Not Just A Hat Rack

Surreal

A Portuguese-language talent show blares on a monitor attached eight-feet above the ground to a concrete pillar.  We look out on a concrete tarmac in Brazil.  I’m in Foz du Iguassu Airport – and I’ve just read about RSL’s 1-0 loss in the Western Conference final from Saturday night.  A shame, really, but there are many bright spots to take away from the 2008 season – not the least of which is the 20,008 attendance figure (a sellout) on 5 days notice in MLS’s smallest market, Salt Lake City.

I have spent the morning at the waterfalls for which this community is named.  Local boosters encourage visitors to vote for the falls as one of the “Seven Wonders of the World.”  It certainly bears consideration.

The weekend crash course in international handball is complete.  Eighteen countries.  Two dozen delegates.  The majority speak Spanish.  Our hosts speak Portuguese.  Five of us come from English-speaking North America – six if you include the Danish Greenland rep.

There was a comforting sense of familiarity with the group. My language ability endears me to them quickly.  That, and I could be useful.  I can understand them and laugh together.  But I can also translate. I have access to U.S. dollars, American sponsors and the promised land which they universally define in three syllables, “Obama.”

The education in Pan Am handball was thorough.  It was just enough of Brazil to want to come back – but I’m ready to see the coast.

I'm reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road on my birthday present - an Amazon Kindle from my wife.  Sure beats lugging 500 pages around.  I've read Newsweek and the Chicago Tribune on it as well.  Very cool.  But the book... and I hope to post a full review when I'm done with it this week ... is enough to give a grown man nightmares.  It's an amazing read.

On the Road...

It's always interesting to be on the road and be asked, "where are you from?"

Yesterday, I found myself in Orlando, a.k.a., the most miserable place on earth if you don't have kids and/or a Brian Kamler-esque Disney-file with you.  I was here for a conference of Marketing and Development professionals connected with public radio in the USA.  This was one of my final pieces of business for Snow Lion before diving 199% into USA Team Handball.

Even here, I found connections with people I knew from the soccer world, and friends of friends who knew people who knew people from Utah.  This conference actually took place at Snowbird a few years ago and many who attended came away with an entirely skewed view of Salt Lake City and our surrounding state.  "There's nothing to do there!" is an accurate statement, when you consider a majority of the participants in the conference at Snowbird didn't have a rental car and thus couldn't get off the resort property.  One who did found her way to Ruth's Diner of all places.

Anyways, I have been immersed for several weeks in USA Team Handball.  The basics still elude us - a functioning website and office space, for starters - but I hope to be closer to 100% functional by next week. I also anticipate launching a blog at teamusa.org on the Team Handball page, but rest assured the 'Hat Rack will not go unattended.

After a red-eye to Orlando 24 hours ago, and a 3:45am wakeup call to return back to Utah, I'm ready to go back "home."

Snow Lion Hits NY Times

A press release I wrote has now been picked up by both the Boston Globe and the New York Times. The Times today featured a quote from me (the reporter called two weeks ago), North Korea and Snow Lion's Contrasting Koreas itinerary. The photo (courtesy NY Times & AFP) and accompanying copy would probably cost $20,000+ as an ad... such is the value of PR! Snowlion.com has already seen a surge of traffic since yesterday and I suspect Monday will be a busy one at the office. That's a good thing!

This and That...

Sir Edmund Hillary passed away yesterday. Ironically, I was working on a 2008 trekking preview for Snow Lion, including an ascent up the "Hillary Route" to Everest Base Camp, when I learned the news. It's safe to say that the company, and the Himalayan trekking industry, would not exist, at least in their present form, if it were not for the gentle 6'5" beekeeper whose humanitarian work on behalf of the Sherpas is immeasurable. "Nothing Venture, Nothing Win" was the book-length biography I read as a teenager and has inspired me to back down from no challenge ever since.

The current issue of Runner's World has a gripping series of stories on the 2007 Chicago and New York Marathons. Two of the largest races in the country, both were marked by tragedy. The magazine took a Newsweek style approach to understanding the factors that led to the cancellation of the Chicago race several hours in, due to extreme heat conditions. Then, editor Amby Burfoot spent several days following up on the death of U.S. marathoning star Ryan Shay at the Olympic Trials in New York City. Good stuff, whether you run or not. Speaking of running, it's Disney Marathon weekend in Orlando. Mrs. 'Hat Rack is going after another personal first. She'll run the Half Marathon on Saturday and the Full Marathon on Sunday (that's 39.3 miles in all) - all in pursuit of a medal shaped liked Goofy. That is goofy. But we love her!

Kevin Sites' In the Hot Zone is worth a read, folks. And not just because we both graduated from Medill, Northwestern's journalism school! He visited 20+ war zones in one calendar year including the obvious ones, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, etc. He also checked in on the Maoist insurgency in Nepal, the tenuous ceasefire in Congo, monks vs the military in Burma/Myanmar, the aftermath of war in Vietnam and Laos, etc. I'm in awe of his dedication to shed light (and hope) on some of the most depressing examples of humankind's dark side. I think I'd have post-traumatic stress disorder. I bought it in the Fall, which makes it's references to events from last July all the more remarkable. You don't get much more current than this in a widely published book these days!

I talked to RSL GM Garth Lagerwey this week in anticipation of my next Salt Lake Tribune column next week, which will be on the MLS SuperDraft... He should be in Florida by now at the Player Combine. Knowing the pressures of the chair in which he sits, its challenges, and the passion that you have to bring to it, I'm rooting for him.

