How Did I Get Here?
Honestly, it’s been a long road and a wild ride, but I would not change it. I have been a trial lawyer, a university administrator, and now the CEO of a YMCA. I have been married and divorced. I have raised two boys, changed houses and states, volunteered all over the US, gone on mission trips and road trips and trips to learn things and trips just for the sake of trips, but through it all there have been several constants beyond my family and a few more recent obsessions, among these: travel, food, fly fishing, craft cocktails, and books. These things are, and remain, my passions.
I have found what I earnestly believe to be the best gelato and the best cappuccino in Italy, although I am willing to try more if you think I’m wrong. I have learned to bake bread at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, France.
I have learned to SCUBA dive at night off the coast of Bonaire… and my adventures have just begun. I am too often a solo traveler, but sometimes a traveler with my best friend or one or both of my kids or parents. More a mountain girl than a city girl. More a traveler than a tourist. More an adventurer than a vacationer.
There are few things that make me as happy as standing thigh deep in rushing water waiting for a trout to rise. If I can do that on a river of incomparable beauty, near or far, with interesting food, interesting people, and perhaps a well crafted cocktail at the end of the day, then I am completely happy. Admittedly at other times I want to unplug in the sunshine or roam the streets of a foreign city sifting through bookstores populated nearly exclusively with books in languages I don’t speak.
While I enjoy reading about the budget travels of location independent travelers, millennials who roam the world full time (often with young kids in tow,) and adventure travelers who are adrenaline junkies eating scorpions in far flung locations, that’s not me. And, if you are honest, that’s probably not really you either. I love the freedom to explore the world, but I’m thankful for the security of a career and a home I love. So here I endeavor to create a space for us. The real travelers who use their vacation time to create lasting travel memories and use the rest of their time to populate their days with indelible moments that surround a more traditional life. It’s fun to be a dreamer, but this space is also for a realist tribe. How can you REALLY make your life amazing (on weekends, in evenings, and when you can get away for a longer adventure?) Come along with me and experience some Wild and Wanderful Travel. Read on…
What’s in a Name??
Wild and Wanderful. Nope. That’s not a misspelling, although those of you who know me personally know that I am a child of the phonics generation. As a result, for the most part, I can’t spell without spell check.
I grew up at the foot of the mountains in southwestern Pennsylvania. It was my amazing father and these mountains that would teach me to fish, introduce me to trout, send me searching for foxfire, and indoctrinate me into fly fishing at the age of 16.
But West Virginia. My mountain home. A three time WVU grad with two doctorates and an undergrad degree from the home of Mountaineers, it was West Virginia that showed me the wildness of places and the kindness of people. That put me to sleep on the frigid mountaintop of Mingo Knob only to wake me up at what must surely have been noon because of the searing heat (it was 6 am!) That called me to learn to play the fiddle and to dig ramps and to make maple syrup and elderberry wine and to volunteer in church kitchens to get the ultimate buckwheat cake recipe. That taught me to back away from rattlers and people with shotguns. Wild and Wonderful West Virginia. If you have not been, then make it your next trip. How fitting then that this place should give me the name for my travel (food? fly fishing? cocktail? book?) blog.
I was born with a wanderlust that has never subsided, but I often feel caught between the deep desire to explore and the domestic desire to be at home, especially in winter, to shelter against the cold, wrapped in a sweater and a blanket donning wool socks with a book or three, in front of the fire watching snow stack on the sills outside. Hidden away from the world and practicing the Danish art of Hygge.
I often feel I am a woman of contrasts. I love backpacking to a mountain Adirondack and sharing the place with the mice for a night or pitching my tent within earshot of the stream as much as I love the lap of luxury with Frette linens and a rockstar view of the city. I love street food and local diners as much as I love the Michelin Starred purveyors of the food world. In these regards I have always felt myself a little wild at heart. So how to encapsulate many things?
Wanderlust and its attendant travel
Food
Fly fishing
Craft cocktails
Books
Wild and Wanderful Travel was born out of my Appalachian roots. First as a travel agency helping others (and myself) explore the world, and then as this blog, bringing these ideals to life in practical ways. Sharing with you useful advice on how to cultivate YOUR best life. Come with me on a journey.
More on the Things You Will Read About Here
Travel. From cabins in the woods to the late, great Waldorf Astoria in NYC. I LOVE, Love, love to travel. I will take you along on my journeys and hopefully help you create your own bucket list.
Food. How to make it and where to eat it, as well as occasionally where to buy it.
Fly fishing. Only my shotgun… an amazing Krieghoff K80 that I flew all the way to Germany to see made… has ever gotten in the way of my fly fishing. Included here will be tips and tricks learned over thirty plus years fly fishing all over the world, including fly fishing travel, where to go (with limitations… there are those places where I would have to blindfold you,) what to use, and some much deserved love for the conservation movement that keeps trout in our rivers and contaminants out of them.
Craft Cocktails. I love a well crafted cocktail. There is some part of me that always believed that one of the sexiest acts in the world is handing someone a well made cocktail. I will tell you all the dirty secrets of my most recent love affair… with gin. And I will treat you to some of the cocktail adventures with my best friend, including the first ever 12 Cocktails of Christmas (winter?) challenge.
Books. I am a reader. As a child I wanted nothing more than to be in a book club. (Recently I told someone that “as a child I wanted nothing more than to be in an ADULT book club.” That is not exactly what I meant, but that’s another story.) I do love my book club if not all of its books. I love libraries and bookstores and cafes filled with people reading in companionable silence. You will occasionally hear about these things. In keeping with my love of the written word, I will try to bring you the best travel books and cookbooks and fly-fishing books and cocktail books to round out your exploration of the things I love and which have been my enduring companions during Appalachian winters.
The world is too Wild and Wanderful not to experience and explore. I hope you enjoy this adventure with me!