Cathy Brennan calmly paddled (用桨划船) her bright yellow kayak (皮艇) down the Potomac River, continuing her voyage, the latest of her solo trips on major waterways. It was tough, but it allowed Brennan to let go of everything else, empty her brain of the everyday chores and focus on the now. “I’m in the moment, looking at the waves.” said Brennan.

The journey is a minimalist style: sleeping bag, small tent, rain jacket, change of clothes, first aid kit, apples and cheese sticks. When she’s thirsty, she scoops water from the rivers and pumps it through a filter (过滤器). “I always drink the river,” she says. Brennan loves being on the rivers, seeing the bald eagles above, deer on the banks and a fascinating array of bugs and insects that never find their way into homes.

However, every few days Brennan will find a hotel for the night where she can get a shower and eat a cheeseburger. She’ll also check in with her husband John, who has helped her select the river and research the trips at their home. “He’s my virtual Sherpa with benefits.” Brennan says, laughing. She has a phone with her but rarely calls or texts anyone. Her children usually keep track of her via the transponder that sends them her location ever 10 minutes or so.

Brennan knows that solo kayaking is not for everyone and she’s not reckless. Brennan grew up on a lake and was a strong swimmer and boater from an early age. When going through rough rapids, she watches the weather carefully. She is cautious about where she camps and who is around her. She has packed up her gear and headed back out on the river when she has felt unsafe.

Surely, she is alone on these journeys but she isn’t lonely. She suggested that we all need some disconnection from the wired world to find the wider world around us.

For about two months, Frank Gordon and his dog Casey have been in intensive training.

Casey is training to become a qualified service dog, and Gordon is training to use him to cope with what doctors have diagnosed as severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD 创伤后应激障碍).

And that alone is a huge step for Gordon, who says he feels trapped in the real-life nightmare he endured during his military service. After having lived with invisible wounds for more than 30 years, he's now got Casey, a new solution to a problem as old as war.

Casey and many other dogs at Wags for Warriors, a non-profit organization in northeast Ohio, are trained to sense when their veterans (老兵) become anxious, and to pull them out of panic attacks. That's what a dog named Sophie was doing as she sat next to her owner and Wags for Warriors co-founder Frank Delorenzo. Sophie reminds Delorenzo to take his medication, pulls him out of crowded areas, and wakes him up from nightmares.

Army veteran Olena Fergurson, who had a brain injury in a plane crash, says,“Before I got my dog Vata and started my training, I could not attend an appointment. ”

Since October of last year,Delorenzo and his wife have been training and providing service dogs to these veterans free of charge. They hold training classes between three and four days each week.

“Some veterans say that it improves their quality of life, but we haven't been able yet to determine whether these dogs provide a medical benefit to veterans with mental illness,” says Mark Ballesteros, a spokesperson for the U. S. Department of Veteran Affairs.

Dr. Heather Axtell, a clinical psychologist, says, “I believe that service animals provide a lot of comfort. They make people feel more secure, but they can't take away what happened. Service dogs give veterans companions, and unconditional love. ”

With about 1,000-meter-high steep cliffs (陡峭的悬崖) around, there Xiazhuang, Chongqing had only one pathway out of the village, and it took villagers three days to walk to the main town. People there used to risk their lives going out of the mountain village. In the 40 years to 1997, 23 people had died from falling off the cliff while cutting firewood or travelling to the county seat, and 75 people had been injured or disabled while doing the same activities. Then, village head Mao Xianglin held a meeting in 1997 and suggested building a road snaking along the mountains, but almost no villager agreed because they had no money, no machines and no confidence to take on the tough project.

Later that year, around 100 people volunteered to do the work after Mao’s efforts. Workers from ropes and used hammers, drills and even explosives to create the road. Falling rocks and other dangers led to the deaths of six villagers. When they slept in caves (洞穴) at night, they tied a rope around their bodies with the other end tied to the root of an old tree to make sure they did not fall off the cliff.

“Mountains had isolated us from the outside for generations. We had to do something to ensure the next generation could go out of the mountains for a good life,” Mao said. When the 8-kilometer road was completed in 2004, it enabled many villagers to travel out and find work. Incomes increased as a result. Mao will retire in five years, planning to widen the current road and focus on ecotourism. “The spirit of the Xiazhuang people can’t be lost and has to be passed down from generation to generation,” he said.