The real "Moby Dick"

I just finished a thoroughly fascinating - if horrifying - book. In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick.

In the Heart of the Sea is the true story of the Nantucket whaleship Essex, its encounter with an 85-foot sperm whale in the central Pacific, and the subsequent 3,000+ mile journey of the survivors back to rescue near Chile. Philbrick's tale is based upon the narratives of the first mate Owen Chase and cabin boy Thomas Nickerson.

Having read Melville's Moby Dick earlier this year, I was curious to learn more about the true story upon which his epic tale was based. A bit of quick Wikipedia study led me to Philbrick's book, which I then dutifully picked up at the library.

Unlike Moby Dick, where the epic battle between whale and man comes at the final climax to the book, Leviathan strikes barely halfway through the story in In the Heart of the Sea. While the Essex had adventures enough on its journey from Nantucket around Cape Horn to the Pacific whaling grounds, it is the epic journey of survival after the ship sinks that sets this story apart.

I won't spoil it for you. This is reality at its harshest, and Philbrick weaves the tale expertly. For certain, put it on your reading list.

A theory about snacks...

I spent the weekend at my parents, celebrating the Memorial Day holiday. She's always got a variety of snacks, but most importantly, the fridge and counter have fruit readily at hand. Apples, bananas, oranges, peaches, cantaloupe, grapes, you name it.

I like having fresh fruit around. It is obviously much healthier than chips, cookies and candy, and it generally tastes better... once you've weaned yourself from the fat-and-sugar train. However, I find that I don't keep it around as much as I could, and this weekend made me wonder about why?

Of course, I now have a theory.

At home, I'm generally the only person who eats a large quantity of fresh fruit. It should be different, and my kids do enjoy fruit, but that's the way it is. Being essentially "fruit-single", I find myself trapped between going to the market almost daily and having so much fruit around that I can't eat it all before it goes bad.

On the other hand, the pre-packaged, mass produced stuff - the cookies, candy, chewy bars and chips - will last effectively forever. I can stockpile it in the pantry and eat it at will. There's always plenty, it almost never goes bad, and requires no preparation. Perfect food!

Except, it's not perfect. In fact, it's usually pretty terrible. Whatever you think about HFCS, it's not sugar. And it's most certainly not natural. Plus, the chips are greasy, the cookies are a terrible choice for a diabetic, and all of it is way too many carbs and not enough nutrients.

Sure you could stock up on nuts, granola, and other non-perishable natural or organic things, but it just isn't ... fruit.

So I'm going to go on a mission. How to make it easy to keep fruit around the house without having it rot on me and without having to make too many trips to the store.

Step one: Get my kids to eat more fruit...

A beginning of sorts...

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

I keep telling myself that. And yet, somehow I frequently fail to act on it. Habits are hard things to change. I keep telling myself that I need to start exercising more. I keep telling myself I'll start tomorrow. Tomorrow doesn't seem to come.

I have an old high-school friend I've reconnected with on Facebook. She regularly runs 2-3 miles, seemingly every day. Every time I see one of her updates, I think, "I really should start doing that."

Part of the problem is that I tend to think that if I'm going to run, I need to be fast, or be a marathoner, or complete an Ironman. I make myself think that I've got to be "all or nothing." Generally this results in either burnout or an overuse injury in a few months that lands me back on the couch. Trying too hard can be worse than not doing anything at all. Not only can it lead to injury, but the inevitable failure leads to a negative spiral of lower expectations and feelings of ... failure.

In reality, all I need to do is... something. Just do something. Anything. Daily, or at least several times a week. Walk, jog, bike, hike, swim, shop aggressively at Meijer. Whatever gets my heart rate elevated for a while each day. At my level of fitness, it all counts. It's all about getting off my duff and moving.

And I've got to stop using the kids as an excuse. They need to be out there moving, too. It's as important as a healthy meal or their homework. So, whenever I say, "well, I can't go walk because I've got to watch the kids" I'm cheating myself and them.

This week, I started taking a step. Several steps, in fact. Behind our elementary school there's a paved trail about 1/2 mile long. It's a section of what will eventually be a much longer multi-use path system. Almost daily this week, I've tossed the kids in the car, drug them to the trail and walked it while the kids walk or rollerblade. Afterwards, they get to play on the playground while I cool down. Today I jogged short intervals.

It's only a start, and it's very easy for this to slip back into an oblivion of couch-sitting as the stresses of life inevitably intrude. But it is a start.

