Okay, I know what you’re thinking… Windwalkers, she knows people who walk on the wind?!  No, but I do know an amazing father and son team, Talon and Steven Windwalker.  About 6 or 8 weeks before we left for Paris, I met Talon online, purely by chance.  I think I came across his blog and was curious to learn the story of this father and son who have been traveling the world for two years.

Let me start by saying that #1 on my “top 25 things I want to do before I die list” is to live an obligation free life and I’m holding on to that.  #2 is to live in Italy for a couple of months and learn to cook authentic Italian food.  Beyond those, the order of the rest of my list doesn’t really matter.

I’m always seeking out recipe contributions from other travelers, bloggers, innkeepers, etc.  It never dawned on me that I actually have a few recipes worth sharing.  Sometimes it takes me a while to catch up with myself.  Does that ever happen to you?

I read a post written by Kerri at Travel Junkies and at the end of her post she posed the question, “What do you want to do before you die?”  I answered, “I want to live free of obligations.”  It’s a big want, but I’m thinking it can be done.  It just takes a little ingenuity, a lot of planning and enough time to get all of our ducks in a row.  Where did that saying come from, anyway?!  As if we really go through life lining up ducks?!

We’ve just hiked our way to the top of a plateau known as Upper Table Rock and the view is breathtaking!  It’s so quiet I can hear my heart pounding as it settles back into a normal rhythm after our ascent.  The dark gray rain-filled clouds are hovering and ready to burst.  The air is cool while the birds soar in silent flight.

Allen Saunders: Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.
—Publishers Syndicate

An informative story came out of Paris, France yesterday.  The staff of the Louvre Museum walked off the job in protest due to the increasing concern for visitor safety at the hands of pickpocket gangs.

Guest Post ~

Preface

The following is a story I wrote about an interesting experience I had in Flagstaff, Arizona on New Year’s Eve after a 19-day Grand Canyon rafting trip with a group of friends. Most people don’t boat the Colorado in the winter for a number of reasons,

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.

— John Muir