I bent low to pet our dog and calm her uneasiness. We were traveling on a small boat, a tourist vessel. This vessel in its earlier life likely served a different purpose as a small fishing boat or transport for goods and supplies. The boat carried about two dozen passengers, a mixed population of travelers - retirees, German tourists, a small local tour group, family vacationers, and of course - one dog. This was our second trip in as many days across the Kachemak Bay from Homer, Alaska to explore some of the nearby communities and landscape. We hoped to be fortunate enough to have a whale sighting, but had to settle for the occasional otter stretched out on his back holding a meal of crab or mussel with no interest whatsoever in a small, passing vessel of gawking day-trippers. This was perhaps the most “tourist thing” we had done on our journey thus far. We mostly chose to find our own way to seek out and explore places. This excursion to Halibut Cove, Alaska included in the cost of transport, a “specially prepared meal of Alaskan cuisine served at a lovely cafe in a picturesque fishing village”...honestly, we simply wanted to get across the bay to the cove! Besides, we had already, earlier in our journey, enjoyed (repeatedly) our favorite meal the entire time on the Kenai Peninsula... stuffing ourselves (not unlike those otters floating in the bay) on halibut sandwiches and beer at the Seaview Bar in the small town of Hope, Alaska. But now, here on this deck, gazing out to sea, entranced by our view in the distance of the volcanoes that help define the edge of the ring of fire, we turned our heads and faced toward the approaching shore taking in the smell of the salt spray and the sweet aroma of the growing forests of sitka spruce, cedar, and mountain hemlock.
The truth is our pup really didn’t need much comfort from me on the deck of that boat. One of the many endearing traits of our dog, Mona, and one that made her such an excellent traveler, was her complete sense of trust in us. Mona never balked at our travels or any situation we put her in. She rather, in virtually every circumstance, simply embraced each adventure. Her sense of curiosity and delight in exploring is one of the many things she taught us, and why she has been an integral part of our travels. She was not just our pet, but our companion. Sometimes Mona’s connection to what we have done is so strong that it seems as though it was her that was taking us places... there are many stories to tell of her keeping us from straying off trail or leading us to a new and unexpected discovery.
The lessons Mona helped teach us - the joy of exploring and the wonder of discovery are some of the reasons we travel and chose to leave what was familiar and embrace a different lifestyle. When we began this journey we held those ideals and others as both motivation and purpose. A year and a half later those reasons remain...but now have grown, loom larger, and have become more defined... and they are complemented by more... so much more.
We began our journey a year and a half ago traveling and living in a 2002 Dodge Ram Van we bought for $5000 and built out as a camping vehicle with sweet smelling cedar siding, a comfortable bed, and ample storage for a cooler, a small battery, and our hiking and camping gear. We named our mobile tent, “Rex.” Rex was awesome... pretty tight quarters, but we loved it. Through those travels in Rex, we came to realize what we were doing was evolving and evolving, very quickly. Our motives to adventure travel was never a lark, and it was never our intention to light out for new territories on an extended vacation trip from which we would eventually “return home.” We sold our home over a year in advance, and ultimately, sold or gave away most of our belongings in order to prepare for living a more minimal and mobile lifestyle. Initially, we were committed to at least a year. However, somewhere between sitting on an abandoned beach outside of Seward Alaska, passing through a kaleidoscope of leaves raining down on the windshield of Rex driving through the White Mountains of New Hampshire, weaving through the celebration of the New Year in Key West, and walking with our sweet Mona through a maze of sculptural rock formations in Polly’s Cove, Nova Scotia, we realized we would not stop. This was not a decision... it was a realization.
By and large, we all choose our paths based on a calculation of sorts...a process of taking into account all sort of “reasonable” and “sensible” considerations. Legitimate and prudent considerations perhaps...but is it possible that too often we allow our decisions to become mired in their connection to prospects of success versus failure, reward versus loss, and security versus uncertainty? And, that underneath it all, with all our prudent deliberation - our decisions about what paths to take are ultimately choices based on what we believe the paths might look like, and what we want them to be like in the end. We strive to remove as much uncertainty as possible,` being careful not to step too deeply into the uncomfortable or the unknown. We try to erase from our minds in whatever way necessary the realization that no matter what we think will happen or where we think the journey will take us that we cannot completely know. And so, we become so busy trying to orchestrate our destiny that we overlook the fact, that more often than not, our desire for less uncertainty leads to less possibility.
In our travel, we are consistently rewarded by what we set out to see, but equally impressed and amazed at how much more we find. For us, travel has opened doors to possibilities - possibilities to learning and learning to understanding. Our travel has become on many levels a return to school, an extension of our education and our new job. We balk when asked if we are retired or if our “lifestyle” is part of our retirement. Retirement, a construct unique to western industrialized culture, has never resonated with us anymore than has the idea of home being a designated place.
