Hello, Everyone! What a summer it’s been, though I have not been walking I have not been sitting round either. Where do I begin? Well first the last batch of blogs written were of a fascinating time I had inside the belly of the beast so-to-speak...that of being inside the heart of the outdoor industry at Outdoor Retailer Trade Show in Salt Lake City for an entire week this summer. Also I have just begun a new "I can't believe I'm getting paid for this" job. Which really is more than a job but an amazing experience that you'll just have to read about. But basically I am now living in Greenfield, NH working as a camp counselor for Nature's Classroom. The missives, found at www.globenotes.com/worldwalker will take you from the edge of Otter Lake in New Hampshire to the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City where over 900 companies (that have anything and everything to do with the outdoors) converged with over 24,000 people, most of which were the retailers that buy and subsequently stock their products all over the world. I was among 500 working media representatives which included folks from the BBC, NPR, all major American Networks, even folks from Asia etc covered the event. I might have covered it a wee bit differently...so enjoy. There are about 12 or more entries to read so be sure and scroll down to August 6th and read till the 20th of August. Remember (for those of you that are not avid readers of my blogs) they are in chronological order but since they are posted quasi daily....you have to go back and find the first of the series and scroll up.
Thanks to my mom who took on the tweaking of my brother's old suit (amazing that I am now entering an era of "hand me ups" instead of the traditional hand me downs) and had it express mailed just in time to my pal Christina Coles home just in tome for the conference and the wedding....I was able to ditch the nomad look long enough to pass as a normal member of society. Most folks never knew. Photographic evidence was captured by new pal and dance partner (for a night that is) Jenn ????? who snapped a photo of me next to the groom. By the way, i was the ring boy at Dan’s father's (Napoleon Elortegui) wedding years ago. He is a childhood friend and high school buddy of my dad and my brother’s god father. So really they are family. I love them all and it was good seeing Dan's sister Raquel and mom Georgie welcome me with open arms as I descended into Philly where I stayed across the street with their neighbors The Dewises.
Then I was off to DC to train new guides and show an old friend from high school Aracelly Campo (and new citizen of the US - congrats Ara) what our nation’s capital is all about. We traversed the museums and monuments of DC day and night, stayed at the plush, five star French Hotel "Sofitel" (thanks to my pal and fellow adventurer, tour guide and Sofitel Miami Receptionist...Diana Beltran) for way under the thousand dollar a night (usual cost) rate located just a block and a half from The White House. Later that week as I used up my time writing and thinking, I further waltzed around the city and checked out new museum exhibits I had not seen and made friends with new couchsurfers and fellow nomads like Mike Bogoman, a law student at George Washington University who opened his home up (for the first time ever) to a complete stranger as he is now hooked on Couchsurfing. My final nights in DC were spent with the Digital Park ranger Bob Eckhart whose 7 year revamp of the National Park Systems’ Website has revolutionized - not to mention simplified what was once over 47,000 pages of not-so-cohesive looking park websites. Then it was off to Boston to catch up with pal Marji Schumann (the Loft Queen of Atlanta). Margi flew into Boston to drive out with me to the White Mountains of New Hampshire as I presented two talks one on my Appalachian Trail Hike. But before we were off to New Hampshire, I gave Marji a great overview tour of Boston since she would be staying on 4 days after I left to explore “bean town”. We walked the hell out of Newbury St, Commonwealth Ave, Chinatown…. Explored the Boston Library, Beacon Hill, Boston Common and stopped off at historic locations such as Copley Square, Fanuiel Hall and Quincy Market and even the original “Cheers” pub called The Bull and Finch. Before Marji arrived I overnighted on the bus from DC and then crashed at the airport before checking in early and getting some rest at the Hilton which we enjoyed before renting a car and driving 5 hours north through the ever growing mountains of the north East till we got to the town of Gorham, NH where I re visited hiker hostels “Hikers Paradise” and “The Barn” where…sure enough… hikers converged to swap stories, eat butter and tuna and rest before they headed either to Mt. Katahdin or The Whites. We checked in later into Pinkham Notch and I gave my talk and screened my pal Ben Wagner’s film Southbounders. The next day we found ourselves painfully unprepared for the experience of hiking on Mt. Washington at 6,200 feet after heading up The Cog Railway as wind, rain and clouds brought the valleys lovely 70 degree and sunny day to a miserable 30 degrees. The talk I gave the day before was a classic “do as I say not as I do” type example of how not to go hiking on Mt Washington. So unprepared were we that they nailed us with extra costs on purchasing rain gear and winter headbands just so we could attempt to walk out the door. We went a mile in the wrong direction and decided to head back up to the
comfort and warmth of the Mt Washington Observatory and tear up our
fresh fruit, “apple juice” (Wine we snuck up and devoured) and fine
cheeses and crackers.
