'Tis the Season...To Be Seasonal

“Except. What is normal at any given time? We change just as the seasons change, and each spring brings new growth. So nothing is ever quite the same.” ~~Sherwood Smith 

If I could put a tag line to my life, I think “It’s that time again,” may be it. My father might argue and say it’s Willie Nelson’s “On the road again…” Or Hank Snow’s “I’ve been everywhere.” I can agree with “On the road again,” but I haven’t been everywhere and I don’t know if I’ll make it to everywhere, before my time on this planet comes to an end. 

Whatever way you want to look at it, it is that time again…to pack the bags and prepare for the next journey. One chapter has closed and another is opening. Welcome to a glimpse into my seasonal life.

I am currently in Aspen, CO. I’ve been here since mid January. I decided that it was time to learn how to ski and that is exactly what I’ve been doing for the last three months. 

Aspen Ski Company is comprised of four mountains within the resort: Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands, Buttermilk, and Snowmass. The other day I was in Snowmass Village dropping off a co-worker at her apartment after going to a house warming party. As I was driving away, I passed a parking lot that called to me like an old friend. Now, why would a parking lot create nostalgia?

One thing I quickly discovered when I arrived in Aspen is that housing is a hot commodity. I arrived at about mid-season, so housing pretty much didn’t exist. I was lucky enough to have a friend’s floor to crash on my first week here. The plan was that this would give me enough time to get my feet under me and find a place to live. 

As we all know, plans don’t always go as we…well, plan. 

I arrived here pretty much in the red financially. Housing in Aspen does not come cheaply. The few places that were available were not in my budget. I didn’t know what I was going to do. It was coming time to make a move lest I over do my stay at my friend’s place. Aspen Ski Company provides housing at discounted costs for employees, but when I arrived there was nothing open. I was calling them every day. After seven days of harassment, I finally received an email stating that a room had become available come February 1st. Did I want it?

I sure did. 

But…I had ten days to wait before I could move in. My free week on my friend’s floor was nearing its end. What was I going to do? 

Over the last few years of romping across the country side, I have gotten quite adept at living out of my car. I had all my winter gear. I had a stove and fuel. I knew the backseat of my car provided just enough room for someone of my height to sleep in. I’d slept worse places. I didn’t think twice about it. I would park my car somewhere and live out of it until I could move in to the apartment on the 1st. Done deal.

This parking lot was near Snowmass Village. For ten days, I slept in my car in below zero degree weather. Thanks to a season in Antarctica, I didn’t think twice about the consequences of weather like that. It never crossed my mind. I had a zero degree sleeping bag and a plethora of down jackets and fleece pants. I was as cozy as a pea in a pod. 

But I wasn’t quite sure if what I was doing was actually legal. Aspen is an affluent community. I was parked in the overflow parking lot of the Snowmass Golf Course. I didn’t know how they’d take to having a vagrant sleeping there. 

Enter Operation Stealth. 

Mornings I changed in the backseat of my car, the engine running to warm my boots up. I would sneak out before the sun was up to catch the bus into Aspen to go to work. After work, I visited the library, reading or writing since it was nice and warm. I’d leave when the library closed and catch the bus back to my car, sneaking in to go to bed under the cover of darkness. 

As far as I know, no one suspected a thing. I might have surprised a few snow plow operators a time or two when I hopped out of the back seat of my car in the mornings, tooth brush in my mouth, in puffy pants, down jacket, winter hat, and down slippers. But nothing was ever said. I simply brushed my teeth, hopped back into the back seat of my car, changed my clothes, crawled out and walked off. 

February 1st, I left that parking lot and moved into my apartment. I traded the coziness of my backseat for a “bedroom” in the living room sectioned off by a curtain from prying eyes. I was spending $475 a month to live in a space where I really had no privacy. Curtains are not sound proof and when you have a 21 year old roommate who likes to entertain into the wee hours of the morning, I began thinking that parking my car for the season and living out of it might have been a better alternative. I certainly would have saved a lot more money. 

Either way, as I drove by that parking lot the other day I found myself smiling. I had a connection. It had been home for ten days. I found myself thinking about all the other spots scattered across the country where I had parked my car and slept in over the years. Rest stops along major Interstates. The back corners of Wal-Mart parking lots, remote dirt roads along the Alaskan Canadian Highway.

It hasn’t exactly been the most conventional or easiest lifestyle, but it definitely has been fun. I was inspired to map out the last few years to get some statistics.

