I am not by nature a risk-taker. In general I prefer to play it safe, at least in real life. But even the most cautious people can have their moments of insanity, especially in their teen years. One summer day I visited Fort Williams with my family. I had spent several of my formative years […]

My husband, Alan, walks through the Maine woods regularly with an ease and confidence I cannot share. He has been wandering through vast woodlands since he was 5, so I was not surprised when he saw the old fire tower off in the distance, researched the trail map and decided to hike to it. We […]

A year out of college, I was finding it impossible to land a job in the journalistic profession for which I’d spent four years preparing. There were two newspapers in Salt Lake City, where I was living at the time, and neither the Tribune nor the Deseret News was interested in my unproven reportorial prowess. […]