Cushion With Travel Quotes

Night-time train travel is wonderful again! No standing in the corridors for hours, no being shunted off for a troop train to pass, and above all, no black-out curtains. All the windows we passed were lighted, and I could snoop once more. I missed it so terribly during the war. I felt as if we had all turned into moles scuttling along in our separate tunnels. I don't consider myself a real peeper-they go in for bedrooms, but it's families in sitting rooms or kitchens that thrill me. I can imagine their entire lives from a glimpse of bookshelves, or desks, or lit candles, or bright sofa cushions.

The fog wasn't simply the steamy vapors off the bay caught and penned in by hills, but a soft breath of anonymity that shrouded and cushioned the bashful traveler.

But in the end, we learn we can forgive most people. The cushion of mortality makes their wrongdoing seem less dark, and whatever roads they traveled seem less foolhardy.

In winter we’ll travel in a little pink carriage With cushions of blue. We’ll be fine. A nest of mad kisses waits In each corner too. You’ll shut your eyes, not to see, through the glass, Grimacing shadows of evening, Those snarling monsters, a crowd going past Of black wolves and black demons. Then you’ll feel your cheek tickled quite hard… A little kiss, like a maddened spider, Will run over your neck… And you’ll say: “Catch it!” bowing your head, – And we’ll take our time finding that creature – Who travels so far… Arthur Rimbaud, "A Winter Dream," Rimbaud: Selected Works. (A. S. Kline, 2002, 2003)

One of the most beautifully disturbing questions we can ask, is whether a given story we tell about our lives is actually true, and whether the opinions we go over every day have any foundation or are things we repeat to ourselves simply so that we will continue to play the game. It can be quite disorienting to find that a story we have relied on is not only not true - it actually never was true. Not now not ever. There is another form of obsolescence that can fray at the cocoon we have spun about ourselves, that is, the story was true at one time, and for an extended period; the story was even true and good to us, but now it is no longer true and no longer of any benefit, in fact our continued retelling of it simply imprisons us. We are used to the prison however, we have indeed fitted cushions and armchairs and made it comfortable and we have locked the door from the inside. The imprisoning story I identified by the time the entree was served was one I had told myself for a long time. “In order to write I need peace and quiet and an undisturbed place far from others or the possibility of being disturbed. I knew however, that if I wanted to enter the next creative stage, something had to change; I simply did not have enough free space between traveling, speaking and being a good father and husband to write what I wanted to write. The key in the lock turned surprisingly easy, I simply said to myself, “What if I acted as if it wasn’t true any more, what if it had been true at one time, but now at this stage in the apprenticeship I didn’t need that kind of insulation anymore, what if I could write anywhere and at any time?” One of the interesting mercies of this kind of questioning is that it is hard to lose by asking: if the story is still true, we will soon find out and can go back to telling it. If it is not we have turned the key, worked the hinges and walked out into the clear air again with a simple swing of the door.

Security ... what does this word mean in relation to life as we know it today? For the most part, it means safety and freedom from worry. It is said to be the end that all men strive for; but is security a utopian goal or is it another word for rut? Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life. His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders. His ideas and ideals are those of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosaic man. But is he a man? has he any self-respect or pride in himself? How could he, when he has risked nothing and gained nothing? What does he think when he sees his youthful dreams of adventure, accomplishment, travel and romance buried under the cloak of conformity? How does he feel when he realizes that he has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacrificed his freedom on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-hand. Life has by-passed this man and he has watched from a secure place, afraid to seek anything better What has he done except to sit and wait for the tomorrow which never comes? Turn back the pages of history and see the men who have shaped the destiny of the world. Security was never theirs, but they lived rather than existed. Where would the world be if all men had sought security and not taken risks or gambled with their lives on the chance that, if they won, life would be different and richer? It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences. As an afterthought, it seems hardly proper to write of life without once mentioning happiness; so we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?

valentine my friends stitched it up with golden thread like a red satin pillow they gave me other whole ones too roses and charms and red candles milagros to repair the real one they told me i was no longer allowed to give it away a pretty pin cushion a piece of mexican folk art a hundred beating poems left unanswered like a thing to wear around the neck they said you must heal we will protect you but i sat weeping at the computer forging ahead anyway with the small stitched thing struggling in my chest it knew that it had needed to be torn so that it could recognize and receive the hundred kindnesses traveling across three thousand miles at the speed of light a storm of petals and beautiful words and tiny hearts to keep it company

We have not run across anyone,” responded Don Quixote, “but we found a saddle cushion and traveling case not far from here.” “I found them, too,” responded the goatherd, “but I never wanted to pick them up or go near them because I was afraid there’d be trouble and they’d say I stole them; the devil’s sly, and he puts things under our feet that make us stumble and fall, and we don’t know how or why.

