CATastrophe?

Original airdate: March 4, 2008

Two Crazy Chicks Productions is pleased to present Episode 2 of The Adventures of Yumiko and Eden in Mexico.

A couple of hours go by with no word on Hershey or the cat-sitter. Eden is seriously considering jumping in the car and driving the two and half hours it would take to get to Phoenix from Blythe. She is immensely relieved when she finally tracks down Laurie, who relays that (1) much to Jake's disappointment, she was not arrested and (2) after dropping Jake off, she returned to the condo to find Hershey sitting there calmly, blinking his green eyes, acting for all the world as if nothing out of the ordinary happened and he can't understand what all of the fuss is about. Laurie, however, is convinced that she will need years of therapy to recover from the trauma and is taking donations to help cover the cost of her treatment. #@%! cat.

The next morning Miko and Eden venture into enormous, little-visited Kofa National Wildlife Refuge without the recommended 4-wheel drive vehicle. They get about 5 miles before their car gets stuck. Deep ruts and loose gravel cause the tires to spin uselessly and the stench of burning rubble and dust fills the air.  

Will our intrepid heroines manage to extricate their car? To find out, tune in to Episode 3 of The Adventures of Yumiko and Eden in Mexico.

© Eden Feuer

The Sound and the Furry

Original airdate: March 3, 2008

Two Crazy Chicks Productions is pleased to present Episode 1 of The Adventures of Yumiko and Eden in Mexico.

Our intrepid heroines leave Phoenix and drive to Cibola National Wildlife Refuge, where they spend a peaceful afternoon birding along the Colorado River. The highlight of the excursion is Eden's glimpse of a bobcat, a rare and lucky occurrence.

Miko and Eden check into a Blythe, California, hotel and are tiredly unpacking when Eden's cell phone rings. It is the designated cat-sitter, Laurie, who reports that the police have come barging in after she failed to disarm the condo's alarm system in a timely manner. In the resulting confusion, one of the two cats, Hershey, has gone missing. In the background, Eden can hear Laurie's 6 year-old grandson, Jake, asking, "Grammy, are you going to jail?"

Be sure to tune in for Episode 2, when Eden learns the fate of her cat and her traumatized cat-sitter.

And remember to send in your fan mail!

© Eden Feuer

Denali National Park: America's Serengeti

National Geographic Traveler Magazine selected the following from over 400 entries as one of nine runners-up in its 2001 "America's Places of a Lifetime" Essay Contest and published it online at  http://www.nationalgeographic.com/traveler/0203/denali.html: 

“The mountain’s out!”





“Hey, Alix, Nick, Yumiko! The mountain’s out!"

All over Wonder Lake Campground, bedtime preparations stopped and heads popped out of tents. We cheered and clapped as the snowy summit of North America’s tallest mountain—McKinley—peeked out from above the clouds for the first time in more than two weeks.

“That’s so amazing,” I whispered reverently, awestruck, and humbled yet again. How many times did I say those words on this trip? I’ve lost count. Didn’t I say them when we saw three wolves loping along the park road? When grizzlies munched blueberries contentedly while we observed from the safety of a bus? When a short-eared owl landed in a nearby tree and stared at us for a long moment before silently taking wing? When a red fox hunted its prey in the grass? When golden eagles soared overhead? When an enormous bull moose with a huge rack emerged soundlessly from the thick morning fog?

Indeed, a mere six days in Alaska’s Denali National Park and Preserve had offered up a lifetime of magical moments. But it took only minutes to realize that Denali is unique. No other U.S. national park can lay claim to such diverse and visible wildlife. Or, for that matter, to a 20,320-foot-high mountain. At six million acres, the park is larger than Massachusetts—and has only one 90-mile road, most of which is neither paved nor open to private vehicles.

“Magical” only begins to describe the sense of adventure and discovery that accompanies time spent in Denali. And for those who are willing to step off the bus and blaze their own trails across the tundra or bushwhack through a mountain pass, the rewards are even greater. Perhaps, as we did, they’ll push themselves over that next ridge just to see what’s there and stumble across a den of hoary marmots, spot a grizzly on the ridge, or watch a caribou graze across a kettle lake. Or maybe they’ll come within feet of Dall’s sheep, flush a willow ptarmigan, watch beavers swim in their ponds, or listen to the calls of nesting loons.

As the sky turned pink with the setting of the sun (at 11 p.m.), I offered up a prayer of thanksgiving to the park gods and goddesses for all the miracles they allowed me to witness—and began planning my next trip to “America’s Serengeti.”

© Eden Feuer

Eden's Post-trip Haiku

Original airdate: April 25, 2007

What?! No heated seat

To warm my well-traveled buns.

Bass ackwards country!

© Eden Feuer