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The journal I kept during my first solo trip in 1969 when I was sixteen-years-old,
traveling from Minnesota to Yellowstone National Park by bus and hitching.
I left with a heavy yellow backpack and returned with almost nothing.
What an adventure!

Yellowstone Log
WT Melon Publishing
free download e-book
Ages 7 and up
journal from my first solo trip


PDF format
E-book format
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Fire Drill
Recess is a chaotic riot.
No recess is ever quiet.
When did the playground give its biggest thrill?
When we stood still in a fire drill.

I saw circles and square designs.
Passing jets drew more lines.
I saw stripes of streets on the hill,
When we stood still in a fire drill.

I heard the breeze strum tetherball strings.
I heard rattling chains on the swings.
I heard the monkey bars toot and trill,
When we stood still in a fire drill.

I felt the sunshine bounce off my nose.
I smelled tacos from the gym windows.
Who knows the wonders you miss until,
You stand still in a fire drill?
🎼Hear the song Fire Drill (video) Listen and watch

Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean has three C’s.
Sss—waves sliding off sand.
K—the crash of breakers.
Shh—the sea far away.
🎼Hear and watch the song Pacific Ocean (video) Listen

Class out of control? Will no regular substitute dare enter the fourth-grade classroom? It's time to press the red button under the office clock to summon Miss Subway, the substitute of last resort. This sub has the right gadgets in her canvas bag to put the fourth-graders back in order.
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1. Mountain Lion

            “Go away!  Get out of here!”

            Only the thin nylon of my tent separated me from the mountain lion.  With a deep purr, the huge cat prowled around my shelter.  The flickering flames of my campfire cast its silhouette against the slanted orange walls.  I was terrified.  I shivered both from fright and the cold mountain air.
            “Get!  Get!” I shouted.  “I’m not afraid of you!”
            I placed my thumb on the button of my emergency beacon.  Pressing it would send a distress signal, and rescuers would be here before dawn.  But they would recognize me.  They’d know my real name…Luke Dellar…and age…twelve.  They would know I was the runaway boy from San Diego, and my thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail would be over.
            The wild cat hissed.
            "Go away!  Leave me alone!"
            Minutes before, I'd been sitting by the fire, tying knots.  The undergrowth rustled, and I directed my headlamp toward the sound.  The ray of light reflected off the cat’s golden eyes.
            “What are you doing out there?” I shouted.  “What do you want?”
            My thumb stayed poised on the button.  What could I do?  If the cougar clawed through the nylon, I had only a pocketknife to protect me.  I banged the knife on my cooking pot, but the beast kept circling the tent.
            Motionless, I waited.  With every breath steam shot from my mouth and froze on the tent walls.
            “You still there, lion?” I said.  “Or did you run away, scaredy cat?”
            Scuffling footsteps came from the trail.  Through the nylon, I saw two light beams.
            “Knots, is that you?” someone called.  “What are you yelling at?”
            I recognized the English accent.  “Granite!  There’s a mountain lion out there.”
            Two people laughed.
            “Nothing out here, Knots, but a warm campfire.”
            I knew the second voice as well.  Sprinkle was a Canadian woman Granite had met in Sierra City.
            “Come on out, Knots,” Granite called.  “Enjoy your fire with us.”
            Slowly I unzipped the mosquito netting and pulled aside the tent flap.  Not a sign of the mountain lion.  The two thru-hikers sat by the fire holding their palms toward the warmth.
            “The lion was stalking me!” I said.  “It walked around and around my tent.”
            Again the couple laughed.
            “Are you sure it wasn’t Bigfoot you saw, Knots?” Granite said.  “No panther would come into a campsite with a fire blazing.”
            “Hope you don’t mind us sharing your site tonight,” said Sprinkle.  “We’ve hiked twenty-five miles today.”
            “We’ll cowboy camp here by the fire,” Granite said.
            I crawled out of my tent, looking into the trees.  Cowboy camping was a trail term for sleeping out in the open without a tent.
            “Are you crazy?” I said.  “I’m telling you, Granite, a huge mountain lion, as tall as my tent, was just here.  It’s probably watching us now.”
            Granite held out a Ziploc bag full of peanuts, chocolate bits, and raisins.  “Have some trail mix, Knots.”
            Seeing how unconcerned Granite and Sprinkle were, I began doubting what I’d seen and heard.  Had a mountain lion really been in my campsite?  Maybe it was just the wind and the shadow of a waving pine bough.
            That’s when I aimed my headlamp toward the base of my tent and dropped to my knees.
            “Look here,” I said.
            Granite stood and saw them, too.  “Bloody ‘ell,” he said.
            In the dust were paw prints over four inches long.

Luke Dellar, age twelve, is weary of his flip-flop life. He flies to his father's house in San Diego one month and back to his mother's house in Seattle the next. He's even more tired of taking pills for his hyperactivity that has worsened since his parent's divorce. A solution to his flip-flopping, pill-popping life? Run away and hike the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2650 mile, five-month journey from the Mexican border to the Canadian border.
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When sixth graders Charlie and Colleen discover that their beloved third-grade teacher, Joseph Adams, is now homeless and living on the streets, they set out to make friends with the deeply troubled man and inspire him and members of the community to support him in his time of trouble.

Mixing Paints

Yellow and blue gives you green.
Purple blend blue and red.
But I like mixing all paints,
So I get black instead.

NASA asks the Wilson family to stay six months at the Mars Desert Research Station in the Mojave Desert.
The Wilsons will simulate living on the red planet to see how well a family can work together in a small confined environment.
No sweat for this tight-knit family.
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A book about empathy
When sixth graders Charlie and Colleen discover that their beloved third-grade teacher, Joseph Adams, is now homeless and living on the streets, they set out to make friends with the deeply troubled man and inspire him and members of the community to support him in his time of trouble.

Meet Mimi who is always losing her pencils.

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