The last nine years looks something like this:

Spring 2004—Age 23—Left college and moved to Virginia to complete internship and work at Wilderness Adventures at Eagle Landing as full time staff teaching outdoor education (My first job in the industry) 

Summer 2005—Graduated college but I didn’t attend my graduation. I remained in Virginia running outdoor trips 

Fall 2005—Left Virginia for my first major road trip across the U.S. to Utah to try to work in the Wilderness Therapy industry—realized it wasn’t my cup of tea and after a week was on my way back to Virginia—this road trip was just the beginning of many journeys with my car Minnie Mouse 

Spring 2006—Left Virginia and flew to Oregon to complete a 11 month AmeriCorps term of service running a backcountry trail crew on the Pacific Crest Trail 

Fall 2006—Returned to New York for a couple of months 

January 2007—Flew to Arizona to run backcountry trail crews for the Southwest Conservation Corps 

Spring of 2007—Completed a NOLS Instructor Course in New Mexico—was a major turning point in my career as an outdoor educator 

Summer of 2007—Worked in Southern California, Idaho, and Wyoming teaching outdoor education and backpacking courses 

Fall 2007—Flew back to New York to be closer to family and worked at a camp in the Adirondacks as full time outdoor educator staff 

**From 2006 to fall of 2007 I lived out of my backpack with no car**

Winter 2007—Realized my heart and soul had been left out west while I was on the east coast—resulted in an impetuous long distance road trip back to Arizona to run backcountry trail crews once again 

Spring 2008—Worked in Arizona running backcountry trail crews 

Summer 2008—Worked in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming instructing backpacking courses 

Fall 2008—Drove back to Arizona instructing backpacking courses and another season of backcountry trail crews 

Winter and Spring 2009—Arizona running backcountry trail crews

**From Winter 2007 to Spring 2009 lived out of my car all over the west coast as I drove from seasonal job to seasonal job**

Spring and Summer 2009—Flew to Alaska to work as a sea kayak guide for Kayak Adventures Worldwide 

Fall 2009—Flew to Arizona and drove up to Alaska and settled in Anchorage—becoming an official resident of Alaska (I was determined to “settle” in an area for a while—lasted three and a half months in the city) 

January 2010—Drove to Haines, AK and took a ferry to Juneau, relocating there 

Spring\Summer\Fall 2010—Worked as a Field Coordinator for SAGA in Juneau—had the opportunity to explore the majority of Alaska Southeast 

December 2010—Left Alaska on a three day ferry to Bellingham, WA—drove cross country to Minnesota in pursuit of love 

Winter 2011—Three months in Ely, Minnesota experiencing for the first time what unemployment was like (Not a highlight of my career) 

Spring 2011—Fled Minnesota and drove back to Alaska via the Alaskan Canadian Highway (ALCAN)—Second time driving the ALCAN 

Summer 2011—Second season as a sea kayak guide in Seward, AK 

Fall 2011 and Winter 2012—Spent a season working as logistical support staff in Antarctica for the United States Antarctic Program (A once in a life time opportunity and a major life changing experience) 

Spring 2012—Explored New Zealand’s South Island with just a backpack 

Summer 2012—Third season as a sea kayak guide in Seward, AK 

Fall and early winter 2012—Three months teaching outdoor education in Hong Kong while living out of a backpack (My car was driven down the ALCAN for the third time by a friend and parked in Hood River, OR to wait for me) 

December 2012 to January 2013—A month traveling Singapore and Indonesia 

Winter 2013—Returned to the states—picked my car up in Hood River, OR and drove to Aspen, CO 

Winter and Spring 2013—Age 32—Aspen, CO to learn how to ski and experience the resort lifestyle 

And now for the big question: What’s next? 

NORTH TO ALASKA

I am packing to return to Alaska for my fourth season as a sea kayak guide. This season I return as Multi-day trip Manager. I’m nervous and excited about this opportunity. This April marks my fifth summer season there. This will be the longest I’ve spent anywhere since college. It’s the one sign of stability that exists in my life. 

To many, these years might look like a fear of commitment, fear of stability, recklessness or a lack of responsibility. And it probably is. I don’t really know what drives me to keep moving as I have. I haven’t ever really thought about it until now. Since 2004, the longest I have lived in one area for a consistent period of time is two years. Arizona and Alaska are the only locations that I have returned to consecutively. 

I was born and raised in New York. I’ve been a resident of Virginia and I’m currently a resident of Alaska, although I haven’t lived there full time since December, 2010. But it’s home to me. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to having a home of my own. Even when I’m not there, my heart is there. 

