Journal
Joseph & Mary
About ten months after my father died the most remarkable thing occurred. I received an email from his accountant in Norfolk, Virginia, where Dad had lived. The accountant was forwarding me another email he had received that linked to a popular “Mom’s Blog” called Lucky Orange Pants, which had just posted an entry entitled “Be The InnKeeper Who Opens the Door”… Read More
Remembering Clayton
Wild On The Fly travel director Clayton Bruce Sparks took his own life on December 15, 2008 shortly after returning from an exploratory fly fishing adventure on a jungle river in northern Argentina. Wild On The Fly founder Joseph Daniel delivered the following eulogy five days later to a packed house at the Shove Chapel in Colorado Springs… Read More
A Fly in the Eye
Ten years ago the worst thing that ever happened to me... happened. I took a 1/0 saltwater hook in through the side of my eyeball and back out directly through the middle of my iris. Actually I didn't do it; the guy I was photographing fishing did. My eyeball collapsed in an electric flare of light, then dark. As if this wasn't bad enough, we were alone on a deserted beach… Read More
Joe’s American Dream
Joe's American Dream celebrates the most ordinary name in America and the eponymous businesses under that moniker. As "blue-collar entrepreneurs" these Joes represent a revealing and inspiring cross-section of small business in America. What can we learn from them as our country struggles with an identity crisis? Is the American Dream still alive?… Read More
James Balog Pushes the Limits
At first I am wary of Jim Balog. He’s slick and smooth – way too smooth. He has the quietly arrogant, black-jeans-and-dark-sunglasses smoothness of a successful New York fashion photographer, not the disheveled, wild persona you’d expect from a “nature” guy. He’s cultured. He’s well read and he speaks eloquently. He writes even better. Women seem attracted to him. A lot of women…Read More
On The River of No Return
Six people are lying on a beach along the edge of a river, deep in the recesses of a gorge known as Impassable Canyon. It is late at night and the glow of a dying campfire separates their bodies from the inky black water flowing a few feet away. Except for the river’s hypnotic gurgle and the low voices of the six, the scene in quiet… Read More
Wild Ways
The two young Masai girls sat outside their mud hut in the hot equatorial sun dressed in faded black Shúkà sheets. Each wore a ceremonial headdress of beads and shells and no other adornment. They were both trembling and sweating profusely, not from the sun but from the pain of having just been through the ritual of Emuratare – female circumcision… Read More
Fire & Ice – Yellowstone in Winter
Every summer nearly 2.7 million tourists visit Yellowstone National Park high in the northwest corner of Wyoming. Convoys of state0of0the0art RVs clog the four main arteries entering the park, each vehicle bristling with TV antennas, satellite dishes, miniature motorcycles, air conditioners, lawn chairs and barbecue grills. All the comforts of home… Read More
Canyon Grand
The Grand Canyon is an awesomely big place and its sculptor, the Colorado River, is an equally amazing stretch of water. Placid in most places, it can instantly become boiling and angry as it squeezes its way through narrow chutes and over boulders the size of houses. It has been called “the longest, wildest, grandest whitewater route in the world”… Read More