One of our guides, Julia, leads the way as we make our way between islands off the northwest coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)
Peggy and I just came off our kayaking adventure out of Fort McNeil on northwestern Vancouver Island. It was a great trip, complete with Orca Whales, good folks, and great food. I am sure there will be several blogs on the experience (grin). But now we are madly preparing for Burning Man. We take off today. Imagine jumping from kayaking in the cool waters of the Pacific Ocean to bicycling in the hot desert of Northern Nevada. Woohoo!
The burning of the Man gives Burning Man its name.
The art at Burning Man ranges from wonderfully whacky…. (Photo by Tom Lovering)
…to magnificent.
To fill in on the missed blogs, I thought I would repost some stories on Bone. He is going with us to Burning Man. I suspect many of you have yet to meet him even though he figured prominently in my early posts.
Bone hitches a ride on a willing horse at Burning Man.
Bone is a diminutive character four inches high and two inches across. Once he was part of a horse, just above the hoof. Now he is free and has an attitude.
Tom Lovering and I found him lounging in a mountain meadow above Lake Tahoe when we were backpacking the Tahoe-Yosemite Trail in 1977. He has been wandering the world ever since. He began his travels with Tom on a two-year exploration of Asia, Africa and Europe in the early 80s and then joined me on my six month 10,000 mile solo bicycle trip around North America.
And that’s just the beginning.
In 1990 the International Society of the Bone was created in Mazatlan, Mexico and Bone began wandering with others. He traveled with a women’s group to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa and the base of Mt. Everest in Nepal, went deep-sea diving in the Pacific and Caribbean, attended a Presidential Press Conference with Bill Clinton (Is that a bone in your pocket?) and was blessed by the Pope in St. Peter’s Square. He had a close encounter with Piranhas on the Amazon, was kidnapped in Mexico and was seized by a custom agent in New Zealand. He has been to Burning Man 9 times.
Bone looks out on Mt. Everest in Nepal.
And poses perilously on the railing of a boat traveling up the Amazon River. I caught him just as he was about to fall into the Piranha infested waters.
Traveling to Mexico, Bone takes a break by resting on Chacmool, where hearts were once offered up as sacrifices.
Checking out the rapids of the Little Colorado River as part of an 18 day trip down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon, Bone wears his life vest for safety.
Tom Lovering goes native and wears Bone in his hair on the Colorado River trip.
The Bone stories I will blog about this week are about how Tom and I found him. I wasn’t into photography at the time, so sorry, no photos.
Wandering through Time and Place 