Category Archives: lifestyles

Cycling from Denver to Cheyenne

On the evening of July 3^rd, having just finished an exhausting six-day bike ride, including four days of cycling over one hundred miles, my body felt a bit relieved. I was actually ready to rest, ready to sit in front of a computer again! Clay, however, told me that I was going to wake up the next morning, realize I was not biking 100+ miles and not know what to do with myself.

The truth ended up being somewhere in the middle. I could not have pictured cycling at all the next day. This was literally how I felt.

The next day, I biked six miles, to and from Union Station from my home. And, I was perfectly fine with that.

However, I did eventually get antsy, despite two other, closer to home adventures. By Tuesday July 19^th, I posted this picture on Instagram, stating I was bored and wishing to get on my bike and explore again!

I ride the new RTD A-Line train, which connects downtown Denver with Denver International Airport, roughly three days a week for a gig I am currently working at the airport. At Central Park Station, one of six intermediate stops between downtown and the airport, this curious piece of potentially symbolic artwork sits atop a pillar.

Whenever I am on the train, and not trying to sleep for efficiency sake, I see it, and sincerely wonder what its purpose is. It seems to depict a person running to catch the next train, but headless. But why headless? Could it actually be a satire on the futility of the rat race? Could the artist who created the sculpture have had an alterior motive? Could he or she have created this sculpture with the secret hope that a few commuters each day would look at this sculpture and be prompted to ask; what am I doing and why am I doing it? Is this the life I wanted? Is this the natural state of human condition? Etc.?

I, however, had other plans, actually for the next Friday, and, they once again involved my 2012 Bianchi Cyclocross bicycle. The Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo was starting, and, I was going to ride my bike there!

The prior evening, I spent the night in Broomfield, after a softball game in Boulder. So, even before this next 100+ mile bike ride, I was already spending some significant time on my bike again. Knowing it was going to be hot, we got an early start. I actually wish we had gotten an earlier start.

BikeRoute_DenvertoCheyenne

A lot of people hear about my bike adventures and immediately sounds perplexed…

Is there a trail there?

Are there safe roads to bike on there?

There’s a lot of trucks on that road.

I would never ride my bike on those roads, you could get killed.

Etc.…

There is some risk, no denying it. When I was a child, one of my favorite bands, the Offspring, told me “Back up your rules. Back up your jive. I’m sick of not living just to stay alive.” More recently, Drake told me, “Everybody dies, but not everybody lives.” The truth is that there is the possibility of death doing nearly everything. People die on the slopes. People die rafting. But, people also die commuting to work. And, due to the health risk factors such as cardiovascular disease and such, sitting around watching television can be deadly!

That being said, I still considered risk when choosing a route, and am still willing to go a few extra miles to reduce my risk. I am just not willing to miss out on opportunities altogether out of fear.

The first part of the ride was pleasant, 95^th St. from Broomfield to Longmont is a road I knew had bicycle accommodations in the form of bike lanes or wide enough shoulders.

Longmont was a little bit tougher to navigate. Like many towns, their bike route network was designed primarily with travel within the town in mind. I stared at their bike map for a good half an hour to figure out the best route through town, but it ended up being a fun route.

I particularly enjoyed all the sculptures along the Saint Vrain Greenway!

One thing people miss when they drive along I-25 between Denver and Fort Collins is how many lakes there are in the area. On the interstate, there are none. On this route between Longmont and Fort Collins, through Berthoud and Loveland, we actually saw a lot of lakes.

I’d been pondering riding my bike from Denver to Cheyenne for years, even going as far as thinking about some of the details, such as what time of year to go and what route to take. As soon as I started thinking about routing, there was one segment I knew I was going to do, the combination of Taft Avenue and Shields St. through Loveland and Fort Collins, roughly half a mile west of highway 287. This straight shot through both towns has a bike lane the entire way, and made navigating through Loveland and Fort Collins was easier than navigating through Longmont.

This is where I started to feel the heat, which was right around 10:30 or 11:00. The temperature probably hit 90 sometime while we were in Fort Collins, making me regret having not left even earlier than we did (we departed at about quarter to 7 in the morning).

Also, the wind had a slight easterly component that day. This made the next two segments of the ride, first from Fort Collins to Wellington, where we stopped for lunch around noon, and then from Wellington to Nunn to reach U.S. highway 85, quite possibly the most challenging segments of the ride. I had this nagging feeling about entering Weld County. I do not know why, I just felt as if something bicycle unfriendly would happen to me in this county specifically. It was mainly just a premonition that bore out to be true, just not in the way I had anticipated.

Upon entering Weld County, the road we were following switched to newly paved blacktop, while the temperatures had climbed probably into the mid-90s. This lead to the closest thing to heat exhaustion we would experience during the ride.

By the time we reached Nunn, we were desperate to get out of the heat for a few minutes and get some water. Unfortunately, despite the fact that Nunn has a water tower that says “Watch Nunn grow”, I’m 100% sure that my calf muscles were growing faster than Nunn that day. The only place we could find to fill up our water bottles was the police station/town hall, and the only reason that option was available to us is because we were riding on a weekday (Friday).

We followed U.S. 85 for the last 30 miles of the ride. We ended up having to wait out a mid-afternoon thunderstorm near the Colorado-Wyoming border, at the only building within a 10-mile radius.

The storm was, however, neat, and I felt as if I were storm chasing on my bicycle (even though in real life that would have been a disaster).

We arrived in Cheyenne during rush hour, which was a little nerve racking as this is the only part of the ride where the shoulder on U.S highway 85 disappears, the last couple of miles before entering town.

After 109 miles of riding, we were there, Cheyenne Frontier Days, miraculously with enough energy left to party, parade, and rodeo!

A Moderate Hike at Reynolds Park

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I became interested in the weather at a young age, in part, because its impact on all of our lives is quite evident, almost every day. While the weather has an impact on nearly all aspects of our lives, it has the greatest impact on many of the activities we take part in for enjoyment and fulfillment. Activities such as hiking, playing on a friendly softball team, or having a family picnic in the park take place outdoors, and require a certain type of weather conditions, otherwise they are either not possible or not enjoyable. For many, including me, activities like these make up an essential part of life, an essential part of feeling “alive”, and an essential part of the human experience.

The weather also behaves in a sort-of predictable but sort-of not predictable manner. From sheer observation, we can recognize certain patterns in how the weather behaves. But, there are always some surprises, some deviations, something to keep us on our toes. If we always knew what exactly what weather conditions to expect, some aspects of life would be easier to plan, but the weather would be far less interesting.