In some ways it feels like it was just yesterday that I packed that rusty, beat up Ford Tempo and hit the road for the first time. I had flown the nest for good. 

Nine years later, but it’s not all that different. Yeah, a different car, better gear, a bit more experience and knowledge, and fractionally more money in the bank. But one thing has not changed. 

The drive for adventure is as strong now as it was then. Over the past three months I have seen men and women in their 80’s and 90’s skiing as aggressively as they did when they were in the prime of their lives. I hope to be them some day. I hope to have the pulse of the mountain and the smell of the sea in my veins when I’m 100. I hope to have more locations where I have parked my car and slept like a vagrant on the street. 

I truly am homeless when it comes down to it, that’s the reality of this seasonal lifestyle. But I don’t feel homeless. I feel blessed to have had the opportunities I’ve had. 

Tribute to Parents

“The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.” ~~Masanobu Fukuoka

**This is long and does not follow the format of past posts. Feel free to read if you want.

“Ka-boss! Ka-boss! Ka-bossy!” still echoes in my ears as if I had yelled it just yesterday. This was the cattle call my dad taught my brother and I when we were children to call the cows down to the barn in the summer when it was milking time. 

If we were lucky, the cows came running with their tails up. Otherwise, we’d have to set out on foot to round them up and drive them down to the barn off of the big hill. Granted they never came for us like they came for my dad. Bovines aren’t the most intelligent animal in the world, but they definitely knew the hand that fed them, and that wasn’t my brother or I. 

My dad had the call perfected. As a kid, I wanted to be just like dad, the dream of most adolescent youths I think. But my squeaky voice was nothing like his rich baritone floating over the hills to the far edges of our property. He’d step out to the back of the barn, take his pipe from his mouth, wet his lips and let the cry come from deep down in his diaphragm. He’d wait a few seconds and then he’d do it again. Wait a few seconds, and then call a third time. 

“Ka-boss! Ka-boss! Ka-boossyyy!” he’d shout, drawing out the last syllable. His words would come echoing back to him along with the faint answering bellow of a hungry cow. They had heard and they were coming with bells on. 

My dad told me once that when he was a child growing up on his father’s farm, the hills echoed with this call. All the farmers in the area used it to bring their cattle home. I can only imagine what this sounded like; this tradition had gone extinct by the time I was old enough to even form the words, “Ka-boss.” When I was a kid, growing up in southern New York, our hills were the only landscape that echoed with “ka-bossy”. The neighbors probably cursed us every afternoon for the racket we made as we wandered the woods rounding the cows up on foot. 

I grew up in the farm belt of New York as I like to think of it. Yes, there is more to New York than just that infamous glittering strip called New York City. Our closest two neighbors were dairy farmers and extending out around us in all directions was a lengthy network of dairy farms. When I graduated from high school several farmers had thrown in the towel. By the time I graduated college, that network had been reduced to a small number and the land sold for housing development. Every time I returned home to visit, a new house stood where it was once pasture land. However, a few farms still held on, my father and mother included. 

In our barn, the cows weren’t tagged in the ear with a number for identification. We were small enough to know each animal by name. They were animals with personalities and my dad knew how to interact with each animal differently. Yes, he’d curse them from time to time for acting up but these animals were as much his kids as my brother and I were, and yeah, we received our fair share of curses too and they were well deserved. Babysitting two unruly children who did not get along, while also trying to run a family business was no easy task we gave our parents. 

I have many memories of my dad standing scratching a heifer’s chin, talking nonsense to her while she chewed away at his shirt, and another slobbered away at the back pocket of his pants. They loved my father and he loved them. I didn’t really understand this until I was older. He had found something that he loved to do; that doesn’t happen for all of us. 

A common question I get asked is why I or my brother didn’t take over the farm once we were old enough to do so. My parents probably wondered this too in the beginning. I can’t speak for my brother, but for myself... 

It is our nature as humans to often question what our destiny is. What is our life path? Where are we supposed to go, to do? We can’t control it any more than we can control the weather. Our life takes us where it is supposed to, you fight it and you just find yourself where you’re supposed to be a few years later. This is the only answer I can give. 

I grew up, ended up going to college which wasn’t something I had ever really expected to do and stumbled into the field of outdoor education by chance and fell in love with it. From there, it’s been one journey after another. My career took me out west and it wasn’t often I looked back. Perhaps that was selfish of me. New York has the Adirondacks, but once I saw the mountains of the west I knew it was out there I was supposed to be. I discovered I had a love for wilderness that ran as deep as my father’s love for the farm. 