If the room did not look quite so freshly scrubbed as most farm wives kept their homes—Tam’s piperack and The Travels of Jain Farstrider sat on the table, while another wood-bound book rested on the cushion of his reading chair; a bit of harness to be mended lay on the bench by the fireplace, and some shirts to be darned made a heap on a chair—if not quite so spotless, it was still clean and neat enough, with a lived-in look that was almost as warming and comforting as the fire.

the trouble seems rooted in the nature of beauty itself, a surprisingly elusive quality and rarely one you can buy outright. It flees in the face of too much effort. It rewards casualness, and most of all it deigns to arrive by whim, by accident. On my travels, I became a devotee of found art: a shaft of light on a dilapidated 1914 gun factory, an abandoned billboard whose layers have worn into a beguiling pentimento collage of Coca-Cola, Chevrolet, and Burma Shave, cut-rate pensions whose faded cushions perfectly match, in that unplanned way, the fluttering sun-blanched curtains.

Cynics have observed that those who have benefited the most from “progress”—the citizens of the First World—are the people most inclined to disdain it. The privileged few who eat better, lead longer and more stimulating lives because of modern agriculture, medicine, education, mass communications, and travel, and are most cushioned from physical discomfort and inconvenience by industrial technology are the most nostalgic about the primitive world. This attitude is more difficult to find among the real “victims of progress” in the Third World except among members of these nations’ Western-educated elites.

The story of Cinderella and her glass slipper had spread far and wide, and many wished to hear it from her own lips. But as she and the prince traveled the far corners of the world, recounting how they'd met and come to fall in love, they emphasized that their story didn't end with the glass slipper being found and returned to Cinderella. No, their fairy tale continued on, with each day together and later with their children. As for the glass slippers, Cinderella and Charles kept them displayed in the garden for all to see- as a reminder that magic, as wonderful as it could be, was never the key to making one's dreams come true or making one happy. After all, spells were fragile, hopes could shatter, and dreams could stay dreams, never given a chance to take wing. If one looked very carefully, sewn onto the cushion upon which the slippers stood was the word for what Cinderella and the prince found to be even greater than magic, than dreams, than happily ever afters, than even hope- It was love.

His fingers unhooked from hers, following that same path up her arm, and then back down it again. The feeling was so distracting, so good, so sweet against her clammy skin. She didn't choose a piece from her repertoire; Etta gave herself over to the notes that started streaming through her mind, rising from somewhere deep inside of her. The melody of her heart had no name; it was quick, and light. It rolled with the waves, falling as the breath left his chest, rising as he inhaled. It was the rain sliding down the glass; the fog spreading its fingers over the water. The creaking of a ship's great body. The secrets whispered by the wind, and the unseen life that moved below. It was the flame against the candle. Nicholas's arm was a map of hard muscles and delicate sinews, heartbreakingly perfect. She wondered if he could hear her humming the piece against his skin over the droning roars overhead. Maybe. His free hand skimmed up her skin, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake. With the world blacked out around them, she could catalog all over her senses, capture this moment in the warm darkness forever. He brushed back the loose hair across her forehead, cheek, the corner of her lips, her jaw, and she knew it had to be the same for him, that they'd never been so aware of another person in their entire lives. She released his arm, and he drew it up around her, guiding both of them down so they were on their sides, their heads cushioned by the bag, his jacket drawn over them. Etta understood that here, in the darkness, they'd found a place beyond rules; a place that hung somewhere between the past and the future. This was a single moment of possibility. The clattering of the attack from above faded as he rested his forehead against hers, his thumb lightly stroking a bruise on her cheek. She traced his face - the straight nose, the high, proud cheekbones, the full curve of his lips. His hand caught her there, taking it in his own; he pressed a hard, almost despairing kiss to it. But when she tilted her face up, half - desperate with longing, her blood racing, Nicholas pulled back; and although Etta could feel him beside her, his heart pounding, his ragged breath, it was as if he had disappeared into the thundering dark.

