inglorious wanderer

"In our religion, we don't practice within four walls. Our religion is written in all these mountains and in the valleys, in the waters, in the wildlife--everything that belongs to the Creator. So, we're in church everyday. That's what we say." By Pauline Esteves, a Timbisha Shoshone elder Pauline Esteves, a Timbisha Shoshone was 8 years old when  President Herbert Hoover established 2 million acres of her homelands as Death Valley National Monument (DVNM) on February 11, 1933. The federal government presumed that the valley had no permanent residents. Timbisha Shoshone people have nomadic lifesyle of hunting, gathering wild food, visiting sacred sites, participating in ancient tribal rituals, and the like. Now at 3.4 million acres and the largest of all US national parks outside Alaska, Death Valley showcases the spectacular beauty of extremes that has always been reverred by Pauline Esteves and her people. The valley has been home to the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe ...

Once upon a time some 25 million years ago while Mother Nature was taking its course, Devil, one SOB  was left to himself doing as he pleased.  Devil played tricks and making pranks on everyone including North America  and Farallon,  two brothers who were attached to each other like tectonic plates. Devil liked to smack North on  the back of his head and when he turns around to see who had been hitting him, he only saw Farallon whom he smacked even harder to get even.  Many more fights followed until North smashed Farallon and  poor Farallon broke into pieces. Farallon's demise made Pacific very angry that he came home to confront North ramming and denting him but  getting stuck with him instead.  The dent that resulted where   Pacific rammed into  North America became the Devil's punchbowl.  Today, the Devil's Punchbowl Natural Area highlights a tilted sandstone formation that becomes a 300-feet deep canyon in the northern slo...

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...

George Washington Bridge. Bronx. Cabrini Boulevard. Washington Heights. 175th Street, Manhattan, NYC. Interstate 95 or I-95, the main interstate highway of the east coast. New York State Route Highway 9A. US Route 9. US Route 1. Fort Lee, New Jersey. Palisades Interstate Park, New Jersey. White blazes.  Concrete jungles where dreams are made of  There’s nothing you can’t do Now you’re in New York  These streets will make you feel brand new The song “Empire State of Mind” admittedly typical “New York hip-hop shit” by its writers resonates again as I hike my  second bridge for the  family East Coast visit. I’ve had enough of the tourist crowd of the  iconic Brooklyn Bridge and finding the bike path  that would get me to New Jersey on foot got me deeper into  this Jay Z-popularized hip-hop shit.  If  I can make it here, I can make it anywhere, that’s what they say. AllTrails rates the 1.6 mile George Washington Bridge hike easy. The unbroke...

Harlem Meer is a man-made lake at the northeast corner of Central Park.  It is a stone’s throw away from the creaky Central Park North Apartments at 111th Street where KG, Karlee, Richard and I stayed. Took  a left on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard towards 110th Street past Malcolm X Boulevard. Meer is the Dutch word for lake. Harlem is a modification. of Haarlem, a city in Netherlands. The 843-acre park is surrounded by Fifth Avenue in the east, the affluent Upper West Side neighborhood,  Midtown Manhattan to the south,  and the  Harlem in the northeastern side. The whole park occupies the  length from 59th Street to 110th Street and the width from 5th Street to 8th Street. Hey, Donalds... The word Manhattan likely came from the Lenape language Mannahatta  which translates to “island of many hills”. The Lenape people were also known as Delaware tribes, the indigenous groups from the Northeastern Woodlands or something like today’s east coast. In 16...

"To look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for  the first time or last time. Thus is your time on earth filled with glory."   I  read "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" a long time ago  while growing up in my Third World country of origin. Never had I even imagined that I would one day live in Brooklyn, albeit briefly. A line of Anne Sexton’s poem titled “Rumpelstiltskin” inscribed on a panel at a Brooklyn Heights street made me wonder about this living the moment  attitude in a borough where anyone  can "waste something once in a while and get the feeling how it would be to have lots of money" while pouring a cup of coffee down the sink. "Poor thing: To die and never see Brooklyn".  Brooklyn is in the southernmost portion of Long Island, the southeastern part of New York. Long Island consists of 4 counties namely: Kings County which is more commonly called Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk. Long Island is bounded by the ...

I don't know how I ended up at Washington Square. I was supposed to be following signs for Christopher and 7th Streets. From George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal, I found my way into the 181st Street Subway station and caught either the  1 Train or the A Line.  About 45 minutes and some 22  stops later, I got off  at Christopher Street and Sheridan Square.  I arrived at the intersection of Christopher, Grove and Fourth Streets some time later after walking around in circles. And there's Christopher Park on Christopher Street.   Both park and street  are  named after Charles Christopher Amos. Charles Christopher was a relative of Richard Amos, a trustee of the estate Sir Peter Warren.   Sir Peter Warren was a British naval officer who owned 300 acres of land along the Hudson River waterfront where today's Lower Manhattan is located.  The estate was part  of the  tobacco farm developed by Wouter Van Twiller, a...