explained about places we were passing thru, all the way from Las Vegas  Nevada to the town of Bryce in Utah. "Who was  Bryce Canyon named after?" James asked the group. He offered a free bottled water to the person who could give him the right answer. "George!" Tim Smith, the gentleman from Minnesota who used to live in upscale  La Jolla  and went to UC San Diego for college answered. I did not hear any reaction nor  comment from James.  James went on to say something about cattle that belonged  to Mr. Bryce getting lost among the hoodoos. James sort of reinforced what came to mind when I heard the word hoodoos. The Paiutes (pronounced as pa-i-yot),  the Native American tribe ...
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Tenshi's coming out

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Tenshi comes out. Beyond gay terms, Tenshi takes the place of Holy Shi Tzu, the happy monkey tree sack buddha from the cordilleras of my homeland who has gone ahead, like lost or left behind on the trails. Tenshi means messenger from heaven in Japanese. The icon is a representation of the monks who are called "tenshin" at the Yokoji Zen Mountain Center near Idyllwild.  In Zen  Buddhism terms, Tenshi comes out in search of the bull. "In the pasture of this world, I endlessly push aside the tall grasses in search of the bull. Following unnamed rivers, lost upon the interpenetrating path of distant mountains, my strengths failing me and my vitality exhausted, I cannot find the bull. I only hear the locusts chirping through the forests at night." The glorious Holy Shih Tzu started off as one of my "traveling gnomes", a corny mimicry of a plot in Amelie, the movie.  The lowly happy monkey tree sack Buddha  took  the place of Pha Khin Phat wh...
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