Back then, I thought maybe I was running away from my destiny. Maybe I was supposed to take over the family legacy and make my parents proud. But now, I know better. My parents raised me to be the person I am today. I give all the credit to them. I fought it for a while, but I have realized that I am a product of their creation. They may not have always agreed with the path my life has led me, but I know they are proud of what I have become and done. I am true to myself and my beliefs and I think that is something they have always wanted my brother and me to walk away with. 

In some ways, I am much like my parents. Being a farmer is my father’s life and the only life he knows. Rambling around the remote backcountry with a backpack is my life and the only one I know how to function in. My mother is a strong, shy woman who in the words of Tammy Wynette, stands by her man. Growing up, a lot of kids at school thought my mom was just a stay at home mom. They had no idea that my mom ran the family farm with my dad and managed the majority of the finances. She was his partner. She worked just as hard as he did, if not harder since she had two kids to look after in addition to a barn full of demanding cattle. I thank her for her tenacity and depth of dedication, traits she has strived to pass off to my brother and me. 

Roots never become fully uprooted, no matter how hard one might try to unearth and replant elsewhere. I am still a farmer’s daughter. I still feel the prick of freshly mown hay, smell the sweet fragrance of a wagon full of alfalfa square bales. I can still hear the ruckus the cows would make in the evenings when they wanted to be fed. They weren’t shy about telling you how they felt. The pungent odor of fresh cow manure and urine that comes with living on a dairy farm is still fresh in my senses. It makes some people’s noses curl, but to me, it was a welcome smell. It was the smell of home, hard work, and reality. It was and always has been a safe haven for me. I return to New York to visit and I don’t leave the farm. It’s the only place I am content to be when I am there. 

Time passes and we pass with it. We age but it takes a while for that reality to catch up with us. As a child, I think we easily forget that our parents can grow “old,” and as a parent, I think we can by far forget that our children will sooner or later be mature adults. Eventually that day comes. This reality has been hitting me more and more of late. 

I got off the phone the other day with my mother a bit flabbergasted. I had just told her I was considering graduate school in a year and half expected to hear some sort of complaint about it being the worst time to be considering a continued education and why couldn’t I just settle somewhere. Instead, she said that was great and went on to inform me that her and my father was thinking of selling the cows this coming fall. Hearing that was in a way like hearing she had just told me she had been diagnosed with cancer. All thoughts of graduate school vanished. 

This was something I knew I, they, would have to face eventually, but that didn’t mean I had to believe it would ever happen. All good things come to an end. That is the harsh reality of life. My parents aren’t getting any younger and the economy isn’t getting any kinder. My first question was: what is Dad going to do without the cows? And then, what is mom going to do with Dad if he doesn’t have the cows? The cows are my father’s life as much as my mother is. The thought of my dad without the cows was hard to fathom. They were one and the same. The idea of it was kind of like an amputation. Would he feel phantom limb pain once they were gone. 

The year of my conception was a monumental year for my parents. I can only imagine what it was like for them that year. They were young, full of vigor and the economy was in a recession. Sound familiar? They had one healthy child; a second on the way, and they were debating on going full time as dairy farmers during a time when farmers had been hit hard economically. My father’s destiny was set in stone for the next thirty some years the day they poured the concrete for the barn floor and inscribed his initials there in the aisle. 

And then he up and sold the cows one day in 1980. My mom was pregnant with me and he couldn’t do it alone, so they sold out, only to turn around and buy as many of the cows as he could get back the very next day. He was back to milking full time by the time I was born in the spring of 1981. When my mom told me they were finished come this fall, this scenario came to mind. Would he do the same thing he did thirty two years ago? Turn around and buy them all back because he realized farming was his life and he couldn’t live without them? 

I felt angry. Not angry at my parents, but at society for forcing small business owners out of their very livelihood. My parents have struggled for several years to make ends meet and stay in business. Every time when I thought they were done, they always seemed to make it work, thumbing their nose at the federal government while they were at it. They are one of the few small family operated farms still in business in the area I grew up in. But the fight is now taking more out of them than they are taking out of the fight. 

The last time I was home to visit, my father said something I never thought I’d hear him say. “I thought I was good at farming,” he said. Those words were like a knife in the gut because my father is a talented man. He has been a dairy farmer all his life. It is what he was born and bred to be. He is a cultivator of animals and a harvester of crops. He has run a business for over thirty years that is categorized as one of the top ten most dangerous industries to work in, yet my father is one of the safest people I know. 

