Announcement: Our Final Journey

I created this web site to first tell the story of a 5,000 mile walk across the county along the American Discovery Trail, with posts from May 2011 – May 2012, and retold that journey  recently from a different perspective.  My wife Cindy and I began our “early retirement” years in this manner, prompted by her being let go from work with early cognitive decline.  Cindy and I met and married as long distance hikers; choosing that as a venue for rebooting our lives and her brain health made sense for us.

At the time we were keeping Cindy’s condition private; our public mission and reason for taking a whole year to hike across the country was to promote the virtues of kindness and community.  “Love Kindness. Build Community. Believe in Humanity.” became the tag line for this blog, along with past and future journeys to come of Humanity Hiker.

A year after we finished our 5,000 mile hike across the country Cindy received her official diagnosis for early onset Alzheimer’s.  We created a bucket list to live as well as possible despite our tragedy.  We went on to hike major parts of the Pacific Crest Trail in 2014, became snowbirds for two winters and went on our first and only cruise. Once Cindy’s mobility became severely constrained I acquired a pedicab to pedal her around town, getting her out in the nature and pastoral community she loves so much. The pedicab also provided me much needed exercise, as our pursuit of living well applies to both caregiver and patient.

In the spring of 2019 Cindy went into my hospice care at home after experiencing her first and still her most severe seizure.  In the fall of 2023 she was taken off of hospice, not because of improvement, but because of no further decline in her advanced state.  Since then we have been in our final journey together.

We resolved early on that our experiences should benefit others.  This website provides information about lifestyle factors that enhance brain health, as well as inspiration for preserving the will to live in a tragic situation.  Over the years of this blog several readers observed they were reading an inspirational love story; that love story has entered the final chapter.  We hope that you find on this website something that benefits you in your own life journey, no matter the adversity faced.