Canyons, Cactus, and Casinos, Oh My!

Filed Under All Posts, Connie Stetson, Courage, Travel | 10 Comments

Connie and Lee tackle their first rapid

Connie Stetson discovers a brave new world with adventure around every curve

As I write, it’s been a little over a week since Lee and I completed a month-long, nearly 300 mile journey through the sands of time. Literally. I am still rinsing the freaking sands of time out my gear.

My husband, with the Greenwood Expedition, party of 11, began a river trip at Lee’s Ferry near Glen Canyon Dam on Jan. 27th to raft the upper Grand Canyon. I left Fresno on Feb. 4th, flew to Flagstaff, took a shuttle bus to the South Rim, checked in at the Bright Angel Lodge, and at 8:30 am on Feb. 5th, I began my journey down, down, down, through snow and ice, mud and streams, more than ten miles, seven oceans, and millions of years of geologic time, (sorry, fundamentalists…that would be more than 6,000) — to meet them near Phantom Ranch on the mighty, muddy Colorado River. The next day, in a driving rainstorm, two walked out; and then we were ten, in four rafts, launching off into the rapids of the Grand Canyon.

How was it, you ask? It was exhausting, thrilling, challenging, beautiful, vexing, uncomfortable, cold, painful, quiet, noisy, scary, soothing, hard, transcendent, and nourishing. Read more

It’s 5:00 PM. Do You Know Where Your Vodka Is?

Filed Under All Posts, Connie Stetson, Relationships | 8 Comments

Keeping up with your girlfriends can be a challenge. Connie Stetson offers up a solution that is shaken, stirred and intoxicating.

“It’s 5:00 PM. Do you know where your vodka is?” Okay, I actually stole that line from my pal, Barbara. It was just too funny not to use and she’s a funny girl, especially around cocktail hour. I’m not sure exactly how much vodka she and I have consumed over the last 20 years, but certainly enough to be awarded Russian citizenship with full honors. “Nostrovya,” ya’ll!

When I moved up here to Yosemite 23 years ago, I fretted as to how to keep my friendships in L.A. thriving. For a long time, I’d find any excuse possible to get back there. I needed a haircut, shoes, movies, the theater, the Apple Pan, or just the smell of good, salty ocean air, (which I still long for every day I’m in the woods.) But mostly, because I was so bloody homesick for everyone who knew me, and because I had not yet reinvented myself into the mountain bitch I am today.

I’m not sure anymore who’s idea it was to start the Monday Night Martini, but Barbara and I agreed that Monday was good, because nothing was on TV anyway, and who doesn’t need a cocktail on Mondays, yes? Read more

Get Up Offa That Thing

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Get up, warm up and get funky with Connie Stetson’s choice for post-holiday cheer.

Urghhh…It’s after Christmas. I feel fat like a stuffed Christmas goose. I need to feel the funk…. So, let’s “Get Up Offa That Thing” and dance so we can feel better in 2010. 2010???? I feel so space-age.

Much love and luck to all in the coming year. 


The Weight of Age

Filed Under All Posts, Connie Stetson, Politics | 10 Comments

Connie Stetson reflects on what shaped her views of democracy and what fuels her hope today.

With the passing of Teddy Kennedy, aside from feeling real grief at his loss, I am feeling, profoundly, the weight of my age. Not my chronological age, I just turned 58, but the age that has shaped my sensibilities, the age I am passing through. As I write this I feel like a trauma survivor, as though I’m watching my life pass before my eyes.

The year of my birth, 1951, Harry S. Truman was president, and then Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected in 1956. The first presidential election I can remember was between Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy. It was as hotly contested in our family as it was in the nation. My grandparents were staunch Republicans, supporting Nixon, and my mother was a Democrat, mad about Kennedy.

That first televised debate, Sept. 26th, 1960, at nine years old, made me a life-long Democrat. Those impossibly handsome brothers, Jack, Bobby and Teddy, whose passions fueled the passion of a generation, were the real standard bearers of hope and change, the very words I am sick to death of hearing politicians spew now.

It was late November in 1963, I was in my Home Ec. class (which was mandatory for girls then), anticipating the Thanksgiving holiday long weekend, when our school principal announced that Kennedy had been shot in a motorcade in Dallas. Read more

A Bird in the Hand

Filed Under All Posts, Connie Stetson, Media, Pop Culture, Travel | 12 Comments

For Connie Stetson, accompanying her actor husband to New York City was all glitz, glamour and excitement, but coming home was a true revelation.

Hi all—the lovely Mrs. Stetson here.

Lee and I had a perfectly wonderful trip to New York City enjoying the many sights (our hotel was right in the shadow of the Empire State Building) and sounds (does the horn honking never stop?) and smells (ahhh, the smell of falafel in the air….) We hit the ground running our first night there and had a great Turkish dinner with my dear old friends, Barbara and Jim. Day two we set off walking, did some shopping, and then readied for our black-tie gala celebrating the premiere of Ken Burns’ The National Parks—America’s Best Idea on Ellis Island.

I showed up quite glamorous in my black satin trousers, white tuxedo shirt, stiletto strappy sandals, Cathy’s fabulous black and white embroidered shawl and oodles of pretty great looking faux pearls, and except for the satin, the shawl, pearls and stiletto’s that’s what Lee wore too (the lucky, cuz’ my feet were killing me!!). He looked mah-velous, darlings. We sat at the muckymuck table with Ken Burns, Dayton Dalton, Shelton Johnson, Gerard Baker and their lovely Missesses, Roxann and Mary Kay. We enjoyed our desserts to a live performance of Alison Krauss and Union Station. Pretty darn good. Read more

The Lovely Mrs. Stetson

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She nods, she smiles, and you really think she’s listening. Meet Connie Stetson, celebrity wife.

Towards the end of September, my husband Lee and I are off to New York City to celebrate his participation as John Muir in Ken Burns’ new documentary series on PBS, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. We are thrilled of course, to hobnob in the Big Apple with celebs, attend galas and attend as honorees, a huge concert in Central Park to kick off this amazing documentary. I simply cannot wait to get all dressed up, wear pretty shoes, put some makeup on my puss and transform myself into “the lovely Mrs. Stetson.”

My single most important function of this task, (that I’ve now performed hundreds of times) it seems, is to stand near my actor husband, smile, nod, beam, shake hands and occasionally mutter niceties like, “Yes, how interesting” or “Lovely evening, isn’t it?” For all occasions I’ve learned that the phrases, “How about that?” and “Isn’t that something”, can be inserted anywhere—even when you are concertedly not listening. Read more

One Loyal Friend is Worth Ten Thousand Relatives


Filed Under All Posts, Connie Stetson, Family, Group Posts, Relationships | 15 Comments

Connie Stetson muses on friends and relations, relatively speaking.

Not to speak ill of relatives, of course, but Euripedes got that right. I’m grateful that my sister and have become good friends, and I’m glad I only have one sister to work my shit out with, but we never had a choice. It’s the combo-pack with family. For good or ill, with deeper issues to work out, old wounds to mend; we’re all so invested in the story we made up about when we were kids that it’s nearly impossible to show up as changed, or better, or over that, ya know?

Ah, but our friends… To be able to say to someone, “I absolutely support your change and growth, but you never have to change for me to love you.” Knowing that there are a select few out there who hear your truth and your inconsistencies, and you theirs, is a mighty, mighty force indeed. To allow a dear friend, in all loving honesty to say, “your ass looks like a giant bag of potatoes in those pants, take them off now!” To stand with a friend as she walks through loss, illness, change and all of the boundless joyful stuff too—well, this is what helps keeps me anchored. Read more

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