My parents are good at farming; the world is not good at recognizing that we need small family operated dairy farms for many reasons. This might come across as a bit of a rambling piece of writing, I can’t help it; a lot has come to mind as I think of the implications of my parent’s selling the cows. So bear with me. I look at this situation from quite a few different angles. I am the daughter of the farmers soon to go out of business. I may soon see my parent’s bereft of everything they know how to do and I don’t know what to do about that. I don’t know how or if I can help them. 

I am an outdoor educator in a society where the outdoors has become a scary place for today’s youth. It is my job to try to get people outside, recreate and take advantage of the therapeutic-ness of leisure. I had the privilege of growing up with nearly 200 acres as a playground at my fingertips. These 200 acres may go to housing development in the near future and that is a crushing reality. How many more acres will go to housing development and how many more children will miss out on the opportunity to grow up outside? 

Can someone buy my parent’s farm to keep it running, no probably not. And that is not what I am asking. 

Can someone buy local organic agriculture? Yes, easily. Can you support family operated small businesses? Yes, seek them out in your local community. Can you take the time to explain to your child where food comes from and why it is important to know where your food comes from? Yes, without a doubt. Can you take your child outside and let them know that butterflies are not something to be terrified over? Yes, please do. 

I don’t really know what I’m asking. Perhaps I’m not asking anything. Maybe I’m just getting personal fears and thoughts out on paper. All I can say is that if we as a society do not make a stand we will lose something very vital for future generations. Could I drop my career and move back to New York and take over the farm for my parents? 

Maybe. 

Except I wouldn’t be nearly as good as my father and he’d probably send me packing because I would just make his life more difficult. Nor do I think that is the solution. Things run their course and perhaps the Haynes family farm has done just that. 

But, after four months in Asia and exposure to a world that is turning into a concrete jungle, I do know this: We need farms; we need wide open spaces and clean air. We need to teach our youth that the outdoors is real and safe. We need to show them where their food comes from. 

We need to go outside and shout at the top of our lungs: “Ka-bossy!” and see what answers back.

I Gather No Moss

"Some people do not have to search - 

they find their niche early in life and rest there, seemingly contented and resigned. 

They do not seem to ask much of life, 

sometimes they do not seem to take it seriously. 

At times I envy them, 

but usually I do not understand them - 

seldom do they understand me." ~~James Kavanaugh

**This is not written to offend. It is just internal ramblings leaking forth from a journal entry a few weeks ago that I edited and felt like posting. 

Someone recently asked me when I was going to settle down. You’re thirty-one years old, thirty-two is staring you in the eye. When are you going to settle? Eventually you’ll have to, everyone settles. 

Um, well…never? How’s that for ya? 

What does this question mean? I didn’t know how to answer it. When I think of “settling” my mind draws a blank. I can’t “see” myself just anywhere. I see myself everywhere. 

Everything in my mind revolted against this question. I felt judged. Who is this person to assume that I “have” to settle because that is what is expected, what society expects. There’s little I rebel over, however, this assumption makes me want to do just that, rebel. 

It makes me want to get up on my soap box and say, “I’ll do as I damn well please.” If that means not settling, I’ll do just that. I mean, I kind of do what I damn well please anyways. Living life this way draws a lot of attention. With that attention come a lot of questions. My life makes total sense to me, but it has never been an easy thing to explain. 

There is one question I avoid like the plague. “Where do you come from?” 

Ahh…how do I answer this? My smart ass answer is my mother’s womb, but that is never well received. 

Hmm, well, originally from New York but of late via Hong Kong and before that Alaska and before that Antarctica. And before that…do you really want to know? This often leaves the person who asked the question wishing they never had. 

I have found that the only people who really “get” this lifestyle are those who once did or do live the same way. We are a rare breed, but we have been here since the age of time. The history books are proof. 

Those that are close to me know me for who I am. They know I do what I do for a reason. There is no judgment. I was once called a rolling stone by one of them. I took that as a compliment. A rolling stone grows no moss. I am happy with how I live and with what I do. I wouldn’t be doing it otherwise, it’s that simple. 

It is not ignorance that holds me back from the norms of society. To clarify, I don’t view it as being held back. I view it as something I don’t want right now. Someday, the urge might hit me, but right now, there is no yearning. It just sounds boring. I think of settling and sedentary is what comes to mind. This scares me. I feel confined, trapped like a wild animal in a cage. If I stop moving what will make the world stop moving? It won’t, unless global warming blows the planet up (but that is an entirely different rant :)). I don’t want to miss anything. There is a lot to see out there. I feel I have just begun to scratch away at the surface. 

