Tag Archives: John Muir

Escape from Walden Pond

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The Backpacking Trip That Didn’t Happen

A while back I decided to visit Walden Pond. Not because it is wonderful wilderness and not because of Thoreau. I was going to be in Boston anyway, and Walden Pond and Thoreau are historical curiosities to me – nothing more and nothing less.

For the uninitiated, Walden Pond was the locale for the Transcendentalist Philosopher Henry David Thoreau’s experiment in self-reliance. The pond itself is not significant, but for me it ended up being quite pleasant and relaxing.

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John Muir and Freedom from Restraint

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John Muir

All my life I have been a voracious reader. Unfortunately there has been little fiction or non-fiction written since 1957 worth reading. So I spend most of my reading time catching up with the classics I have not read, or re-reading the best of the best.

For some reason I can’t explain, my reading seems to be theme-based. That is, I read about specific subjects or read specific authors without interruption. Currently I am re-reading most of John Muir’s works. A couple years ago my theme was the writings of our founding fathers and those great minds that influenced them. Last year it was mostly Jack London and then Victor Hugo.

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