Adventures in and Around Fort Worth

Maybe you grew up playing in Fort Worth's Botanic Gardens . Maybe you didn't. It's a magical place where children dream of fairies and knomes, and adults escape the hum drum of the city life roaring just outside the garden's gates. This place means something different to everyone, but either way it is important to the city of Fort Worth, and for this reason people who care deeply for the gardens have come together to return the favor. A lot is about to change for the better.  As the oldest and largest botanic gardens in the state of Texas, the Fort Worth Botanic Garden  is nationally recognized as a historical site and for it's beautiful rose gardens.The garden's history started in 1912 when a small portion of land was roped off for a large city park. In 1933 it was purchased by the Fort Worth Park Commissioners. Originally 38 acres, the gardens now encompass 109 acres in the middle of the city. This year the Fort Worth Botanical Society just nominated the...

  Biking in Telluride, Colorado The More Forgiving Path Mountain biking —the most terrifying and exhilarating thing I’ve done since that crazy horseback ride through the mountains outside of San Miguel, Mexico. At that horseback ride, the guide handed us a beer and a flimsy straw hat when we arrived at 9 a.m. He pointed to the horse we were to mount in a few moments. No waiver was signed, no lessons or tips given. If you had to take a bathroom break there was a small blue bucket in their outhouse. Oh, and my horse’s name was Tornado. For three hours we galloped through steep canyons and splashed through creeks and river beds. And yes, some members of our group were in tears making their peace with God. I, on the other hand, was in heaven.  I figured out quickly that mountain biking is a lot like riding a horse in the wild. I’m not talking about group trail rides that move slower than a hoveround. I'm referring to the fox hunting style of riding—fast...

For speed was a profoundly different way of moving through the world than my normal modes of travel. Miles weren't things that blazed dully past. They were long, intimate straggles of weeds and clumps of dirt, blades of grass and flowers that bent in the wind, trees that lumbered and screeched. They were the sound of my breath and my feet hitting the trail one step at a time and the click of my ski pole. The [trail] had taught me what a mile was. I was humbled [by] each and every one... ...It had nothing to do with the gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even getting from point A to point B.  It had only to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles for no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental.    ~ Cheryl Strayed in Wild ...