National Parks

Wyoming

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"traveling. this makes men wiser, but less happy. when men of sober age travel, they gather knowledge which they may apply usefully for their country, but they are subject ever after to recollections mixed with regret, their affections are weakened by being extended over more objects, and they learn new habits which cannot be gratified when they return home. their eyes are forever turned back to the object they have lost, and its recollection poisons the residue of their lives." thomas jefferson 1787

the travelers curse is very real and something i've dealt with ever since returning from my cross country bicycle escapade in two thousand and seven; it hit me hard again coming home after this most recent road trip.

the problem lies with the ease, and often necessity, of only seeing the absolute best in both people and places when on the road. be it an hour, a day, a week, or even a month, it is almost effortless to enjoy every damn second of traveling. you get to see the sights you want to and interact with people who strike your interest.

i can look back at all the beauty i've set my eyes on; riding my bicycle up highway one in california, watching water barrel over the great falls in virginia, dolphins following beside our boat in florida, the endless palette of colors that covers the hillsides of new hampshire in fall, and the towering grand tetons in wyoming. 

i can think back to all the weird and exciting encounters i've shared with strangers. frank and sally, the farmer and his school teacher wife who invited me in for blt's when i was riding by their home in rural pennsylvania. arturo, the guy who was already at the top of emory peak in big bend when i made it to the summit and immediately tossed me a beer. spencer, the eighteen year old on the train in arizona who had just left everything to work at a wilderness camp. alan, the man in san diego who caught wind i was looking for a place to stay and offered up his house boat for the night. 

i get to cherry pick the memories i want to keep, travel and the people you meet on the road are not demanding and when i look back it all seems like some marvelous dream. and that's the difficulty, this uncomplicated feeling of wandering is just that, uncomplicated. i never see the mundane in and outs of day to day life in these places. i'm exploring, everything is new and fresh and exciting. and the people i meet leave a lasting impression because they offer me something when i need it most. i get to create the image i want of them because i only met them for a brief moment in time. i don't get to see how they handle sitting behind their desk for eight hours, just as they don't get to see me watch an entire netflix series in one night.  

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but eventually you long for a home, a community, a routine, or you run out of cash for the month, maybe your vehicle is out of commission, or you have to get back to work on monday. 

and that's when the curse kicks in. your mind and heart are full of all these moments of grandeur; the sights, the sounds, the smells, the people. but no one place has them all.

but the one thing that travel will never fulfill for me, nor would i want it to, is that sense of community. a cradle, a place where people embrace your idiosyncrasies, where friends are there to hold you up even when you're falling hard. i think anyone who wanders can agree that the longing to experience new frontiers is something we'll never shake; nor should we. but when the curse rears its ugly head i've learned that turning to my community is the best thing for my soul and perhaps the only thing that gets me through it. 

New Mexico, Arizona & Utah

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people change your views, and the view.

my friend jake and i recently embarked on what would end up being a five thousand mile road trip through the starry nights and sun soaked country of the great american west. the initial leg had us gazing upon the glaring white sands of new mexico, the forever breathtaking grand canyon, and towering sandstone behemoths in utah. all places i've been to before, but i was seeing them with completely different eyes. 

through the first few days of the road trip i found myself just as excited to see the enjoyment on the face of a friend as i was to be surrounded by the captivating landscape. 

the more i travel, the more i talk to new folks and old friends, the more i experience; i've found that even from day to day my perspective on life, love, and happiness can change immensely depending on those who i surround myself with...if i let it.

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and that's the hardest part, abandoning old habits and thoughts, and embracing the new. i've been learning this past year that letting others impact you is the best way to grow.

i am not the same person i was yesterday, and tomorrow i will not be the person i was today. to be young is to continually change, adapt and learn, and that is something i hope i never lose. 

the biggest reminder of this for me was early on in the road trip. as i watched jake ride his motorcycle through monument valley, hands off the bar, arms spread wide in the wind, i thought of how this image would be burned into my memory forever and how it signified just how much has changed in my life.

he jumped off the bike and said "you've got to ride, this is one of the best days of my life." so i hopped on the motorcycle and rode in to the distance. traveling down the road, two wheels turning as fast as they could underneath me, passing by those iconic john wayne backdrops, i couldn't help but scream at the top of my lungs out of pure happiness and think of the quote "i am not done with the wild songs of youth."

