Of course Kosrae’s unofficial storyteller stutters. At least when he speaks English, which he learned — and is still learning, he says — completely from tourists visiting this 42-square mile primordial, volcanic blip hundreds of miles from the next nearest landfall in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Few things on this island, one of [...]
Soaking up the Heat in Yellowstone’s Backcountry
October 22, 2010 By 6 Comments
by Dina Mishev, Featured Athlete | Confession time. I have lived in Jackson Hole for 13 years without ever venturing into the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park. Of course I had hit Old Faithful, Mammoth, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and all the rest of the sights you can see without venturing more than 100 feet from your car.
Great (lack of) Expectations
October 5, 2010 By 6 Comments
by Dina Mishev, Featured Athlete | I’ve done Lotoja, a 206-mile road bike race from Logan, Utah to Teton Village, Wyoming four times. The longest single-day sanctioned road race in the country, Lotoja is a mental and physical challenge. My first year doing it, I was the 5th woman out of several hundred…
A Sporty Spa That’s Good for the Spirit
September 7, 2010 By 6 Comments
by Dina Mishev, Featured Athlete | On a bus in San Diego heading to a spa just across the border in Mexico, I was very afraid. I was not afraid of being beheaded by Mexican drug lords like the media warned of. Neither was I afraid of being kidnapped, another thing American media led me to believe was quite possible as soon as I crossed the border…
Learning New Things
August 27, 2010 By 2 Comments
by Dina Mishev, Featured Athlete | It’s August. I should be well into biking 10,400 miles as a way to spread the word and raise money for the non-profit I founded earlier this year, Never Too Weak to Wander. Instead, I’m practicing my forehand (and backhand and serve and volley) and learning how to engage my powerhouse while rolling like a ball and doing the 100…
Dina’s Food Journal: Allergy Elimination Diet
June 18, 2010 By 15 Comments
by Dina Mishev, Featured Athlete | The last time I came to you I was eating cookie dough. Quite a bit of it. With chocolate chips and peanut butter M&Ms in it. What am I eating this time around? Brown rice. With a few pieces of mango, ¼ cup of blueberries, and ¼ of an apple. I know. Crazy, crazy stuff…
Dina’s Food Journal: The Home Stretch
May 14, 2010 By 4 Comments
by Dina Mishev, Featured Athlete | Perhaps today isn’t the best day for me to write my first post about working with nutritionist and fellow 2010 Featured Athlete Aimee Gallo. I made myself chocolate chip cookies for breakfast. And have continued eating them through lunch as I’ve blown off an 80-mile bike ride…
The Arizona Trail
February 4, 2010 By 3 Comments
by Dina Mishev, Featured Athlete | In the 1970s, Dale Shewalter dreamed of a trail stretching the length of Arizona, 800-some miles, from the state’s border with Mexico to its border with Utah. In 1985, Shewalter quit his teaching job to spend the year walking the state south to north to get a feel for where this dreamed-of trail of his might go…
It Takes Two to Tandem
December 31, 2009 By Leave a Comment
by Dina Mishev | Nearly 3,000 miles pedaled (and pushed) up 200,000 vertical feet. Several broken chains and two replaced drivetrains. Ten candy bars a day. Too many ibuprofen to count. Bears, mountain lions, skunk and moose. Fifteen to 20 hours a day on the bike. Eighteen days in the saddle. One husband in front of her the entire time. Not everyone’s idea of a vacation, a mountain biking couple becomes the first tandem to finish the 2,745-mile Tour Divide race from Banff to the U.S./Mexican border…
Tajine, Please — With a Side of Trekking
August 3, 2009 By 1 Comment
by Dina Mishev
Culinary tourism is exploding. But who wants to spend their entire vacation eating? Certainly not me. But neither do I want my vacation to be a boot camp. Well, it turns out The New York Times’ 2009 Culinary Destination of the Year, Marrakech, in the shadow of the High Atlas Mountains, is the perfect middling ground…
