On The Road...

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The open road inspires many to think, write, and sing songs about travel, the adventure of new and different places. It brings the hope of mile after mile meditation, problem solving, and deep inspiration in which the day-to-day gets further away and into the present moment of exit signs, new landscape, funny billboards, the sun in your eyes, passing art cars, and RVs. The road trip is the first to do on many well seasoned as well as not so seasoned travellers bucket lists, but how many take the step and embrace the open road?

Despite how much I have travelled the world, and understand the fundamental gift it gives to my life, I always struggle to leave the comfort of home because of that one last thing that has to be done. Yet the journey calls. The newness of a trail not yet walked, a climb not yet climbed, the smells, the feeling of being in a different country yet in your own country. That painful, uncomfortable feeling of walking out of your comfort zone is the very thing that shatters our perspective and sometimes reinforces often what and who most important. The whole thing is travel.

10 days ago we left home and immediately found ourselves trapped in Suburban California gridlock, desperately grasping at any open country road to get us through the unexplainable traffic jam as we made every effort to escape and begin our trip. Today we are holed up in a rain storm after spending days rock climbing across the West, visiting battlefields, and walking in the shoes of Wild Bill Hickok. 

“Why would you leave California and Yosemite” many have asked us. We smile make small talk, answering endless questions about our most famous travel companion- the Sprinter van. What I want to say is it is, we are on a quest to refresh our love of rock climbing, find new climbs, be in a different routine, eat new food, see new forests, new landscapes. “This is why” I simply say and point to something beautiful. 10 days later I encourage all to simply leave the day to day in any way, that important thing will most surely be there when you return, the process of disconnection reconnects us to what and who is most important

Last week the world lost Anthony Bourdain who inspired a world to travel more and find oneself in the most improbable aspect of a travel experience. He encouraged the fundamental and basic aspect of travel- to simply move. He wrote in his book No Reservations- “The journey changes you. It leaves a mark on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you, and hopefully leave something good behind”. 

May we all travel more, leave behind the day to day, embrace the inner wild in us all, use work as a means to fund the adventure that grows your soul. 

From a coffee shop in Western South Dakota, on borrowed internet…. Yosemite Jess R.N.