We recently got a photograph of my sweetheart from c 1958 when she was with the pioneering rock climbers in Yosemite. She is standing periously close to the cliff edge, on a small ledge on Washington Column, seeing the sights with a spy glass. As you can see she is tied in, but it still gives me thrills of fear to see her so close to falling so far.



I have no other images of her from those days except those burned into my imagination from hearing the stories. I had not yet met her, in fact when this photo was taken our meeting, on a river trip down the Klamath river, was about 20 years in the future.

But I do have some more recent photos of this extraordinary woman.

Here we are in Deception Bay, Antarctica. It was not much below freezing but there was a wind, and the ship was moving, so we bundled up.



And still further south at the point where our ship was turned back by the ice - Uma's tits.



My sweetheart has always been what we might call an extreme knitter - she is very proficient technically. For many years she has had a Tuesday night knitting group at our Alderpoint home. On a transatlantic cruise she got together a group of knitters, convinced the ship to give her a space to meet in, and here she is with the group, somewhere in the Atlantic between Florida and the Azores islands.



And here she and I rest a moment in Barcelona, in a seat designed by Gaudi.


I travel quite a bit in Northern California, and sometimes she accompanies me. We went to Crescent City and on the way back stopped to take a hike in the redwoods.



We didn't get our reservations in for tickets on the Alaska ferry in time to get a bedroom. But we met a woman who did, and needed a roommate. Here she is with Mary Alice.



A while back we went to Petrapavolsk, Russia - known to all Tom Lehrer fans - and took a very bumpy ride in a converted army convoy vehicle up a river bed to a base camp for people who were going to go climbing or skiing on a local volano. Here is my sweetie walking acoss the lava field near base camp.



Making a victory sign with two fingers seems now to be the universal sign that you are having your photo taken. Mary Alice taught English for two weeks in Xi'an, China. This is her class.