After 18 years in the financial sector as a CPA and Certified Financial Planner, I asked myself one day who I really wanted to be. Was it the geek carrying the HP 12C, donned in panty hose, respectable pumps, and a conservative suit? Nah. It was the person in this pic. I really like this person. And she seems pretty happy too.

I don’t post pictures of myself mainly because there aren’t many. I’m the one behind the camera, and I like it that way. And pictures of me flyfishing are even more rare as I’m usually by myself or those in my party are downstream somewhere (I like to be the person upstream LOL – I’m blonde not stupid).  The blonde part’s not technically correct after the China backpacking trip but I’m working to recover the blonde locks. It takes a lot of time sitting in the hair salon. I don’t do that well. Sitting still.

The photo above was taken on the 3rd hiking trip into the Wind River Range in Wyoming in 2007. There were 3 of us on this trip – me and 2 guy friends. The first and second trips in 2002 and 2003 included me and 5 guys. My amazing husband sends me off with these guys as they’re all like brothers to me. I’m the only girl that ever gets invited because I’m the only girl they know who can smell as bad as they do at the end of the trip. Well, and I don’t whine. Ever. My backpack always weighs 50+ lbs. My camera gear outranks personal items and therefore there’s not a lot of grooming that takes place. I’m okay with that. More okay than I should be. Furthermore I can eat my weight in cheeseburgers at the Lander Bar & Grill when we come out. And throw back a respectable amount of libations.

The trips are grueling. The last 2 more so than the first as I was living in Jackson Hole for the first go and had the advantage of altitude adjustment. Big advantage. The guys all came from sea level. Big disadvantage. I smoked them to the top of Hell’s Hill, elevation 11,000 feet and a full 8 hours into the second day’s hike. So much so that I had time to cavort at the top, lie back in the sunshine, photograph like a fiend, and then climb back down to help a guy bring his pack on up to the top.

I was a rock star on that mountain. It was the first and last of that glory. And like a HS football star, I still talk about it every chance I get.

Since that glory has faded to the hue of a 1900’s tintype photograph, for my birthday this year, I asked to climb Grand Teton. I’ve been training now for 4 months. There’s lots of hissing going on in my household. Lots of ice packs flying around. Lots of short trips and parties being turned down. Lots of lactic acid pumping through my veins. I’ve done without sweets for weeks upon weeks, chocolate included. My life has been consumed by the preparation. My husband reminds me frequently his life has been indirectly consumed by it.  I gave him permission to say bad things to me the next time I throw out an idea that will so voraciously inhale 5+ months of our lives.

My version of Ansel Adam’s famous photo from the Snake River Overlook.

Grand Teton. It stands at 13,770, with an ascent of 6,700 feet which requires a combination of hiking, climbing, and rappelling. It’s the highest mountain in the Teton Range (part of the Rocky Mountains). The most popular route up the mountain is the Exum Ridge (II, 5.5), a 13-pitch exposed route first climbed by Glenn Exum. This route takes the south ridge of the mountain to the summit and the direct start (Lower Exum Ridge, III, 5.7) is considered a mountaineering classic. The North Ridge (IV, 5.8) and North Face with Direct Finish (IV, 5.8) ascend the dramatic northern aspect of the peak, and their inclusion in Steck and Roper’s Fifty Classic Climbs of North America has helped maintain the fame of the peak in the climbing community. Since the first ascent, 38 routes with 58 variations have been established.

The origin of the name is controversial. The most popular explanation is that “Grand Teton” means “large teat” in French, named by either French-Canadian or Iroquois members of an expedition led by Donald McKenzie of the North West Company. However, other historians disagree, and claim the mountain was named after the Teton-Sioux tribe. Personally, the “large teat” origin is my favorite.

I know a lot about the Tetons, from the GROUND. I’ve photographed them for years, gazed at them from all sides and dreamed of being up there. It was the one thing I regret not doing while living there. And I did a lot of things Animal Tracking, Snot Effect and Poop. You chuckled at the “from the ground” part? You know you did. But it’s important because that familiarity means I know the challenge I’m embarking upon. Then again, I always say that and then get into something and promise myself to have my head checked if I manage to exit the situation alive.

From The Ground

From The Ground #2

From The Ground #3

From The Ground #4 Get the picture?!

I’m ordinary. Filled at times with fear, infinitesimally stupid at times, fraught with the same self delusions and insecurities as most everyone else, I may have an above average tolerance for pain. Then again I probably tell myself that in order to stay psyched up for the extremely painful things that seem to happen to me. More on that later. I hate working out. Those 30 minutes on the elliptical are an eternity. Getting to Pilates twice a week is as difficult and unpalatable as mowing 2 acres of grass with a push mower. So this undertaking is a big stretch. I think of this when I recall my 3 year old nephew trying to drink a whole glass of chocolate milk and eat a bowl of ice cream the size of my Dad’s. About as insurmountable.

