“The only thing I knew how to do”
“was to keep on keeping on”
Tangled up in Blue, Bob Dylan
May 10th, 2026
This post started out as a personal whine about aging, and morphed into a composite of those strange thoughts that randomly bounce around in my head, along with some geeky hiking and photography stuff. Sorry, the blog is my replacement for having someone to talk to in the morning.
Maybe I really should get a Golden Retriever. They are good listeners, as long as you have snacks in your hand.
One of the problems with being ancient is that the damage from all the sports and dangerous activities we undertake through the years is cumulative. The human body was designed for hunting and gathering, and has not really evolved much beyond that in the last million or so years. Eventually, parts of our bodies wear out – knees can only take so much abuse from running, basketball, tennis and other fast movement sports. Shoulders are the same, especially for baseball and racket sports. How many tennis players do you know who have had one or two shoulder surgeries? I’ve had one, and I suck at the sport. Broken bones in various parts of your body can lead to painful arthritis as you age. I’ve broken lots of bones, which complain most every morning, especially when the weather turns cold and damp. Hips wear out from a number of activities. Maybe sometime in the far distant future, there will be a sub-species or two – the current Homo Sapiens, sort of the generic person still limping along in their 70’s, a new and improved model, Homo sapiens athleticus, and then maybe one at the other end of the spectrum, Homo sapiens couchpotato, sort of a cross between a human and golden retriever.
The good news is that while our bodies may not have evolved, our big brains (for some of us at least) have come up with replacements for a lot of the parts that wear out – sort of like replacing worn out parts in your car – an Autozone for the over achievers in athletics. It seems like so many of the tennis and pickleball players out on the court have one or two replacement parts – knees, hips or shoulders. Heck, some people have replacement heart valves and are still motoring along.
I’ve done all kinds of damage to my body, but somehow or another, I have avoided having anything replaced so far. That’s not necessarily a good thing – I wish one of my knees was wrecked enough to replace. But with my usual bad luck, I’ve inherited a wonky nervous system from my mother, and have something that cannot be fixed with a replacement part. Nerves.
I was diagnosed some time ago with idiopathic peripheral neuropathy, a condition where the long nerves in the legs degenerate (and arms too), misfire, and eventually stop working. I already wrote about this condition in a previous post, so I won’t bore you with details, just that the neurologists have no clue what causes it, or how to cure it. Lucky me. I currently have issues with mobility and balance, which are not going to improve, and will continue to get worse over time.
I have to be extremely careful hiking, and have opted out of more difficult hikes on the last few National Geographic trips. The night time photo shoots in Arches National Park were a bit frightening for me, since my balance was way off in the dark, especially when we had to hike to rocky, awkward setups for our gear. I wound up holding on to the tripod most of the time, to have a point of reference.
This year, I should be OK with the remaining trips – only two have significant hiking, all of which are in the daylight and on flat terrain. Running away from the Kodiak bears might be an issue though.
Next year may be more problematic as a few of the trips have some moderately difficult hikes. I have yet to book any trips for 2028 – there are quite a few I’d like to schedule, but I have to think about what my physical limitations might be in a few years. Bummer. Switching to Viking river cruises is not the answer for me. I’ve had to give up drinking wine and martinis – I’m not giving up on travel. My bucket list does not seem to be getting any smaller since I keep finding new, interesting places to go to.
But, there is a non-surgical, potential solution to my problem – not replacement parts, but body augmentation! I give you…..
…..The Robo-Traveling-Widower!!!!
I’m serious about this. There are a couple of companies which are developing exoskeletons and one or two are already available. One in particular, the Hypershell from a company of the same name (https://hypershell.tech/en-us), might be something I look into as the wonkiness in my legs progresses. It’s sort of like an electric bike – it provides extra oomph to your legs when you need it. The top-end version is light weight (carbon fiber), with a small battery pack, that can handle up to a 30km hike, which is much further than I walk/hike on a given day. For $1800, it would be worth it to keep me on the trails.
For now, I’ll just rely on my latest REI purchase for hiking stability, collapsible carbon-fiber hiking sticks from Black Diamond. Yes, I now have four sets of sticks (one was my wife’s). I’ve been jamming a pair of heavier, aluminum poles in luggage on most of my trips, and I’m desperately trying to lighten my load for the next trips. The new sticks are like tent-poles – they split into 3 connected segments, and take up much less room. New toys from REI.
And while I’m on the topic of reducing my luggage weight, I was depressed the other day, so flipped a coin as to where I should go shopping – REI or Mike’s Camera. That always cheers me up. Seriously, I had been considering buying yet another lens for some of my upcoming trips. I currently rely on two lenses – the new 25-200mm Tamron lens for most everything other than wildlife (all the rose garden photos were shot with that), and the big 150-500mm for wildlife. But, there are trips where I don’t really need the reach of the 500mm – the Natural Habitat lead for the Kodiak trip said you only need a big lens if you want to get a picture of a bear eye ball. I decided maybe I need something in-between, like a 100-400mm lens. As it turns out, Sony has that lens, and Tamron has a 50-400 for half the price. Off I went to my favorite camera store (only one in this area) to compare the two. Fortunately, this also happened to be the day Mike’s Camera has their annual sale, and had rep’s from all the major manufacturers in the store. They brought out both lenses for me – the Sony was over a pound heavier, and was older technology. Easy decision to make. My camera closet is getting crowded with gear.
But now I’ll be a bit faster with less to carry, when I have a Kodiak bear chasing after me.
I’m so excited about that trip.
Peace (I hope)
The Traveling Widower 