The winter issue of Backtrails magazine appeared in my mailbox in February. Though I’d never heard of the magazine, much less subscribed to it, the following May I was on a plane for Munich answering one of its ads. It wasn’t unusual for me to respond to the call of a distant place or activity. An avid outdoorsman, I’d hiked, biked, climbed, snowboarded, skydived, even canyoned at various locations throughout the States and Europe. What was peculiar was the way in which the call was delivered.

I’d just returned from Europe, where I’d covered The Vampire Ball in Heidelberg, the Fasching parade in Maastricht, and Fasnacht in Interlaken as part of a carnival series for a travel magazine I freelanced for. My flight from Seattle, the last leg of a twenty-hour affair that had involved two nasty delays, had arrived in Juneau around midnight, and I’d slept in until ten or so. The magazine was on my desk when I woke. My daughter, Kristin, who’d ridden the bus in from Mendenhall Valley to welcome me back, had brought the contents of the stuffed mailbox when she arrived, depositing them in the office next to my bedroom. I saw the magazine before I saw her, the desk being my well-documented first stop (see the divorce transcripts) when I got up each morning.