You Can't Always Get What You Want: Stuck Stateside

Zion National Park, UT

This trip started off much like any other. I shrouded my face in cloth before entering the establishment and paying to rent a minivan that had been converted into a camper and been worked on upon by a very talented graffiti artist to colorfully splash two pigeons across the back sides of the mom-mobile gone rogue as to assuage any suspicion that the person inside of the vehicle was subtle or cool in any way, shape or form.

One positioned behind the naugahyde covered wheel, sleeping bag and old trusty green Coleman wedged into the recesses of the vehicle, I was off.

I was supposed to be in Ecuador this week. 2 weeks really. There have been several points in my life where I have had tickets to Quito and for some reason or another my trip has been thwarted. This is no different. When we all locked down from New York to LA I too took shelter and Mexico and Vancouver became elusive and, ultimately, disappointing.

When are March, Friday the 13th I began sheltering in place, I had no idea that months later, in mid June my annual pilgrimage would also be cancelled, not by me but my the airlines. Yet, here we are.

Instead of a South of the Border adventure I went to Utah, alone, returning to California for a partnered trip to Los Padres National Forest for father's day, and the 6th anniversary of me losing mine.

They're right. It doesn't get better. Losing your North Star never rights itself. In fact, sometimes its worse. And several months trapped within the confines of my West Coast abode has led to me missing him MORE, not less.

That being said, a little escape from quarantine was needed - for both me and Dad.

I returned completely from the majestic Zion National Park. And a little piece of Dad will always live there, as he does within me. Forever.

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Los Padres National Forest, CA

Ice Ice Iceland: Notes From The North

1969 was not just the Summer of Love.

In the Summer of 1969 my father was a new husband, a new father, and 18 years old.

This particular factoid holds no importance other than this October my father would have been 69 years old. Of course, there are the puerile jokes I could make about this number and it's inherent innuendo, but seeing as this is a note about my Dad, it seems mildly inappropriate.

I often detail my journeys with some pictures and many words, but the roles will be reversed for this, my trip to Iceland. My trip for my Dad's 69th birthday.

Christopher Nielsen Heard was truly the love of my life. Not in a creepy oedipal way, but in a way where a person truly sees you and you, to the best of your ability, see them. I was so lucky to have been seen for the first 32 years of my life and, even in the wake of his untimely death, I didn't for one minute take that for granted.

My Dad would, on occasion, discuss how someday, someone would come along and replace him as the most important man in my life. Though he was, and is, truly irreplaceable, I knew what he was saying - and the way in which he said it, totally devoid of judgement or jealously, always filled me with pangs of warmth, even as I vehemently protested it.

This fall, in celebration of my father's life I went to Iceland, my 47th country, to marvel at the vistas, fawn over the fosses and enjoy the quite beauty that is this Northern European sanctuary. And with me, I took a man - one who has not replaced my father, but who matters an awful lot...

Please take this travel tale as a story told in pictures, below: