When I came home I still had the travel bug, only now I wanted to see this country. In Europe the most impressive sites are the cities or other man-made structures. In America the most impressive sites are the natural wonders that nature has provided us with, and I wanted to see it all. Europe has the Alps, and they are really something to see. I still remember my first look at them; we were driving down from Munich, and we came around a bend and there was the Zugspitz, the highest peak in Germany. It was December and it was covered in snow; it was quite a sight. I think everyone remembers the first look at the Alps. But we have the Grand Tetons, a smaller version of the Alps, as well as Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon and so many more incredible natural wonders, and I wanted to see them all. And I wanted the photographs to remember them by. Many of those photos adorn my walls today.

Most people see these sites from a scenic overlook set up by the park service and never get more than a few feet from their car. To really experience these places you have to get into the back country to see the out of the way sites most people never see. That was where I wanted to be. To get there you need to put everything you need in a backpack and start walking. It is worth the effort to get to these places that few even know about.

I guess my favorite place to explore is the Grand Canyon. It is so big and varied and rich with the history of time that you cannot help but be awestruck every time you see it. The view changes constantly as you descend from the rim, with each turn of the trail revealing a new and more impressive view of the Canyon that you could never see from the top. All around you the canyon walls reveal hundreds of millions of years of the geological history of the planet.

On a moonless night the canyon walls block any light from the rim. You can lie on the ground in your bag in almost total darkness and look up through the clearest air at a sky filled with more stars than you have ever seen. Light from the sun coming from the far side of the planet reflects off the skin of satellites far out in space, allowing you to watch them as they travel across the sky.

I haven’t slept on the ground in years. I still keep a backpack equipped with everything I need for a short trip, but it hasn’t been used in awhile. These days, after a day of trekking around the mountains with my dog, I like to come back to a room or cabin with a soft bed, a hot shower, A/C in the summer and heat in the winter, and a TV, preferably with cable. But most of all, I’m hungry, and for me nothing tops off a day of enjoying the great outdoors like a pizza, fresh from the oven and delivered to my room. I have eaten a lot of different foods after a day in the woods, and to be honest they all taste good when you are hungry, but nothing tastes as good as a fresh hot pizza.

I’ll use that backpack again. There are still places I haven’t been that I want to see and experience; places where you can get away from the crowd and go where most people never go, where you can enjoy the quiet and solitude and relax and reflect. And when I return I know that the two things I want most will be a cold beer and a hot pizza.

You hear so many stories about animals being abused or neglected that you want to tune them out and not hear any more, but they just keep coming. Some are so obviously intentional and malicious that you know instinctively that the person or persons responsible need to be locked up. The Michael Vick case is the one most people around here think of first, but there are plenty of worse cases, some involving torture and mutilation, that make what Vick and his friends did pale in comparison.

Then you have the case of the puppy mill in Pennsylvania that was cited by inspectors for the poor conditions the dogs were living in, and given two weeks to make improvements and get medical care for those that needed it. The two brothers who owned the business looked at the cost involved for the improvements and vet care and decided that it was more than they wanted to spend, considering that no one was buying their dogs anyway. So they shot all 75 dogs and buried them in a mass grave. When the inspectors returned for a follow-up look, the brothers told them what they had done and showed them the grave. It turned out that they had not broken any law. Pennsylvania law included shooting as a legal form of euthanasia. That this law had probably been on the books for over 100 years and was meant as a way to put a sick cow or an injured horse out of its suffering did not matter. The brothers paid fines for the original violations and lost their kennel license, which they didn’t want anymore, and walked away.

The incident so outraged the people of the state, from the governor on down, that the legislature passed strict new animal abuse laws during its next session. Although it was too late to help those 75 dogs, maybe some good did come from it, and other animals will benefit from what happened to them.

Cases like these are so egregious that they cry out for punishment. Then there are the ones that just boggle the mind and leave you wondering how something so awful could happen, even though the reason is almost always the same. It begins with someone trying to help or do the right thing and results in greater suffering than in most intentional cases.

The most recent case in the Atlanta area involves a woman who kept 21 dogs confined in a boarded up house with no heat, air-conditioning, light or ventilation for possibly eighteen months. Six or seven of the dogs were kept in a disabled van in the back yard, and it is thought that none of the dogs had been outside in that time. The woman’s mother had died in January 2008, and the house and dogs belonged to the mother. It is uncertain how many dogs the daughter started with since, as she told authorities, they kept multiplying, but she decided to “care for them” in her mother’s house. She claimed to have brought them food every day, but as the number of dogs increased, the cost went up and less food was brought.

When Cherokee County authorities arrived after receiving a tip, they were driven back by the overpowering stench of ammonia from the urine inside the house. They had to come back the next day with protective clothing and breathing apparatus. Most, if not all, of the dogs were euthanized due to their poor health and other problems. The woman who had been “caring for” the dogs seemed to have no idea that she had done anything wrong, believing that she had been taking care of the dogs she had inherited to the best of her abilities.

Another case of neglect/abuse in the Atlanta area occurred in Alpharetta in 2005, where 134 dead cats were found in a house in a nice middle class subdivision, along with 26 other cats in very bad condition. It was estimated that some of the cats had been dead for six months, and all were thought to have died of starvation or dehydration. What makes this case even more disturbing is that this woman wasn’t some lone nutcase who collected every stray she saw until she was overrun with animals. This was a responsible Arescue groups in the area for years and was well known and respected in the rescue community. She adopted cats from these groups and also provided a foster home for rescue cats.

Rescue groups that use foster homes to house any of the animals they take in are required by law to inspect these homes every six months to ensure that the living conditions are up to code. Apparently no one ever inspected this woman’s home, or this situation would never have been allowed to get so out of hand.

As this woman continued to adopt and provide foster care for more and more cats, no one seemed to notice that she was taking in a lot of cats for one person, or that no one ever saw these cats again. The system failed these cats and it cost them dearly.

At some point, the burden of the enormous responsibility she had taken on became too much for her and she just shut down. Rather than ask for help, which people in this situation rarely do, whether out of shame or fear of getting in trouble, she just walked away from it. She left home and didn’t come back.

Only the number of animals involved separates this incident from so many others that take place all the time. People want to help, and they do at first, but then they take on more than they can handle, and it all goes wrong. That is what makes it so sad. People like this want to help and do the right thing, and end up doing more harm than the real criminals.