(Bryce Gladfelter)

The time is 5:AM. The city of Marrakesh, Morocco is breathlessly quiet. Suddenly, chanting begins to resound from a nearby mosque. Within moments it is followed by a chorus of guttural voices, emanating from over 100 minarets. Asleep on a rooftop terrace I am jarred awake by the thunderous Call to Prayer. This is my Moroccan alarm clock.

My family and I are spending several days exploring the markets of Marrakesh. From our rooftop terrace we have a sprawling view of the city. The markets form a web of convoluted streets; alleyways thatched in bamboo and hopelessly tangled. From the central plaza, the streets radiate outward in a labyrinth capable of making anyone feel directionally challenged. In the distance loom the snow-capped Atlas Mountains.

Departing from our rooftop we gravitate towards the plaza. By the time the sun had ascended, monkey-handlers and snake charmers are already welcoming the day. However, the cobras do not appear too charmed, their mouths sewn shut to prevent them from spitting venom. The shrill pipes is enough to make the most tolerant people insane. I pity the snakes that are subjected to it.

After breakfast in the plaza we take the plunge into the markets. Everything is rich in color-vibrant scarves, jewelry, teapots and tasseled rugs. Tables are heaped with camel-leather saddles, daggers, spices and fresh produce. Our personal favorites are the stands piled in figs and dates. In the center of the stands are holes where Moroccans pop up to collect our order, reminiscent of prairie dogs emerging from their burrows. Most people in the markets are Moroccan salesmen. In order to grab our attention they try everything next to physically attacking us.

“One moment please!” they shout, beckoning us as if they are providing shelter from a tornado. “ Just look, no buy! You like? It’s like free!”

Most of the women are mummified in shawls, looking like sacks of potatoes with eyes. People were everywhere, filthy children, wizened old folks with canes, teenagers swerving erratically on mopeds, and beggars shielded under cardboard, aligning cigarette butts with Mecca. Young boys wear their hair gelled in spikes and when they swagger past my sister they holler, “Oo…la…la!”

Animals are also numerous. Donkeys haul carts containing every product from Coca-Cola bottles to propane tanks. Cats wander the streets, scavenging bits of meat and gnawing at fish bones. Roosters peck at the ground.

We wander between cracked, sunset-colored walls until we detect the stench of the tannery. The tannery is an open area with vats of water made milky with pigeon droppings. Workers slosh in the rank broth in nothing but shorts, laboring to tan sheep leather.  It looks like a vast honeycomb, where men hang skins to dry and mangy cats wander the rims. We are handed sprigs of mint leaf to sniff to dull the stench.

Across the street is the building where the leather is made into cushions, purses and other accessories. A salesman removes nearly every cushion from the wall, just to convince us to purchase one, and then begins unrolling carpets and tapestries in desperation.

We leave the scene and plod onward. Five times a day we hear the Call to Prayer. From various mosques around the city, chanting and music resound for worship. Lunch calls for overpriced tea on a terrace. The tea is choked in mint-leaf and so sweet I can feel cavities forming after the first sip.

At the dyer souk, pieces of cloth are hung from lines and lifted with hooked poles. The colors are striking and vary from crimson to turquoise and cobalt blue. We climb up a spiral staircase to view the scenery from the terrace. Somehow, we find ourselves bargaining with a man who offers 8,000 camels in exchange for my sister.

By nightfall the plaza is a hive of humanity. Like moths to a flame, we are attracted towards its lit center. Men wheel in food carts and cooking tents, banishing the snake charmers and their repetitive song. Soon pungent smoke clouds the air. Small greasy chefs busily fry small greasy sausages. Buckets of snails entice the passerby. Determined tattoo artists pursue us with syringes of henna, while we pursue the aroma of frying food.

One has to be aware while roaming the plaza. The traffic is chaotic, mopeds swerving around bewildered tourists. The whine of motorbikes pierces the air. Pickpockets steal up behind us, without success.

“Where you from?” inquires a fruit salesman.

“The United States.”

“A thousand welcomes,” he exclaims, grinning gleefully. We smile back.

