Adventures in Wonderland

The travel section is always my first stop with my Sunday New York Times. For starters, I'm a travel blogger in my spare time, so I simply enjoy reading about travel. But I also skim it first because I'm just a dessert-before-vegetables kind of reader.

Eric Wilson, whose writing is usually found on the NYT Styles pages, hiked the Wonderland Trail this summer and wrote Adventures in Wonderland for today's Travel cover story. Well, he hiked most of the 93-mile trail that circles the mountain, and not entirely in a circle, either, but you'll have to read his story for the details on that. And while it's true most Wonderland hikers don't break for a night's stay at the Paradise Inn, let's give the guy a collective break. After all, he hiked eighty-two miles during Washington state's record-setting heat with a 45-pound pack. Je suis impressionné!

I was engrossed by Wilson's tale of wonder and misery on the mountain, from his wading through fragrant fields of lupine to zig-zag hiking in 110-degree heat, from watching a coyote sip from a stream to his plethora of mosquito welts. I couldn't help but think back to the first time I hiked at Mount Rainier, myself a novice beyond words, and that sense of awe and that feeling of euphoria I felt just being there.

I never even got to the news section today.

Sometimes, dessert is quite enough to sustain me.