In Colorado, each season presents a different set of considerations. In winter, we watch the snowpack grow, as well as when and where storms that make travel perilous hit. In spring, we watch as the snowpack melts and the runoff produces both rapids, and potential floods. In the summer, an issue for some in places close to Denver, Fort Collins, Pueblo, etc. is the heat. Mid-summer in particular can get quite hot in these locations, with most days reaching highs in excess of 90 degrees. Those looking to avoid this heat can do one of two things; wake up early or travel to a higher elevation.

I needed a calmer weekend. The summer had been active, and I still have to expend some energy in order to make a living. I am not extremely lucky or extremely wealthy. But, I am hardly one to sit inside all weekend in the middle of the summer.

Luckily, there are places one can get to from Denver in roughly an hour, sometimes less, that offer moderate intensity hikes at a high enough elevation to escape some of summer’s heat. One such place is Reynold’s Park, close to Conifer, where we were able to find a set of trails that offer a six-and-a-half-mile loop, with a vertical climb of just over 1000 feet. This hike is described as “moderate” in difficulty (as opposed to the hanging lake trail, with a similar vertical climb that is described as “strenuous”), and I would certainly agree with the assessment.

We took the loop in the counterclockwise direction, using the Raven’s Roost Trail to connect to the Eagle’s Nest Trail. I am actually glad we decided to take this loop in this direction.

We spent roughly an hour getting to the summit, and were fortunately enough to be shielded from the sun for part of the time, due to both sections of denser forest, and partial cloud cover that afternoon.

However, hiking the loop in this direction, we actually saved the best for last. After “summiting”, there was a section of the hike that was generally flat, and also densely packed with pine trees.

I guess we “descended” a little bit, meaning 150 feet or so into the valley of a small creek. When we popped out of that valley, we actually encountered the best view of all, as a clearer (from trees) section of the trail gave us clear views of some of the more interesting rock formations in the distance, including “cathedral rock” in the background of this photo.

As we descended, I thought to myself about how sometimes I do get disappointed when I do not “save the best for last”. What a letdown it is indeed when the best part of any hike happens within the first 45 minutes! In fact, every time I eat a meal there is always a battle going on in my head. I genuinely want to save the best for last, meaning, saving my favorite parts of the meal for the end. But, I also do not want to get full on the other stuff, and not have enough room for what I enjoy the most. This is what makes collecting the proper food at Indian Lunch Buffets a particularly daunting task. Anyone going to one should know their appetite. In fact, I suggest only going when there is a robust appetite, particularly for those with FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).

I’ve been trying to, of late, capture some better pictures of wildlife. While I haven’t necessarily been out in search of it recently, I have been trying to keep my eyes out for it, as opposed to just looking for waterfalls, unique rock formations, summits and the like as I typically do. The previous week, in Glenwood, I took this photograph of a chipmunk eating a little cracker (also posted in my previous entry).

At Reynolds Park, I got a chance to take this amazing close up photo of a butterfly in the parking lot after the hike.

In fact, this particular butterfly chose to land on a yellow colored post and sit there with its wings out, color coding herself in a manner that almost felt like it was purposeful, as if the butterfly somehow thought there was a possibility it would get famous from this photo; possibly ending up as the July photo in a 2017 Butterflies of Colorado calendar that people will see at the mall, or at Barnes and Noble.

Add to that the craziest sap discharge I have ever seen (okay, trees really aren’t wild but you get the picture), and, well I was pretty successful in trying to expand my photo-taking to new horizons.

In a divine sort of sense, sometimes I wonder if one of the reasons for changes in seasons, changes in weather patterns and such is to ensure that people are forced to go to different places, try different things, and have some kind of a variety in their lives and activities. It is easy to do the same thing over and over again, but it is also the least satisfying way to live. But, sometimes we need a push. Whether that be some sort of tough situation at work, an unwelcome new presence in our community, a terrible breakup or anything else, sometimes the silver lining in all of it is getting involved in something new, something more satisfying than what was before. While 95 degree temperatures and exhaustion are certainly less extreme than any of these situations, I know it helps push people towards variety and is giving at least some other people a chance to select a more moderate activity while taking time to appreciate nature, have a nice chat with friends, or, in my case, both.

Day 6: The Finale

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The last day of a long bike ride is always a strange day. Not that any of the previous five days were similar to the others, but this day was especially different. As is the case with many journeys, on the last day two things happen.

First, the specifics, the details such as route decisions, stop locations, timing, daily milage and the like all sort of gradually drift out of my mind. In its place come grander thoughts about the trip as a whole, the accomplishments, the disappointments, the lessons learned, and everything else that has been going through my mind.

The second thing that happens is reality starts to set in. For six days, July 5th, the day I would go back to work, and return to my “normal life”, may as well not have existed. It did not cross my mind once. It’s like my mind suddenly re-realized that this day was coming and that, in less than 24 hours I’d be on a plane heading home, and within 48 hours I’d be back to regular old work.

Another thing that made this day different than the first five days is that we had two additional riders join us. Riding with a group, and riding significantly less miles (67 today as opposed to over 100 most other days) made the ride take on a significantly different feel.

We entered Maine only about seven miles into the ride. I guess the previous day I pretty much rode across the entire state of New Hampshire. And, I got my sign! The one I had been hoping for the last two times (last two days) I crossed a state line.

The first part of the ride was nice, with a wide shoulder along state highway 113, following the Saco River. After riding on a few back roads, and a little bit of time on a trail that was half paved and half rocky, we found ourselves headed into the Portland area. The roads got significantly busier. In fact, these were the busiest roads I had ridden on for the entire trip. In some parts of the route, the shoulders all but disappeared, making these the kinds of roads I would not normally chose to ride on.

We rode through the surprisingly hilly downtown area of Portland, and after the final seven miles along state highway 77, arrived, in the early afternoon, at our final destination for the trip, Cape Elizabeth.

When we arrived at the Atlantic Coast, at Two Lights State Park, the day started to get emotional.

This was, by far, the biggest bike trip I had ever been on, and may still prove to be my life’s longest bicycle journey. But, for Clay, it was the culmination of a three year long effort to bike across the country. In 2014, he biked from Denver to Chicago. Last summer, from the Oregon Coast to Denver. This year, from Chicago to Maine. In three segments, he biked across the country. Many members of his family made the journey to Maine to see him triumphantly enter the Atlantic Ocean, having biked across the continent, and, as a side note, also basically proven that you do not have to be some incredibly rich or extremely lucky person to do so. He did it all while holding the same steady job!