From dawn to dusk the markets have ensnared us. We realize a week would not be fully sufficient to see all its wonders. Returning to our rooftop terrace, we hear the fifth and final Call to Prayer, while below us, drummers pound out the heartbeat of Marrakesh.

(Cindy)

We decided back in 2008 to travel to Morocco to celebrate the kids’ 16^th & 18^th birthdays. Americans were terrified of Muslims (and many still are). We were not. Our friend, Allen Hoppes, a leader of American study abroad college students in Morocco, encouraged us to bring the family over. Allen leads students into Morocco through a cultural immersion program to teach them about this Arab country and dispel some of the fears they might have. Allen expressed a desire to lead families on the same type of travel experience and asked if he could “practice” on our family. We happily obliged and indulged in a month-long trip.

As you can see from Bryce’s account, the very first night in Morocco, was impacting. But the adventures never stopped from riding camels across pumpkin-colored sand dunes and sleeping out in a nomad tent, to visiting a village (Chefchaouen) where everything is painted blue including the ground and walkways through the village.

But what made the most lasting impression was when we did a home-stay, walking from one village to the next and staying with two sister’s families and connecting with the Arab children their own age.

We were told that this family of seven grows marijuana in their fields as their cash crop. It is how they make a living and we were told not to ask any questions. We walked through fields where tender young cannabis plants were coming up. The kids were amazed but poor Todd was freaked thinking the seeds and leaves would become intertwined in his laces and boot soles and the sniffing airport dogs will catch him and throw him in jail.

For dinner, we all sat in a circle and ate from a large plate piled high with meat and veggies, with oozing juice running down the sides which we sopped up with chunks of bread. You were to eat the food that was directly in front of you with your hands. Actually, with only your right hand, never your left, as that one is reserved for wiping your butt! Allen translated that our host said, “I heard that in your country, people eat on individual plates, but I have never seen this done.”

That evening after dinner, the kids played card games with our host children, even though they were unable to communicate in their own language. My kids’ favorite card game was “Drug Dealer” where you look into each other’s eyes and try to trick them into thinking you have different cards than you have. The kids worked quickly however and renamed the game  so as not to make their new friends uncomfortable. It was heartening to see such exchange of laughter and teasing, despite a deep language barrier.

Our last Moroccan experience in the public hammam climaxed the entire trip. The hammam is a segregated, traditional Turkish bath, which is an incredibly important part of Moroccan culture and life.  Men, women and children visit their local hammam at least once a week, and spend two or three hours involved in long cleansing rituals while catching up on gossip with their friends. Sierra and I went with our house mom and she took us by the hand and showed us the protocol- undressing in front of everyone in the open locker room, while the young Arab girls stared at our snow white bodies; filling up buckets of warm water and her scrubbing us in long vigorous strokes that made the dead skin roll off in black spaghetti rolls, as our skin reddened and glowed.  Sierra relaxed quickly in response to the warmth and openness of our host mom.

Our three boys- Bryce, Todd and Allen, however, were having a completely different experience over on their side of the hamman.  These private and personal Pennsylvania German men, huddled in the corner of the wash room, hoping there was security in numbers, and no one would notice them. They watched with bulging frightened eyes as the male attendant scrubbed the bathers down, even around their crotch.  They all refused any attendant’s assistance and got out of there as quickly as possible. Although grateful for having had it, the night’s experience was more of an endurance exercise for them and they were nearly emotionally scarred!

The biggest gift of our month long Moroccan experience was realizing that these Arab people in far-flung northern Africa, are barely any different than us living in eastern United States, and what was different, should be celebrated.

I have to laugh when I think of my sister’s response when she first learned we were taking the children to Morocco for a month-long trip.

“If that were my children, I’d be spending that money on their education.”

And in response I said, “I am.”

What better lesson than to understand that we are all just One People.

I am tramping around the Pocono Mountains in the upper reaches of the Susquehanna River and the Chesapeake Bay watershed with retired Pennsylvania Game Commission officer Barry Warner. After twenty-five years working these lands, he knows where the otters hang out. 

