Thoughts on the Road.

Saturday.

Got back from the seven day, six state, five state/national park, four million feet of snow, three major cities, two road trip buds, and one crazy adventure.... yesterday.

It was different than other road trips I've been on.
So here are my journal thoughts.

"On the road to Omaha. I can't believe that it is already Thursday... (insert ramble jargen)
.. This concept of a road trip is soo... interesting. It is funny, to go in a car, drive random places, stay with people I've never met, eat a mixture of SUPER good food or random cooler/on the road food.
Yet this concept of "road trip" we elevate so much.
We go somewhere, like a vacation, but road trips are different. They are more spontaneous and simple. They are long, tiring, and beautiful all at once.
But we go...
in hopes to find something...
peace, beauty, nature, answers to questions within us, people, etc.

It's almost a paradox...
I mean maybe you don't think so, but bare with me.

We "get away" while we "venture toward."

We leave behind the place we were.
Perhaps that's the busy movements of the day or college, homework, work work, weather, people, or conflict...
We leave that. Physically.
In some ways we don't just drive from it physically, but also emotionally.
At 80 miles per hour. (The speed limit in the west is pretty high... no worries po-lice.)

At the same time (the other side of the "paradox" or whatever you want to call it)
We drive toward something that will give our hearts some light,ease. or crazy venture.
We find ourselves in new towns, at old bars, and unfamiliar faces.
We climb mountains, walk across frozen lakes, play music in a plaza, drive obscene hours...

But we come to the same self.
The one rushing to class for taking too long to get out of bed (guilty),
or the one that walks the same few routes to class, home, class, people, meetings, etc.
Everyday.

Sorry getting long. Almost done.

But that same me, that same self. instead of sitting in Dubuque, IA, or Tinley Park, IL, is seeing the same world from a mountain top view.
And man, is it beautiful.

The same me is cutting my knees climbing to the top of a rocky (ha..) mountain.
The same me is trudging through thigh-deep snow in CO laughing at the choice of Spring Bring weather.

It sounds SO exciting. So insane. So dream-like.
And it was. and still is.
But it is also so ordinary.

So comforting to be able to stare at mountain peaks and the Black Hills, and see faces carved into a mountain... while being the same me.

Yeah, maybe I'm changing with the changes of life.
The struggles, the miles on the road, the pages of school reading, or the hundreds of papers of college.

But it's still the same me.
Just from a mountain top's view.
Or from a boring Nebraska terrain drive.

It's still me."

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Pictures:

Dubuque, IA - Minnesota - Rapid City, SD -  Mt Rushmore National Memorial - Black Hills/Custer Park, SD, - Wyoming - Loveland, CO - Estes Park, CO - Rocky Mountain National Park, CO - Boulder, CO - Broomfield, CO - Denver, CO - Omaha, NE - Dubuque, IA - Rockford, IL :) - TP, IL aka HOMELAND

we were a little excited

"Great faces, Great places"

Black Hills, 

Custer Park, SD

Rocky Mountains 10,000 ft. Tried to go higher. Nick almost died.

Yep, the Rocky Mountains are cool.

Gem Lake , RMNP. Elevation 10,000 ft

"Save the flowers." 

Broomfield, CO.

mk

"Us" & "Them"

I thoroughly enjoy this moment.  

Sometimes I don't like talking about memories in the past tense.  If I am still thinking of a memory then that moment hasn't ceased to impact me and still somehow, maybe, that moment lives on in some alternative way just because I am thinking of it.  Therefore, I enjoy this moment.

After sneaking this picture I planted myself on a bench next to them and ate my usual lunch which typically consists of a sandwich and a carrot or an apple.  I forget which exactly it was for this day.  I do remember the sun was out and it called out to me to let it in, so I unzipped my jacket and opened it wide so my torso could soak up it's heat before the rain began again.

There are many things that separated me from these men that day.  

Physical distance, their bench and mine.  Company, they had some and I had the birds.  

Age, language, gender, etc., but the last, I'll admit inferred, separation between me and these men 

is where we are "from".  

Our nationality separates us.  

They are Portuguese.  I am American.

We take pride in the land left inside the borders, sometimes natural and sometimes drawn by man, that create difference between peoples--that create "us" and "them".  

Why do we do this?

-T

& thank you to Michelle for convincing me to post this unformed thought.

pipe dreams

3/3/16 pre-P&J pipe smoke

Yesterday I was contemplating the idea of pipe dreams... after a nice pipe smoke.
I began to wonder what makes us desire to learn about places we will never walk

and people we will never meet?

What drives us to Pinterest pictures of crafts and DIY's that we will never do... or 

talk about things we actually don't know anything about?

Before I get ahead of myself and keep coming up with more and more questions...

I'm going to throw out a few potential answers...

We are attracted and fascinated with newness and difference.

ever have a rush when standing in a new place, listening to someone else's "crazy"

life stories, making your own stories, or listening to music SO loud it almost rushes 

through you. 

But we aren't just attracted to these things for the instant gratfication...

No, I think we desire something within us to MOVE.

Perhaps we desire to find a new little nugget within ourselves,

or maybe we just want to FEEL something? Could we crave unity to something

or someone? Something to hold onto?

hmm... 

maybe it all comes down to one thing..

Hope.

- for something deeper to satisfy that insecurity that we so severely seek to mask

- for happiness... I mean who doesn't want to be happy.

- for relief: from the daily stresses, from homework, from the internal junk, from 

injustice in the world, from (insert whatever you want).

Ahhh hope....

A hope that brings us right back to those pipe dreams.

Maybe pipe dreams are unrealistic. Yeah I'll probably never meet the refugee 

families in Algreia, Africa that I learned about last night... but I bet they never 

thought they would be mentioned... and would have motivated thought... in this 

American college kid's blog.

I'll probably never sit on a stage in front of thousands of people, play my 

guitar, and sing the thoughts of my heart.... but I could do that for a small 

group of freshman girls last Sunday.

Pipe dreams may be absurd.

But so are most things in life...

just think about it for a second.

I mean really.

Hope is absurd.

But life's better lived in the absurdity.

Yep. 

Questions? Comments? Concerns?

-M Kavy