Of course, it is easier to be emotional when exhausted, and this picture sums up exactly how I felt the first fifteen minutes after completing the ride. It was an odd combination of emotions that came over me. Most of them were good, and most importantly, I felt gratitude for being able to play a small part in this whole mission by joining Clay, for three days last year in Montana and Wyoming, and for six this year.

In the afternoon I got the meal I knew I had wanted upon completion of my ride; Lobster. I love lobster, but I live in Denver. When in Maine, well, really there was no other logical choice. In fact, when biking over the last hill of the day, despite being tired, I actually increased my speed and simply yelled, “this is the last hill in the way between me and lobster”!

We ate at a place called the Lobster Shack Restaurant, which, on that day, had a 40 minute wait for service, as it is a popular destination where patrons can eat while overlooking the Ocean!

It got even more emotional after that. That evening my main goal was to hang out with my friends, Clay and Liz, as much as possible. They are in fact, leaving for a year long adventure, to go out and see many other parts of the world! These adventures will be catalogued on their WordPress site. I knew I would likely not see them for a while.

I also could not help but think about all of the things this bike journey taught me, whether it be specifically from the experience, or things that ran through my mind over the course of the long hours I spent on my bike.

Over the course of the week, I saw kindness everywhere I went. Clay was raising money for charity. His family volunteered to help with the ride. Many of the people we met along the way were friendly. I realized that, despite the amount of physical pain I put myself through, I felt happy the entire time, significantly happier than under normal circumstances. Maybe the whole world would be happier if we all acted this way towards one another. The most I can do, going forward, is strive to be the kind of person that gives more than I take, and do my part.

Having experienced being on mile 27 of a 100+ mile day multiple times reminded me not to become too obsessed with the destination. This ride was about more than me laying on a beach in Maine and then eating lobster. It was all of the places I saw while traveling from Niagara Falls across Upstate New York, through the Adirondacks and then Northern New England. The rest of my life is not exactly where I hope it will end up at this point in time, but I can be much better off if I learn to obsess less over the destination and enjoy the journey, as I did this week.

The social media era has turned us all into avatars. By that I mean we all have some kind of image of ourselves that we present to others, based on who we think they want us to be. This week, I simply couldn’t continue to be my avatar. On trips like this, our concerns shift, from the concerns of urban 21st century American life, such as getting a promotion or getting likes on social media, to more basic concerns, for food, water, and shelter. I couldn’t put on a show for others, but I got by, and even thrived. The others on the trip seemed to enjoy having me around. So, I need to stop trying to be the person I think others want me to be.

Also, on the flight to Buffalo-Niagara, I was reading a book called The Happiness Project, about a woman who undertakes various initiatives aimed at improving life satisfaction and reports on the results. She introduced me to the concept of “fog happiness”. This is when the happiness related to an activity is not necessarily concentrated at the time of the activity itself, but spread out over a longer time period, both before and after the actual activitiy. Once I determined I was going to make this bike trip, for the first time in my life, I thought of myself as a legitimate bike tourist. For the first time, I felt the right to interject in a conversation about bike touring, and have legitimate opinions. Essentially, I had added something to my list of activities and enriched my life. We all should be more thoughtful when choosing activities, and, specifically avoid missing out on opportunities to create more of this “fog happiness”.

Obviously, anytime anyone completes an activity that requires a great amount of physical exertion, it is a reminder of how rewarding it can be to overcome fatigue. This lesson applies to other areas of life too, but a journey like this can often be the best reminder that some of the most challenging tasks are the ones with the greatest reward.

Personally speaking, the most important lesson I have taken from this ride relates to something I have struggled with for nearly my entire life. I seek significance in life. I want to do things that matter and feel like I matter to others. While with most of it my intensions are good, there is a dark side. At times, when I feel insignificant and powerless, I succumb to anger, depression and other negative emotions.

This week, while a significant ride, and a series of significant experiences and accomplishments for myself, I was not the center of it all. As previously mentioned, it was Clay’s ride. He rode longer, harder, and raised money for charity. Yet, I did not feel insignificant, as I have a tendency to feel in many day-to-day activities. I realized, and this is important, that: You Don’t Have to be the Center of Attention to Matter. I cannot stress this, to others but most importantly to myself, enough!

As I flew home, I drifted off to sleep, as Bon Jovi’s inspirational 2000 song Save The World played on my headphones. Flying through moderate turbulence, I felt the plane gently shift, both upwards and downwards. Running through my head, was an image of myself, from above, pedaling over hills, through the woods. Nothing else was happening, I was just pedaling.

A Mental Health Day

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I feel like I have over 100 things on my mind, all vying for space, all wearing me out. All the changes I see around me. The shocks, the craziness, the idiocy. The selfishness. My personal shortcomings, recent mistakes, how my life’s path ended up where it is and what to do about it. How do we find a balance between order and chaos? All the ways in which the people around me have let me down. All the ways I let the people around me down. How do I keep the benefits of having a smart phone (like being able to take pictures like this, after 28 miles of bicycling, which would have been tough carrying a heavier device) but avoid the pitfalls of mindless scrolling on weekdays when bored? What is my future, and how do I find my niche? What is the future of our society? The mindless violence followed by the sometimes equally idiotic responses to it. Globalization. Trump, Brexit, and the backlash to globalization. But, most of all, the disappointments when experiences do not match expectations.

Simply put, I needed a mental health day. I think we all do from time to time. A day where we get away from jobs, computers, social media, day-to-day responsibilities, pretty much everything that causes us stress, and do something that we enjoy. This, of course is something different for everybody, and it is not up to me to judge what any one person does for their mental health days. Well, unless of course it is something morally reprehensible like murder or theft.

I have a firm belief in, and also a unique take on, the connection between mind, body, and spirit. Over the course of my life, and in observing others, it is almost impossible not to observe the connection between the three. I remember winters in Chicago, and other times when lack of exercise would in turn weigh on my mind and spirit. Overall, improvements in one of the three realms often force improvements in the other two. Likewise, a deterioration in one of the three realms can negatively impact the other two, like the person who develops an eating disorder after a rough breakup.

So, I decided to make my mental health day also a physical health day, with a bike ride to Roxborough State Park. This is a ride I did two years ago. The basic gist is that it is 28 miles each way, goes by Chattfield Reservoir, and is a significant climb over the last five or six miles.

Wednesday’s ride was even more exhausting, as temperatures soared into the 90s and a Southerly wind developed making the last several miles of climbing in harder. Needless to say, I arrived at Roxborough exhausted. In fact, I had to sit inside for about 15 minutes to cool off when I got there.