We walk through tall grasses and high bush blueberries, stepping gingerly as we look for otter, otter sign and otter scat.

We humans with our credit cards, Facebook, cell phone use are used to being tracked. Now, thanks to a new, more accurate system of collecting scat and using fecal DNA samples, scientists are developing new insights into otter life. No more secrets for the otter. His cover is blown.

The system, which was previously used on otters in Missouri, was introduced last January in Pennsylvania by Penn State. Nick Foreman, a masters’ candidate spearheads the program.  The collected DNA samples will tell biologists how many of these secretive animals there are, provide information on individual animals, count how many occupy a certain stretch of stream and allow the biologists to track their movements.

Tom Hardisky, a biologist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, said the multi-year study is being conducted to help game officials decide whether or not to open a fur-bearing trapping season. But, he adds, the secondary purpose is to protect wildlife and our natural environment.

“Otters are an important indicator species,” Hardisky said. “They depend on pure water, healthy habitat and controlled trapping. Otter numbers are a great indicator of water quality and stream conditions.”

There is growing concern for the otter because of increased drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale, a gas-rich formation underlying much of the Mid-Atlantic. The extracting process has the potential to silt up waterways, which could impact the otters’ habitat, and hence alter otter populations. The fish and game deparment has also stepped up monitoring of other indicator species. Entire fish populations could be at stake if there is a crisis.

“If water quality changes, and the stream is impaired, the otters’ prey could disappear and the otters would get out of there right away,” Hardisky said.

“Once baseline numbers of otters have been calculated, we will have figures from which to compare. If something happens, we can get in there right away, investigate, and make a swift conclusion,” Hardisky said.

The six Pennsylvania counties in the upper reaches of the Susquehanna River hold many ponds, streams, and boggy areas that offer ideal habitat to these water-loving creatures. This land is so ideal for otter that when the rest of Pennsylvania’s otter population collapsed and disappeared in the late 1800s, otters remained in the Pocono Northeast.

Now river otters have taken up residency in every major river drainage system in Pennsylvania, but Pennsylvania wildlife managers want to make sure they have substantial numbers before they let the trappers loose.

Play is considered a mark of high intelligence in an animal and the river otter is the play-baby of them all. They’ve been filmed shooting down muddy banks, chasing and wrestling one another, and juggling sticks and stones, and even their food.

Otters are a high alert indicator species and can signal a problem before man is even aware of it. Because they are so dependent on aquatic life and are very specific in their food, they would be impacted very quickly if the water was polluted and they would leave. Whereas mink, which prey on a variety of life, would eat something else, such as field mice, if the water was not clean. 

Now, with land managers and the population in general are paying closer attention to our streams and rivers amid the looming threat of drilling in the Marcellus Shale, the river otters are more important than ever. Learning their secrets may help us all protect clean streams.

Spying on Otters to Protect Clean Streams – Southern Maryland Online

Pennsylvania is one of the strictest in America when it comes to evaluating and judging homeschoolers. Students have specific subjects they must cover as well as logging specific hours or days. It made me even more cautious when making the decision to home school, as I was not completely confident in my ability to be a good leader. Plus, I was worried about losing my life, dissolving into my children, forgetting I had personal needs or goals. Educating your children is not something to be taken lightly. It is too impacting.

When I finally decided to allow my children to quit public school, I told them they were going to have to do this. I had no interest in sitting next to them, learning Algebra II or Chemistry; like I used to sit next to them when they were very young, crocheting cotton dishcloths while they filled in work sheets.

What is wonderful about homeschooling is although you must complete so many years of sciences, for example, you can pick what kind of science you want to learn. Sierra picked Chemistry because at the time she thought she wanted to be a wildlife biologist. She secured a Chemistry video and taught herself.  Bryce, on the other hand, had no interest in Chemistry, but he did in Extreme Weather and he researched it with a passion. Because he was permitted and encouraged to pursue the type of science that impassioned him, his interest in learning did not wane.