You know, I’ve been called a thief before. Growing up in Hackney, going to the markets with my mother—the shopkeepers always kept an eye on us, in case we pilfered anything. Because we looked Indian, and you could never tell with those wogs, could you? The number of times I was told I wasn’t welcome because I wasn’t really English, even though I’d been born in London, same as them. I thought the circus was going to be different. I thought you”—she looked at Catherine accusingly—“were going to be different. But you know what? Why don’t you just search my stuff. Go on. Whatever you’re missing, jewelry or money—you just go ahead and look for it!” She bent down and drew her suitcase out from under the seat, threw it on top, and opened it violently, so that dresses and scarves spilled out. She shook the contents directly onto the seat cushions, then scattered them about. “Here you go, that’s what you wanted, right? And if you find whatever you’re looking for, you can go ahead and put me in gaol, or whatever they have for gaol here in Austria. I’m going to feed the snakes—they need their lunch too. They may be poisonous, but they’ve never made me feel like dirt. It takes a human being to do that.

I panted as he pulled me back through the entryway, hands on my waist, kissing the whole way, and collapsed backward onto the gray leather couch, which felt softer than my skin. I fell on top of him, straddling his lap. He kissed his way down my neck and across the collar of my blouse, leaving a trail of fire behind. "Enough of that," I panted, ripping my shirt over my head. Thank goodness I'd worn a decent bra today---blue satin with a bow in the middle, not frayed or torn anywhere. He eyed it with a growl of approval, but maybe it wasn't a growl for the bra at all, because a moment of fumbling over my back and---pop---I shook off my now unfastened bra. "And to think you didn't like me at first." He drank me in unabashedly, his eyes roaming from belly to breasts to nose to eyes, and each inch his eyes traveled made me feel more and more powerful. Like I could go anywhere, do anything. Except all I wanted to do was right here. I ground against him, feeling his cock already hard and strong under his zipper. "Who says I like you now?" He gasped and pulled me tighter onto him. "If this is what you do to people you don't like, what do you do to people you do like?" I silenced him with another kiss as I rubbed up and down him again. Now my own sex was throbbing, and I sucked in a breath with every movement. I kept moving up and down as he kissed my breasts, tongue tracing lightly over each nipple. When I couldn't take it anymore, I tumbled to the side, lying down on the couch and pulling him on top of me. Because his was an expensive couch and not the cheap one my old roommate had bought at Ikea, there was plenty of room for us to writhe without making me feel like I might topple off the edge. He went down to kiss my breasts again... and kept going. His tongue slid down my stomach, did a lazy circle around my belly button. I clenched my teeth, holding back a beg for more as he slowly, slowly, way too slowly unzipped my skirt and tugged it down. I kicked it off, along with my underwear, when he reached my knees, nearly clipping him on the ear. When I felt close to the edge, I reached down and pulled him up. My hand moved down and took over, zeroing in on just the right spot on my clit. It didn't take long. I shuddered against his shoulder, biting back a cry, then wondered why I was biting it back and let it out. Breathing hard, my head collapsed back into the cushion. I was a little worried that now post-orgasm clarity would descend upon me and be like, What the hell are you doing, Julie? but the post-orgasm clarity seemed to approve. With a wink and a nudge, it made me pull away, and the desire roared back inside me. "That's why it's great to have a clitoris," I told Bennett. "Multiple orgasms.

