The Foggy Adventure

Monkey and I had planned to meet at 9:30, but I was running a little late. There was something so comforting about cozy cuddling and staying in bed that I could have laid there, awake, for hours and hours and not shown a hint of discontent. Sigh... the cold autumn fog was calling, and I had to pick up the phone.

I got to Monkey's around 9:45, and we left for our destination, Mt. Falcon Park, a Jefferson County Open Space. The weather the whole way up was foggy and wet, but no matter. It was still a stellar trip.

We got to the park around 10:30 and began our hike into a creep and surreal wilderness. I say wilderness loosely: I've been here once before and it was very crowded, but this time, the sissies stayed home, and the occasional mountain biker or jogger would appear out of the fog and politely pass us.

Monkey and I checked out the ruins of the old house built up there, and then we walked up to the Eagle Eye viewing station, and the view of a sea of white was very humbling. One could only imagine what it would look like on a clear day. My guess is that you could see all the way to Denver.

We found our way through the fog back to the car, and left around noon for the Bucksnort Saloon. Monkey had spoken about this place before, and now it was time to check it out. We drove through Conifer and down to Shaffer's Crossing, turned left, and went down a very small road towards pine. Six and a half miles later, we happened accross this century year old wood building called the Bucksnort.

This Saloon was a sweet gem of old times. The floor boards were wood and had holes in them. The tables were covered with etched graffiti. The walls had dollar bills and foreign notes stapled to them, all personalized with someone's name or something offensive. The bar was tilted a good ten degrees. The service was charming. A sign hung on the wall that said "If you're in a hurry, go to McDonald's." Then the food came.

I had a burger that tasted as home-made as my dad's burgers. Monkey and I had potato skins with guac, bacon, ground beef, red chili... so good. Chips and beans and a cold beer on a cold day. We ate in a dining room with a fire place in the middle, providing the only heat in this relic of a place.

All in all, a great day, we got back in Denver mid-afternoon. I had a story to tell. Monkey had a full belly. It was a foggy adventure.

Fall

Yesterday, after work, I took a quick jaunt down to Morrison Park to explore this place I'd never been. The foliage was incredible. So close to the city, the park was empty, and when night came, the stars had shown so clearly. I read four or five chapters of Three Cups of Tea, and listened to Bear Creek trickle by, the same creek my mom and uncles would play in, just a few miles upstream in the little town of Idledale. With a heavy sigh and a mild smile, I think to myself, "I love the fall."

Economic Woes

It's somewhat disturbing what I'm finding at Walmart parking lots accross the city. You would expect to see RVs there with out-of-state license plates, people taking a break from their cross country treks. However, I've noticed five or six vehicles parked in certain lots that have been there continually. They're random cars with people in them, a Ford Explorer, a Chevy Blazer, a Kia... my guess is that these people aren't travellers, and they're not like me. My guess is that these people have been forced to move into their vehicles as a last ditched effort to not fall into homelessness. I suppose they have jobs but had bad loans and lost everything with the mortgage crisis.

I see this, and I see friends getting laid off. I even hear rumors of it where I work. Scary times. Very scary. I'm thankful I don't feel my stomach rumbling, but we can only hope things will improve.

REPLAY: The Big Step Up

This was from March 30 of this year, one day after I watched "Into the Wild" and found my motivation to do what I'm doing now.

One can debate on how to live his or her life for so long before something happens. Sometimes they acknowledge that the path they have been walking is the right path, they embrace it, move forward, learn, and keep going. Sometimes things happen where one is forced to take a different path, to journey around unforseen obstacles to reach a destination unknown. Sometimes, we choose a third option, to change direction in the middle of the journey, unhappy with the course of our original choices and yearning for a route that will lead us towards a new life or lifestyle.

I sit here, this snowy morning on the last Sunday in March, sit here on the floor in my bathroom with the shower running beside me, and I listen to my music, and I ponder my future. I have a trendy studio apartment in the heart of a trendy city. I don’t want it anymore. I don’t want to pay rent. I don’t want to be stuck in a life where I am tied down to things that aren’t going to inspire me in the future. I think it’s time for the big step up.

Ryan and I are talking about doing Longs Peak and the Grand Teton this summer. I’m going to be pushing myself harder than I ever thought possible. It’s time for the big step up.

The van is running well, and it has plenty of room for a bed and counter space. It’s time. It’s time to shed these chains of lonliness and laziness and ineptitude and take the big step, the one that pushes me to explore and push my body, my mind, and my spirit to new heights of reality. I need to learn. I need to seek. I need to explore. I need to stop trying to understand and just let go of what is tying me down here.

The lease runs out at the end of May. I have an idea of who will take care of miss Harry and give her the best life possible. I have places to shower, places to sleep, places to do laundry, but most importantly, I have places to go. I have places to explore, things to see that I have never seen before. I have a pre-destination of sorts to find what it is that being here in Denver has left me lacking.

I’m sure my best friends, the people that understand me most, understand this desire. I know people like my friend that moved here after moving around the country from places like Saint Louis and Oakland and travels to places like Jamaica, Florida, Hawaii, Mexico will understand. I know people like my friend who moved to a tiny town from Chicago and now is a certified guide in almost every discipline as well as a photographer, artist, and explorer will understand. I’m sure my friend that left the California city life for a life of climbing and exploring this human condition will understand.

