Monthly Archives: December 2015

The Best of 2015: Looking back over a wonderful year

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Just like that the year is coming to a close. It feels like yesterday when I was thinking the same thing. Time just seems to go way too fast. It is frightening at times but I’ve realized that you can’t dwell. Time is time and it goes rather quickly when you are doing the things you love. 2015 was another year of amazing growth and travels. It was much better than 2014 which was a difficult year for me.

I finally had the time to become more committed to my writing. My children are both old enough that I have the freedom to do a little more for myself which is bittersweet. My son has already turned 11 meaning he is over half way through his childhood before he leaves home. That is a sobering thought! My daughter is already nine. It is hard to believe it.

As always I try to focus on the positive, beautiful things in my life. It is the only way to live. Looking back at 2015, here are some of my greatest moments and memories. Continue reading →

The Stunning Vistas of Needles Highway

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“Go outside and try to recapture the happiness within yourself; think of all the beauty in yourself and in everything around you and be happy”. – Anne Frank

No visit to the Black Hills of South Dakota is complete without a drive through the impressive Needles Highway. Designed in 1919 by Peter Norbeck (an American politician from South Dakota who is most famous for commissioning Mount Rushmore) the 14-mile highway meanders through a vast web of spires and pointed, needle-shaped rock formations that look like they are launching off to space. There are several turnouts along the road where you can get out and do some fabulous hikes. However, even just pulling over to take in the view of the massive rock formations is enough to make it worth your while.

It took two years and 150,000 pounds of dynamite to make the Needles Highway. Engineers at the time thought it would be impossible to carve out a road through such wild land yet Norbeck proved them wrong. Finally some of the most gorgeous untouched land of the Black Hills was available for the world to see and enjoy. But not without a cost.

The most dramatic, awe-inspiring way to travel the Needles Highway is from south to north. You can begin in Custer State Park and end your journey at the beautiful Sylvan Lake for a snack and a short one-mile hike around the lake. Or if you are feeling more adventurous, you can pick up the trail for Harney Peak, the highest point in South Dakota and experience a fantastic four-hour roundtrip hike.

Needles Highway, Black Hills, South Dakota
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The Badlands at dusk

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“In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous”. – Aristotle

There are few things in life as spectacular as a sunset. Sunset tends to be my favorite time of day, as the light casts shadows and rays of brilliant, ever-changing colors across the horizon. It is hard to decide whether I prefer watching the sunset over water or land. Each has it own set of attributes and wonder.

The last day of our summer vacation to South Dakota was rewarded with a magical sunset over the Badlands. The utter, surreal beauty of this vast land of jagged buttes, canyons, pinnacles and spires seemed to come to life as the sun set. Although it only lasted a short while, it was by far the highlight of our week-long trip.

We left our hotel shortly after dinner and drove into the deserted Badlands National Park. Most of the day tourists had come and gone and we had the entire place to ourselves. It had cooled down to a delightful temperature, much more conducive to hiking than during the hot, shadeless afternoon scorch of July heat. Our only obstacle was time. We only would have an hour to hike until it was completely dark.

The views were astounding and the rock formations became even more colorful as the sun dipped further below the horizon. The deep maroon-hued rings of sediment became even more dramatic with sunset. During the daytime, you can hardly see them but at night the rocks looked like candy cane stripes.

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Save a Life in your Sleep: Goodbye Malaria

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“If you think you’re too small to make a difference you haven’t spent a night with a mosquito”.‐ African proverb

The figures are staggering. According to the World Health Organization: “About 3.2 billion people – nearly half of the world’s population – are at risk of malaria. In 2015, there were roughly 214 million malaria cases and an estimated 438,000 malaria deaths. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to carry a disproportionately high share of the global malaria burden. In 2015, the region was home to 89% of malaria cases and 91% of malaria deaths. In areas with high transmission of malaria, children under 5 are particularly susceptible to infection, illness and death. More than two-thirds (70%) of all malaria deaths occur in this age group. In 2015, about 305,000 African children died before their fifth birthdays” making malaria the leading killer of children in Africa. (Source: WHO 2015 statistics).

Although these figures are frightening, what is even more shocking is that these deaths are entirely preventable. Per the World Health Organization, “Increased prevention and control measures have led to a 60% reduction in malaria mortality rates globally since 2000”. This is amazing progress that brings hope that we will be able to wipe malaria off the face of the earth forever.

Eradicating malaria is the dream of South African-based Goodbye Malaria, an organization  I interviewed the last week to learn how a team of African entrepreneurs, predominantly women sprayers and socially minded businesses, are coming together to “save a life in your sleep” and eradicate malaria in their lifetime. Here’s their story.