Sometimes our need clouds our ability to develop perspective. Being needy is kind of like losing your keys. You become desperate and search everywhere. You search in places you know damn well what you are looking for could never be. The more frantic you become in trying to find them the less rational you are in your search. The less rational you become the more likely you'll be searching in a way that actually makes finding what you want more difficult. You go back again and again to where you want them to be, knowing that there is no way in hell that they are there. There is a lot of wasted effort. You lose perspective of your real goal, let's say it's go to the grocery store, and instead of getting what you need -nourishment, you frantically chase your tail growing more and more confused and angry and desperate. You are mad at your keys, you are mad at your coat pockets for not doing their job. You are irrational. You could just grab the spare set, run to the grocery store and get what you need, have a sandwich, calm down and search at your leisure. But you don't. Where ARE your keys?! Your desperation is skewing your judgement. But you need to face it, YOUR keys are not in HIS pocket. You know your keys are not there. You have checked several times. They are not there. He is not responsible for your keys. You are. He doesn't want to be responsible for your keys. Here's the secret: YOU don't want to be responsible for your keys. If you did you would be searching for them in places they actually have a chance of being. Straight boys don't have your keys. You have tried this before. They may have acted like they did because they wanted you to get them somewhere or you may have hoped they did because you didn't want to go alone but straight boys don't have your keys. Straight boys will never have your keys. Where do you really want to go? It sounds like not far. If going somewhere was of importance you would have hung your keys on the nail by the door. Sometimes it's pretty comfortable at home. Lonely but familiar. Messy enough to lose your keys in but not messy enough to actually bother to clean house and let things go. Not so messy that you can't forget about really going somewhere and sit down awhile and think about taking a trip with that cute guy from work. Just a little while longer, you tell yourself. His girlfriend can sit in the backseat as long as she stays quiet. It will be fun. Just what you need. And really isn't it much safer to sit there and think about taking a trip than accepting all the responsibility of planning one and servicing the car so that it's ready and capable? Having a relationship consists of exposing yourself to someone else over and over, doing the work and sometimes failing. It entails being wrong in front of someone else and being right for someone too. Even if you do find a relationship that other guy doesn't want to be your chauffeur. He wants to take turns riding together. He may occasionally drive but you'll have to do some too. You will have to do some solo driving to keep up your end of the relationship. Boyfriends aren't meant to take you where you want to go. Sometimes they want to take a left when you want to go right. Being in a relationship is embarking on an uncertain adventure. It's not a commitment to a destination it is just a commitment to going together. Maybe it's time to stop telling yourself that you are a starcrossed traveler and admit you're an armchair adventurer. You don't really want to go anywhere or you would venture out. If you really wanted to know where your keys were you'd search in the most likely spot, down underneath the cushion of that chair you've gotten so comfortable in.

They all marveled out loud at how age sets you free instead of ties you down. Age relaxes you with the ease of the past. For when something like this happens, it allows you to dip back and recall a time when you've already done this, mixed your life with someone who wasn't a stranger, but who was close to it. Age gives you a cushion of knowledge, of knowing how grief will ride it's hands along your spine, how something new doesn't have to be fearful, how whatever is is that the person you are sitting next to does that drives you a little batty cannot be as bad as that one time when something with someone else was really bad.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. —Proverbs 3:5 (NIV) LEARNING TO TRUST I clicked my pen against the couch cushion and stared at my husband, waiting for him to respond. So far, the notebook on my lap was empty. “I don’t know,” Ryan finally said. I sighed. Earlier that day, we had officially decided to send out support letters for our adoption. We were sitting in our living room, attempting to make a list of people to whom we should send them. We weren’t sure if many of our aunts and uncles and cousins would understand our heart for the orphan. We had already run into our fair share of interesting reactions when we announced our intention to adopt. Family members didn’t understand why we would take this emotional and financial risk to travel to a war-torn country, just so we could bring some kid we don’t know into our home. Some of them looked at us like we were crazy. Our worries reached their peak, so we put down the notebook and did what we should have done in the beginning. We prayed. And afterward, when we said our amens, Ryan looked at me. “God can work in any heart—even the ones we think are unlikely.” That afternoon, we sent out the letters to everyone. Forgive me, Lord, for all the times I’ve let my fear and doubt limit Your power. Help me to be faithful with what I can control and trust You with the rest. —Katie Ganshert Digging Deeper: Jo 1:9; Ps 56:3–4; 2 Tm 1:7

Despite Nee’s good intentions, there was no opportunity for any real converse with Elenet after that concert. Like Nee, Elenet had unexpectedly risen in rank and thus in social worth. If she’d been confined to the wall cushions before, she was in the center of social events now. But the next morning Nee summoned me early, saying she had arranged a special treat. I dressed quickly and went to her rooms to find Elenet there, kneeling gracefully at the table. “We three shall have breakfast,” Nee said triumphantly. “Everyone else can wait.” I sank down at my place, not cross-legged but formal kneeling, just as Elenet did. When the greetings were over, Nee said, “It’s good to have you back, Elenet. Will you be able to stay for a while?” “It’s possible.” Elenet had a low, soft, mild-toned voice. “I shall know for certain very soon.” Nee glanced at me, and I said hastily, “If you are able to stay, I hope you will honor us with your presence at the masquerade ball I am hosting to celebrate Nee’s adoption.” “Thank you.” Elenet gave me a lovely smile. “If I am able, I would be honored to attend.” “Then stay for the wedding,” Nee said, waving a bit of bread in the air. “It’s only scarce days beyond--midsummer eve. In fact, if Vidanric will just make up his mind on a day--and I don’t know why he’s lagging--you’ll have to be here for the coronation, anyway. Easier to stay than to travel back and forth.” Elenet lifted her hands, laughing softly. “Easy, easy, Nee. I have responsibilities at home that constrain me to make no promises. I shall see what I can contrive, though.” “Good.” Nee poured out more chocolate for us all. “So, what think you of Court after your two years’ hiatus? How do we all look?” “Older,” Elenet answered. “Some--many--have aged for the better. Tastes have changed, for which I am grateful. Galdran never would have invited those singers we had last night, for example.” “Not unless someone convinced him that they were all the rage at the Empress’s Court and only provincials would not have them to tour.

