"Bill's Excellent Adventure!"

10/01/08 – Last Entry

I’ve had a wonderful time on my travels. I’ve seen some amazing country and met some adventuresome souls along the way. I’ve chatted with people from at least 8 countries, visited my old high school and Marine Corps friends, traveled to my old homesteads and took some time to reflect on the years. I’ve found myself on top of mountains I thought years ago I’d never seen in person. I’ve sat on the edge of Jackson Lake in Jackson Hole Wyoming watching a gorgeous sunset settle behind the Grand Tetons. I’ve reconnected ever so briefly with my new found friends in T or C, NM.

I’ve found a desert setting, or should I say it found me, that touched my soul. It’s a place in southeast Utah called Valley of the Gods and a location next door that has a gooseneck 1500 foot deep canyon with the San Juan River endlessly carving magnificent sights in the desert floor. I’ve sat in the stillness and quietness of the day listening and watching huge hawks flap their wings…what a sound to hear!

I still have a lot to experience on my Adventure, but for the foreseeable future it’s time to “suspend” my travels for a few years. My health is still good but I no longer wish to see these places by myself. I also want to do it in more comfort and for shorter blocks of time. You see, this second round of travel felt uncomfortable to me and my bank account started shouting at me to stop punishing it. While sitting in my favorite desert location for three weeks, I took the time to reflect. I decided to build my network marketing business once and for all. It can and will provide me with the income and flexibility to see the balance of the western states missed to date. My dream is to now travel four months out of the year. I also want to stay close to my sons and work on strengthening my relationships with them. They have always been the center of my life and I feel as if I have been emotionally unavailable to them. That will change.

As Steinbeck in his “Travels with Charlie” wrote, his trip started six months before it began and ended 6 weeks before he arrived back home. I can’t speak for anyone else, but that certainly seems to be my experience as well…it’s time to come home…my trip has ended while I have been on the road.

It’s not a sad ending…just enough for now. I’ll always have the memories of sitting by the Gooseneck Canyons and watching the sunrise, eagerly anticipating that orange glow grow across the entire horizon seeing only the shadows of the distant buttes and mountains and sense a certain oneness and wonder with my Creator and that sense of peace that knowing everything is happening in my life for a reason. Did I travel for a geographic cure? Maybe I did, and for me I found what I was looking for…it was inside me all the time waiting for me to insert the key of willingness to unlock more of my mystery. Only time will tell if I took these newly discovered insights and have transformed my life experience into a more meaningful life among the living. In one very real sense I feel as if I have conquered fear with the help of my higher power gently, and sometimes not so gently, guiding me along a path to personal fulfillment.

God bless those of you that have stayed with me through my journey. In many ways I have found out who my true friends are…thank you.

So long for now. ”Bill’s Excellent Adventure!” still rolls on but in a different context.