It’s the task itself, the carrot dangling so enticingly that really gets my blood pumping. After the first Wind River hike I was depressed for months. Lost. Afloat. I know what Lewis felt like when he returned home from the expedition. Driving back to the trailhead after getting everyone else on the road , I wanted to disappear back into that wilderness. Returning to Jackson through distraught tears was as much a struggle as anything I’d done.

Nothing in my life has ever been on the same scale as the Lewis and Clark expedition, but I know what he struggled with even if at a much lesser degree. It took a long time before I felt normal, and to a degree, I’ve never regained the perspective of the world I had before I left for that trip. P.S. That’s a Good thing.

The NEED to have an adventurous goal that will stretch me beyond my recognizable self is ever present. It’s an itch that won’t go away. It’s not been relieved a bit by the aging process, or by injuries sustained on past adventures. I WANT to feel some fear. Not the fear of failure represented by not making it to the top of Grand. If I don’t make it, it’ll be disappointing. But it won’t kill me. NOT making the attempt would kill me. The fear I’m talking about doesn’t come at the hand of others. It comes from the smallness I feel when faced with the elements of nature. Things I can’t control. Things that so radically and without emotion put me in my place. It changes your perspective of the world and your position in it. In my opinion we all need that. Others will argue, but there is but one way to get this attitude adjustment – by pitting yourself against natural elements.

I’m going to be up there in one month. I’m going to be up there in one month. I’m going to be up there in one month.

4 Weeks and Counting!!  Ahhhhh!!……..

P.S. While this technically won’t count as a SOLO trip, it will be just me and an Exum guide.  Actually, getting to the top takes just me.  Sigh.

a voyeur. twisting around the tangle of the plane’s arms and legs to watch. holding my breath with expectation. the wind is a new lover’s touch skimming the wings in tender urgent collision. finger tips of gentle pressure cause indentations to ripple the taut fabric. anticipation reined in with labored patience follows soft, lingering hesitation. tempered desperation. the wheels leave the ground with no announcement. free, the plane strains for the ecstasy of the air. it is the relief of walking onto a quiet veranda from a stuffy room. a bit nauseated from too many people. too much to drink. i can breathe now.

the view from an open cock-pit biplane

Sadly, it’s over — both my ride and the Bartlesville Bi-plane Exposition. After 23 years, the Nat’l Biplane Association voted to discontinue the Expo after the June 2009 event.

As a kid I remember being told if we dug a tunnel through the earth, we’d come out in China. That intrigued me. But not enough to be much inspired to do so when it was just my Dad’s admonition to dig harder in order to get those post holes finished. Those post holes were quite enough for me but I wondered if those fancy-schmancy mechanical diggers sitting in the show room of the implement store would do the trick.  I didn’t dare ask, but I thought about it.  Based on my Dad’s consistent “they sure think a lot of these things” every time he looked at one and saw the price (which was every time we went in), I thought for certain they should at least be able to get a person half-way.  At age 13 when I knew just about all there was to know about the world, I realized the earth was a really big hunk of dirt and those mechanical diggers could not land me anywhere near China. Boy was I glad I never inquired of the salesman about their capacity to handle such a task. And if my Dad had known the question dancing on the tip of my tongue every time we went in, he’d have been glad too.

It was about this time we studied China in Social Studies. All I remember is the amount of people the teacher drummed on about, and the food. The food intrigued me. We didn’t eat much rice. I painfully recall an incident whereby my Dad brought home quail for dinner. As I stood over the sink carefully digging out the pellets so no one would break a tooth, I had a flash of Home Economics genius. Tonight instead of frying it, I’d bake it nestled onto a bed of rice! I served it in a nice Pyrex pie plate — all golden brown and bubbly from the Cream of Mushroom soup I’d brilliantly used — Betty Crocker would have been proud.  “What the heck did you do to MY quail?!” He didn’t say heck.  And he was not impressed one bit by the presentation.

While I managed to slip rice into our meals on occasion after that (I frequently was the family cook), it was many years before I experienced Chinese food.  I loved it and therefore was under the notion I knew a few things about the cuisine. Until I actually went to China.  As is so often the case with my knowledge base, I was in for a few surprises.