In the eyes of many, I am very “unsettled.” In my opinion, I feel I have settled, just for something different. Different as in: adventure, exploration. My marriage is to solitude and peace, freedom. I have loved with every part of my soul and been loved in return, I have no doubt. I have had that opportunity and I am grateful for it, but it wasn’t lasting. It wasn’t faithful or dependable. My life, however, has been. Rarely has it failed me, left me heartbroken. It has just left me seeking, thirsting for more. 

I’ll be honest; at times I do think it would be great to have the security of a home to always go back to, a roof over my head, a steady flow of income in the bank. To have a wall to display all my worldly treasures, a warm body to snuggle each night. But these are all vices. We soon start to rely on these things, yet they can leave us as quickly as they came. They leave us vulnerable. The bank can take your home. A kiss can lead to a broken heart. What do you get for that? Nothing. 

No thank you. For now, I am content to forge my own path, master or mistress to no one but myself. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I have become cynical in my old age. I don’t know, but I do know that I am okay with it. 

Years ago, I was once caught with a friend flipping through a bride gown magazine, drooling over pages of lace, silk and satin. You know, doing the girly thing, imagining which dress we would wear on our own wedding day. We were sitting in a fifteen passenger van wearing carhart overalls and work boots. We smelled of sweat, covered head to toe in charcoal and dirt from an old burned forest where we had been building a new hiking trail. We hadn’t had a shower in days. We hadn’t slept in a real bed in even longer. What man in their right mind would want to marry us looking like that we weren’t sure at the time, but it didn’t matter. We were lost in our own little world, giggling like school girls, until we heard the click of a camera shutter. 

We had been caught by a reporter who had been following us around that day, interviewing us on our contribution of public service to the local area. At the sight of that camera in his hands, the magazine was flung to the back of the van and we hid, denying that we ever had our hands on such nonsense. We felt guilty for being caught doing something any normal woman would do. We didn’t fit the norm and that reporter knew it. He had seen two extremes side by side in that van and had wanted to catch it on film. 

He should have been a bit sneakier, that photo might have landed him a front page to National Geographics. 

Why conform to what society expects of us. Marriage can be amazing or it can be your downfall. Children can be a blessing or a monster. They are not for everyone. Why can’t this be accepted and understood. I don’t want what everyone else has, it’s that simple. At this point I have not gone after it, so it should be obvious that it is not on my priority list. 

Just because I don’t own a big house filled with a lot of junk or have the picture perfect family photo hanging on the wall doesn’t mean that I don’t have aspirations. This doesn’t make me any less capable or goal driven. You can be homeless without being “homeless,” you can be a wanderer without being a beggar on the street. You can still have class and integrity; it just comes from a different source. 

I might not have a home, a husband, or a family pet. I might not always know where I am headed next or what the pay scale will be with the next job. I might not always know where I will sleep at night. My car might be parked at random locations in the states while I wander the world with a backpack. I do not regret a single path my life has led me down. I do not sit with my backpack and weep for what I do not have. 

There is one thing I do know. I am content. I am happy. I am satisfied. I am healthy. I am in love…with the world. 

And…I know where I am sleeping tonight. I am curled up in a quiet corner of the airport against my backpack of meager belongings waiting for the next plane to take me to my next destination. I know that much and that is enough. 

**Written in the Singapore airport where I spent the entire night to catch a 6am flight to Hong Kong

Love-Hate Relationship

"Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the 

human spirit." ~Edward Abbey

Four months in Asia. I am leaving it all behind and at last heading state side. I’ll be honest, I cannot wait. Admitting that surprised even myself. I am not normally overtaken with homesickness. I don’t even know if I can classify this feeling in the same category. I rarely take pleasure in acknowledging my American roots. I have little patriotic pride; George Bush kind of ruined that. But I do have fondness for American soil. Believe it or not there are some absolutely amazing, beautiful locations in good ole ‘Merica and right now that is what I am missing, a bit of the familiarity. 

In a day I will be back with my car, my one real material attachment. Minnie Mouse is sitting in Hood River, OR waiting for me. At the beginning of September I filled her with all my winter gear and placed her keys into the trust worthy hand of my friend, Krey Krey. We had worked out an agreement. He wanted to do a road trip south to the Lower 48 with his girlfriend, but he was sans vehicle. I needed to get my car to the west coast. Ta-da! He got a road trip and I got my car parked in Hood River. It was weird being in Hong Kong knowing that someone was driving my car south all the way from Alaska. But as I have said before, sometimes you have to relinquish the control and instead leave faith in its place. 

