Freedom!

The year 1978 was probably the best of my life. Sick of military life, I saved my leave so I could get discharged early. I decided to celebrate my freedom by traveling. After being discharged around Christmas (1977), I spent some time back in South Dakota, visiting relatives and working on a farm for a month. With daily temperatures hovering around -20°, it was the most brutal work I’ve ever done.

What do I mean by brutal? I’d get up at 5 a.m., go outside and walk out into the pasture to fetch the milk cows. Milking them in the extreme cold was grueling; we often sought relief by sticking our hands in a pail of warm water sitting on a heater.

Picking up a fifty-pound bag of feed was even harder when it was frozen to the ground. The cows couldn’t drink until someone chopped a hole in the ice on the water tank.

We didn’t eat breakfast. We didn’t eat anything at all until noon. Then we ate ravcnously.

After lunch, we went out and worked until late in the evening. Then we ate a huge dinner and went to bed. We had no time or energy for anything else.

Westward Bound

I then drove to Bellingham, in northwestern Washington State, and registered for college at Western Washington University. Next, I drove south to California, taking the scenic Hiway 101 along the coast.

In San Francisco, I ate at a Chinese restaurant for the first time in my life. I then flew to Hawaii with a friend. I hate to dismiss Hawaii with a single sentence, but I don’t have many special insights to offer, and I don’t want this to sound like a typical tourist’s travelogue. After all, I was a tourist.

If you’ve never been to Hawaii, I hope you get to visit some day. Even the island Oahu is fabulously beautiful. People say the islands of Maui and Kauaii are more beautiful still. I flew to Kona, on the west side of the “Big Islands” of Hawaii and hiked and backpacked around the south side of the island to Hilo, a beautiful city on the east side of the island. OK, so I wrote several sentences about Hawaii.

Around the World

From Hawaii, I flew to Seattle, hitch-hiked to Nebraska, took a train to New York City, then flew to my next destination. I knew this might be the last travel extravaganza of my life, so I wanted to go some place very special. The two places I wanted to see most were the Himalayas and East Africa. Of course, the main attractions were the mountains and wildlife, respectively. I figured the Himalayas would be around forever, but I wasn’t too sure about Africa’s fauna.

When I walked out of the plane, I found myself on another continent for the first time in my life, one that would prove both exotic and strangely familiar.

Courtesy SACrS (See a bigger picture)

If you ever get a chance to visit Kenya, there are two things you must do - visit a national park, and go hiking outside a national park.

Tourism is a very important industry in Kenya, and the parks are well managed. You can watch and photograph all kinds of wild animals until you’re bored. And, believe it or not, you will get bored. It’s kind of like being in a zoo, except you’re the one in the cage; people generally aren’t allowed to get out of their cars in Kenya’s national parks.

Hiking outside the parks is a different story. You probably won’t see many animals, but when you do see them, it will be a very different experience. Did I mention that tourists aren’t allowed to carry guns?

So imagine hiking through the African bush, unarmed, when you suddenly come across a footprint made by a lion. Your pulse will quicken, you’ll breathe a little deeper and you’ll become much more alert.

I remember seeing some lions in a national park. I was amazed at how hard they were to see, hidden in the brown grass, very close to our vehicle. But I have fonder memories of the lion tracks we stumbled across one day. I also remember stampeding a herd of buffalo in a thick riverside forest. We froze in fear, not knowing what direction they were running. Fortunately, they ran away from us.

And I remember hearing some elephants cracking fallen tree branches as they snuck away from us unseen. While camping outside one night, we could hear lions roaring in the distance. That was another unforgettable experience.

Another amazing thing I discovered is that there’s more to Africa than savannas teaming with wildlife. Kenya’s landscapes include forested hills, arid deserts and sandy beaches that reminded me of Hawaii. The higher grasslands near Mt. Kenya reminded me of West Dakota.

Of course, the interactions between wildlife and landscape can be dramatic. I remember looking into the vastness of the Great Rift Valley, covered with black dots. Someone told me the black dots were wildebeest. Listening carefully, I could hear an eerie moaning sound drifting on the air - the sound of thousands of animals going about their lives as they’ve done for thousands of years.

Yet another surprise was the people. Kenyans are very diverse, ranging from Westernized city dwellers to spear-wielding Masai who herd cattle in the bush. Everywhere I went - from Nairobi to Mombasa, from the arid Frontier District to the Arabic island of Lamu - the people were very friendly.

I climbed to the summit of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa (left), the world’s biggest mountain, and to about 14,000 feet on Mt. Kenya (right), Africa’s second highest peak.
Courtesy Joe Dellinger and WildHerps.com (Click either photo to see a bigger picture.)

Back Home

My home for the next few years was Bellingham, Washington, where I attended college. Compared to Ice Age Newfoundland, Pacific paradises and African savannas, Bellingham seemed dull. Yet it was one of the most wonderful cities I’ve ever lived in, with a large population of what one might call free spirits - environmentalists and nonconformists.

It was in Bellingham that I discovered dance. In fact, I took classes from one of America’s most celebrated teachers, Teo Morca. I also played a little hockey and a lot of soccer. It was one of the most relaxing periods of my life.

I wanted to make Bellingham my home. Of course, that was before the population doubled, fueled largely by an exodus of Californians.