Still, I decided to do some hiking. Knowing that my legs were exhausted, I decided to stick to moderate trails, but ones where I can still view the essence of the park and what makes it geologically unique.

It was after roughly 1.5 miles of hiking that the ideas suddenly started popping into my head. Ideas about things I could be doing with my life just entered my mind. I could do this, and present it to these people, and achieve fulfillment in this manner. They just kept pouring in, and, for some reason, felt so simplistic to me. Like, the only thing I need to do is just go out and do these things.

These are all things that frustrate the hell out of me day and night. Maybe it is because all of the physical exertion caused my mind to slow down enough for my brain to stop over-thinking things. Maybe it is the freedom from all of the distractions of daily life. It’s strange what I was contemplating. Whenever I am in front of a computer, at an office, in a cube, or in some kind of work-like setting all of the ideas I have seem almost impossible, like a daunting challenge that would take years to attempt and would likely not result in any meaningful success. In a way, there, I feel stuck. Here, not so much. Here, the same exact ideas seem quite possible.

It is here that the conspiracy theorist in me gets activated, so please bare with me, as I am the kind of person that just likes to entertain theories, even if I am not necessarily going to conclude that they are true. I wonder if cubicles, offices, sedentary days and the like are the way “the system” maintains itself. By “the system” I mean what I am observing around me. A whole generation of highly educated people going to work at jobs that are well beneath the skill level they develop through college, and increasingly, post-granulate, education. A whole generation of people submitting to rules, such as a strict 9-5 schedules and dress codes, that are no longer relevant for the kind of work that now predominates in a service sector economy. Is the reason people continue down this path the manner in which a whole day of sitting at a computer connected to the internet and all of its distractions make them feel?

People visit Roxborough State Park, and the geologically similar and more well-known Garden of the Gods, because they are unique. If this place looked like every other place on Earth, people would not make a specific point of coming here. So, maybe the key to being the kind of person people seek after, is to be unique. After all, the person you meet at the party that is exactly like everyone else, is the person you don’t remember. Sorry to be harsh. But, it’s when someone does something unique, or interesting, that you remember that person. Strangely, though, the world of school, and subsequently work, encourages conformity. It encourages people to follow the worn out path and do things the way they are always done. Maybe overcoming that conditioning and doing things our own way is the key to life, both in terms of success and happiness.

Life in a Northern Town

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It’s 8 AM on a Thursday morning in Reykjavik, Iceland’s Capitol and largest City. The sun has yet to come up, as this far north (64 degrees latitude) days are still quite short in the middle part of February. A quiet dawn persists over the town for nearly two hours, from 8 to about 10. A couple of local teenagers are hanging outside the grocery store. A group of tourists can be seen hanging outside one of the few restaurants that are open. Otherwise, the streets are quite empty, and the shops are mostly closed.

It’s odd because, in many most major cities, 8:00 is the peak of what is often referred to as “rush hour”. It is a time of people hurrying to and from train stations, and crowding highways trying to get to work. Even in the more touristy sections of cities, which this most certainly is, a lot of motion can still be found at this hour. At places like Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, and New York’s Time Square, which are utterly packed with tourists nearly every day, there are still plenty of people to be found at 8:00 on a weekday morning, mostly people headed into work. Here, that culture just does not seem to exist. Are all the office jobs elsewhere? Do people have office jobs? Do they work different hours? Or is the economy so heavy on tourism and fishing that there is just no point in being awake at an hour when all the tourists are likely still asleep and the sun is not out?

By noon, things start to pick up. On some days, the sun comes out and hits the harbor. At this latitude, when it hits the harbor, it hits it in a way that seems to highlight every single feature, from the boats in the harbor to the snowy mountains on the other side. From the perspective of someone that has always lived in the mid-latitudes, is feels neither like mid-day nor twilight. It is a different feeling altogether, and those who take a pause from their tourist itinerary and truly soak up the moment are reminded as to why it is worthwhile to visit different places in the first place; to see something, experience something, do something that cannot be done at home.

The day progresses. Tourists fill streets whose names are too intimidating to even try to pronounce, make their way into the bars, the restaurants, and the dozens of souvenir stores that feature a gigantic stuffed puffin in the window.

The weather inevitably changes- but, well it doesn’t.

There is this saying, “if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes, it will change.” Anyone that travels on a regular basis to places outside the tropics has most likely heard the phrase too many times to count. It is used here. At souvenir shops, mugs and shirts about Iceland sport the phrase. And, it is true to some extent. At any moment, it can turn from sunny to cloudy, or suddenly get windy. But, the temperature does not vary too much. On a four day trip to Iceland, the temperature, including daytime and nighttime, seemed to only vary between a few degrees below freezing and a few degrees above freezing.

Regardless of these changes, winter in Iceland is consistently cold and damp. For this reason, one of the most popular items made in all of Iceland are wool sweaters. While any visitor to Reykjavik can find these sweaters for sale all over town, the best deals on them are found at the Kolaportid Flea Market. Even at the Flea Market, though, they can be quite expensive, the equivalent of roughly $100. Money talks, and it is easy to figure out what a certain culture values by seeing what they are willing to spend money on. Coloradans are willing to spend thousands of dollars annually on ski equipment. Icelanders are willing to spend money on a warm wool sweater.

Reykjavik’s population is only just over 200,000 people. In fact, the population of all of Iceland is 330,000- significantly less than every borough of New York City, even Staten Island. Yet, it is a place that knows how to party! The nightlife is surprisingly good- probably better than many towns 2-3 times its size!

Making up for the lack of action at 9 in the morning, festivals, shows, and clubs give locals and tourists alike plenty to do in the nighttime hours. Iceland has been promoting tourism quite hard since the economic collapse of 2008, which hit Iceland particularly hard. Iceland Air has been particularly active in promoting tourism, by adding direct flights to more places in both Europe and North America, possibly with the goal of becoming a preferred airport for making connections while traveling between Europe and North America.

IcelandAir_Map

Looking at this map, it is hard not to imagine an executive with Iceland Air looking at at map, possibly even Risk the board game, and thinking of this grand plan to become a connecting point between the continents.

Well, it’s working. Recently, more people talk about Reykjavik being their favorite place to make flight connections, and more and more people seem to have visited Iceland. At this point, in Reykjavik, it is probably impossible for locals and tourists not to interact with one another in some way, especially at clubs and shows.

After hours of partying, all of a sudden it is 4 AM. Many clubs still have lines to get in!