I will soon be sleeping again in my car, on the road, traveling cross country to a new destination. I am so excited that I think of little else. I can see it now, the music blasting; the feel of the wheel in my hands, and the gentle purr of Minnie Mouse’s engine. The good luck Buddha Karen Reynolds gave me so many years ago, smiling at me from the dashboard, always encouraging, sending me well wishes for every safe journey I have gone on. I glued him to Minnie Mouse’s dash board years ago, and he has yet to fail me. Minnie Mouse stocked with a bit of gear, food, a map and wide open country is the purest form of freedom to me right now. The world is my oyster as they say. I feel antsy with excitement for what lays ahead. 

This fall I told a student of mine that the destination didn’t always have to be the priority. I told this student to forget about Point A or Point B for once. Instead, focus on what’s between these two points, the journey. I know it’s hard to think about this when you are a teenager and all you want is results. I think that is how most of us lived life at that age. It’s kind of like eating. If you scarf it all down just to be the first to finish, do you really remember what it tasted like? If you hike a trail without looking left or right, do you really see it? If you travel just to get somewhere, what do you gain? 

We are guilty of these things, myself included. It’s human nature to rush. We miss out when we get focused on one thing. I keep trying to follow the mantra I explained to this student this fall. I am leaving behind Asia to return to the states. I am excited, but more for the roads that I must travel rather than my destination. I and Minnie Mouse am no stranger to the major highways that will deliver us to our objective. I have traveled these highways many times. Back and forth, up and down the U.S, over and over for multiple seasons. Yet the countryside will still be new as well as laced with vague familiarity. It’s a comforting feeling. 

Aspen, CO is my destination. My objective: to arrive by January 16th to start training as a ticket seller for the Aspen Ski Company. This fall and winter season is proving to be the year of the unexpected. Doing things I never really dreamed I’d do. Three months navigating my way around a major world city, exposing young minds to the hidden wonders of Mother Nature. What I really navigated was a concrete jungle. I proved something to myself: I found out that I could survive life in a city. I knew I could, but I didn’t want to and nor do I really want to again. I can see that now. I have yet to make a decision over my experience in this country. One thing really comes to mind: love-hate relationship. 

I loved it because it was different, it was an experience. It was growth oriented. I “hated” it because I felt confined. There is “wilderness” to be found in Hong Kong, quite beautiful in fact. But with the backwoods still came the essence of the 7 billion people who lived there. I could never quite escape it. There’s something to be said about the whisper of silence in wilderness. It’s beautiful. I miss that. That is what I look forward to the most with my return to stateside. Not a hamburger or a good American Beer, but silence, the silence of the outdoors. My soul needs it. I have felt lost these last few months. Sitting here on this plane has let me see what it is: wilderness, wide open space, remoteness, big mountains and tall, tall trees. All of it, I miss it. 

I love traveling whether it is state side or overseas. It’s an opportunity to be educated, humbled, to broaden the horizons. It also creates that love-hate relationship I spoke of earlier. You see the things you want to see while being exposed to those you wish didn’t exist. Indonesia was amazing and I don’t regret one minute of it. It was a country of beauty next to raw abuse of this planet, and yes, that made me cringe. 

Life in Jakarta made Hong Kong look like a kitten. I can’t believe I was so nervous four months ago. In September I sat in the San Francisco airport writing in my blog, revealing my fears for what awaited me. The idea of Hong Kong terrified me. In reality, it is one of the safest cities in the world. 

I laugh as I think back to that moment. Here I sit, on a plane delivering me to that same airport; only I am returning a different person. I guess that is why I love traveling so much. You leave as one person and you return as another. If you don’t, then you failed. The unknown can overwhelm us. The day you realize that is often the day you have overcome the fear. 

I land in San Francisco to then board a Greyhound Bus for Hood River, OR to pick up Minnie Mouse. So much travel awaits me. I get my car and then it’s to the road for Aspen, CO. The next three months are dedicated to learning how to ski, something I didn’t really think I’d ever do. Simply exchanging one life experience for another.

New Year, New Country

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” ~~Lao-tzu 

You know you've become addicted to travel when you begin planning the next journey while the one you’re on has yet to end. That was me on day two of our twenty five days in Singapore and Indonesia. 

