Thanks, Dagny.

I got here by a circuitous route. I hadn't spent any time on my Kim Tragedy site for several years, until about 10 days ago when someone told me about the forthcoming 20/20 show. I rolled my eyes and thought, "Here we go again." Went to the Oregonian's site and saw that Kati Kim was posting there, surrounded by what I can only describe as a portable pity party. (I'm really not that heartless, but the combination of crocodile tears and deflection has always excited my cynical gene.)

Anyway, I decided that I'd try to see if I could get any straight answers out of Kati (nope), and that I'd watch the show and update the site. There were lots of busted links, plus I was never really all that comfortable with having prominently speculated there about how she and James might have spent the afternoon of the day they were lost. I also wanted to sharpen the focus on "Lessons to Learn," and when I was doing that I actually followed one of the unexpired links over here.

I really think that, for all the details, the Kim story was remarkably simple: Casual city travelers get locked into tunnel vision, ignore elementary common sense." I think Kati has defensively stonewalled almost all of the questions about why they really wound up on the logging road, and the media has given her a "grieving widow wild card." All of which is understandable at one level, but when so many people followed this I do think a significant educational opportunity was lost.

That's really the rub. She irritates me with the evasions, but what really gets me is that here we had one time where the whole country is clued into a really clear and simple example of something that drives so many bad traveling decisions: overreliance on modern conveniences causing a lack of preparation, combined with "Get There Itis" (tunnel vision) causing people to lose all of their common sense. If she had just stood up to the plate and told it like it was from the start, I think she could've helped a lot of people. Instead, the media ignores the elephant in the room and the realities get batted around on fairly obscure websites. Darn.

Anyhow, this is a great site, and I know I will refer people here in the future.