Tag: Adventure

Fact: We Find What We’re Looking For

By Angela Noel

April 10, 2018

Vegas reminds me of a little black dress I once owned. The dress served its purpose. Coupled with a pair of very swanky heels, it attracted the attention I craved. Wearing it felt like I’d stepped into a different world, one I wouldn’t inhabit nine-to-five.

But one day, when I put it on I no longer felt a thrill. The shoes hurt my feet and my back. The eyeballs that tracked my every move weren’t nice eyeballs. The dress had lost its magic. Or maybe, I’d lost interest in the kind of magic it was capable of offering. Continue reading “Fact: We Find What We’re Looking For”

A Blog to Love: Susie Lindau’s Wild Ride

By Angela Noel

December 22, 2017

The first thing I noticed about Susie Lindau’s Wild Ride was the smile she wore while seated on her mountain bike in a green field with the Colorado Rockies in the distance. She’s got a backpack on, filled with sports equipment. Her eyes squinting into the sun, face half in shadow, her smile says, “I love my life.”

Susie Lindau’s Wild Ride

I’m drawn to people like Susie, people who engage with life as full participants in both its joys and its sorrows. In her Wild Ride, you’ll find a potpourri of adventures. . . and a few ghost stories. Here’s just a sample of what I love most. Continue reading “A Blog to Love: Susie Lindau’s Wild Ride”

What Makes Us Perfect

By Angela Noel

November 3, 2016

“Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world . . . You see we are like blocks of stone out of which the sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of his chisel, which hurt us so much, are what makes us perfect.“-  from the movie Shadowlands

Jayme Sisel ran her first marathon in 2007 and her first half-Ironman that same year. “One was for me, the other one was for my mom. I forget which was which.”

Pushing herself to her physical limit — lungs burning, feet pounding — gets all the bad energy out and lets the good stuff in. Running was Jayme’s solace when her mother lay dying of cancer. Continue reading “What Makes Us Perfect”

What Doesn’t Kill You

By Angela Noel

August 4th, 2016

Weeks after the birth of her first child in 1946, Dolores Meurer Reed climbed into the cockpit of the Navy surplus airplane she and husband Bob bought with the last of their newlywed nest-egg. Not long after her wheels left earth, the instruments failed–every single one of them. “I landed it on fear alone.” She promised herself she wouldn’t fly again. At least, not until her babies had all grown up. Flying, her capricious and complicated first-love, kept trying to kill her. Continue reading “What Doesn’t Kill You”

Living on the Edge of Fun and Scary

by Angela Noel

July 21st, 2016

We bumped along a rutted dirt road in a rented SUV, parking a quarter mile from the trailhead that would lead us to the summit of Mount Democrat.  We hoisted backpacks stuffed with water, food, dry socks, and extra clothes onto our backs. The thin, 38 degree air nipped at our hands and faces left exposed by our light down coats. We looked ready to conquer a mountain or two.

While I’ve run a few 10K’s, Paul, my significant other, and our friends, Dan and Jayme are veterans of marathons, triathlons, and obstacle courses, (and in Jayme’s case, an Ironman). But, winded by the walk from the car to the trailhead, even they worried that our less than 24 hours at altitude had not been enough time for our sea-level dwelling bodies to adjust. I began to sweat.  Continue reading “Living on the Edge of Fun and Scary”