No Map. No Guide. No Limits.

First, thanks to “MM,” who submitted a comment on my last post, “Is Adventure Fun?,” pointing me (and others who might have read that post) to a highly entertaining and intriguing piece by climber Kelly Cordes, describing his own personal “fun scale.” It’s worth checking it out for yourself, but in sum, Kelly divides fun into three categories: His Category I Fun is what I would call “easy” fun: vacations, great food and wine, sipping margaritas on a beach somewhere. His Category II fun consists of experiences that are not at all fun at the time, but are fun in retrospect (possibly while downing a few of those margaritas at the beach). Category III fun describes experiences (like, say, getting stuck in a snowstorm on Mt. Everest, thinking you’re going to die) that don’t feel fun at the time … and don’t even seem fun in retrospect.

I’ve been thinking about that idea a lot, since reading Kelly’s post, because I’ve certainly had experiences that fit into all three of his categories of fun. And in truth, I’m not sure “fun” is the right term for some of the ones he classifies as Category III. And yet, I also get, on some level at least, why he grouped them all into some shade or flavor of “fun.” [click to continue…]

Right before I left on my recent transcontinental flying adventure, one of my editor friends and colleagues sent me an email saying that the trip sounded really fun and relaxing. Probably important to note here is that said editor friend is not a pilot. But even so.

“Wow,” I thought as I read the email. “That’s really interesting, that someone would see the process of flying a small airplane across an entire continent as really relaxing.” Rewarding, yes. Exciting, for sure. But relaxing? That’s not a word that springs instantly to mind when I think of any adventure I’ve ever undertaken.

But it got me thinking. At several points along the trip, other pilot friends texted or called to say they hoped we were having fun, or that the trip was fun. And each time, I’d had to stop and think before answering. Because while a vacation is designed to be non-stop fun and relaxing, an adventure is a much more complex combination of experiences. [click to continue…]

Well, we made it! Connor (my 17-year-old co-pilot) and I landed in Beverly, MA 10 days and 30 flight hours after departing the west coast. We spent about 3 ½ days of that time waiting out weather and airplane repairs, and we never really had smooth, beautiful flight conditions—partly because of the summer thermals, and partly because of a really powerful cold front that caught up to us three days into the trip and we then spent the rest of the time trying not to run into from the back side. Even our six-minutes-past-sunrise departure and flight leg from Twin Falls, Idaho was bumpy.
We had three mechanical failures—one of which required a precautionary/emergency Return-to-Base landing in Sioux City, Iowa, thermals so strong the airplane didn’t want to descend into Rapid City, South Dakota, and downdrafts so strong that it didn’t want to climb out of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. And wrestling a light airplane around in bumpy skies does get a bit tiring, after a while. And yet, for all its challenges, the trip also reminded me, in many ways, of why people love physical adventure so much. [click to continue…]

If all goes according to plan, I will set off today on another little mini-adventure: flying my Grumman Cheetah airplane across the continent, from San Francisco to Boston. Given that I’m only rated to fly in good weather, my plane doesn’t have an autopilot, doesn’t trim out well for very long, doesn’t climb much above 8,000 feet in the summertime, and only goes somewhere around 115 miles an hour (without a headwind), this is not just a simple Point A to Point B journey. It means weaving through mountain passes and under cloud decks, waiting out weather, flying in the morning and exploring wherever we’ve landed in the afternoon.
It will also be an adventure in that I’m taking a co-pilot on this trip—my boyfriend’s 17-year-old son, who thinks he may want to become a pilot. This trip should certainly answer that question for him.
But as Anne Morrow Lindbergh used to say, when people asked her if she wrote her books while she was having all those flying adventures with her famous husband … it’s hard to have the reflective mind space to write in the middle of an adventure. Too many other critical items are vying for attention. So while I will take copious mental and written notes, I will be offline until I am safely parked on the East Coast—hopefully by the 28^th of August or so.
Good wishes for tailwinds, blue skies, gentle surface breezes, and a healthy, trouble-free engine are, of course, quite welcome. For whatever else it may be, the trip will most certainly be … an adventure. With all I’ve ever said comes with that package.
Back with you all shortly!

Of all the endeavors that come with no map and no guide, changing the world—in any way, shape or form—has got to be one of the most challenging. People don’t easily change. And so to impact or effect positive change in any larger group or society can often seem like a Quixotic or fool’s errand.

My mother worked for most of her adult life on desegregation, fair housing, and making a positive environmental impact on the Bronx. And I used to tell her, when she got frustrated, that when she got done cleaning up the Bronx, I thought the Rocky Mountains would look nicer 200 miles to the East, since she seemed so intent on taking on impossible causes.

And yet, when I asked my mom why she kept plugging, despite the frustrations and lost battles, she used to tell me, “if you want to change the world, start where you are and do something, no matter how small.”