Where to next, was the ever present question. Who, what, where, why, when, how. Like a toddler let loose in the big wide world full of worldly legos. That was me for twenty five days. Big eyes and a brain like a sponge soaking it all up. 

Wide eyed and taking it all in :)

Twenty five days of dusty, sweaty travel. It felt like forever yet at the same time it wasn’t enough. It’s never enough. There’s so much in this world, but yet we’re only granted one life. It doesn’t seem fair. 

How do I see it all? I have one life and by statistical standards, I am nearly at the halfway point, yet there is still so much out there. No, this is not a mid life crisis, simply an observation. All we can do is make a choice and run with it, going where it takes us. There is no wrong turn. 

They say it begins with a single step, how true that is. 

I had little opportunity to blog during this journey. Limited access to Internet, but sometimes things cannot be given words. When I think of Indonesia, the last twenty five days, I think of one thing: cojones. 

Big cojones. 

Traveling in a third world country puts a whole new perspective on life. I might be dirt broke back in the states, well below the poverty line when it comes to the tax bracket, but in Indonesia, we are sitting pretty my friend. 

What do we have to complain about? Yeah, maybe gas is a bit expensive, health insurance will cost you your first born child, and college your retirement fund. Don’t even think about graduate school. But at least we have possibilities. Sometimes in third world countries, these are dreams, simple fantasies. It’s a tough realization. 

There are survivors in this world. There is always someone who has it worse than you. I cannot even begin to say I understand, because our story is our own. I traveled in a country where they tell you the water isn’t safe to drink, yet the locals drink it. A hot shower is a rare luxury, twenty crammed people in a small van isn’t considered full—always room for one more. “Bathrooms” consist of a hole in the floor where you squat, flushing by pouring a bucket of water down the hole. Some would cringe at the idea of squatting to relieve one’s self, but man has been doing this for thousands of years. 

We were meant to squat people, not perch on a porcelain throne. 

Everyone needs a little Buddha in their life.

It was an interesting experience to pass through the more developed cities and see how they had been touched by the western influence. It was interesting and sad, a culture dying right before our eyes. The city of Ubud in Bali seemed to be the hidden gem for the meditative, grass juice thirsting, yoga seeking Westerner on vacation, aka: the modern day trust fund hippie. It didn’t seem right that Ubud was even in the same country after experiencing Java. It was a great location to buy trinkets, but otherwise Ubud was everything we were trying to get away from. 

Ten days racketing around the hazy, sweaty grunge of Java, traveling by Bemo (small vans crammed full of fifteen people or more) and trains that felt like they would fall apart at every shudder, we hit Bali and Ubud. It was culture shock in a whole different sense. Western restaurants, western toilets, stores selling western style clothing and accessories. On Java, we had gone days without spotting another Westerner. In Ubud, the streets crawled with “Bules,” the Bahasa word for “white foreigner.” It seemed that Ubud was where everyone went for vacation. I had one question, if you were going to travel in a foreign country, why be drawn to that you had left behind. I didn’t understand it. Humans are like a moth drawn to the flame, glorying in the comfort of what they know. Embrace the unknown, it won’t hurt you. 

We were only in Ubud long enough to get from Point A to Point B and back again. All the guide books tout about Denpasar and Kuta, the party beach scenes and the place to be for Christmas and New Years if you’re a foreigner. The locals couldn’t understand why we were going in the opposite direction. If they could only have seen my guide book, these places had been crossed out with a big fat red marker. NO GO, I had written. 

Instead, we joined a local Balinese style Christmas gathering in a small village called Keliki, outside of Ubud. Balinese food is SPICY, but oh so yummy! My taste buds are watering just thinking about that food. Being a primarily Muslim and Hindu country, Christmas is not generally celebrated, but the connection we had was of Christian faith. 

Amazing Balinese food for Christmas

The family that invited us for a Balinese style dinner.

Christmas Day was spent on the island of Rinca tracking down the elusive Komodo dragon in Komodo National Park. It’s hard to explain what it’s like to stand five feet away from the largest lizard in the world, also an ambush predator that can run at speeds of 18km, venomous saliva running from its mouth. Once in a life time experience: Check. 

The elusive Komodo. Not so elusive when it comes to the smell of food. :)

Christmas Eve sunset.

Twenty five days of exploration. The boundaries of knowledge stretched. I cannot even begin to write about all of it. This blog entry is already a rambling mess. A new year came and went. It was spent quietly in relaxation on a remote island of Gili Meno, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. With a new year came a new country, a new journey. 

Embrace it I say. We only get this opportunity once.

Embracing it.