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Field Trip - Pedernales Falls

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every morning on my way to work i crest a hill by my house, the skyline peaks its head out at me, glowing in the light of the freshly risen sun. i'm filled with an overwhelming sense that everything is going to be GOOD. i'd rather be going somewhere other than work, but seeing a sleepy city just waking up reminds me that we're all in this together. we all struggle, we all triumph, most of us stuck in a line of traffic probably wish we were doing something else. but we are all here and we're all part of it.

 

i was speaking about this with my friend lauren, she mentioned how familiar that feeling was. how she takes a look in her rearview mirror on the way to work to glance at the sun rising behind the city, "i think that's a little daily reminder that life is bigger than us and that work and heartbreak and hard times are temporary."

 

temporary. temporary. temporary. 

"if you have an emotion, especially negative, FEEL IT, wholly and as painfully as you can. embrace it. if you're sad. BE SAD. and then, let it go. breathe and release it back into where it belongs; not inside of you"

as lauren said above, even though those feelings are temporary that doesn't mean we can't take something beautiful away from them, even if it hurts in the moment. because at the end of the day, it is just that, the end of the day. tomorrow is a new one, a new chance to feel how ever we'd like to feel. 

New Mexico - Day One

the beauty of solitude.

it's been a long time since i've had hours on end to myself. this summer has been a perpetual state of activity; work, play and travel has all been done with the company of others. 

this past weekend i made a solo drive all the way to ruidoso, new mexico, nine and half hours each way. i was meeting sarah rose late saturday night, but the day was mine and i planned to spend it alone in the lincoln national forest. 

leading up to the trip i was talking to my friend about how excited i was to have some time alone. cut to saturday morning text messages; 
"lauren, i don't remember the last time i was alone, it feels weird." 
to which she responds,
"why do we feel the need to tell ourselves that we're okay when we're alone". "its like if we're alone the stigma behind that is that there is something wrong with us, when in all actuality the people who can be alone are always the best people"
thoughts were racing through my mind as quickly as the mile markers on the side of the highway. musings on the past, present and future; deep and grandiose thoughts, with no one to share them with. 

finally, after hours alone in the woods of the sierra blanca mountain range i was feeling pretty good about my time . it wasn't that my endless pondering had subsided, but i had realized something i learned in a previous life, things do not have to be all right one hundred percent of the time. as an overly optimistic person sometimes that is a hard concept for me to grasp. 

lauren left me with this little bit of gold on solitude, but can actually be said for almost anything that that is new or foreign to us, "it's like cold water. you jump in, it's a shock, you hang out for a bit and before you know it you're swimming along and enjoying it." 

Colorado - Mt. Evans & Boulder

we, as people, make time for what is important to us. if it is something we truly want, we will find a way to make it come to fruition. a question i'm often asked is "how do you get to travel all the time, i would love to be able to do that." the truth is i have a standard nine to five job. everything you see on here is done within those confines. weekends, holidays and vacation time are when all of my traveling is done. an aim of mine with america y'all has always been to show folks that all you need is a weekend to get out there and experience something new. 

this past weekend was no different, when my friends mentioned wanting to get out of austin i quickly shouted "denver!" a crazy notion and a very long drive, but miss sarah rose and the mountains were already calling my name again.

i feel as though i learned at a fairly young age that our time here is limited, and we only have this very short period to make it count for something. this fire can lend itself to some wild ideas, but at the end of the day i can handle that, i could not handle living with a "what if".

i've never brought this up here before, or even much in my personal life for that matter, but at the age of sixteen my father passed away. i tend not to mention it because it elicits sympathy from people. words of sorrow, and although they are very thoughtful, they are not needed. that single event shaped my life in such a positive way that at this point, as callous as it sounds, i don't think i would have it any other way.

it's pushed me to become who i am today, hopping in a car with a couple of friends and driving thirty hours just to be in a place for forty eight, diving head first into friendships and relationships because that is what my heart is telling me to do, and striving to see and do as much as i can while i still can. 

a friend mentioned wanting to go write on one of those "before i die i want to.." chalkboards yesterday, and i struggled all day trying to come up with something i wanted, or even a place i wanted to go. but as i watched her scrawl words in the dark i think she captured what i want to do before i die perfectly, "live genuinely" "live lovingly" "live passionately"  

Colorado

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"He was born in the summer of his twenty seventh year, coming home to a place he'd never been before. He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again,

you might say he found a key for every door."

a few days before heading to colorado i started humming rocky mountain high, it had been years since i actually listened to the song so i put it on.... goosebumps. the lyrics are eerily similar to the state i'm in, right down to this being my twenty seventh year. after a brief trip last month, colorado was once again calling my name.