The Travelling People, the final radio ballad, broadcast in 1964, was the most ambitious of all, grappling with the vilified nomadic population of Britain. The programme did not flinch from including the negative sentiments of the ‘not in my backyard’ brigade: one gentleman is heard to call them ‘misfits … the maggots of society’. The soundworld is particularly rich and evocative of difference: the travellers’ words are surrounded by the outdoor ambience in which they dwell – birdsong, horses’ hooves, the rush of road traffic. The voices of ‘respectable’ society speak in the dead air of cushioned interiors. Parker’s editing skills reach a new level of finesse, so a succession of phrases like ‘They call us the wild ones/ The pilgrims of the mist/ Romanies, Gypsies, diddikais, mumpers, travellers/ Nomads of the road/Blackfaced diddies/ … In Carlisle, they call you porters, dirty porters this, dirty porters that …’ whizz past in a kaleidoscope of lexicographic plurality and regional accents. Its conclusion – comparing Britain’s treatment of its nomads to the Nazi pogroms – is shocking, but is borne out by the words of Labour councillor Harry Watton, who is heard to say, ‘One must exterminate the impossibles.’ It is a bitter, troubling conclusion to the radio ballads.

Abby,” Robin says, plopping down on the cushion next to Penny, “where did you get Prince? An animal shelter or a breeder?” Nope and nope. “We got him as a present,” I say. Which is kind of true. But Robin would never believe the real truth. I got Prince when my brother and I went into a fairy tale. I know it sounds totally bonkers, but there’s a magic mirror in the basement of my house. And a fairy, Maryrose, is trapped inside it. She takes me and my younger brother, Jonah, through the mirror into different fairy tales. Like Little Red Riding Hood. Cinderella. Beauty and the Beast. I think one day she’s planning to bring us into the story that trapped her so that we can help set her free. Anyway, when Jonah and I fell into the story of Sleeping Beauty, we got Prince as a gift. And then we took him home with us, because he is adorable. Of course, we had to make up a whole story for our parents because they don’t know about Maryrose, the mirror, or the whole traveling-to-fairy-tales thing. My nana does, though. She actually went into Little Red Riding Hood with us.

...though the jokers around the table be sneaking Whoopee Cushions into the Siege Perilous, under the very descending arse of the grailseeker, and though the grails themselves come in plastic these years, a dime a dozen, penny a gross, still he, at times self-conned as any Christian, praises and prophecies that era of innocence he just missed living in, one of the last pockets of Pre-Christian Oneness left on the planet: "Tibet is a special case. Tibet was deliberately set aside by the Empire as free and neutral territory, a Switzerland for the spirit where there is no extradition, and Alp-Himalayas to draw the soul upward, and danger rare enough to tolerate...Switzerland and Tibet are linked along one of the true meridians of the Earth...true as the Chinese have drawn meridians of the body...We will have to learn such new maps of Earth: and as travel in the Interior becomes more common, as the maps grow another dimension, so must we....

Reaching for air and light the beech trees had grown very tall. One’s eyes traveled up and up the immense height of the silver trunks, past the various platforms of green leaves to where the blue of the upper air showed through them. The final platforms were so high that the blue of the blue-green pattern seemed no further away in space than the green; but one tree had decided to be content with a lowly position, had grown only a short height on a slender silver stem and then spread out her arms and wings like a dancing fairy. Below on the floor of the wood the colors showed jewel-bright above the warm russet of the beechmast. The cushions of moss about the roots of the trees were emerald and there were clumps of small bright purple toadstools, and others rose-colored on top and quilted white satin underneath.

