Season 4 On The Horizon

(San Francisco) - It's that time of year again. Summer is pushing Spring to the side and a new season of "Tour Leading" is dawning. I finished off my 3rd year with a five month stint in Mexico & Northern Central America. I had the opportunity to explore several new locations that were new to me, the most notable being Lago Atitlan & Antigua in Guatemala and the ruins of Copan in Honguras. I capped off the 5 months by leading a trip of 9 of my relatives (Mom, Dad, my brother Steve & his wife Melanie & 5 of my aunts and uncles) on a 2 1/2 week route around the Yucatan. Then in mid March it was back to LA to wind up my season and then back home to Wisconsin for 1 1/2 months of "life restructuring".

But now it's almost time to get back on the road. Domestic life in Wisconsin had me itching to latch back onto the wheel of my Ford E-350 van and drive deep into the wilds of Aventure Tourism. At the moment I'm slated for a 26 day circumnavigation of Alaska that departs on June 5th. Things were looking pretty solid for a stress free departure although after talking to the head the van fleet it looks like there might be some slight glitches... like the fact that they are vanless. Looks like the order that was put into the Ford Van Factory has been lagging and it might take a while for the vans get delivered. But if the vans get in on time I'll be readying my gear, pimping my van and rolling up to Seattle before Memorial day to squeeze in a little R&R before heading "North to the Future".

At the moment I'm hanging out in San Francisco awaiting word from the office about when the vans arrive. I flew out here on May 10th to bomb around NorCal for about 10 days before heading to LA. I rented a car and drove out to Yosemite on Thursday. Yosemite in late Spring is when the park is at the peak of its splendor. Everything is green, the trees and flowers are blooming, the air is crisp and the snowmelt from the Sierras turns the sometimes tame Merced river into a bubbling, mist spraying machine. Apparently the mountains amassed a higher than average winter snow cover and the river and waterfalls were more powerful than I have ever seen them. There were literally hundreds of waterfalls spitting out from every granite monolith and sequoia forest in the park. Much of the three days that I was there was spent watching the water. Mornings on a massive boulder watching the churning rapids, one afternoon hiking to the top of Yosemite falls and falling asleep to the turbulent gurgle-roar of the Merced.

My visit to Yosemite also coincided with one of Tiffani's trips, so I was able to spend some with her group and watch her at work as a guide. Yesterday both her group and I packed up and headed back through the summer-like weather of the Central California valley back to San Francisco where I find myself now typing away awaiting dinner at my uncle Bob's house.