Glacier National Park, Montana

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what a ride the past few weeks have been; a month full of transition and growth. 

sometimes it is easy to create a narrative in your head. positive, negative, true or false; it is all too simple and something that i often do, especially when the one i want to spend my time with is two thousand miles away. lost in my mind; as the saying goes. it's the struggle of relying on words rather than physical presence. creating stories that fly right in the face of what i know to be good and true.

spending the weekend next to someone who is chasing her dream reminded me of something my kid sister said a while back. a person who i respect and look up to for her ability to follow her heart, her instinct, and her will to create a story that she can gaze back on years from now without any regrets.

"and then there is the most dangerous risk of all, the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later." 

surrounded by the surreal beauty of glacier national park, i realized i had been forgetting the notion that we all have to seize every opportunity that comes our way in order to create a story we can be proud of. 

i had been inadvertently hindering the growth of someone who has a piece of my heart because i wanted my story to go another way. neglecting the fact that a better version of anyone i care about will inevitably make me a better man. 

i left montana overflowing with insight, happiness, new friends, and a feeling of thankfulness for the gracious and guiding hand of another. 

Big Bend National Park

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"i like being part of something that's bigger than me, than i. it's good for your soul to invest in something you can't control."

a line from a cheesy movie, but nonetheless a line that has stuck with me for the past ten years. 

i've never felt as minuscule in my life as i did on my recent trip to big bend and in a place as remote and vast as it is, it's almost impossible not to. small in the chisos. small on the desert floor. small under a night sky filled with more stars than i've ever laid eyes on. especially small atop one of the highest peaks in texas. 

you can't help but just sit and stare out at the land that lay before you when reaching the top of emory peak. there were a few other folks up there, we exchanged words and went back into our deep gazes. i looked around, and then back at the others, watching the power that these mountains had over everyone was an ethereal experience.

sixteen hours of driving, seventeen miles of hiking, all for less than twenty four hours in the park. a little crazy, but also very much needed, because sometimes it's good to feel small, feel like no matter how much you plan (or don't plan in my case) it's not really up to you how it turns out. allowing yourself to emotionally be at the mercy of your natural surroundings. 

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."

 

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. 

White Mountain National Forest, New Hampshire

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"holy shit, i can't believe this is where we grew up."  

as we roar north on highway ninety three night leaves us in my rearview mirror. the white mountains in the distance, a range so big it seems to stay the same size even as we get closer. what seemed like an all day trip as a kid in the back of my mom's mini-van turns out to be only an hours drive from my childhood home. 

the last time i was in these mountains was nine years ago for a high school field trip, i was a senior and there was one week left of class. the only thing on my mind was getting out of this podunk place, now i'm trying to jam as much into one morning as i can because i don't want to leave. 

it's cold up here. the last days of april and there is still snow on the side of the road and the mountain tops, the rivers and lakes are frigid. the freezing temperatures that we hated growing up actually turned out to be what shaped our character; tough, independent.

footloose, always on the go chasing that feeling of freedom, seeking to be anywhere but where we are. it's the reason we left new hampshire in the first place, the reason we moved to philadelphia, the reason we rode our bikes across the country, the reason we moved to austin and the reason we are constantly on the go. i'm glad i left, i believe getting away from the familiarity of your childhood is important, but making it back up north a little older, and maybe a little wiser, a feeling of gratitude washes over me; "this is where i grew up". 

"All the past we leave behind,

We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,

Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,

Pioneers! O pioneers!"  Walt Whitman 1865