The journey begins. The line is drawn here. The steps can only go forward do the destination unknown. It’s time to take the big step up.

Update on the Walmart Chronicles...

Since I have a space taken care of as far as parking is concerned, I thought I'd do some more exploring. Last night I "camped" at the Walmart at Stapleton, off I-70 and Quebec in eastern Denver. It was the most comfortable I've ever been at a Walmart. There were three other RVs in the parking lot, and two parked semi tractors. It's comforting to know that you're sharing space with others, some on a journey similar to my own, others catching a few weeks between shifts on the road. I feel like there's an unstated camaraderie that occurs between us.

REPLAY: The absense of control/The sweetness of solitude

I wrote this blog in March, and I feel it was a very crucial part of where I am now and how I got here. Looking back, it's intriguing to see my own history from slightly altered eyes. I think when we can do that, we gain a spectacular insight into who we are and who we want to be.

One shouldn’t know just how to percieve our own life. The reason I say "should never" is because I feel that having any sort of handle on our lives (where we are, where we are going, why we are going there), while these are all great ideas to have, they spoil the innocent joy of how we live our life.

Consider a good story you’ve heard, a good book, good movie, or a good song. Think back to the first time you heard it. Do you remember having an idea about what you thought it was going to be? Maybe you did, and you were pleasantly surprised. Maybe you did, and you were reassured in your choice you made to watch this movie. Maybe you knew nothing about it, and were stunned that this was out here, and you knew nothing about it.

Now think back to the second time you heard this story. The third time. If it’s a really good story, you enjoy it every time, but you still never quite gain the mistique of having heard it for the first time.

Can we apply this principle to our own lives? Is it safe to say that we can wander through our own lives, on the one hand making the decisions that make us happy, truly happy, setting goals that will help us find an even greater happiness and sense of self? I believe it is, and I think having everything pre-destined, while a noble ideal, leaves something to be desired in the essense of life.

Imagine going on a backpacking trip and seeing something you’ve never seen before in the solitude of the wilderness. Imagine the first time you were on an airplane or the first time you went to a different state or a different country. Imagine your first road trip, your first pet, your first child...

Imagine your hardest times. The times you’ve felt yourself tested, challenged, pushed beyond what you knew to be your own personal limits of existance. Think back to the times when you knew you couldn’t make it one more day without something giving way to all of the weight of the world that you were carrying on your shoulders.

I would hope that if you’re reading this, you’re still here. Somehow you made it through those difficult times. You’ve answered the calls of the challenges and met them, and chances are, you’re a different person now then you were.

You didn’t plan for the bad things to happen. They just do. And you cope with them, you grapple with them in the depths of your soul and show return to the every-day workings of your life as new and improved and better than you were, even if you are now stained glass instead of an open window.

I feel happiness should be the same way. I feel like happiness shouldn’t be planned as much as met with open arms in the midst of everything that goes wrong or awry in our lives. I beleive that when we map out the courses of our own paths through life, we lose some of the flavor of what it is to be overcome by happiness, only leaving room for the undeniable realities of grief and suffering.

I believe that it’s arrogant of us as humans to expect that everything is going to be okay and that bad things interrupt the flow of the good. I think that particular philosophy robs us of our abilities to learn from the difficult times, an prohibits us from learning even more from the good times.

Every aspect of our life has the potential to be unknown territory, the potential to be new and exciting or challenging. I don’t think that trying to funnel your life into a very narrow track of the typical "career, family, financial security, etc." allows you to branch out and experience the weird sensations that may lie just beyond the outside of the funnel.

I suppose with this rant, all I can do is encourage you not to be scared. Maybe I have no right to encourage anything. Maybe this is a blog about me being scared and afraid to branch out and seek my own truths about some questions that are bigger than me. However, I know for certain, that there arecertain parts of this universe that have to be negative, even if simply for the idea of balance. I feel obliged to tell the stories, to boast the good deads and gently utter the not-good.

However, I am not afraid to let go of my control. Do not be afraid to go boldly into the unknown, to trust the lack of control. Whatever happens, I have to believe that despite the losses and wickedness, there are lessons, too, to be learned from the random and overwhelming good that exists when you forfiet control.

Do not be afraid.

"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Lead climbing in Eldorado Canyon

I took a trip up to Ryan's on Sunday, and the result was little Ryan getting a new set of walkie talkies, me getting a bed built, and leading a climb in Eldorado Canyon. The latter was absolutely amazing. I felt like I had just entered into a new realm of giants, legendary and prolific climbers who lived lives like I'm striving to live for the sake of pushing themselves and their sport (or faith, as they're so often intertwined). It was spectacular. Just amazing.

I'm also very stoked for this opportunity to share so many of these experiences with so many of my friends and family. I'm getting back in touch with people I haven't seen in years. Good times had by all.

If you are interested in my travels, you'd probably like to see my friend Todd's adventures. His site is at pst-solutions.com. He is part of my inspiration for this project, and I owe him a debt of gratitude. My friend, climbing partner, and mentor, Ryan has a blog too. His awesome political blog is here. Todd, Dad, Jenny, and Ryan... you'd get a kick out of this stuff.