Out of My Comfort Zone

December 18, 2022

“Dear lord I am going to Die!” The thought was screaming at me inside my head. It had been nearly a decade since I snowboarded. I had mistakenly thought it had only been five. Ha ‘Who was I kidding?’ I was looking at a view of titan sized mountains, the peaks of which were lost to us mere mortals in the clouds of the heavens, each one seemed to be fight each other as they climbed their way into space. Below, it was sprinkled with warm romantic Austrian chalets. Any of which I would much rather be in, warming my feet by a large, cavernous fireplace sipping Gluhwein (Mulled wine) and relaxing. Anywhere but here, teetering on the edge of life and death; looking down on my impending doom, prepared to flail my tiny fragile body in the direction of Innsbruck, Austria.

IN SEARCH OF ICE

January 4, 2021

The great, frozen abyss. The last remaining uninhabitable landmass on Earth. The word ‘Antarctica’ has a way of conjuring up so many ideas; barren, remote, treacherous, mysterious and, for a few, one of the last ‘real’ adventures left. Most of us will live our whole lives wondering what might be out there, but only a few will able to see it with their own eyes. With the recent death of solo explorer Henry Worsley a mere 30 miles from his goal, perhaps the attraction of a trip of this magnitude is not for everyone. But Mike Laird is not everyone.

Sedona

February 1, 2019

In the fall, Sedona hits you. It gets inside you as any good place can, and it stays there forever, whispering for you to return. Deserts can do that; they have a kind of magic that arrives on a soft breeze in the night, daring you to look up at the stars and dream. This is the home of the people who roamed the wild hills before Europeans even set foot here: the Anasazi, a name coined by the Navajos that means “the ancient ones.”