Your job is to identify three to five products that your ideal person might buy. You don’t need to worry about how to make it or how you will sell it—we’ll fix that later. Just brainstorm what your person already buys and potential things he or she might like to buy. People who do yoga buy mats, towels, and blocks. That’s three products. What else might they buy? Clothes, travel cases, or yoga pillows? Do people who do yoga buy other things, too? Like tea, meditation cushions, or essential oil? And do people who do yoga have different shopping habits than others? Do they buy organic, or avoid synthetic skin creams? Write it all down. You don’t need to worry about how you’re going to do anything just yet—just know that the internet has opened up opportunities for anyone who wants to create something from scratch. Anybody can do a Kickstarter campaign. Anybody can sell on Amazon. Any website can rank in Google. Anyone can run an ad on Facebook. Anyone can post on Instagram and connect with any influencer. Your job is to find out where your customers are, and drop your bait into that pond.

Twenty minutes later, Alice, using fearsome needles that looked like small stilettos more than the sort of thing a lady would use to produce cushions for the front parlor, locked and unlocked the door to their room, her own traveling case, and Mrs. Wraxhall’s jewel box.

Medusa the hedgehog was wandering casually along the hallway. She paused as Christopher approached. A faint smile touched his lips. He bent to pick her up as Beatrix had showed him, inserting his hands beneath her. The hedgehog's quills flattened naturally as he turned her up to look at him. Relaxed and curious, she viewed him with her perpetual hedgehog smile. "Medusa," he said softly, "I wouldn't advise climbing out of your pen at night. One of the maids might find you, and then what? You might find yourself taken to the scullery and used to scrub a pot." Taking her to the private upstairs receiving room, he lowered her into her pen. Continuing on to Beatrix's room, he reflected that his wife viewed poor Bennett as yet another wounded creature. She had shown no hesitation in welcoming him into their home. One would expect no less of Beatrix. Entering the room quietly, he saw his wife at her dressing table, carefully filing the claws of Lucky's remaining paw. The cat regarded her with a bored expression, tail flicking lazily. "... you must stay away from the settee cushions," Beatrix was lecturing, "or Mrs. Clocker will have both our heads." Christopher's gaze traveled over the long, elegant lines of her figure, her silhouette revealed in the lamp glow that shone through her muslin nightgown.

Sophie ought to be comfortable enough, though.” Westhaven’s lips pursed where he sat on his horse. “My backside is not comfortable in the least. I tell myself to be grateful we’re not dealing with rain and mud, but a cold saddle is only a little less miserable.” “You should have let me fit a sheepskin under the ducal arse,” St. Just said, swinging onto his horse. “Baby Brother wasn’t so proud.” Val climbed aboard too, settling onto the sheepskin cushion St. Just had fashioned the night before. “It helps with that initial, ball-shriveling shock of cold when your backside first lands in the saddle. You ought to try it, Westhaven.” “Perhaps tomorrow, if we’re indeed to be traveling another day.” “We

Helicopters Nothing has done more to change the face of wilderness rescue than helicopters. They land in remote areas that were inaccessible to aircraft only a few years ago. If the spot isn’t flat enough, helicopters have been known to land on one skid while a patient is quickly loaded. When there is no spot to land, they have hovered with a rescuer hanging from a rope or cable, a rescuer equipped to attach the patient to the hauling system for evacuation. Helicopters go where the pilot wants because of the rapid spinning of two sets of blades. The large overhead blades create air by forcing air down. The pilot can vary the angle at which the blades attack the air and the speed at which they rotate to vary the amount of lift. The entire rotor can be tilted forward, backward, or sideways to determine the direction of travel. Without a second set of blades spinning in an opposite direction, the helicopter would turn circles helplessly in the air. Some large helicopters have two large sets of blades spinning in opposite directions, one fore and one aft, but most helicopters used in the wilderness maintain stability with one small tail rotor. When they are close to the ground, the spinning blades build a cushion of air that helps support the helicopter. This cushion of air varies in its ability to work, depending on its density. Rising air temperatures and increasing altitude reduce air density. So trying to land a helicopter on a mountaintop on a hot day is dangerous, and the weight of one person may prevent liftoff. Air density also is altered by the nearness of a mountainside. The downward shove of air by the blades can recirculate off the mountainside and reduce lift. One of the greatest fears of mountain flying is a sudden downdraft of air that can slam a helicopter toward the ground. Downdrafts are not only dangerous but also unpredictable. Add to air density and downdrafts the possibility of darkness and fog and wind, and you can understand that even if a helicopter is available it may not be able to come to your rescue.