This is the beauty of home schooling- the desire to learn never stops because very often you get to decide for yourself what you want to learn. This is BIG power.  With choices in your life, you have power over your life. This very important lesson- that you can design and create your education, leads to knowing that you can design and create your life. For a school-aged child to learn this fact, that they are in charge, leads to responsibility. There is little room to pass the buck and blame someone or something else if you discover you are not happy in your life. Homeschooled children learn early that they can have whatever kind of life they choose. Sadly, many people never learn this and turn into bitter, resentful, disillusioned, jaded adults who never realized that they held the power.

I already knew I had a real gift of not being able to see dirt when I was an adolescent. My father would stop me as I walked across the carpeted floor of our house at a speck of lint and say, “Cynthia, why don’t you pick up that lint when you see it?”

“I don’t see it,” I told him and he found this unfathomable.

I can remember him poking his big strong fingers into my back as we walked into Mass, picking light-colored lint off my navy blue wool coat. He saw lint everywhere. It must have been a curse.

When I grew older and had my own place, I was too busy doing things to worry about activities like keeping the house neat and clean. My sis got me a T-shirt that said, “A man’s home is his castle- let him clean it.” No matter where I went, pumping gas to the grocery, women commented on that shirt and wanted one. I guess I had comrades out there- housework haters after my heart.

In the first years of our marriage, we moved every few years and that kept the dirt under control- until our handmade log home, where we have settled for the last 23 years.

My friend house sat for us one summer we were on an extended trip and he was repulsed by the dust that settles on the top of each rounded log. He cleaned all our logs in our 2,500 square foot house that summer. Until he bought this own log home, and realized how difficult it was to maintain cleanliness in a log home.  I find it a losing battle. So I don’t even attempt to fight. I just surrender.

In the 23 years we have lived in our log home, I have never washed the quarry tile floors even once. I sweep them but do not wet mop them. Todd does it about every year or two.  They don’t show dirt. If it wasn’t for extended family get -togethers or big parties, we would not clean at all. Cleaning sessions  have to be regularly scheduled so the house remains livable. I know this sounds sick. I do not like to dust and mop and scrub and polish. Although it always looks so nice afterwards, in a matter of days or even hours, the creeping crud descends, especially heating with wood. Cleaning seems so useless and short termed. I do scrub the toilet and tub, however,  but I wait until it practically looks like you could acquire a staph infection from touching skin to the porcelain.

Last night, I awoke at 3 am and decided I could not stand the insides of my home anymore. Absolutely everything should be gone through and stuff throw out- from our bookshelves to my jewelry to the spice shelf. My office has become unlivable. I really think one of the reasons I leave home so often is because I can’t stand the stuff- especially the papers, the piles, in my office. Every trip I go on, every magazine article that I write, and that is between  40-50 every year, I acquire a package of related brochures, maps and papers. This really adds up. (At least I do not acquire boxes of transparencies like the days before digital). How long do you keep these packages waiting for friends who might want to travel there someday?

When the kids woke up, I announced that we were having a scheduled cleaning day this weekend. They could pick “their favorite” activity- dusting, running the sweeper, washing windows etc. No one was happy. They all have more important things to do. They would rather that job be left to “The Mother.” It is enough that cooking dinner gets left to “The Mother” on most nights.

But their extreme negative disdain over cleaning house has led me to believe how miserably I have failed. When we visited Sierra and her boyfriend in their apartment in China, we all pitched in and cleaned every week for the month that we visited-but not here??? (WHY? Is The Mother  supposed to do it?)

There is no one to blame here but myself. As good of a job that I have done in using the whole world to raise and educate these kids, I have fallen so short in the housekeeping department. I wonder if it were possible to change their ways so late in life- at 21 & 23 (and me at 57) and make good.

My husband is a neat-nick and has all his tools and stuff in their rightful orderly place. You can’t even borrow a hammer on the sly and put it back, for he will know, because it is not laying in the right direction or hanging at the correct angle or something anal like that. Thirty years of marriage did not enable me to absorb that marvelous trait- not by osmosis nor by teaching.

