Off, but this time just for two days

I will be computerless until Sunday evening. Tonight I'm camping in thunderstorms and tomorrow I'm doing an overnight kayaking trip.

Back Sunday. Hopefully, with photographs.

Why the hell is this place called Mountain Time if you live in the midwest?

Good question.

I used to live in the mountains. And this site was started when I lived there. I stopped posting here in May, 2008, when I abruptly moved back to the midwest from northern Idaho. I filed for divorce a few months later, because I didn't like my husband's girlfriend. I started two other sites under different pseudonyms -- I used those places to engage the hell of getting a blindside divorce from someone I'd spent my entire adult life with, and whom I trusted far more than I probably should have.

Once I emerged from that hell, I realized I wanted to be back here again. I am Trailhead, and Trailhead is me.

Clearing the cobwebs

Wow, this place was dusty.

So I cleaned up a little, and I'm settling back in.

Pulled from the comments, another amazing otter story

Commenter and Sancho fan Dave was kind enough to tell us the incredible story of the river otter he raised as a kid in Florida. Dave writes:

I was about 13 or 14 when my otter turned up behind my house. We lived on a small river down in Florida. The otter my mom named Samba was alittle older than Sancho. His mother had been killed by something, it looked like maybe a boat or a gator. He took to my dog (Golden Retriever) like it was his mother. The two where always together they would meet me at the bus stop in the afternoons and we would play and fish most days. I didn't have the knowledge of Carolina to help him get back to being on his own. So he would mostly just sit lay next to me while I fished for his food.

To me otters have the best outlook on things they are always playing and socializing with there family and friends. He could sence if I was stressed when I would get off the bus from school (everybody knows middle school can be a stressful place) and he would always do something funny or make weird noises and before I knew it whatever had happed that day was long forgottin. Alittle like Sancho's story mine does not have the best ending. One day Samba was in the garage under my fathers car and he was running late to work or something and he was trying to get Samba to come out (my father and Samba did spend alot of time together so Samba did not know him that well) so he reached under his car to pull Samba out and grabbed him by the tail and Samba bit him. It was not a bad bit I asked my dad and he said it didn't even draw blood but like any caring parent he was concerned and he called the local wildlife department.

Thats the sad part like Sancho's story. Here is the nice ending many years later with what would later become my wife, we where at Seaworld and I was telling my to be wife that a had raised in otter for about a year just like the one in show we where watching. I also told her that the local wildlife department didn't have the right habitat ect to keep my otter so they gave him to Seaworld. So she pressured me to go ask after the show if he was still around. So I did knowing that the likelyhood was very slim. But I did knowing my soon to be wife would not let me off the hook if I didn't.

I walked up to the trainer after the show and asked if they had an otter named Samba he said no, "I know it" is what I was thinking. The trainer asked why I told him my story and where I was from and how long ago it was. He told me that was really weird because they have an otter that came from the same area I lived same age as Samba would have been ect... But his name was Otis. He asked me if I would like to see him, Of corse I said yes so me and my wife went behind stage to the otter habitat.

I had no idea they had as many otters as they did there must have been 10-12 otters of all different types and before we even got up to the habitat the guy was going to show us I pointed out Samba and he saw me. He was standing up tall at the back of his little river area and he ran up to the front wall so I could see him. The trainer laughed and said so you do know Otis. I talked with the trainer for quite some time then and he told me that I answered alot of the question he and the other trainers had as to why Samba was the way he was. They told me he was by far the oldest otter they had but still the fastest out of the water he said that he runs more like a dog than the others and that it now make sences being that my dog and him where like a Mother - son relationship.

So I am holding out hope that one day Sancho and Carolina will be reunited like me and Samba where.

Thanks to Dave for sharing this great story! I love it.