Life is an adventure. Live it.

Adventure is a personal term.  For some, just leaving their town to the one next door might be classified as one.  I thought my wife and I were on a great adventure.  As we travel and speak to others, ours is only a shooting star in a galaxy of adventures.  At rest stops we speak to those like us who are taking a few weeks to explore our great country through their windshields and hiking boots.  We share camping tips, places to see and things to explore as they travel the direction from which we came and vice versa.

Ours is a “beat the clock” adventure, cramming exploration into a time frame that meets our hectic lives.  Most we speak to are doing the same.  “We have to be back on xxxx date” is as much of the story as the places they have seen.

Along our path, we have shared the road with long distance bicycle tourers.  They are moving across the country one down and up stroke at a time, enjoying the scenery as our forefathers did on horseback.  A slow trip will always allow you to see more and a open aired adventure means all of your senses work in harmony to give you a greater appreciation of your trip.  The cold air of a mountain pass, the rich earth of a farm, the sulfur and rock of eastern Montana.  The unwelcomed wind from your front unless it cools, and the glorious wind at your back to help move you forward.

As we were checking into our hotel for the night, there was a young woman on a bicycle who was given the news that her hotel was the other one at the other edge of the town, up the “big hill”.  I felt bad for her but she just smiled and said thank you. This morning at coffee was another woman enjoying some well earned calories before she began her day towards Seattle.  “Indiana and Illinois were tough, but eastern Iowa was beautiful.”  She had started her adventure in May at Bar Harbor, Maine and now in middle July we met in Harve Montana.  Tomorrow, she will be 70 miles further west, and we will be 360 miles north as we see sleep at the base of the Canadian Rockies.

Life is meant to be a rollercoaster, not a merry-go-round.  No matter how you get there, the adventure is riding along the hills and valleys.  Best to enjoy the ride.