He goes out to the shed and brings me back empty cardboard boxes. “Fill up one box each day with useless and unnecessary papers before you are allowed to begin writing.” I was a good girl the first day when I was all fired up.

I have discipline for some things but not others. No one makes me climb the steps to my office every morning I am home, fleece robe and slippers on, coffee mug in hand, to hit the START button on my computer, so anxious am I to begin my day of writing. And I’m quite good at planning and organizing trips- no slacking there, so it isn’t that I am an unmotivated slug.

I just attended a women’s health & fitness conference in Colorado where I was the keynote speaker. I went to a workshop about taking charge of your life and she spoke to my soul when the topic turned to clutter. She suggested 15 minutes a day, before you go to bed, do something like hand scour the sink. I looked over at my girlfriend and we exchange a look that says, “Fuck that. A clean house is the sign of a wasted life.”

Another girlfriend recently got me a plaque for my birthday that reads, “The way to avoid housework is to live outdoors.”  And so I do. At this most pleasant time of the year, we take our plates and pots of food and glasses of drink and head outdoors to the picnic table by the frog pond for every meal. Nature is all neat and clean and it makes me happy being in its company. Maybe I can avoid the papers  and dust a little longer, at least until the season turns cold and I am forced indoors again.  Or maybe I can just convince my husband and children to take up the duster and mop. They all have more of that neat, orderly, precise, German blood in them than I do. They ought to find joy in keeping the house neat and clean. Trouble is, I have raised them to love doing everything else in the world more than cleaning. It is my major screw up as a mother and a home school educator. I guess I could have done worse.

PS- So the next day after writing this, I get my daughter and her live-in boyfriend, Eben, (that’s another blog) to clean house together. Even though Eben broke two vacuum cleaners (probs not his fault- probably from not being used enough) just knowing that we were all doing it together, made it  almost fun.

Tell me, I forget
Show me, I remember
Involve me, and I understand
- Anonymous

When my fifteen-year-old daughter attended her county’s youth conservation camp, she felt like an outcast. She wasn’t into shooting black powder rifles like most of the kids, for the powerful recoil scared her. She also felt shy in the large group. She did love absorbing the knowledge she was fed in the 5-day camp, documenting everything in her journal.

She wanted to remember everything because she personally cared about every fish, invertebrate, and fern that she discovered. She was the only camper who recorded anything, which resulted in getting her the highest score on the surprise test the campers received at the week’s end. She won a full scholarship to attend the two-week Pennsylvania Conservation Camp at University Park the next summer.

Only a few experiences in a young person’s life impact them to the point where they are propelled down a particular path and are forever changed. Schuylkill County’s Norm Thornberg Conservation Camp was one for Sierra.

These youth camps are often administered by conservation districts and sometimes sponsored by sportsmen’s clubs. This wonderful gift to our youth and our planet has been going on for more than thirty years.

The ultimate goal of these camps is to introduce students to conservation and environmental careers, and to encourage them to pursue their interests. They might learn how to track wildlife, identify native plants, or tie a fly. From stream sampling of fish and aquatic life, to forestry skills, daily activities are planned to get students out in the field to meet and observe environmental professionals. The camps are usually targeted to teens age 14 to 18. Professionals in the field teach many of the hands-on classes and learning is the kind that lasts…experiential learning. Many instructors donate their time, equipment, and expertise to provide this experience. Sometimes the camps offer opportunities for attendees to seek internships and mentoring and job shadowing positions, as well as returning as camp leaders. Scholarships and sponsorships are often available.

When students leave these camps they have a keen awareness of the outdoor world and the many careers found there. They also have the desire to become tomorrow’s stewards of the natural world.

The level beyond local camps is the state camp. In Pennsylvania it is the Conservation Leadership School. This is where Sierra blossomed. She learned all sorts of things about firefighting, canoeing, forestry management, wildlife, etc. She learned to analyze her hometown drinking water, balance deer population, behind- the-scenes recycling, and realized what exactly a “green” building is.