it seems as though i always find what i'm looking for because i am in fact never looking for anything at all. i met miss sarah rose on a rainy fourth of july in the minuscule ghost town of silver plume, a month later i'm back in denver to spend a long weekend with her. 

i could get into the natural beauty that we surrounded ourselves with during my short visit; rainy hikes to granite cliffs overlooking a picturesque swimming hole, a glass like reservoir with quaint hill side homes as a backdrop, and of course the majestic rocky mountains. a sight like nothing i had ever seen before, seas of pine with alluring snow capped peaks jetting into the wide open blue sky. but the scenery was not the purpose of this trip, it was to spend time with someone who i felt an instant connection with. 

i read a quote a few weeks back that hit me hard, "Guard your time fiercely. Be generous with it, but be intentional about it." i have admittedly been spreading myself a bit thin over the past few months, jumping at any chance i could to get out. but a change of tide has washed over me recently, my time is now focused and given to those who are truly important to me, and this trip was no exception. 

by sheer happenstance we both ended up in that tiny mining town on the fourth of july, sitting fire side in the damp mountain air. i never could have imagined what would become of that chance encounter, but sarah said it best herself in a note she handed me at the airport that ended with "i'm lucky to have someone to miss."

 

Water World. Austin & Surrounding Areas.

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have you ever felt like a tourist in your own city or town? i constantly find myself looking around austin in complete awe of everything it has to offer. even after three years here, the people and places continue to amaze me. do i really live in this dream world? from swimming in barton springs to grabbing a coffee at brew & brew, i feel like i'm on vacation everyday(and thats saying a lot since i do have a full time job). these feelings were amplified two weeks ago when an old friend came down to austin from portland, maine. 

she spent the night in an airport due to severe thunderstorms, i blew out my tire an hour before i was supposed to pick her up, the normally bright blue texas sky was under a thick cover of grey clouds, but the string of bad luck leading up to her visit wasn't going to stop us from making it the best weekend ever. 

from the moment she rolled into town until her early morning flight home, we were nonstop. friends, food, drinks, hiking and a lot of swimming. 

a secret swimming hole, barton springs, commons ford and inks lake. our days were based around staying cool and having fun. i usually get burnt out showing people around austin and the surrounding areas, but when it came time for her flight home i didn't want the weekend to end. i was doing the same things i normally do when i stay in town, but it felt like i was on a vacation as well. the feeling of pure amazement and enjoyment in your own city is a beautiful thing and i'm happy that austin can still offer that to me. 

 

check out kanya's adventures in maine by clicking here. http://www.hillsandtrailsco.com/

Great Sand Dunes National Park & Misc. CO

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last saturday night i say to my friend ryan (@brotherstories) 
"we should go on a trip next weekend."
"yea we should, where do you want to go?"
"i don't care lets just drive as far as we can."
"want to go to colorado?"
"hell yes"
and that was it, we had no plan on where we wanted to go or what we wanted to see. we had a day that we had to be back by, but we ended up blowing that off anyways. we just loaded up the car and drove.

a whirlwind trip, four days, two thousand miles, new friends and familiar faces, a night atop a glacier under the stars, beer, whiskey and good tunes. i've never had a vacation like the one i had this past weekend. we crammed a weeks worth of fun into three days, all while running on a few hours of sleep a night.  

we saw some amazing sights, the great sand dunes, red rocks amphitheater, st. marys glacier, chautauqua park and the beautiful cities of denver and boulder. but what made the trip were the people we met and shared our days and nights with. stories from the heart about love and life, to ridiculous arguments about trash bag ponchos, they all made for the most memorable weekend.

on the long drive home i turned to my friend and asked him if he ever felt like everything in life was just perfect, like you're almost searching for something to go wrong or be worried about because everything just feels right. i've felt this before, although it's been a while. a little over a year ago when i was finally getting better after a very serious illness i wrote this, "i have always been what you would call a glass half full kind of person, now that glass is always full and i couldn't ask for anything else. life is good, life is fun, life is easy." i feel that again and i couldn't help but sit in the passengers seat and shake my head in disbelief, everything in my life just seems to be in a perfect balance. 

Buffalo Farm - Gilford, New Hampshire

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as a kid, my parents would drive a few miles out of the way so we could pass this one gorgeous pasture filled with buffalo in the town we lived in. fast forward to teenage years, your mind is consumed with your high school sweetheart, finding sweet skate spots or dance dance revolution. you forget about those exciting car rides and the beautiful lands your home offers.

oddly enough, the owners of this farm are now family through marriage; i suppose it may not be that strange when you grow up in a small town like laconia, new hampshire.

bolduc farm was built in 1776 and is the oldest continuously running sap house in the united states, first tapping the maple trees the year they built the farm. they also raise the aforementioned buffalo because (in the words of ernie bolduc, the owner) “There is nothing more American than the buffalo!”