Yak Dung bread. Someone asked if I really ate Yak Dung bread. The Yak Dung was not an ingredient IN the bread, rather the “wood” that held the heat that baked it in the pan on the ground. You can see the dried Yak Dung smoldering. We did however dip the bread into Yak Milk Chai Tea. I fantasize about that culinary experience and have weighed the cost of a ticket to procure a slab of that bread. 

I won’t laugh out loud if you tell me you’re a vegetarian or a vegan headed to China, but I will tell you if a trip to China is in your forecast, be prepared for some foot work before you eat. They’re way behind us in the area of privileged non-meat food availabilities (so Americans be thankful for the food choices we have), so meat and meat products are staples. Even bowls of noodles frequently contain tiny chunks of meat. So if you’re a vegetarian or vegan, you might want to pack a smaller size pant for the return trip. How bad is that?!  P.S. I am not a vegetarian or vegan.  I was raised on a cattle ranch. In my opinion, it would be a rather arrogant stance for me to take considering I’m not even one generation removed from living off the land. My Dad would say something like “who do you think you are”? Besides, I LOVE beef. Today my Dad holds down the fort even though his 3 best hands grew up and moved away.  Now we all buy our beef from him!

This photo always makes me laugh. Mouths full, happy tummys, with an entire lamb hanging over them.

Peking Ducks

Sunday Market in Kashgar, Xinjiang Province

The basic procurement of meat that was so blatantly visible didn’t faze me. Growing up we raised our own meat — chickens, rabbits, pigs, cattle. I know the entire process well of getting something from the “hoof” to the table. It was the FISH “slaughterhouses” that got me.  Squiggling buckets of slithering inky mounds of unidentifiable objects that belonged back in the water, unsettled me.  My son and I entered one not realizing once inside we had to walk all the way through as we couldn’t stomach the thought of taking the time to turn around.  People sitting over buckets “skinning” what appeared to be the tiniest of eels had the tune of Psycho screeching through my head.  I tried to not look, but the concrete floor was even more unsettling and to  make matters worse, the stall proprietors held things out for us to examine as we passed.  The irony here is I know I ate some of their wares in restaurants, and went on and on about how delicious it was. Whatever IT was.

I perfected my chop stick technique on noodles in an alley of Urumqui.

The ratio of noodles to rice was great. The noodles were sublime and were on several days the only food we had.  My son, there for approximately 18 months, ate noodles every day. While there are many variations, the general class of noodles is called La Mien.  To see them “thrown”, a process whereby a huge chunk of the dough is twisted, pulled, whipped into the air like a circus act until the tiny strands magically separate and get tossed into a boiling pot of water with your name on it, was a highlight.  My hands-down favorite dish? Boiled octopus and squid with bamboo shoots and other vegetables in a fiery sauce — Shuizhu Yu. Very Sichuan! And the dish I loved and could actually replicate at home?  Ganbian Sijidou, Sichuan Green Beans — check out the recipe below.  Other unusual things I ingested?  Donkey Meat — to die for good, pan-fried Lotus flower — delicious and I regret terribly not taking a photo of it as it was a beautiful pinwheel of sorts, Boiled Pigeon — would die to avoid, mainly because of the gray, pallid, overall color, and skewered Lamb intestines cooked over a spit of sorts. Was a very big hit with the locals.

Sichuan Green Beans: Ganbian Sijidou. RECIPE: fresh green beans, garlic, peppers (of any sort or heat), more garlic, garlic salt, sichuan peppercorns. Heat wok until VERY hot. Add sesame oil. Then green beans. Stir fry until blistering. Add the garlic, garlic salt, and peppercorns for a moment at the end. Enjoy! 

P.S. the sichuan peppercorns make the green bean dish what it is.  Here’s where you can order them.

Looks like rice, but it’s noodles. 

Chicken Feet, A Delicacy. For me? No thank you.

The rice was cooked in a slice of bamboo over an open fire. In the middle of the rice roll was meat and a slightly sweet chutney of sorts.

These were prevalent on the streets and corners and used to grill meat skewers — very popular with the locals and were fired up most all the day long.  We didn’t know what to order and so got Lamb Intestines. They were rubbery but we made a gallant effort on them.  Didn’t learn unti llater what we’d had. The light breading was tasty.

Look closely without looking too closely. See the sign? It says “Uigher Fast Food”   LOL

Noodle Smorgasbord. Just walk up and point.

Lots of veges and decadent, exotic spices. Almost always cooked with meat.

My favorite Beijing restaurant.  In an alley, up a tiny flight of stairs, through the kitchen past the cook, and into a 10 person dining area.  There was no front entrance. The front window overlooked the street. We watched people wondering how in the world we got in there. My son had discovered it on his first stay in Beijing. The picture of Sichuan Green Beans came from this restaurant.