At 5 AM, on the streets, music can still be heard coming from multiple directions. In fact, by this hour, it almost becomes easier to find a place to eat than it was at 9 AM on Thursday morning.

Sometime in the next few hours, the blurry memory of a fun filled night fades into the next morning, likely to be delayed through at least part of that lengthy twilight period. In my particular case, it faded into the realization that it is now noon, and Millions of New Yorkers (where the local time is 7 A.M.), despite the time difference, have woken up before me on the other side of the Atlantic!

I only spent four days in Iceland. I do not know the full extent of life in this nearly arctic city of Reykjavik. I only know what I experience in this short period of time, where I did the best I could to experience the local culture. Regardless, it does appear quite different from any place I have ever been.

Life On Monument Hill

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What does a dog lover do when they suddenly find themselves dogless? Well, they gladly accept the opportunity to “dog-sit” for their friends when they leave town.

Those that have lost a pet before know the situation. It is just too soon to get a new dog. But, I had become accustomed to spending time with dogs. It still feels sort of strange to come home and not see my dog waiting for me at the door. So, sometimes the best thing to do at this point, while I am missing just hanging out with dogs, is to go somewhere and spend several days with someone else’s dogs.

The first time I drove over what is referred to as the “Palmer Divide” it kind of caught me by surprise. It was my first time driving from Denver to Colorado Springs. As one who loves looking at maps, I knew there was a ridge between the two towns, and I knew it was referred to as the Palmer Divide. I was, however, caught by surprise by how high in elevation I got to just simply driving along Interstate 25. 7,352 feet is over 2,000 feet higher in elevation than Denver, and around the same elevation as Lookout Mountain, a place people can go and overlook the City. It’s way higher than I thought one could go without actually going into the mountains.

A most general simplification of Colorado’s geography slices the state into thirds. The eastern third is essentially part of a larger region that extends nearly 1000 miles east called the “Great Plains”. The central third is the Central Rockies, and the western third is often referred to as the “Western Slope”. In this extremely simplistic model, Monument would technically be part of the eastern third, but it’s high elevation makes it significantly different than most other places referred to as part of the Great Plains.

In some ways, this town has the same look and feel of any fairly recently built suburb. Although the town was incorporated in 1879, most of it’s population arrived since 1990. Unlike in urban areas, the roads wind, and subdivisions are all disconnected from one another.

I actually spent the later half of my childhood (7th-12th grade) in a suburb with a similar layout. My parents house (in which they still live) was in subdivision built during the 1980s. The area is somewhat more densely populated than this, but the experience was actually quite similar. Most suburban subdivisions are across the street from some sort of strip-mall. At my parents house, we happened to be only four houses in from the main road, making the shops across the street quite close.

Over the course of that six year period, I had actually become quite accustomed to an experience that would be considered strange to most people. Given how close all those shops were to home (the grocery store we always went to was less than a quarter of a mile from home), it seemed strange to me not to just walk there, as opposed to driving. However, as anyone who has spent a significant amount of time in suburban areas built in the later part of the 20th Century would attest to, these areas are quite car-centric. For a lot of people who live in these areas, it doesn’t even cross their minds to walk somewhere. Therefore, I would quite commonly be the only person walking anywhere in a place not built with pedestrians in mind. This is an experience I had become accustomed to, but would likely seem strange to most people.

The apartment complex I stayed at in Monument Valley is across the street from a fairly major shopping center, which includes Wal-Mart, the Home Depot, and several restaurants. Theoretically, one could live in a place like that, and, other than whatever commute they have to work, be able to satisfy all the basic needs of life without having to drive anywhere.

As the weekend progressed, I walked back and forth across the street to shops and restaurants, the same way I did all those years ago. I kept thinking to myself about what life is like for people in a place like this. Obviously, most people don’t walk, even if they are just going across the street, but if I lived here, I most certainly would. But, if I lived here, I wonder if I would get bored. Being so close to the mountains (closer than Denver), there were some interesting cloud formations that I would see on a regular basis. But, as much as I love the weather, and was blown away by this long flat cloud in front of the mountain range, that would not entertain me for an entire day.

For nearly all of my life I have been judging certain areas, where there aren’t any interesting bars, restaurants, or other fun places, as boring. In fact, one of the strangest things about the Denver, is that there are sections, within the city limits, that do not have anything within walking distance. When I saw these neighborhoods, I decided I would not want to live there.

But, I really thought long and hard about life in a town like this. Would there theoretically be a way to make it work? I mean, I know that I would miss a lot of urban entities, and taking Ubers, busses, trains, etc. to get around. But, obviously a significant subset of the population does just fine in places like this. They just do something else. Maybe they go out to the park instead of going to a fancy brunch, or they have house parties instead of going to the bars. I would definitely still prefer to live in areas with interesting entities around me, but I maybe I should not be as reliant on places within the neighborhood for entertainment. After all, it does get expensive. If experiencing life in a place like this for a few days can teach me anything, it is that sometimes we need to be creative and figure out something amazing to do with our time on our own, using limited resource.

More Than Just a New Job

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The way the world is designed, heck, the way life itself is designed, it is impossible to go through a full lifetime without some major life changes and adjustments. Regardless of what lifestyle choices we make, we all undergo periodic transformations. Every one of us transforms from being an infant, to a child, to an adolescent, and to an adult. Afterwards, most of us will transform to becoming parents ourselves.

Life in the 21st Century requires more personal transformations than ever! Today nearly all of us go to college. A life transformation occurs both at the start and the completion of our college education. Additionally, the world is changing at an ever faster pace. Gone are the days when one would be able to learn a couple of key skills to use over the course of a 40 year career with the same company. Recent writing has even suggested that the most effective people reinvent themselves every 3-5 years. Coincidentally, the current average time that a person stays at a job is 4.6 years.

It is hard for me to pinpoint the exact moment in which I realized that I needed to undergo a significant re-invention. We often have this notion that ideas just pop into people’s heads out of nowhere. We have all seen shows where a light bulb suddenly pops upon the screen, indicating that someone has come to a sudden realization. This is not actually the case. In reality, ideas are often developed over time, with contributions from multiple people.

For me, it took two separate disappointing experiences in traditionally-structured jobs, a whole bunch of reading, extensive self-reflection, and discussions with plenty of individuals, including some who had undergone a similar transformation themselves.

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Life after college started off really good for me, all things considered. In Chicago, I had a steady job with a large corporation, where I met a lot of people who were also in their 20s, and had plenty of chances to enjoy big city life.

