Adventure: Friends on the Loose in the Woods

Uli and Otto Saur

Uli and Otto Saur

Otto and Uli are visiting for a week. We hosted one of their sons as a high-school exchange student about thirty years ago, and we’ve been friends ever since. Years ago we hiked with them in the Alps, and now they wanted to hike in the Appalachians. The Appalachians have vast areas of unpopulated wilderness with poorly marked trails, and hikers who make a small mistake may walk for miles in a wrong direction.

Continue reading

Outer Places: Photos of Cumberland Gap National Historical Park

Gallery

This gallery contains 26 photos.

Mention the Cumberland Gap and many people immediately think of Daniel Boone who blazed the Wilderness Trail through the gap. European-American settlers then migrated along the trail into what is now Kentucky and Tennessee, but Native Americans traveled through the … Continue reading

Outer Places: Eastern Kentucky

Teenage Girls, Kentucky

“Take my picture, please, please, take my picture,” said the pretty blond teenager. She was with two friends, a girl and boy, and the threesome was headed into Walmart near Pineville, Kentucky. The two girls stood near one another, and the boy, wearing a baseball cap, jeans, and a light jacket over his lanky frame, drifted a few feet away. I asked him if he wanted to be in the picture, but he said no.

I took two pictures, then she wanted to see them.

“Oh, my eyes are so blue. You have a really good camera,” she said as she continued to look at herself. Continue reading