walk with me down the trail

walk with me down the trail

For two years, we lived in a tent trailer while traveling the American West. To document the kind of adventure I’d never have again, I wrote our stories.

We’ve left the RV life for now, but these weekly vignettes still explore adventure’s ups and downs, our relationship with the outdoors, the wonderful disaster of parenting, and the struggle to catch lightening in the creative bottle.

Limber Pine
Beth Downing Beth Downing

Limber Pine

Being bendy can mean survival in the strangest, oddest, and most difficult of circumstances. Bowing to and with the storm is the practice for hovering over that cliff and then snapping back to where you were.

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The Fear and the Thin Line
Beth Downing Beth Downing

The Fear and the Thin Line

And I was scared. Not the heart-pounding, I-have-to-get-out-of-here-scared, rather an intense awareness of my aloneness.

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The Bell Curve and the Halfpipe
Beth Downing Beth Downing

The Bell Curve and the Halfpipe

But just like that part of the mountain, the remarkable stands so close to average. Incredible talent can sit alongside the so-so. It does this in me and in you and in each of the children out there that day.

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Morning Dynamite
Beth Downing Beth Downing

Morning Dynamite

“Look,” I said to my group-mates, while pointing up with my pole, “that’s where they bombed.”

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