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It was the life I had imagined for myself at the time, but inevitably, things had to change.

The hardest thing I learned about life working for a large corporation is that a person can put in several good years, and have their work output feel quite well received by those around them, and still have decisions made on their behalf that are not necessarily in their best interest. Essentially, what I learned, which sounds elementary to me now, is that corporations do not care about people, and that in large structured environments, people are often far removed from people making decisions. It is common for someone to have decisions being made regarding their career path by people who do not know them much beyond what would be included in a two page resume.

During this time, I did explore a bit about non-traditional work environments, reading books such as The Art of Non-Conformity. But, I guess I was not ready for it, and so I returned to another traditional structured work environment.

I have not discussed this much in this blog. As a matter of fact, I kind of feel like a phony even admitting that while I have been writing this travel blog, documenting the trips I was taking, I spent a good number of days sitting at a desk in an office like this. Most people would not consider that the lifestyle of a “travel writer”.

I am starting to believe that every life transformation has both externally driven and internally driven components. What I mean by this is that, the same way rehab programs only work for people who first “admit they have a problem”, someone can only re-invent themselves, when they come to some form of realization that it needs to happen. However, I do not see situations where someone decides to make major life changes in response to nothing.

Usually, something happens to make one come to the realization that what they are currently doing is not working. Sometimes, it’s just bad luck, like bad market conditions for a particular industry.

Other times, it is something more positive, like being introduced to something new, a new idea, a new way of thinking, or a new opportunity.

For me, it unfortunately took a combination of experiences. At work, I once again felt that feeling of alienation, as once again decisions were made without my best interests in mind. It actually lead to a work environment that I found not only non-fulfilling, but also unpleasant.

Through the afore mentioned self-reflection, reading and discussions I had over the course of 2015, I came to several key realizations that go beyond the standard “I need a new job”. I realized that….

I had originally decided to apply for the types of work I had applied for because I had not really considered the alternatives.
It is not just the few bold people that work in environments other than office jobs with 9-5-ish hours.
With automation, globalization, and other forces, we are going to have to be more creative, self-directed, and individually motivated in order to maintain our current standard of living.
In order to get what I want out of life I am going to make some major adjustments myself.

For the last few weeks, I have been transitioning to a new employment situation, as a “consultant”. This environment is described to me as being halfway between being in a “traditional” structured office environment and being a freelancer. It requires me to work differently, think differently, and act differently. As is the case for many that are self-employed, there are some financial risks, but in exchange, there is increased flexibility and autonomy. With all these changes, who knows what adventures await!

I am actually quite excited about making these adjustments.

In my new world, there are no more cubicles, and I do not have a permanent office. This means that both meeting people and finding work will require significantly more individual initiative. Without having the same people around me every day, I am going to have to determine for myself which people I should be associating with, both in a personal and professional sense.

In my new world, there is significantly less structure. Nobody is there to tell me what time I should be doing what. In order to ensure productivity, I will have to create this structure myself, determining each day, week, and month what I need to get done and when I will be doing it.

And, most importantly, my new world requires me to fully embrace thinking of life as a “slalom”. Just as those that compete in slalom skiing must think several turns ahead of time, I must be prepared to think several moves ahead of time to ensure that I am setting myself up for a successful, and more importantly, enjoyable life both short and long term.

This requires a new me, and hopefully a better me. It requires me to be more confident, both in what I believe in, as well as what decisions I make and what I believe myself capable of. It requires me to take initiative without being paralyzed by the fear of failure that causes so many people to not pursue their ideas and passions. But, most importantly, I believe it requires me to not lose sight of who I am and what makes me a unique individual. Of late, I have been active in encouraging others as they pursue their individual pursuits. What I am hoping for, both for myself, and for everybody around me, is that we do not transform ourselves into a completely different person, but that we are able to become what I refer to as the best version of yourself.

A Tribute to a Companion

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October has been a crazy emotional month. Most of what I write about in this blog pertains to specific experiences. This past summer was certainly filled with activities of all kinds, trips to various interesting places, and new experiences. It is what I love doing. I started writing this travel blog to catalog my experiences. However, this month, I feels like all I have been writing about is heavy emotional types stuff.

For an experience is not just simply the place one visits. It is also about what one does at that specific place. It is often about the company one keeps, and who that experience is shared with. It is the thoughts and feelings we all experience when in various places. It is the revelations we come to, about life, about the people around us, and about ourselves. It is also the connections we make, or the connections we deepen on these trips. I often have some of the deepest conversations with others on lengthy road trips.

On the evening of Tuesday, October 27th, 2015, last night at the time of writing, I unexpectedly had to say goodbye to not only a travel companion, but also a companion in life- my dog Juno.

It is nearly impossible to fully describe how it feels to have lost a companion an wonderful as Juno. Not only did we share a ton of adventures together, but we also shared a lot of aspects of day-to-day life. As one can see by looking through the pictures on this blog, Juno would accompany me on quite a few adventures, from hiking, to camping, and so much more. As a cold weather dog (Siberian Husky), she particularly loved the mountains. In fact, I remember the look on her face when we departed from one of our weekend camping trips in the mountains. She knew we were headed back to Denver, and the look on her face said, clearly, “Why don’t we live here (in the mountains) instead of there”.

But not only was she around through all of the fun times and adventures, she was also present for my day-to-day life, the ups and the downs, and well, the part of our lives that is not always as glamorous. One thing we as human beings in the 21st Century tend to do, when we invite others into our lives, is only invite them for the good part, the fun part, the adventurous part. This comes, obviously, out of the desire to be liked. So, we present the portion of ourselves that we feel is most likely to be desired by others. But, it is when those around us see the part of us that is not so great, the part of us that deals with discomfort, pain, disappointment, and heartbreak, that we build deeper connections. Juno saw me in all parts of life; the night, as well as the morning after, when the consequences often come.

It is really impossible to replace a companion like this. A friend, whether it be a two-legged friend, or a four-legged one, simply cannot be replaced. There is no substitute for the experiences we have had together. There is no substitute for the way we interacted with one another. And there is no substitute for the joy we had brought into each other’s lives. Experiences cannot be replicated by design. One can only hope to find something similar, or to happily move on to a new and positive experience when one is done.

I will miss the way Juno greets people in the neighborhood, almost invariantly getting a positive response from anyone we would walk by.

I will miss the way Juno problem solves her way through the rocky sections of hiking trails.

I will miss the way Juno would always give me a facial expression that made me feel confident in knowing that she was happy to see me.

