My latest goal: Have a Pop-Tart instant coffee breakfast in the woods before work.
As goals go, it my not be the loftiest.
Or is it?
For a good 5 years this simple ambition has been on my to-do list. Yet it remains undone. Why?
Because until now I’ve simply viewed it as “a thing to do.” A thing I really want to do, but, in the pecking order of life, simply a thing to do; it never occurred to me to elevate it to “goal” status. Goals, after all, are things you work at: a million in sales through Q2, discovering a cure for the doldrums. Showing up for work on time. Goals usually take the form of resolutions you set on New Year’s Day, like fitting into your high school Speedo by Memorial Day. Having a processed pastry and Sanka while sitting on a tree stump isn’t exactly an achievement you’d include in the Christmas newsletter.read more
As part of Year of the Trail, the Great Trails State Coalition, the non-profit driving the observation, has designated themes for each month. Some themes aren’t necessarily tied to the month: August, for instance, has been “health and wellness” (as opposed to “sweating”). September is another matter. Its theme?read more
Here’s a post we like to run in the waning days of August, as a reminder that while fall is near, you still have time to knock a few more items off your summer to-do list.
Labor Day weekend, which is in two weeks, marks the end of wearing white shoes and seersucker suits. It also marks the end of several summertime frivolities.read more
The following is a variation of a piece that originally ran Aug. 6, 2014, titled, “Summer Hiking: Beat the Heat,” that we rejiggered and ran again, titled “Hiking: Where to Beat the Heat,” on July 20, 2016, then ran yet again on July 6, 2021. The original has been paired down from 10 hikes to 5, but with more details on the 5.
Some of us don’t mind hiking in the heat. Switch to cotton, freeze your water bottle overnight, use your trekking poles as spider web vanquishers … . Sure, you work up a nice glow. But you’re on the trail, and really, it’s not unbearable.
We recognize, though, that not everyone is inclined to keep on hikin’ between Memorial Day and Labor Day. We also recognize that along about the Fourth of July weekend, the aforementioned cool-weather hikers are starting to undergo withdrawal. They get out their phone and stare longingly at those photos from the beginning of the year, when you were bundled in fleece. Ah, the good cold days.read more
I have so looked forward to the Dog Days of August*, that period of summer when the heat, exacerbated by the humidity, is at its worst.
If you’re thinking, “How could August be any hotter than it’s already been?” you’d be justified. Meteorologists say this has been the hottest summer on record. I’d venture that it’s also been the muggiest. Of course, I’ll take 90-degree/80-percent humidity days over the 31 days of temperatures 110 or greater that Phoenix endured.read more