I'm also rooting for the Red Rocks. Utah's nationally ranked women's gymnastics team takes on nemesis and defending NCAA champion Georgia tonight at Huntsman Center. I won't make it, but if you're in the neighborhood and have never attended a meet, don't miss it! Arrive early - this one might sell out. (That's right, 16,000 people at a gymnastics meet. Gotta love it!)

Yellowstone ... What Can I say?

No kidding?!

I have spent more than 14 magical days and nights in and around the Park since August. As I sit down to organize my information about the park for an October deadline, I have to fight a wall of self-doubt that I can't possibly add to the volumes already written about America's first national park.

I stayed at Old Faithful Inn and Lake Yellowstone Hotel. i visited the park's four other National Historic Landmarks as well (quick - can you name them?). I camped in multiple sites and visited all 12 front-country (and a few backcountry) sites in the park. I biked up Mt. Washburn and out to Lone Star Geyser. I hiked from Lewis Lake to Shoshone Lake and back. I stared down an ermine. I was startled by deer and elk. The bison mostly ignored me. I joined the queue to see a bear amble by the road on three occasions. Wolves and beavers eluded me.

I met really neat people like MacNeil Lyons of Yellowstone Association. I chatted with kayakers Jess and Kale from Wyoming, making their annual fishingn trip to the park - without their father for the first time in a decade. I met the Frugal Fly-Fisherman from Kansas. I watched Lone Star erupt with the resident artist (and his wife) from Old Faithful Inn - who retired from firefighting in Casper to paint full time.

I knew the park would reveal itself in so many ways to me... the buffalo and the owl at my campsite in Bridge Bay. The bald eagle soaring above me as I drove Gull Point Drive. But I also anticipated that the people who inhabit, visit and work in the park woiuld offer experiences and stories as rich as anything I could encounter on my own. And I was not disappointed.

I'll try to share some excerpts here as I get down to the business of writing. And, since you didn't know, the four other National Historic Landmarks are the roadside "kiosk" that tells the story of Obsidian Cliff; and the interpretive exhibits/musems at Norris, Madison and Fishing Bridge. Collectively these four landmarks have been selected because nearly a century ago, they changed the way we experience our parks. No longer did you learn about a natural wonder in an urban museum, and then head out to the country to see it. Beginning with these landmarks, the educational and inspirational aspect of National Parks went "trailside."

Fishing Bridge

PS - Kudos for Kenn.com's cartography class today. I chuckled.

Almost Home

My first week in Yellowstone NP is almost finished. I have communed with bison, bald eagles, black bears, elk and, this morning, an ermine. I have tales to tell, many pages to write, and at least one more journey back to this magical place to look forward to.

But first, I have to share a picture from a friend who obviously shares the same sense of humor I have. We met earlier this week in Yellowstone, but this is one of his pictures from Chaco Canyon.

So what did I miss? Becker won... and Buhler makes it a very interesting November race. Make no doubt about it, the 'Hat Rack supports Ralph Becker.

RSL lost twice. Northwestern is 2-0! Go Cats!

Oh - I'm taking a job that will keep me in SLC. But I'll keep it a secret for now.

Not Just Potatoes

Top Three Reasons to Visit Burley, Idaho:

1) Wild Flour Cafe - Great burgers, the only haflway decent coffee within 50 miles and Mom & Son are quite hospitable. Oh, raspberry tiramisu is quite a find in Cassia County
2) Snake River - OK, we didn't see where Evil Knievel jumped it, but the river makes for a great triathlon swim (with the current). Mrs. 'Hat Rack had a great swim and bike, but was disappointed with the run. 92 degrees and "not a moment of shade" in rural Idaho is not a good combination. I think she rocks! On to the IronMan!
3) Storybook Park - We'll look past the small-town graffitti as long as the 'Hat Rack junior trio can't read (but the town should remove it still!) - the towers, "kingdoms", bridges, slides, boat, barn and much more provided about three hours of entertainment during and after the triathlon. It's at 14th & Conant if you ever find yourself at Burley with any little person under the age of 10.

Did I ever declare here that I'm running the Wahsatch Steeplechase in three weeks? 17 miles of trail running with something like 9,000 feet of elevation gain and descent? It pales compared to the IronMan, but I figured I'd throw it out there in case anyone thinks I'm spending my quiet summer on the couch eating bon bons.

Sweet Nectar

Who doesn't love life's little surprises?

The breakfast buffet at our Madrid hotel served peach nectar (juice) this morning, in addition to the typical Euro-watery orange juice, milk, grapefruit juice and strong coffee.  It's amazing to me how I can be taken back 30 years to the taste, texture and fulfillment of this beverage.  Not being one who ate or drank ANYTHING as a child, I have no idea how I ever was convinced to try it in the first place.  But one of my strongest memories of living in Europe from 1975-1977 is drinking this thick, delicious peach juice on a trip to Italy.  I looked for it when I returned to Italy twice in the last 15 years and enjoyed it.  It's never the same in the USA - and I don't recall drinking it anywhere else in the world besides Italy.  The little things that make me happy.

St. Christopher & Me

St. Christopher is looked upon by many Catholics as the patron saint of travelers.  As I wrote here, Catholics have patron saints for everything.  Being in a position that requires a fair amount of travel, I’ve always kept St. Christopher in my thoughts (and even carried a medallion for awhile), figuring I can use the additional help any time I’m on the move.  I have recently read, however, that the Vatican “de-canonized” him in the late 20^th century.  (Why wasn’t I consulted?  I actually like this saint and know what he does!  What about St. Kitt’s? The island is named for him – although I’m not sure how they got Kitt from Christopher.)  Well, he’s still good in my book – and I hope he’s still looking out for me.  Otherwise, I might fall victim to some of these… some of my favorite true-life, “wayward traveler” stories…

            “I knew a guy who knew a guy who…”