For most people who care about changing the world, that means doing what my mother did: eschew high paying jobs to work in community organizing, local politics, and non-profit organizations looking for impact more than profit. But an article in a recent issue of the Brown Alumni Monthly, about two brothers who both went to Brown University and graduated in the 1980s, raised an interesting question: if you want to effect change in the world, is it better to do work directly—hands-on, in a low-paying non-profit job, in the field. [click to continue…]

Most of the year, Silicon Valley and Boston vie for the title of “entrepreneurial capital of America.” (Silicon Valley wins hands down, I think, but Boston, more and more, at least gives the valley a run for its money.) But for one week a year, I’d submit that the Midwest city of Oshkosh, Wisconsin rivals both the coasts for the amount of innovation and entrepreneurial passion on display.
The cause of that Midwest surge, of course, is the Experimental Aircraft Association convention that’s held in Oshkosh at the end of July every year. I just got back from a week at the show (hence the radio silence on this site … ), and once again, I was impressed, amazed, and even a little bit bemused at just how much inventor’s passion still exists in the world.
The most impressive example of that, this year, was the re-emergence of former Cirrus Design CEO Alan Klapmeier as a partner and CEO of a new aircraft company called Kestrel. I wrote a piece for The Atlantic this week about Klapmeier’s new venture, and what this development says about his passion and endurance (“The Second Act of Alan Klapmeier”). I was tempted to reprint the entire piece here, because I believe Alan’s story is every bit as compelling as that of Steve Jobs, if perhaps lesser known, because not as many people own airplanes as personal computers. But the story’s just a click away on the Atlantic site.
What makes Klapmeier so remarkable, among many other things, is that he is Exhibit A of resurrection after devastating defeat. What happens when you devote 22 years to making a dream come true, and then, after it actually does, it’s all taken away from you in a messy coup d’etat that also destroys your relationship with your co-founder/brother?  The levels and feelings of defeat, betrayal, pain and loss that come with that have to be nothing short of staggering. Literally. [click to continue…]

More often than not, adventure is a solo endeavor—or, at least something pursued in very small groups. In part, this is because adventure tends to take place in the unexplored or little-explored places in life, whether that’s in the sky, on a mountain, or in a new, entrepreneurial venture. Which means, pretty much by definition, that there aren’t a ton of people already milling around there.
In the case of physical adventure, it’s also often because the places adventurers go don’t accommodate large numbers of people. Narrow rock ledges are dicey enough with one or two other climbers. And anyone who’s hiked or climbed on popular routes can attest to the difficulty posed by too many people on a route. One of the group I attempted to climb Mt. Blanc with, a couple of years ago, noted that on the toughest, steepest “wall” of the climb, the biggest danger was the loose rock dislodged and falling from the many people descending as he was attempting to climb up the route. “It was like New York at rush hour on that wall,” he said, shaking his head. “With about as much chivalry or manners.”
And yet, as much as we’d really love to be the only person or team on that mountain, or (in the case of pilots) in that traffic pattern, we still seem to have an irresistible urge to get together with others who share our passion—at least every now and then.
I’m thinking of this inclination at this particular moment because I’m getting ready to head off for the annual Experimental Aircraft Association convention in Oshkosh, Wisconsin next week. EAA’s “AirVenture,” or simply “Oshkosh,” as most pilots who’ve had their licenses more than 15 years or so call it, is the largest gathering of pilots and airplanes in the country each year. How large? Something in the neighborhood of 12,000 airplanes and half a million people, over the course of about six days. [click to continue…]

Risk and adventure come in all kinds of shades and flavors. We tend to think of activities involving physical risk as requiring the most courage. But financial and professional risk can be equally scary. As one entrepreneur friend of mine once put it … “failure in a business is a death you have to live with.” So I’m not sure who, in the end, had more courage: the subjects of a brand-new documentary about the first women’s transcontinental air race … or the woman who made the film.

The film is called Breaking Through the Clouds, and it tells the story—or, rather, the many stories—behind the 1929 transcontinental women’s air race (dubbed the “Powder Puff Derby”) that put many female pilots’ names on the national map. Contestants included Pancho Barnes, Amelia Earhart, Lousie Thaden and Bobbi Trout, as well as 16 others. They came from a wide range of backgrounds, and had all kinds of different motivations for entering the race. But air racing is, by its nature, an uncertain adventure, and all of the women would certainly fit the “No Map. No Guide. No Limits.” motto. Especially because they were taking on the challenge of flying a cross-country race at a time when women just didn’t DO that sort of thing. And that goes for both flying and racing.

Without question, all the women in that race had courage, gumption and guts. But consider, also, the woman who made the film about them. Heather Taylor was a college film student looking for a good story when she went to interview a famous woman pilot in her native Tennessee—a woman by the name of Evelyn Bryan Johnson, who was born in 1909 and has logged more than 57,000 flight hours. Johnson mentioned the 1929 race during the interview, and Taylor was captivated at the idea of young women in that era taking on such a culturally challenging as well as physically challenging feat.

“It wasn’t so much that they flew across the country that got me,” Taylor said. “It was what they had to overcome in order to do that. Which included overcoming themselves. They knew what they wanted, and they went for it, and didn’t let anything stop them. That was inspiring to me.” [click to continue…]

Like many other people in America, I am a big fan of the Sunday New York Times. Granted, it’s hefty enough to be used as a weapon, and I would offer a hefty reward for anyone who could come up with newsprint that didn’t smudge onto fingers or other surfaces. But the Sunday Times is still a lovely kind of intellectual farmer’s market I can browse through while I munch on a donut, sip my morning coffee, and revel in the fact that I don’t actually have to answer the phone, turn on my computer, or turn in any work by 5:00 pm. Most Sundays, anyway.

Some weeks, of course, the pickings are a little slim. But a couple of Sundays ago, I came across not one, not two but three separate articles in the Business section alone that contained worthy information or advice for anyone contemplating a new business or venture … or just looking for a little life wisdom. [click to continue…]