Oh well. The next day I gave a great new talk on how to lighten your load both of stuff and responsibilities using a great essay written by Thoreau entitled “Life without Principle”. And on the morning we left we tackled 4 more miles of trail terrain that gave Margi a better view of how different the trail can be. But the day was lovely and the Wildcat approach trail hellish… but all in all it beat Mt Washington as we could stroll in the sun and yap at our leisure. That weekend I was finally able to say that my book was now available on Amazon.com thanks to fellow AT hiker Matt McKinney who with his computer savvy connections and relationship with Amazon programmers began a web portal thru Amazons site to sell a great assortment of outdoor gear, books etc.. He took on my book after our first meeting at Trail Days and we finalized the deal while bumping into each other at the above mentioned Outdoor Retailer Show in Salt Lake City. So… without further adieu and with great thanks to Matt, my Appalachian
Trail Book A quick trip back to Boston barely had me catch the red eye 2am bus back to Washington DC to meet up with and show Bill and Becky Bridges around DC and to simultaneously welcome Holly (their daughter) back from a year in England....all of which led to the second wedding of the summer for the Bridges' cousin Michelle and spouse Michael who had a unique Buddhist ceremony in Waldorf Maryland. But before the wedding the Bridges and I had to "slum" it for two days at the aforementioned Hotel Sofitel thanks to my great pal and fellow Sofitel employee Diana Beltran. Bill got a kick out of the fact that they refused to allow us to park our own car or even go to it if we left something behind. Its one of these fancy hotels that does everything with flair including automatic valet parking. We also were the recipients of some major trail magic in the realm of a free nights stay thanks to my connection to Educational Field Trips as we asked the Marriot capital hill to let us slum it for a night there as well. Then we got out of bum mode and actually paid regular price for a nights stay in Waldorf and proceeded to stay way into the evening (well 11pm, but we were the last ones to go from the parking lot, they almost had to kick us out) as we all danced away and celebrated Eric and Michelle's big day. A week in Chattanooga to get my stuff together and after nearly 2 months of traveling li was ready to go back across the US to the northeast to take on my new post as outdoor educator for Nature’s Classroom where I begin today teaching little ones (after my one week of training) about the outdoors, lightweight backpacking, hiking and more. I will be working for them for about 4 weeks (an eternity in my book) but I could not resist the call to teach something I see as just "play" in my life. Again....yet another dream job! What luck! But now a small bit of a challenge; though I enjoy some of your updates I do not nearly hear from half of you all out there getting this. Please no matter how small or large your new adventures, day to day challenges, hell even baby steps towards your goals and dreams....I want to hear them. Please write me. I am thinking of (anonymously of course) posting some of the many cool things all my friends are up to. You do know, I do not have the monopoly on living a cool life. So let me know and I’ll prove to you, I’m living just as normal life as others and in some cases, many of you are doing much more brazen things than I am. love to all, Cesar |
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co written and drawn mostly by my ex wife Maud Dillingham is
now available on