Listing Who I Am

I recently read an editorial post in the Mountain Gazette asking people to share "cool things" they've done that essentially encapsulates who they are, and it has to be generally mountain-related. Such a list would fit just one person in this whole world. I was inspired to try and capture some of my favorite experiences in life so far, big and little.

COOL THINGS I’VE DONE (that have made me who I am)
1. Spent a summer alone in a dark cabin in the woods, with an outhouse, in Alaska.
2. Quit my cushy job in a scary economy and went traveling for eight months.
3. Bottle-fed a newborn Great Dane.
4. Played a pub quiz with a German and four drunk Kiwi girls (we lost).
5. Climbed a fourteener in Colorado.
6. Kayaked through (and made up a children’s story about) icebergs.
7. Cleaned toilets in State parks (highly recommended for your kids!).
8. Napped on a mountainside in grizzly country.
9. Was a flower in a hometown parade.
10. Plucked contact lens from a bear spray victim’s eyes, and then fell into exhausted sleep at 2am on a snowbank.
11. Camped on a rocky beach near a glacier (and was almost washed away).
12. Drank Mojitos with an Aussie while a Filipino band played Johnny Cash in a Spanish bar in Vietnam.
13. Went two weeks without a shower.
14. Aced a tough environmental law final the day I found out I had cancer.
15. Made a calzone, from scratch, in the backcountry.
16. Helped my grandmother pass the U.S. citizenship test when I was a kid.
17. Climbed mountains alone in Tasmania.
18. Worked in pitch black Oregon forests in the middle of the night, calling for owls.
19. Took my Honda sedan four-wheeling on Utah back roads.
20. Ran away from a sorcerer.