Up until that point, Sierra was learning for her own personal interests, her own personal career goals. But she saw the tremendous energy a group of like-minded individuals can have on one another. If they bonded, cared for one another, it didn’t matter if they were cleaning up a disgusting tire dump; they could have fun and make a positive difference.

As a homeschooled high schooler, Sierra went on to create the Schuylkill County Student Conservation Club. Within two years, these teens conducted more than 20 projects including tree plantings, river clean-ups, and helping biologists monitor elk calving. Her leadership and the groups’ extensive work enabled Sierra to earn two $10,000 private scholarships that sent her to Temple University. There she created the Temple Outdoor Club, and became involved in creating a Sustainable Living Forum.

Her conservation camp exposure came full circle this past spring when she returned home from teaching English in China after graduation from Temple University  She was looking for a job that would enable her to put her skills to work as well as create good so she contacted all her past mentors in the conservation world. And the Schuylkill Headwaters Association rose to the occasion.

“Give me a few days,” Bill Reichert, president of Schuylkill Headwaters Assoc. said to Sierra.

He got back to her with an Outreach Coordinator position as an Americorps intern, through the Appalachian Coal Country Team, a regional organization that oversees her position and funded by the Office of Surface Mining. Part of her duties are managing the visiting Americorps National Civilian Community Corps Team. Sierra researched and designed three rain gardens totaling 2,500 square feet that they installed at a Schuylkill County Acid Mine Drainage Treatment System. She also organized an Arbor Day tree planting event coordinating the planting of 3,000 trees in a reclaimed mine area, as part of the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative.

Sierra is doing so much good in her own county, her own backyard, which inspired and educated her as a youngster back when she was only fifteen years old. Sierra, like other youth who have attended conservation camps, has continually built on her first camp experience. The ripples have moved out into all aspects of her life and influenced her community and her occupation, and have injected her with a passion to make the world a better place.

I like to announce to my local bank’s tellers when I cash a royalty check for the figure is so absurd…$7, $10, $12 is very high. Out of six published books, only one is left in print, “A Woman’s Journey,” and although it has been in consecutive print for over thirty years, I might be able to buy a skimpy lunch with that royalty check.

So many people falsely think that writers or authors are rich, when in reality, only a tiny handful are. The rest of us have to live off our husbands or get supplemental income from jobs like modeling nude for life drawing class.

People may also get the idea that we are loaded by the way we jet around the world and stay for a good month. This sounds crazy wealthy but nothing could be farther from the truth.

How do we do it? First off, we have no credit card debt, but use the credit card on nearly every   purchase, paying it off every month using our savings which we accumulate throughout the month . As a result, we rake up tons of airline miles. Our entire family of four flew to Alaska and Hawaii for free. Any extra income we save up, goes towards travel. It’s just what we choose to do with our excess money, besides saving some for retirement and college. We never remodel or modernize or change any furnishings in our home simply because we are bored with it. We run our vehicles into the ground before replacing. We acquire experiences, not things. It is just our personal choice. So the traveling lifestyle we have adopted could be adopted by many more people if they too made it their priority. We don’t have any magical formula and the days of the tourism departments lending a hand to our family are pretty much history. We pay our own way.

One thing that is unusual is the style in which we travel. It is not for most. We camp whenever possible. (We even found a campground within Rome’s city limits!) Or, we stay at international youth hostels, where we can often get our own room- bunk beds albeit, or very inexpensive hotels.

We eat street food (rarely get sick), shop at grocery stores, have picnics, eat where the locals eat if we eat “out,” which is always excellent food and tremendous value. We eat a lot of cheese sandwiches, for good homemade bread seems to be universal all over the world.

We try to get around the country independently, like cycling or walking. In Ireland, we rode our bikes right out of the Shannon airport, circumnavigated the country and then rode them back on. In Spain, we rode our bikes across the 450 mile ancient pilgrim path, the Camino de Santiago. We take public transportation if it is less money than renting a car. We plan our own itineraries, never go with an organized tour and do everything independently. We buy guidebooks months out and meticulously plan our trip. We do not learn the language (too many different countries) but always manage to either find someone who can speak English (more often, the young people) or manage to communicate through charades or a vocabulary guide. We always manage to get by and have a few adventures along the way.

