Image by Pezibear from Pixabay
What is LiquidHike.com ?
The Blogs of Michele the Trainer part 2, LiquidHike.com
Part 1 : http://www.engineeringwellness.com/what-is-engineeringwellness-com/
LiquidHike.com is a nature centric blog from author and naturalist me, Michele the Trainer. My primary blog is EngineeringWellness.com. (You can read about how EngineeringWellness.com came about here in The Words and Blogs of Michele the Trainer part 1, and you might learn a bit more about me there as well).
LiquidHike.com today isn’t exactly what it was intended to be when the witty title was coined, but it might have accidentally grown into that and some better things too.
The nature loving LiquidHike viewers/readers, the community (local and online) have always been enthusiastically supportive of LiquidHike, the concepts and the content, and that sunshine-y tribe has grown and stayed engaged, sharing content and even meeting with me in person to brainstorm and discuss conservation ideas for everyone’s future. I love this tribe and we all sunshine people need to stick together in today’s trying times.
My eternal passion is the ocean and I’ve been an avid SCUBA diver since I was a pre-teen. The term Liquid Hike came about during some after-SCUBA-dive discussion and joking on a dive boat in Hawaii years ago. The divers agreed that a great SCUBA dive is like going on a great hike, but dunked in the ocean; like going on a wonderful hike through an animated garden, but it’s wet. Just like all hikes are different, all dives are different, but in the ocean they are all Liquid Hikes.
I’ve found that witty titles work for artists or writers but not necessarily everyone (but people can surprise you!). Further, SCUBA divers are a small % of the population and many of them are not online at all. I will never know how many folks actually understood that LiquidHike was intended to mean SCUBA diving, but today no matter.
Finding images for good blogging can be tough for non-photographers. My content idea for LiquidHike was collaborative, rooted from being a writer who was weary from constantly paying for stock photo licenses. I wanted to do the ecological, biological or geographical research and write. I knew plenty of nature photographers sitting on lifetimes worth of photos; closets full of fantastic nature videos and photos that may never be seen by anyone other than the photographer. I wanted LiquidHike posts to feature their photo + my research & narrative (on species, location, etc.) to = wonderful collaborative posts. I thought I’d be helping promote their art or passion as long as they knew the photo would become public. What I experienced was:
- Some photographers never share anything with anyone for various reasons.
- Some are the exact opposite. They share everything with everyone on social media and though I had permission, it was troublesome for me to extract the photos, and videos were impossible (to get the images, create links, and watermark them for the photographer, etc.). Some simply not tech enough to email photos.
- There were very few nature photographers that saw value in my offering, who wanted me to identify and research the species they photographed and wanted to share with me via email, file share, and watermark their photos for credited sharing, which was my desire.
- There was a natural % of people both readers and potential collaborators who, while the right audience, had no idea what the hell LiquidHike was. That part was expected.
I even had a whiteboard video made to explain it (that 3 people have viewed LOL). After purchasing images for blogging again, I was feeling a bit flat about the whole idea. I had a more descriptive ocean idea with a clearer name, and was considering shelving/archiving LiquidHike.
What about the LH loving tribe? I knew most of the community would follow me to the ocean endeavor, if they could find me. LiquidHike readership, views and group community continued to increase. I was on the fence about what to do and had decided I’d move forward with the ocean project and figure it out later. I did a lot of frustrating solution-less research about renaming social media pages, social media groups, etc. so I would not lose my awesome remote community members.
Then I got a big surprise; the other smarty interpretation behind LiquidHike. This unintentional perfect surprise-to-me interpretation that could also further help humans commune with nature AND improve people’s health and wellness.
I was attending an international fitness convention because my primary career is wellness and, the common welcoming intro I heard was, “This is Michele the Trainer who started LiquidHike.”
I was thinking to myself, “Hmmm, I was just going to backburner that site.”
I soon realized I was too close to the forest to see the trees!
My beloved fitness community put it all together in a way I should have easily seen. They got it all!
The combination of nature+hike which to them=fitness and wellness in its most nature loving form. PLUS many of the aquatic fitness instructors embrace LiquidHike because in water physical therapy water walking and water jogging is a modality/exercise, so the idea that instructors could provide imaging of a hike, in liquid, to water fitness or physical therapy folks is BRILLIANT. They understood all of the ideas and applied it in a way that made sense. Liquid Hike translates well for walking, for aqua, for yoga and much more.
That is the unintended benefit for humanity that has blossomed from LiquidHike.
After my fitness loves motivated me, I decided what the hell, I’ll grow both LiquidHike further and start a new more specifically descriptive ocean idea. This will provide everyone on the sunshine-y side more nature content.
In 2019 I started the Ocean Protection League and Ocean Protection League Gallery. My ocean-inspired art sales fuel the Ocean Protection League.
Going forward LiquidHike’s content will be more terrestrial (trees and bees), and of course hiking and nature walks. I’d still love to promote photo and art collaborations. Today fresh water, fresh air, protecting parks, national parks and any natural areas is very important so all of that non-ocean content will have a cozy home on LiquidHike.
I’d love to hear what LiquidHike could or does mean to you and what you’d like to see there. Also any nature questions can be answered regarding species, geology, geography, ecology and more.
Coming attractions:
This fall I may also blog some fiction stories I’ve written, serialized fiction set in nature for your enjoyment.
Love to all,
Michele the Trainer