Month: September 2019

Ucluelet Paddle

Posted on by Annie

My trip to the west coast of Vancouver Island began with grey clouds and cold temperatures, with rain not far behind. My very small campsite had a big view: the boats tied up at the small craft harbor. I walked down to the boat ramp on the other side of the campground that evening, where the water was flat calm despite the dark skies overhead. The next morning, I was all set to find the lighthouse, but something made me turn right instead of left out of the campground and I found myself back at the boat dock, looking at…

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Flight 93 National Memorial

Posted on by Annie

On a clear September day in 2001, Flight 93 took off from Newark, New Jersey at 8:42 AM ET, en route to San Francisco. It would never arrive there, instead crashing into a field in southern Pennsylvania at 10:03 AM.  Forty people onboard that plane fought terrorist for control, preventing it from crashing into the US Capitol in Washington DC. Seven crew members, 33 passengers, each of them a hero for choosing to fight back and ultimately die rather than see their flight become the fourth that horrible day to crash into an American landmark.  The Flight 93 Memorial is…

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Church on the Water

Posted on by Annie

I like the old stone cathedrals, and have visited almost every one standing in England over the last few decades. Standing in front of thick Norman columns, bathed in the light of tall panes of stained glass, or craning my neck to see the keystone in the arched ceilings always fills me with a sense of wonder that such things exist. But it is hard to find cathedrals on a regular basis, especially in campgrounds. That’s where water comes in. And a kayak. Paddling out on a quiet lake early in the morning, letting the rising sun warm me as…

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National Museum of African American History and Culture

Posted on by Annie

On a beautiful day in Washington DC, I met up with two friends to visit the African American Museum of History. This would be the capstone to my civil rights tour, and I was hoping for a synthesis of all the history I had been studying, all the authors I had read the past winter and spring.  It was overwhelming in so many ways that a blog post is never going to be able to explain how I felt. It was all there laid out in a timeline of exhibits: the sad and sordid history of slavery, the promise of…

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