The boat we sailed in with Mona across Kachemac bay was a simple and beautiful vessel of slick finished wood, painted with rich green and white elements complimented with brass fixtures and webbed netting strung along the railings surrounding it’s polished deck. A boat can hold an alluring sculptural presence.. it’s shape, form, elegant curves, symmetry and structure...the inherent metaphors associated with it as a symbol...the vessel..holding things, a means of transporting and exploring place, time, and culture...something that can take you to, as well as, remove you from. Indigenous cultures in the far north often think of their boats and kayaks not simply as vessels or tools, but as something alive and, as such, deserving of the respect you would afford a living thing. The umiaq, a boat constructed from walrus skin stretched around a wooden frame was often used as a vessel and a means to provide shelter. These were (and are) cultures born into movement... into travel. When looking deeply into something, its significance can take on deeper, broader meanings. As in art, so in travel, we are finding more and more significance in what we see... an emerging and stronger connection to the places we explore and the natural word we are discovering. Ten months into our travels we paused and spent several weeks at a family farm in eastern North Carolina building out a newer van - one that would provide us with more space and resources to continue our journey, our new Umiaq... our vessel for travel and our shelter for living. We named it “Moby.”
In February, 2019 we paused in Atlanta, Georgia to welcome our grandson into our family. A bright red-headed, dark-eyed, insatiably inquisitive child who has brought us a new joy and a new reason and motivation to understand the need to protect the world he will grow up in. Continuing our journey in Moby, we set out again to see what we could see...to explore, hike, trek, observe, document and write. We continued seeking the sublime. We spent time in the deserts of New Mexico, Utah and Arizona. We traveled to the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, British Columbia, and finally spending the better part of our summer in the mountains of Colorado. As we entered autumn, we were refining our defining reasons for what we were doing and setting plans for future touring when our travel became tears.
In October, we suddenly and unexpectedly lost our sweet Mona. It was devastating. She was so connected to our journey that her absence stopped us in our tracks! Our plans to explore the Appalachians the first part of our winter before beginning to travel back across the southwest and then on to the northwest, lost all focus. Our path was mapped and then it was erased. Our purpose - clear...became obscured. Mona was with us and then...she was gone.
And so we stopped.
*****
D4 is a dopamine receptor. This genetic marker has been found to be more prevalent in individuals with connections to migration as opposed to those who have a history of staying in one place. It is a genetic locus that relates to foraging, restlessness, adventure seeking, travel and like behaviors. Whether it is one’s “calling,” part of their DNA, or they’re just a little bit “crazy,” travel for some is what they are drawn to do. For us... it is what we do. And so, after pausing to “re-set ourselves to the universe,” and adjust to our loss, we are preparing to move on and move forward.
Our travel is fueled by deeply personal motives, inquiries, and devotions and our focus continues to be to explore those ideals. But, in this path, this question has surfaced: what, if anything, should we do with our experiences, the knowledge we acquire, and the insights we gain? Should not simply...being there...in each of the moments, places, adventures, realizations, and experiences be enough? Mostly, we believe that being in moment is at the root of why one should venture out; yet, still we wonder...Should we also play out the familiar story of returning to tell of what we saw, experienced, and learned? How much importance should we attach to the idea that as Craig Childs states in Atlas of a Lost World, “Unless the traveler returns, no knowledge can be passed on, no map laid out, no later migration will occur”? Is it possible to do both?
Our decision for now is to try to share on occasion some of what we are doing and hope that what we share might have a positive influence. We are not seeking an “audience,”and we have little interest in acquiring “followers”. After all, humility is an easy blanket to wrap around yourself when you are in a place that is still wilderness, and when you are immersed in nature’s marvels... not in a photograph, a social media post, or on a digital screen, but coming up between your feet, brushing your sleeve, and blowing across your face. All we want to do is provide a view - the way a pull-out on a road offers a view, and an explanation of what you are seeing. We try to make sense of things... seeking a balance between the science that explains and the history that tells the story. Perhaps through sharing, we can help remind us all of where we are, and more importantly, that we cannot stay or go back... there is only the world ahead and moving forward to the next place.
The loss of Mona caught us unprepared for the deep hole in our heart her absence has created, but we try to find comfort in the exuberant spirit she exuded and learn from our loss. Loss, though of a different kind, is something we have become familiar with as we travel from place to place. We are witnessing and documenting first hand a natural world that is clearly and unquestionably in harms way. A divisive world floundering in hate and indifference...steeped in a complacent, complicity that is allowing atrocities to grow. Yet while we are witnessing great tragedy and sorrow, we are also witness to enormous beauty. We do see joy, kindness, possibility...and hope...and the significance, and necessity to build on that hope. So as we begin a new year, and a new decade we continue to make our plans to carry on. Unsure of what we will encounter, there in lies the fun of it, the adventure of it, and the reason as well as the need to travel on.
