Writings
FEATURES, JOURNALISM AND A FUN BOOK
In my first year in law school at UC Davis, I had a monthly column called 1L where I wrote about the challenges facing first year law students. Sometimes I felt like a journalist disguised as a lawyer and have always loved blending the two careers. Then after moving to the Gorge and becoming a mother, I wrote a parenting/adventure column for our local newspaper which inspired me to co-author a book for families, called Kidding Around the Gorge -- The Hood River Area's Ultimate Guide for Family Fun.
I regularly contribute to The Gorge Magazine and write feature articles about food, businesses and adventures, be it sailing across the Pacific Ocean or skiing across Finland. You can also find short pieces in Travel Oregon.
I have been Kidding Around the Gorge since 2001 when my family moved to Hood River. At the time, there was no road map guiding young families, so I teamed with a fellow mom and wrote the first Kidding Around the Gorge book. I have since written three editions, and the last one, which I co-authored with Lisa Kosglow, is arguably the best since it contains years of exploration and has jaw-dropping photographs. In 2008, my husband and I followed through on our marital promise and took our two children on a three year sailing adventure. We sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge, journeyed south to Ecuador and then across the Pacific to Australia, with hundreds of stops along the way. You can access our blog here. My advice to families is to seize the moment — after all — life is about the journey, not the destination.
Washington Post Article
“Momma, have you started your list of things you are going to do when I’m gone?” she asked.
“Besides cry?” I responded.
“No, really, I want to see you doing things that you didn’t because you were busy taking care of me,” she said.
Check out The Washington Post article here about my daughter leaving the nest and heading to college.
Book: Kidding Around the Gorge
Rain or shine, the Gorge is full of opportunities for fun and adventure – whether you want to hike to a waterfall, ski Mt. Hood, bike Post Canyon, pick cherries or eat huckleberry ice cream. Pick up the third edition of Kidding Around the Gorge and you’ll know where to go.
Co-author Lisa Kosglow, mother of a then-five-year old, Olympic snowboarder, and founder of Let’s Get Out, a jammed packed adventure camp based in the Gorge. Our book gives you the inside scoop of what to do with your kids.
Available to purchase from Amazon and Powell’s City of Books.
AT 17. A LOCAL WINGFOILER IS PUSHING THE SPORT TO NEW HEIGHTS
CHRIS MACDONALD IS ONE of the few wingfoilers who can land a 1080 - three full rotations in the air. Think a whirling top, a spinner dolphin. At 17 and currently ranked second in the surf-freestyle category of the Global Wingsports Association (GWA) Wingfoil World Tour, MacDonald has been diligently working on this latest trick so he can wow the judges when he competes in lune in the Canary Islands, Spain.
The use of a wing-shaped sail with a board can be traced to the early 1980s when wind-surfing pioneers Jim Drake and Uli Stanciu took inspiration from flying fish and their ability to use their fins to launch themselves out of the water. They designed, even patented, a wing rig for use on top of a surfboard. A few years later Tom Magruder took his invention, the “wind weapon” — a wing sail attached to a mast that was attached to a surfboard – out on the waves in the Gorge. But the time wasn’t ripe for winging to explode, especially since windsurfing was just gaining traction.
