Two Great Adventures

I have been confined to quarters today by my family. I'm being treated for inexplicably high blood pressure, but so far the new medication seems to be making it worse!

I won't reread these right now because they are guaranteed to raise the blood pressure, but they are both amazing stories, well narrated. I highly recommend both of them for different reasons. Endurance by Alfred Lansing, is the story of incredible survival in Antarctica in 1914 against odds which would be no less daunting today with modern equipment. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer is an investigation of why so many people didn't survive an adventure on Mount Everest in 1996. They both have some great photography, but the pictures of Antarctica, and the ship being slowly crushed by sea ice are unforgettable. (It is worth noting that the pictures were taken at the beginning of the ordeal and not recovered for several years.) They are hauntingly beautiful.

A sidebar to this story is a mystery of sorts., I loaned both books, but by the time I realized they hadn't been returned, I was no longer sure who had them. I was certain I had loaned Into Thin Air to Tim, who, despite his denials, bought me a special edition for Christmas. After at least a year, a book group friend returned it with apologies, and a gift of a little book designed to help keep track of loaned books.

I loaned Endurance to David, an avid sailor friend of mine who lived on his boat. When the book didn't come back, I bought a new copy which did the trick. David discovered it between his bed (bunk?) and the wall, and returned it with apologies and explanations of how things like this happen when you live on a boat. I gave the extra copy to Tim.