OutpostUSA

Staff

The Outdoor Adventure Website

Dave was a longtime American Literature teacher, English Department chairman and soccer and baseball coach, who now specializes in backpacking, skiing and hiking. He spent several years living, teaching, backpacking and skiing in various European countries, especially Germany, Spain and Greece. He has bicycled across Europe and skiid across the German Alps. He supervises our kitchen whether out on the trail or in ski chalets or log cabins. He loves skiing at Winter Park and canyoneering at Zion National Park. The student magazine he advised won state and national championships. Dave is a rabid baseball fan, especially of the Cincinnati Reds. As a skiier he gravitates toward upper blues and blacks and tries to be first on the slopes in the morning so he can find untracked snow. As a backpacker he likes trails above treeline along the Continental Divide. Originally from Eastern Pennsylvania, Dave was in the band and orchestra in high school and has remained a music lover ever since. On long van trips, he fills us in on music history from the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, and has quite a collection of records, tapes and disks. For 20 years he's been developing his Lexington Beer Bottle Museum and brings back a few display items from each trip. . Dave likes the novels of Jack Kerouac, mainly On The Road and The Dharma Bums. He has an aversion to visiting the same place twice, figuring life's too short, and if he's going to see every national park and wilderness area he has to keep moving on to new ones. This somewhat conflicts with our policy of revisiting locations to keep up with changes, so Dan and Margaret usually do the repeat visits.

Dan, seen here near Paradise Lodge at Mt. Rainier National Park (also shown above left in Wyoming's Wind River Wilderness) coached basketball, baseball and debate and taught English, Biology and Geology at five high schools before returning to the University of Kentucky to teach English for 10 years. Growing up on the edge of a forested valley, he has been hiking, backpacking, bicycling and sledriding all his life and skiing, surfing, canoeing and rafting most of it. He also enjoys amusement parks, particularly classic wooden roller coasters. He loves Wyoming's Wind River Wilderness and Yellowstone National Park, Pittsburgh's Kennywood Park, and surfing on Hatteras Island. His coaching career includes six state and two national championships and two college losses one point short of the NCAA Final Four. Two former players became Division I head coaches. Dan has covered football and basketball, a PGA Open and the Olympics for various newspapers and magazines, has written about backpacking and canoeing, and has six books in print. Dan has been secretary and treasurer of the Varsity Lettermen's Association at the University of Kentucky, where an ACL injury sidelined his career as a basketball player and football walk on and relegated him to student manager status. He triple majored in Journalism, Biology and American Literature, has edited modern versions of The Scarlet Letter, Last of the Mohicans, Moby Dick and Big River, and has written the novels Great Crab Apple Wars and A Legend Of Kingdom Come. He still owns the house and property where he grew up and spends half his time there. He has been involved with the Boy Scouts since age 11. He has been named high school teacher of the year three times, coach of the year four times, Scout leader of the year twice, UK Outstanding Writing Instructor twice and Kentucky Teacher Who Made A Difference in 2007. Dan never goes anywhere without his McBook Pro laptop computer, and updates this website every single night. He also publishes Lexeat (LexEat.com), a Kentucky restaurant magazine and web site; and The Coraopolis Record (CoraopolisRecord.com), a Pennsylvania newspaper. Out on the trail he still uses his 1970s Universal Loadmaster pack, Svea stove, Camp 7 sleeping bag, Walrus Arch Rival tent and Vasque Sundowner boots (he buys a new pair of Sundowners every year).