Freedom in a Can: Adventures with Hamlet

Over the past several months, we have told “our story” to hundreds of curious people.  One of their first questions is always, “Well, where all have you been?”  That question is becoming harder and harder to answer without launching into the whole narrative.  To this end, we’ve made a list of many of the things that have been keeping us busy since early September 2012.  We’ll update this list as often as possible… State & Federal Public Lands/Waters Visited New River Gorge National River, West Virginia Wilderness State Park, Michigan Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Upper Peninsula, Michigan Grand Island National Recreation Area, Upper Peninsula, Michigan Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada Gatineau Provincial Park, Quebec, Canada Acadia National Park, Maine Campobello International Park, New Brunswick, Canada Great Dismal Swamp, Virginia/North Carolina Congaree National Park, South Carolina St. George Island State Park, Florida Apalach...

“Promise me you won’t be mad,” my wife of ten years sheepishly demanded of me one late autumn day in 2010.   How does one respond to such a request?   Go 100% honest and you’re likely to get into some trouble yourself, cave in completely and you might be setting up an unreasonable precedent.     I chose the middle road.     “Okay?” I tentatively said as I wait for some terrible shoe to drop into my life.   “I put a bid on the camper we were looking at on Ebay, and I think I may win the bid.”   Though the CFO of our household, Shari’s conservative and creative management of our meager holdings were not prone to large purchases of which the other member of the board, namely me, was not aware.    This was a surprising and impulsive move. “I thought we were going to talk more about this before we did anything?” I pleaded, “I mean we just glanced at the photos.”   Actually, I had only just glanced, Shari had...