Tom Ryan

5 days ago | tomryan.substack.com | Tom Ryan

Thanks to your votes on a couple of images, the complete set of framed photos for Founding Members is complete. The list is a fine baker’s dozen, down from last year’s nineteen. For the first time, Atticus and Will have entered the catalogue. There are even individual shots of those two. At the top of this post is one of two scenes captured during a dawn hike at the Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. It has become one of our favorite stops on recent coddiwomples.

6 days ago | tomryan.substack.com | Tom Ryan

One gift of a long road trip is the unknown. You have a plan to move from here to there unencumbered by preconceived plans and stops. It is a Zen pilgrimage—if you allow it to be. Moving down the road through places you’ve never been, dust is wiped from your soul, and it expands. To travel is to grow. It is freedom. It makes you want more of it, to delve deeper, to drink life in gulps of gratitude. That’s what Nebraska was to me. We only had a single day, and it was a long one, but now I want to return.

1 week ago | tomryan.substack.com | Tom Ryan

The Samwise & Emily Founding Photos have been chosen, except for two. I would love your opinion on deciding the final framed photos. Although these are for Founding Members, the vote is open to all readers. And who knows, you may even be choosing a calendar image, too. Here are the options for autumn in the White Mountains. You can only choose one. Founding Members have their choice of frames: black, white, or wood. The other vote is for your favorite slot canyon photo. Choose one.

1 week ago | tomryan.substack.com | Tom Ryan

“To those devoid of imagination, a blank place on the map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part.” ~ Aldo LeopoldWe always leave the buffalo and the American West after an early morning visit along the dirt back roads of Badlands National Park. On most of our coddiwomples, we exit the park on the east end and merge onto I-90. And so began four dreadful travel days along that concrete corridor.

1 week ago | tomryan.substack.com | Tom Ryan

Summer never feels right without a bear or three. Thankfully, the season has now been blessed. It was Samwise who noticed them first. It was dawn, and a mother and her two yearlings picked and poked through the foliage. We had a good view of them until we neared them, and they slipped into the dense greenery. This isn’t the best video because Mother Bear did not want to hang with us, which is actually a good thing. She gave us a few huffs and snapped her jaws at us as a warning not to come closer.