Why Wandering? Part Three - The Journey Begins

Sierra Blanca

“Life’s a Journey not a Race.”

 

After a couple of months of deciding, planning, packing, and cleaning, it was finally time to get on the road. We made our way to North Dakota following the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains and returned along the Eastern Slope. We explored, wandered around, and lived our lives along the way. We hiked trails and drove scenic byways. Museums and restaurants fed our minds and bodies. Sunsets filled our souls. (We did not see many sunrises.) We washed clothes, bought groceries, cooked meals, and cleaned Koko. In all of this, we learned a valuable lesson. To quote several people, “Life’s a journey, not a race.” While destinations are important, they are not all-important. Our sojourn to North Dakota and back again was all about the journey.  

 

Journey is a fascinating word. It evolved out of the Latin word for “a day,” and, in Middle English, it became “a day’s travel.”  Modern usage has lost the daily connotation and focuses on the time/space between two points. It is not about where you are or where you are headed. It is the “along the way” that matters. The journey exists in the ever-elusive present moments as they slip by in time and space. Our first trip was less about destinations and more about those endless moments we spent between where we were and where we believed we were headed. Living our lives became a journey.

 

This picture serves as a good illustration of journeying. It was taken at Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge in South Central Colorado toward the end of our trip. Was this an intended destination? Not really. Our original route for this trip had taken us through the New Mexico Mountains, but a threatened snowstorm led us to change our course. We had driven through Alamosa many years before and seen it on the map. We decided to stop and see it the next time we were in the area. We had 4 days available before our next stop in Albuquerque. We stayed in Alamosa and checked out Great Sand Dunes National Park. If you look at the picture, you will see a narrow band of sand-colored dirt at the base of the Mountains. That was our destination. 

 

We did go to the National Park, and it was interesting. But it was not four days’ worth of interesting. In fact, we went one evening and thought it might be nice to come back and explore more, but, as it turned out, other things in the area were much more enjoyable. 

 

We visited two National Wildlife Reserves nearby that were stopovers for the Sandhill Cranes on their way South. We saw a few cranes and other critters, including a Bull Snake that I nearly stepped on. We learned about that mountain in the picture. It is Sierra Blanca, one of the four sacred mountains of the Navajo. It is a place of significant spiritual presence and power. I enjoyed photographing it from various angles and at different times of the day. We met up with a couple of our friends, Charlie and Paula, who were staying in Alamosa while returning from Oregon. We met up at a local brewpub, where we enjoyed a nice meal that included a local beer that was quite good. We also met one evening and feasted on good food and fellowship around the campfire, surrounded by snow-covered peaks. All of this was, in the words of Dick Van Dyke in “Mary Poppins, a “fortuitous circumstance.”  Alamosa was a great example of journeying, not hopping from destination to destination.

 

Alamosa was not an isolated event. It was one of many examples of learning to journey along the way. We saw beautiful county museums in Hardin, MT, Rock Springs, WY, and Fort Collins, CO.  We saw wild horses roaming the free range of Utah. We ate a Five Star Gourmet meal at “FarMesilla,” a friend’s cousin’s restaurant in Las Cruces, NM. We met the artist David Behern, who designed the artwork on a shirt I had bought in South Dakota while walking through his shop in Old Town, Albuquerque. In Montana, we visited with a childhood friend I had not seen in over 50 years. We spent a week being shown the beautiful Big Horn Mountains by friends old and new, Doug and Marcy. We ate a Duck Hoisin Pizza at a bar in Bernalillo, NM, while enjoying a band of old guys playing Rock and Roll. We shared a Pueblo Slopper. (Look it up. You won’t believe it!) Marlene climbed a Hippie Castle in the Rockies. These are just a tiny sample of the hundreds of fortuitous circumstances. Most of these moments would have never happened if we had been focused on the destinations. Time after time, I learned the importance of the journey and left the destinations to take care of themselves.

 

Now that we have been back and wintering in Galveston, I have a few reflections to share. 

 

First, destinations make up a fraction of our lives on the road. The journey makes up the bulk. If we had focused on them, we would have missed so much. We enjoyed the spectacular, the mundane, and everything in between. But it was that “everything in between” that made the journey worthwhile, and they happened most frequently between the places we were headed.

 

Second, a journey is always filled with pleasant surprises. Destinations seldom really surprised us. We went there expecting to see things. Usually, our expectations were met, but occasionally we were disappointed. But we were rarely surprised. But the incidental “happenings” were almost always unexpected and surprising. They happened along the edges of all the plans and expectations where the unknown lurked. The mystery that accompanied us along the way offered us the most delight. But this was possible only if we were open to those incidental times and places.

 

Third, we learned to appreciate the quiet moments of the ordinary comforts that graced our lives. I looked forward to our “Chill and Chore” days, where we did our maintenance, cleaning, grocery shopping, and laundry. They offered a sense of routine and continuity amid constantly changing lives. I would spend a quiet evening with Marlene sipping the last of our favorite Texas wines while watching a New Mexico sunset. It was pure grace, a gift of a moment that resonated with the heartbeat of the universe. They happened every day along the road.

 

Finally, being on the road allowed my heart to glimpse the great mystery in our lives. I found much more than the outer world along the road. I met up with my inner world, as well. The journey became a two-step to the music of the universe. I danced and spun, explored and marveled at the wondrous world around and within. I sang a song of wonder and awe that echoed through the canyons and mountain peaks of my body, mind, and soul.  

 

My days of racing from one destination to another are done. There are journeys to be made. Breath-taking vistas to behold and hundreds more fortuitous circumstances to enjoy.

 

I look forward to sharing this journey with you as we wander through the coming months. 

 

Thanks for coming along.

Bob