Our children have no problem whatsoever traveling liked this, even though the comfort level is way down. We all had our initial traveling experiences on the trail, in the wilderness, so our bar is much lower than the average traveler. In fact, one of their most memorable nights out of all their traveling lifestyle occurred one night when we were “homeless.”

It happened in Sicily. Our bus dropped us off in the town which was adjacent to the gorgeous national park, Riserva Naturale dello Zingaro.  No other buses were leaving town for the remainder of the day. We were stuck in town for the night. Camping was not allowed in the park, so as we cruised the streets, we stopped at every hostel, hotel and sign advertising a room for rent. No room in the inns. So we announced that everyone should keep their eyes open for an appropriate alternative sleeping spot. We spied an abandoned pizzeria on the hillside that fit the bill and filed it away in our minds.

After a delightful day hiking, we retrieve our packs and make our way up the hill towards the abandoned pizzeria. Dusk was falling. A gravel lane led to the shabby establishment, encircled it, rejoined it and came back down to the hard top road. Scattered around the hillside were private homes but none were very close. The pizzeria’s patio was a mess with weeds busting through the cement, discarded fridges and freezers with their lids off, and dirty plastic, stack-able lawn chairs tossed on their sides. We cleared an area for our tents because the mosquitoes were descending in droves. After setting up camp, we walked down the lane to a very nice restaurant whose tables held starched linen napkins and crystal stemware. We were nervous about firing up our camp stoves to cook dinner as they roared and would alert neighbors of our presence.

We told the waiter to take the wine glasses away and sipped from our Nalgene bottles of water hidden under the table. We ordered the least expensive item from the menu- pizza- and the kids giggled, “Eating like the rich and sleeping like the homeless!”

We walked back to our “camp” by the light of the stars, headlamps out, so we didn’t attract attention and turned in. Every time our tent conversation grew a few decimals higher, the neighborhood dogs would begin to bark. “BE QUIET!” someone would hiss, “We’re going to get caught!”

Todd was uncomfortable. He hated to break the law and always feared he would be thrown into foreign jail for his family’s deviant ways. He slept little, keeping one ear open. And then when the earth was just beginning to absorb light, the morning was still grey and flat, he hears a vehicle’s wheels crunching on the gravel. Someone was coming up the drive and this lane only leads to the pizzeria!

He sprang from the tent and in the patio’s shadows is horrified to see a man’s body protruding out of the car’s open back window, with a rifle in his hand, and he’s firing from his waist! Cracks rang out through the grey morning.

Todd was terrified. What could they be shooting? Rats? Coyotes? Stray dogs? Trespassers? His fear was fed by the fact that this small town of Scopello had more male citizens in prison for murder than any other Mafia-riddled town in Sicily- of all towns to be breaking the law as vagrants.

The shooter and driver ripped around the pizzeria, spraying gravel under their spinning tires, firing at the hip but never saw us or our tents. They would have had to turn backwards in order to see us, and the marksman was too intent looking forward, whatever his target was. They were completely unaware of our presence as they completely encircled us and headed back to the main road.

With a pounding heart, Todd roused us and we packed in silent speed, slunk down the gravel road on light tip-toe, and once we joined the main road, laughed with nervous delight and slapped high fives to one another. The kids decided, “That was the best night we ever spent out in our entire lives! ” They asked if we thought “The Lonely Planet Guide” would rate our accommodation with a 2 or a 3 star?

The best night? Not staying in a 5 star hotel which they have experienced more than once (comped by the tourism board). To them, this was high adventure.

The kids liked to quote two of their favorites, one by Helen Keller:

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”  And another by mountaineer, Jim Whittaker,

“If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.” 

This high adventure night certainly wasn’t planned. We were just making the best of a less than ideal situation. The fact remains that children are both immensely adaptable when necessary, are tremendous good sports when conditions are less than ideal, and are bright enough to see it all as good fun.