I will miss the way Juno often sits on the ground in a manner that makes her look like a three-legged-dog.

I will miss the way Juno would alternate between sticking her head in front of the head rest on the drivers and passenger seat sides on car rides.

I will even miss the way Juno found sneaky ways to pull random chicken wing bones off the ground on walks, particularly on Sundays, without me noticing.

Most of all, I will just miss the happiness she would always bring. I guess there is no better way to describe how I feel right now that simply with the word sad. Sure, there are thousands of other ways to complexify the emotion.

I know I took care of Juno responsibly, but was I responsible enough? Juno started acting strangely roughly a couple of weeks ago. The main thing I noticed was that she was kind of lethargic, moving slower than normal, and drinking a lot of water. This felt to me like someone who has a bad cold, something which people can usually recover from with rest and plenty of fluids. It was not until Monday, when Juno did not appear to be recovering, that I brought her into the Vet. Still, I was not prepared to lose Juno this quickly. I was just perplexed by why she had not been recovering and still seemed to be acting strangely. We had brought Juno home from an animal shelter in 2011, four years ago. At the time, the shelter told us she was five years old. Some of the vets we had brought her to had subsequently estimated her age to be less than five. So, at most she had been nine years old. And, although she had EPI, a disease that renders a dog’s pancreas as useless (we had to mix her food with enzymes to get her to absorb it properly), I still seriously had expected to have her for at least several more years.

I took Juno on adventures, but did I take her on enough of them? Did I really give her the life she deserved? A look through this travel blog, which covers much of what I had done for a large portion of the time I had her, shows many adventures she was a part of, but also many adventures in which she was not included. Additionally, as someone who has had to work standard M-F 9-5 types jobs for much of life, she has spent a good number of weekdays home alone for more than eight hours. I know this is typical in today’s society, but does that make it right? I wonder how she felt all those days.

Mostly, I just hope I gave Juno the best life I could have given her. Because, as many animal lovers will attest to, a dog is not just a pet, it is part of the family. I remember how strange it would feel to come home to an apartment without a dog anytime I would be out of town for the weekend and have brought Juno somewhere else. The coming weeks will not only feel strange, but sad. There are some sad events where one reach deep down inside and find a way to take comfort. Many people can find a way to come to view a lost job as “for the best”, or see something like the not-quite world series bound Chicago Cubs as still having had a “great season” that “exceeded expectations”. But, when it comes to something like this, I dig down, deep inside my heart, and all I see is a hole, for I know that I had a great pet and a great companion, she is gone, and there is nothing I can do about it.

Ideas I Am Not Giving Up On

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Ideas are powerful! They can outlive the people, and even the places and things originally associated with them. Rome was all but destroyed in the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries. The people that created Rome, and the representative republic which governed Rome for the first five centuries were long gone. Yet, these ideas made a resurgence in the 18th Century, when the founders of a new country called the United States of America created a representative republic in a new land far away. The writings of ancient Roman authors, from those that formed the Republic after overthrowing a King of their own, to those that later tried to defend the Republican form of government from power hungry politicians, are said to have provided inspiration for the country’s founders.

For all intensive purposes, Rome was a place that no longer existed. Yet, ideas that originated from this place had found their way to a land that Romans had no idea even existed, at a time over two thousand years later! Over the next Century, these ideas would proliferate, inspiring additional revolutions all over the world, and even counter-revolutions. Roughly a century later, that idea would actually find its way back to the very place it originated, when Rome, now part of a nation called Italy, would adapt a roughly similar form of Government.

It is for this reason people are often more threatened by ideas than they are by specific people. Today, when those of us look at someone like Osama Bin Laden, or any specific leader of ISIS, what we are looking at, and what we are threatened by goes way beyond a specific individual. Even Bin Laden, long the subject of ire for many, needed the aid or cooperation of many other individuals to successfully carry out the attacks he carried out. Simply put, for many of us in the United States, he became the face of an idea, and one that we largely found repulsive.

We all have ideas. Even those of us that do not consider ourselves creative, or inventive people, have ideas. It doesn’t have to be world changing like the invention of the computer. Maybe it is something as simple as the idea that it would be nice to have a train line or an additional road built to alleviate traffic. Or maybe it is the idea that animals should not be mistreated by their owners. Either way, as long as one understands the idea, why they feel the way they do about it, and has enthusiasm for it, the idea is worth pursuing and standing up for.

I have a ton of ideas, and many do relate to how I feel the world should work. Lately I have been hearing all the time that some people see the world as it, while others see the world as it could be. I would consider myself firmly in the later group. I commonly see some aspects of our society, and how it works, and think to myself (and sometimes say it to people around me) “we can do better”. After discussion, I will often hear from others what has come to be my least favorite sentence of all time: “It is what it is”. This is because, in many cases, I really see no reason it has to be that way. Some people see this as the mark of someone who refuses to mature beyond a state of artificially prolonged adolescence. However, I see it as refusing to give up on me, and what makes me unique.

I see an entire generation of people pursuing college education, and, more and more, post-graduate degrees, in interesting intellectually stimulating subjects just to join the workforce and be asked to perform menial, repetitive job duties and have their ideas rejected due to their low standing on the corporate totem poll. We can do better to nurture and develop these promising young minds.

I see people not being true to themselves, in their actions, their behaviors, and attitudes. We encourage one another to conform, to act like everyone else, and to live life according to a script written by and for a culture that no longer exists because many fear change and the potential loss of status associated with it. But each person’s individual and unique way of doing things is part of what makes this world an interesting place. We can be better about encouraging people to be true to themselves, and not being threatened by their unique way of life.

I see countless missed opportunities in the lives of countless people based on adherence to rigid rules and policies that do not make sense. This is where fear takes it’s greatest toll on society. Many take comfort in rules and structure. However, why should someone who has completed their work, and has no other obligations (meetings and such) be sitting in their cubicle at 2:30 on a warm, sunny afternoon? And, why should one person making a mistake with something lead to a law or ordinance preventing everyone from taking part in this activity? We can stop taking comfort in rules, and start taking advantage of all the beautiful opportunities this world provides us.

And, I see people who have failed to make deep and meaningful connections with other human beings. Many go through their lives feeling like they do not have the support system needed to get through the rough patches of their lives. This is because we live in a society that does not place a high value on building social capital. Many of us spend our days in work and social settings where we do not feel comfortable expressing our emotions and showing one another who we really are. You cannot develop a meaningful friendship with someone that does not even know who you really are. As is the case with the other ideas listed, we can do better on this one as well.

