Author: Amy Alphin

So back in 1995, a tall, gangly guy with a huge mop of red curly hair entered Trinity High School as a freshman. That guy is Trip Jennings. I was a sophmore, and due to many coinciding interestes, we became fast friends. We often climbed together, and he was one of the first people to teach me to kayak. He helped inspire the love of the outdoors that I so closely cherish to this day. This month, that guy I met almost 15 years ago, was named one of National Geographic’s “Adventurers of the Year” in their National Geographic “Adventure” magazine for his exploration of a totally unexplored river in Papa New Guinea. Trip is committed to exploring preserving the wildest places left on this earth through his work with National Geographic and his organization Rivers in Demand (http://www.riversindemand.com/) Way to go Trip!
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/best-of-adventure-2008/achievements/adventurers-of-year.html#trip

Picture credits to Tom and http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/news/trip-jennings.html

So two days after Tom and Brendan and I hiked up Bandara Mountain, I’m still a little sore. But that’s a good thing…right? It was a beautiful fall day, the maples and huckleberries were starting to turn their vibrant autumn shades, and we could see all the way from Rainier to the Olympics. It was a nice reminder that fall is not all about rain, clouds and loss of the Vitamin D source in the sky. Hopefully we’ll get a few more lovely weekends, but that may be wishful thinking. Pictures to come soon!

So recently, Tom and I have become kind of obsessed with food. Not just any food, but local food, specifically either grown in our garden or purchased at the local farmer’s market. Partially inspired by Barbra Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle we’ve both taken an interest in trying to eat as locally as possible, not only to decrease our carbon footprints and to show our opposition to factory farming techniques, but because it TASTES BETTER! Go figure.

However, it is harder to eat locally in the winter, so we’ve been storing up. It is somewhat questionable to can tomato products without a pressure canner, so we’ve been freezing as much pasta sauce and tomato basil soup that our little freezer can hold. For the past two weeks, we’ve been haggling with vendors to buy in bulk, (today we bought 20 pounds of tomatoes). We’ve spent entire evenings peeling tomatoes, slicing vegetables, simmering soups and sauces which will be our “go to” meals in the winter. It’s been really fun and really really tasty thus far!