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Bison Crossing at Custer State Park

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“Then she gave something to the chief, and it was a pipe with a bison calf carved on one side to mean the earth that bears and feeds us, and with twelve eagle feathers hanging from the stem to mean the sky and the twelve moons, and these were tied with a grass that never breaks”. – Black Elk

The joy of any driving trip through Custer State Park in South Dakota is the sighting of the Great American Bison. Once a prominent presence throughout this landscape, today their numbers are sadly dwindling. At the height of the bison population, there were over 30 million of them roaming the grasslands of North America. However, the arrival of European settlers and the desecration of Native American communities and territories significantly reduced the bison population to almost extinction. We almost lost one of the greatest symbols and species of the American West.

Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota is a special place because it is one of the only truly wild places left in the United States where bison roam free. In fact, there are nearly 1,300 of these magnificent beasts wandering about the parks 71,000 acres.

During a family vacation to South Dakota last summer, we spent many hours driving through the beautiful, winding roads of Custer State Park. Yet it was not until our last day while driving along the 18-mile Wildlife Loop of prairie land that we finally encountered our first bison.

Driving along the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park

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Solar Sister: Providing Light and Hope in Sub-Saharan Africa

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Deciding to climb Africa’s highest mountain is no minor decision and it was a goal of mine for over 15 years. I had wanted to climb Kilimanjaro ever since my father scaled it in 2000, months before my wedding. Every time I thought of planning a climb, the timing just didn’t seem to work out and I kept pushing my dream further back on my “to do” list. Deep down inside, I was also a bit concerned about the altitude. I had been to almost 19,000 feet in Nepal and it was grueling. How would I feel even higher? 

All my doubts disappeared when I climbed two peaks in a row in Bolivia without any issues and realized my body was ready. Kilimanjaro was back on the list yet I needed to find someone willing to go.

A few months later, I received a call from a good friend of mine in Rhode Island who shared the exciting news. A small non-profit organization called Solar Sister was putting together a multi-generational, international team to climb Kilimanjaro in honor of bringing light to Africa. It felt like fate.

Without knowing a soul at Solar Sister, I joined their team of climbers and signed up to raise $4,000 to train 8 new Solar Sister Entrepreneurs and to celebrate Solar Sister’s five-year anniversary since its founding. It was one of the best decisions I had ever made, and I had an incredible trip. Perhaps what was even more inspiring than climbing Kilimanjaro itself was the group of people who have dedicated their lives to bringing solar electricity to Africa. The team at Solar Sister.

During our climb, I had the pleasure of learning about the inspiration behind Solar Sister and why their model of social entrepreneurship is thriving. I found their story so inspiring that I wanted to share it and introduce you to Solar Sister. Here is their story.

Group shot of the Solar Sister climbers.

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Raising Brave Girls

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As a mother of a nine-year-old daughter it was with great interest that I read Stacey Radin’s new book “Brave Girls: Raising Young Women with Passion and Purpose to Become Powerful Leaders“. As my little girl grows up, I want to be prepared to guide her as best as I possibility can through the trials and tribulations of adolescence. Looking back, my early teenage years were perhaps the worst years of my life. Years that were difficult, unhappy and rocky. Even to this day, I will never forget my mother’s words of shock when she lamented “What has happened to my happy little girl?” when I hit thirteen and was drowning in hormones and confusion about who on earth I had become.

Sadly, these are years that I often wish I could do over but of course that isn’t at all possible. I realize how much these years negatively impacted me and my self-esteem. Thirty years later I still remember the mean, devastating comments and when all my friends decided to drop me. I was so afraid to go to school because I had no one to sit by and I vividly remember hiding in the bathroom over lunch. Thankfully life got easier for me once the braces came off, I grew into my body and blossomed. But those terrible years still haunt me when I think about them today.

Radin’s book “Brave Girls” opens with the following sentence that instantly pulled me in:

“Our society as a whole is lacking in opportunities designed to help preadolescent girls feel confident, secure and emotionally safe”. 

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Capturing the out of this world beauty of the Badlands

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“In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous”. – Aristotle

Last July, we decided to take a different kind of family vacation and headed west to South Dakota. Our trip brought us to such national treasures as Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore and the Badlands National Park. I’d never been to the Badlands before yet had heard that this remote part of South Dakota is worth the trip for its unusual beauty. Although the drive there is long and uneventful, once you arrive, this striking landscape of buttes, canyons, pinnacles and spires takes your breath away. It is quite unlike any other place I’ve ever seen.

The Lakota (the indigenous people who inhabited this area) gave this land its name, “mako sica” which means “land bad“. The Badlands was delegated a national monument in 1939 and a national park in 1976 after reaching an agreement with the Oglala Lakota. Today, the Badlands National Park welcomes visitors and paleontologists from around the world who come to see and study this magical landscape of eroded sedimentary layers of rocks that holds fossils dating back millions of years in time.

Heading on 90 East from Custer State Park to the Badlands

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