I never really liked Mate that much; I just learned to not hate it. While most would steep a handful or two of leaf in their enamel ware cup, I refrained to only a few pinches. Mate was considered an ‘acquired taste.’ And one that most students are sorely disappointed with when they finally get home and sample it for themselves. I don’t have any real reasons for drinking it, apart from it being a warm drink that I can sip and a dominate part of the RCA field culture. My favorite cup is the third refill – after the initial bitter is gone and all that’s left is watered down tea leaf.

It was halfway through one of these cups that I started to think about my blog that I had long since abandoned. I listed out in my mind a great deal of contributing factors to my withdrawal of which lack of time was on top. Lodge life was busy as ever and field duties had increased with Head Instructor responsibilities. And – what time I did have available to me was spent resting my feet from waiting tables, preparing my pack for the following week, or socializing with my crews.

Mate is a loose leaf tea grown in South America that is loaded with a whole bunch of nutrients and health promoting stuff – or so they say. All I really know is that it’s loaded with a caffeine like substance that gives me a headache if I don’t delude myself with water... I will soon be looking for a replacement to warm my hands.

Another reason I believe my blogging stopped was simply burnout. Writing became a chore to me. I over obsessed with my entries – trying to account for every adventure and story. I would sit down and write all that I could then list out the remaining stories that I needed to finish. The list kept growing and growing until I was so far behind that there was no hope of ever catching up.

I found out that Darren, my costaff from the SLC area, was keeping a regular blog and posting pictures to let his friends and family read about his adventures in the desert. Darren is a bit older than most staff out in the field, half a century old with a wife and four growing kids. “Musings of a Wandering Man” was his solution to the high demand for wilderness stories. Instead of having to tell and retell about his adventures, he can simply write about them once and then refer everyone to his blog. Prior to jumping on the RCA train, Darren was a newspaper writer/editor for over 15 years, both at the cooperate and private levels. Moving his office into the outdoors was a nice change of pace for him.

I asked Darren what he writes about and how he has time to keep a blog – balancing two jobs while fathering his home. He said that starting out he would add an entry every other day, but soon reduced to three a week. “Sometimes I write about a specific kid and his past story and current progress, and other times I just give a recap of my week. If there isn’t too much going on that I want to write about, then I’ll pull in a story from the past and write about it. But I also take lots of pictures and put two or three with each post.”


I finished my third cup of Mate and pulled out my Steno Book and jotted down a brief list of things that I wanted to write about. I thought I should recap a few things that had happened over the summer – both in the field and at the lodge – covering a few memorable RCA students, a short lived romantic fling, and a couple of fun and crazy adventures. And, to start it all back up I thought I would reintroduce myself into the blogging world by talking about mare, or in Darren’s opinion, a ‘distasteful reentry.’