Re posting a blog from Clumsyelephant, good friends of mine who are on a cross country adventure. I don't think they'd mind me reposing it...
Back when cell phones didn’t exist and no one knew what the hell a “Carmel Macchiato” was (and for those of you that still don’t, this is a sweet, fluffy, coffee drink that Starbucks makes) the world seemed a little bigger than it does today. Now, getting in touch with someone 3,000 miles away is as easy as flipping a switch and, Presto!, instant sunlight in the dead of night or turning a faucet that immediately unleashes a seemingly unlimited supply of drinkable water. These are some of the things one begins to reevaluate while traveling across the country in not-so-luxurious accommodations. Not only does personal hygiene become difficult to maintain to keep up with mainstream society but you begin to see things a little different. Roads become life-giving arteries of highways and byways pumping you all over the nation with unlimited access. Things seem closer than they appear and conversations between strangers begin to determine where you should go and what is worth doing once you get there. You also begin to trust people more as well as your own intuition about what you want. And, oddly enough, the faster and farther you go, the slower life seems to happen.
Looking back, you can remember days when you couldn’t even get the simplest errands done. But now, in just one day, it’s possible to travel across two states, take a two-hour hike down and out of the Grand Canyon, find a free spot to set up camp, read for an hour and be asleep before 10 o’clock! And don’t be deceived by quantity because even roaming at such high speeds there remain endless moments in which the smallest happenings don’t slip by unnoticed. You really do begin to appreciate the little things. Like, have you ever noticed how impressive a game of hacky-sac can be, especially when all the players know what they’re doing? Or have you ever watched a dog in the throngs of pure ecstasy running helter-skelter after a frisky he has no hope of catching? Witnessed a herd of elk more than 30 strong weave themselves through a forest shrouded in early morning fog? Beautiful things are happening all around us and they aren’t happening that far away. Just outside of Ouray, CO you can wake up to big horned sheep grazing in your front lawn or wander off I-70 west of Denver into the Holy Cross Wilderness to discover what the “spring thaw” really means. Expect the unexpected and never be too surprised by what you’re going to get because there is no end to the many unusual things that can happen. Sitting beside a bed of hot coals left over from an early morning fire, you might not even notice the tiny creature, wired by some unimaginable energy, as it comes zigzagging up beside you like a loose bottle rocket. Suddenly, you are startled by sounds you cannot comprehend and you turn from the book you were engaged in to locate the disturbance within the force. And then, POP, up shoots what you think is a chipmunk but the royal blue color its head seems to be throws you off and you begin imagining that this might be some bizarre new hybrid. Excited about an opportunity to name your own genus, you watch in earnest as this curious little thing hops to and fro until it turns like a hurricane in your direction and recognition hits you. Yes, it is definitely a chipmunk and one that has secured a treasure beyond its reckoning and partially stuffed into its elastic cheeks – an empty single-serving coffee cream container complete with aluminum lid. Well, there goes your Scientific Discovery Award and any chance you had at a rare species breeding program, but that’s ok, you decide, maybe tomorrow you’ll discover a rare lizard that has three eyes and feathers growing out of its armpits. But fame and fortune do not hinder your kind heart into action as you get up to confront this deceived forager from possibly making the last worst decision of its life. And, as most confrontations go when really big unknown objects approach small, fragile hyper-active objects, all current directives dislodge themselves from conscious thought to be replaced instantaneously by desires of fleeing in terror. The little guy drops his already forgotten cache as his entire body seems to defy gravity as he ricochets into nonexistence. This is just one example from an impossibly long list of memories that we wish all of you could have experienced too but, unfortunately, this is when being there makes all the difference.
So yeah, you could say we have traveled quite a long way within a very short time but that fact has, by no means, affected how much we have experienced. The next time you think about how it’s just too far to get somewhere you’ve never been before or that it would be too confusing and difficult once you got there, remember a few things: 1) This really is a small world and it is getting smaller the more we advance in technology. Traveling in our modern age is peanuts compared to what it used to be like. A Grayhound bus ticket from point A to point B anywhere in the nation is just $99, and 2) Things are never as difficult as they seem. Anxiety and over-analyzation have not only become the leading causes of stress-related health problems in the world but they are causing these things completely unnecessarily. There are guides out there, maps to follow and step-by-step outlines for anything you could want to do. Get into Globalfreeloaders.com or Couchsurfers.com, buy an Atlas road map and reap the unbelievable benefits they have via their website, get online and DO some research, go to the library, contact your local governmental recreation agencies or call up a local travel agent – they are all there to help you. Just start asking questions – you’ll get answers, we promise.
Go to that town that you read about in the whatever and do aaaall the things it talked about. Oh, and if you happen to be in Denver, CO, check out the Buenos Aires Pizzeria on 22nd and Market. Not only will you get, guaranteed, amazing food but you just might have a great conversation too.