All cans were still pull-tops.

The food advertising was, ummmm, unusual.  Here’s a few examples.  I believe the disconnect evident in these posters was due to the fact fast food is a relatively new phenomenon.  Additionally, they’ve learned Westerners love burgers and pizzas.  They just don’t have the targeted message down pat, yet.

This was an advertisement in a fast food restaurant at an airport. Camel burgers, anyone?

This advertisement was for chicken. But a pizza is shown. And it’s not a chicken pizza.

James Brown’s “Sex Machine” has a word in it that happens to be my husband’s favorite “lyric” of all time – “TASTE”. Seven weeks of dieting and 9 pounds lighter, I’m noticing a few things about TASTE – as in the sensitivity of my taste buds has come alive. A sweet potato is sweet – sans the butter and the brown sugar, a carrot tastes like a carrot and it’s delicious. I purchased cottage cheese this week for some variety and was surprised at its saltiness. Actually I’m surprised by the saltiness of most everything that has any processing. I realize this new awareness of what things taste like is not merely the result of attempting to limit my intake to 1500 calories a day. Technically, I can eat anything I want as long as I account for it. However I discovered quickly if I want to go to bed without hunger pains, those 1500 calories need to be well selected – meaning food that’s bulkier, healthier, with less prepackaged, little to no fast food, or fried food, etc. So not only has my intake decreased but the kinds of food I’m eating have changed. I’m enjoying the taste of food more than I have in a very long time.

From The Philosopher’s Diet , “You will know that you are making progress when you find that a raw carrot tastes very sweet. Peas have a lot of natural sugar in them, have you noticed yet? After a while you will tend towards salads (plain vinegar and oil, please) simply because you need to stuff your gut, and salads have a lot of bulk.  Vegetables. Whole grains. You are counting calories so carefully that you begin to think twice before you blow a lot of them on a small piece of meat.”  Well I’m still eating meat, yes even red meat, but not as much as before.  Don’t tell my rancher Dad.

Feeding Cattle

Something was funny. I can assure you, it wasn’t the weight on our backs.

Wind River Range, Wyoming

The St. Lawrance Basin Trail-head

Four weeks of counting every morsel of food or beverage with calories, limiting that to 1500 calories per day, and I’ve dropped 6 pounds.  Oh happy day!  I even had a hamburger last week (I’ve temporarily discontinued the enjoyment of cheese) .  My friend at My Kugelhopf has not been much help with sticking to this restriction.   If you haven’t seen her website, check it out. You’ll be sorry if your weight is currently an issue.  Or glad in a torturous, perverted way. Back to the hamburger.  It counted for a whopping 550 calories, but was worth every one. I didn’t have any fries.

All my life I’ve had to watch what I eat.  Having a tremendous sweet tooth exacerbates the effort. As a kid I was fat. At 15 I experienced, successfully, my first weight loss effort and stayed fairly thin until about age 24. At 29 I lost 40 pounds, and it’s stayed off. But not without a fight. Since marrying 5 years ago a few pounds have crept back.  To summit Grand Teton I need to be as thin as I’ve ever been.  My knees are going to need all the help the rest of my body can give them.

So now you know I’m versed in the Herculean task of weight control. And it is Herculean.  To me it ranks right up there with paying your bills on time, getting and staying out of debt and living within your means — some of the basics of life, but astoundingly difficult.  Lulled by the simplicity of the task, many of us do not factor in the day-to-day strain of it.  The word consistency should have “unattainable” as a synonym.

Carrying around excess pounds and excess debt are means to the selling short of our futures. They both diminish the ability to be free.  While I believe living within your means to be honorable and admirable, keeping your weight at a healthy level may be only admirable, bordering on honorable.

Long before I discovered the book above I realized weight maintenance and philosophy had a great deal in common.  The book fell from a shelf onto my head during a late night crawl through a book store. It wasn’t so much the title “The Philosopher’s Diet” as the subtitle that caught my attention “How to Lose Weight and Change the World”. The author Richard Watson, is a professional philosopher.  From the back jacket: “If Descartes had sat down to write a treatise on losing weight as a metaphor for maintaining discipline amidst life’s vicissitudes, it would have read much like this.”  From the first paragraph of the book: “Fat. I presume you want to get rid of it. Then quit eating so much. No normal, healthy person on the good green earth ever got thinner without cutting down on caloric intake. Do a few exercises, don’t eat so much, and you will lose weight.”

Buy it. You’ll never be tempted again to try the latest weight loss fad.  Your pocketbook will thank you; your goal to live within your means will be rewarded.