Life of Wry

The highlight of my day was not stepping on that rusty nail in that construction site along B Street this morning on the way home from breakfast (right through my shoe, I might add).  Foot’s still throbbing a little and feels like I’m swinging a club, but I think that’s just the aftermath of the shocking little unexpected trauma.

But, having a hole in my foot gave me just the permission I needed to sit and read all day.  So I spent most of the afternoon reading High Time, Louise Hillary’s account of her family’s Christmas vacation in 1971.  Exciting!!  Why?  Because she’s the wife of Sir Edmond Hillary, the New Zealander who was the first to climb Mt. Everest in 1953.  In 1971, Louise and Ed took their kids–Peter (17), Sarah (15) and Belinda (13)–on a 270-mile trek through the mountains of Nepal.  For me, it was both the fascinating tale of a Himalayan trek to areas I’d visited last spring, and a generational story I could sort of relate to.  I am Sarah’s age, so it was interesting to imagine myself–a ninth grader in 1971–hiking those kind of distances in such a remote corner of the world.  And Belinda then, is Peter’s age now.. my Peter.. so I thought a lot about Peter doing such a thing at age 13.  In 1971, it was also very much a pre-tourist, pre-international trekker environment, but, culturally, not hugely different than it is today.  For many reasons, I’ve just been totally gripped by this story.

The real highlight of my day, however, was this: After a few hours of reading, I needed a break and decided to google Hillary family members to see what they’re doing now.  Turns out, Louise died in a plane crash in 1975, which I knew, but what I didn’t know was that daughter Lindy was also on that plane, and died, as well.  I was crushed to read this, since I’d been getting to know her pretty well through this book. I also googled Sarah and found that she is now an artist, lives in NZ and keeps a fairly low profile.  But, Peter, the oldest: he’s carried on a life similar to his dad’s: he’s an explorer, mountain climber and philanthropist (Sir Edmond Hillary Foundation, the American Himalayan Foundation,  the Himalayan Trust, and others).  AND, he leads trips.

So I go to his website  and find out that not only does he do trips to Nepal–visiting schools, hospitals, and friends, as well as trekking–he leads trips to Mt. Kilimanjaro and Antarctica.  MT. KILIMANJARO…. a trip we’ve put on our list for next year.

The website invites you to contact Peter (himself, I gather) for additional information about the trips, so I did.  And that was the highlight of my day–writing a personal email to Peter Hillary, inquiring about a trip to Africa next year.

How cool is that?