What a waste!

I was hungry after lunch, so I ran through McDonald's. Picked up a Fruit & Walnut snack (good, since I only eat the fruit and a few walnuts) and an Apple Pie (not so good, but I get them rarely).

Then I noticed the packaging.

The Apple Pie was in a cardboard box, in a bag with at least 2 napkins. This bag was nestled, along with the Fruit & Walnut Snack in a second, larger bag with at least 4 more napkins, plus a fork/knife set wrapped in plastic. Nearly all of which ended up in a landfill. Keep in mind the Fruit & Walnut Snack is hermetically sealed in a clear plastic box itself.

I sure wish I'd asked them to keep the bags and at least most of the napkins.

To be fair, Mickey-D's isn't any worse than any of the other fast food chains at this. They all seriously over-package their "to go" orders.

Of course if I'd parked and walked in, I could have much more easily refused all the packaging, saved some gas, and gotten a tiny extra bit of exercise, too.

Folks who live in glass houses...

A quick hike...

I've been looking for a place to take the kids for their first tent camping trip. Requirements include convenience (close to home in case we bail), good sites, privacy, activities, and a nice view. On Saturday, the kids were at a friend's house and Mama was napping, so I slipped over to Fort Boonesborough to have a look around.

Front entrance to replica fort

Fort Boonesborough, as you might guess from the name was the site of a fort constructed by Daniel Boone along the banks of the Kentucky River. It's since been converted into a state park complete with boat ramp, RV parking, large picnic shelters, a beach and a swimming pool. It also has a couple miles of trails as well. There are a small number of primitive tent camping sites, and a guidebook that I consulted indicated that they were pretty nice.

Unfortunately, due to the immense amount of rain we've had lately, they were also nearly all underwater.

However, the rest of the park was not, and it appears that it will suit the purpose well. In addition to the abovementioned features, there's a small camp store that has firewood, a miniature golf course and a playground. The park also has a replica of the fort (situated much higher up the hill than the original) and a museum, but there's a fee to enter these two.

Pioneer Forage Trail

I spoke briefly with the campground attendant, drove around the lower part of the park, and then hiked the 1/2 mile trail up the hill to the fort to have a look around. It having just rained, the forest had that wonderful shade of green I love so much, but fortunately the trail was dry enough not to be a horrible mudhole.

The trail from the campground follows the right fork of a stream up a valley before crossing and doubling back to follow the left fork up the hill to the fort. From there, you can take a paved trail back down the hill to the picnic shelters at the other side of the parking lot. A nice, stiff mile of up/down hill, just enough to get the heart rate up.

Creek on Pioneer Forage Trail

I enjoyed this visit, and I think it will make for a good place to start the kids off, if for no reason other than it's only 1/2 hour from home if they bail. Somehow, I don't think they will, though.

A nice, if slow, improvement...

You may have noticed the slide show of pictures in my side bar. Those were from a trip to Denver (actually Westminster), CO, last fall. One of the things I really enjoyed about my brief visit was the extensive network of well maintained multi-use trails that literally spiderwebbed the city. From seemingly anywhere, you could walk to nearly anywhere else, with some pretty nice scenery to boot.

Back home, our fair city has been taking a few notes. On a recent trip to the new Wal-Mart near our home, I took the kids to visit a nice feature. Out at the far end of the massive parking lot is what would ordinarily have been a fenced-off, trash-strewn overgrown, ignored, nasty gully with a runoff stream through it.

Instead, it's a pleasant creekside meadow with paved walking paths and discreet lampposts, mostly free of garbage (though I did spy one shopping cart embedded in the stream), with small mowed lawns surrounded by tall trees that had been left by the developers.

Now, I know perfectly well that this little mini-park was part of the conditions of sale for this particular piece of horse-farm-cum-urban-wasteland - partly because it is host to a small, but elegant cemetery/memorial for the farm's founder/owner/namesake. But it's nice. It will be even nicer when-and-if the many small parks in our fair town are internconnected and extended so that one can walk all over town.

This little park is actually quite pretty, even though it is sandwiched between two major commercial developments. I find it quite clever that they made good use of what would have otherwise been either bulldozed over or ignored entirely.

Next time we visit, I'll try to snap a few photos and share them. I really hope our town planners and developers continue to make such excellent use of the "in between" spaces. It's a great way to, in a sense, have our cake and eat it too - urban devleopment with trees!