Periodically, I am pressured to give up on these ideas. I admit nobody has ever specifically told me something like “don’t be who you are”. But, I definitely feel it. “You need to act more professionally”. “Fireball: What are you? Still 22.” “Grow up, be a man.” “You can’t just….” These types of statements, and many more, come based on the idea that there are certain expectations of me that I do not believe need to exist.

There are even some that have given me sincere advice that I need to stop worrying about these overly philosophical issues. After all, there are actual reasons for all of the things that frustrate me, and those that defend the current way we do things in this world probably have some valid points. But, while sometimes I do experience frustration and rejection by acting the way I do, the alternative sounds way more depressing to me in the long run. The alternative, to me, is giving up on who I am.

I would rather encourage people to pursue their intellectual ideas, even if occasionally their bosses come down on me.

I would rather continue to show people who I really am, and continue to enjoy the activities that bring me happiness, even if I am periodically given negative feedback by judgmental people.

I would rather take advantage of all of the great things this world has to offer, all of the wonderful places to visit, interesting ideas to pursue, and experiences to enjoy, even if that periodically earns me “reprimand”.

And, I would rather occasionally get burned by someone who uses information about me for their own selfish ambitions than cease showing people who I truly am.

Essentially, I would rather get rejected as myself than be accepted by pretending to be somebody else.

We are all people of value, in our own unique way. And, for any one of us, if we go out there in this world, and find a way to be the best version of ourselves, but still ourselves, we will naturally find people who like it, and people who see us as valuable individuals. We all long for acceptance, but in order to be accepted in a true meaningful way, we need to overcome the fear of rejection, and stand up for our ideas.

Disconnect and Reconnect

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2015 is quite a strange time. I wholeheartedly believe that one day we will look back upon this particular era of human history as one of major transition; for better or for worse. It was around twenty years ago that households across America were suddenly all gaining access to the internet. It was around ten years ago that social media started ramping up the roles it played in each of our lives, and a few years later, many people across the country started getting “smart phones” with data plans that provide us with nearly constant access to the internet. Living in Colorado, it is easy for me to travel to places without an internet connection (although I am sure there are people working on that right now). However, I imagine that many people in large metro areas, particularly on the East Coast, may go years without traveling to a place that is truly “disconnected”.

It takes a while for society to really process changes as major as this one. For the first few years, following the proliferation of social media and smart phones across the country, it genuinely felt as if I was the only person who was concerned about the potential downsides of this sudden cultural transformation. It wasn’t until a few years later that people started sounding the alarm about topics such as cyberbullying, echo chambers, loss of depth in our conversations, the impact it could have on our friendships, phoniness, and the constant exposure to new information leading to a culture of constant distraction. Having moved from Chicago to Colorado in 2012, I cannot pinpoint the exact time when we as a society actually started addressing this issue. I recognize that I moved from a major city to a place that naturally attracts people that would share my views on this subject.

I am a firm believer is a concept known as “Natural Law“. This philosophy states that there are certain universal truths that apply regardless of setting. By contrast, Moral Relativists believe that what is right and wrong in always relative to the time, place, and circumstance. Over the past couple of years, much has been written, in books, on the internet, about the importance of taking time to “disconnect”. Most of these article remind us of the need to, from time to time, turn off our televisions, computers, smart phones, etc. and spend some time with ourselves. But, this was true even before we had smart phones and social media. Long before social media, Bill Gates would periodically go into complete seclusion for a week at a time. He would refer to these excursions as “think week”s, and use them to develop key ideas.

When I arrived at Turquoise Lake, a mere five miles outside of Leadville, Colorado, what I saw was a perfect place to put this advice into practice. Simply put, it is quiet, but also very scenic. I came to the lake not knowing what to expect. I knew it was a Tuesday, and in the middle of October, and therefore would not likely be crowded. But, with the exception of a storm headed into the area by later in the afternoon, the place was quite tranquil. It is the kind of place people envision when they think about a quiet country mountain getaway.

I decided I would take five minutes, and force myself to do nothing- absolutely nothing! I would not pick up a rock and start throwing it. I would not walk down to the lake. And I certainly would not even touch my iPhone, which was in my pocket at the time. For five whole minutes, all I did was stare at the Lake, the trees, and the mountains in the backdrop.

At the end of these five minutes, I picked up a rock, and wrote the following message. Along with this overarching theme, a series of other ideas flew into my head. For, in life, we all do things that makes us feel alive. Unfortunately, we also have times in our lives when we simply don’t feel alive. Choosing to live means something different for every person. We all have our own individual passions and priorities. But, one thing we all must do, in order to be true to ourselves, is overcome the fear of leaving our comfort zones.

As I watched the storm roll in, I realized that, for many, the first step towards overcoming this fear, and expanding our comfort zones, is exactly what I just did. In our current culture, with TVs in every house, iPhones with music and games, and distractions everywhere, being completely still, completely silent, and without some external stimulation to occupy our minds is well outside the comfort zone for most people.

I have a friend from High School who has A.D.D. And, I do not mean it in that manner in which we over-diagnose A.D.D. in our modern society. He was diagnosed long before they started diagnosing everyone, and seriously has nearly no attention span without medication. One day, we thought it would be interesting to see how long he could do nothing for- absolutely nothing. We all just sat in chairs doing nothing. After a minute or so, we could obviously tell that this was a painful experience for him.

However, for those of us without this issue, when was the last time we actually did spend a whole minute (or five) doing absolutely nothing? How often do we, while waiting in line, or waiting for a train, or waiting for our friend to show up at a bar, instinctively take out our smart phones, and distract ourselves with a game, an unnecessary email check, or social media? Have we all gotten to the point where we cannot spend a minute inside our own brains?

For what I realized is that when we “disconnect”, we are not just disconnecting from the internet, and other distractions. We are actually reconnecting- reconnecting with ourselves. For most of our days, in 2015, for better or worse, we are fixated on an external stimulant. Our minds dwell upon something someone else has chosen for us to think about. It is only when we shut those outside distractions out that our minds are free to wander. It is then that we form our own thoughts, on our own terms. This is something I fear we may have lost in our modern culture. At Turquoise Lake, I found it.

The Action Story

Learning about the world and about ourselves through travel and experiences

Category Archives: lifestyles

Cycling from Denver to Cheyenne

A Moderate Hike at Reynolds Park

Day 6: The Finale

A Mental Health Day

Life in a Northern Town

Life On Monument Hill

More Than Just a New Job

A Tribute to a Companion

Disconnect and Reconnect