Edward on Tour

 Ikigai : the reason for which you wake up in the morning

found through this TED talk with Dan Buettner

I giggle every time someone accidently walks past the doors a little too closely.

But I mean it really snows at the Grand Canyon. I thought, you know, southern rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, it’ll be nice and warm so I’ll camp out. Awesome.
It was dark by the time I got to the campground and the campsite itself was covered in two feet of snow. Although I’ve never been camping by myself, I’ve got a decent general idea of how to go about setting up for a night, but I was not prepared for this.
There was a couple from Vancouver preparing space for their car and tent by kicking the snow away, so I tried doing the same at the neighboring campsite. We were the only people at the campground, kicking out space from two feet of snow first for our cars, then for our tents. My gloves were no match for the snowy five degrees, and I took several breaks in the car to rewarm and reevaluate. After two and a half hours, I had my tent propped behind my car, but couldn’t get it staked because the area I had cleaned was (or seemed to be) asphalt. I called Ariella. “It’s way too cold. Can you find me somewhere to stay tonight?" Thunderbird Lodge wasn’t too expensive and the reviews online say that it doesn’t get any closer, so I took my tent apart and shoved it into the back of my car. My room at the lodge was warm, and the next morning, when I came out to where I had parked, I realized that “doesn’t get any closer" meant I had spent the night two hundred feet from the canyon itself. The vast darkness—and possibly my mood—had hidden it from my view. At some point though, during my snow-clearing adventure, I looked up. The nearby sky was spray-painted and even the dimmer stars peeking out from behind the night outnumbered anything I’ve ever seen. Even my shivering foul facedness smiled.

I am traveling with more notebooks than I could possibly know what to do with. In one, a few weeks ago, I wrote that I was fighting the urge to be ready to hurry things along and go straight to Florida to be with my family. Now that I’m here with them, it’s nice to have been able to relax for the past week and let the past two months settle in my mind a little. I’ll post stories at random – either as I think of them or as I write them out.

So far, I’ve travelled over ten thousand miles.
Now, with over thirty six thousand miles on my leased car, I’m over miles, out of warranty, and over a thousand miles from home with a year and a half left on my lease.

Have I also mentioned that I don’t have a job to go back to?

I’m leaving Los Angeles and heading towards Las Vegas. it feels like I was just in Seattle, my other turning point, and now I’m getting ready to make my way back towards the east coast. on a map, I’m about halfway, while on a calendar, I’m a month and a half in with about a month left. I went pro with my flickr account because I’ve posted over 200 pictures, and the folder on my computer has 15 gigs of stuff in it including videos.

I’m in Salinas, CA and San Francisco is about two hours away.

In a New York sense, from my house, a two hour drive could be either Connecticut or the city (with traffic) so I’ve been staying with Tom, had Thanksgiving dinner with Adriana and her family and have taken a few trips into San Francisco – one with them and Adriana’s (don’t call him uncle) Manny, and one on my own to hang out with Doug. We’re going back on Sunday for a full-day adventure.

Since I posted last, I went from Salt Lake City to Missoula to Seattle to Portland.

Driving down here from Portland was an experience all its own.
I left Portland at 10:30am and arrived at Tom’s at 2:15am. The road began blurring at around midnight and it was definitely a test of driving endurance, but my choice to make the drive that long was made well worth it as soon as I got to Redwoods National Park, drove amongst the massive trees, and heard the water talking to the west coast.

Tom and I tried to get to Big Sur the other day to catch the sunset, but as we drove, we noticed that it was about to tuck under the horizon, so we pulled over at an overlook of sorts that had a trail and we started hiking around, climbing rocks, exploring, and admiring the sunset. Thankfully, we had both grabbed our flashlights and marked off the trailhead using Google Maps on my phone. Once the sun set, it was very dark and we had no idea where we were, so we hiked and rock-climbed around in the dark, with the rising water and lack of light changing our route.
It was a little scary, and very amazing.

I guess I’ve disappeared for a few days, but I have been taking pictures.

Right now I’m couchsurfing in Salt Lake City and and am headed to Missoula, Montana in the morning. Denver was supposed to get some snow, and I wanted to avoid driving the mountains during a storm, so I scrambled for SLC, hiked to the Delicate Arch on the way (dedicated entry to follow), and changed my schedule a bit so that I can hit the coast a little sooner.

It’s late and I’m tired, so check out the Flickr for a few pictures from Denver, Boulder, driving, Arches, and Salt Lake City

the roads are littered with writers, many bearded with travel, and
they all have amazing stories of their experiences. wandering, but
not necessarily vagrant in the feeling the word has taken on.
they are employed by the search for love and addicted to the feeling of a new city and its people.
we share a hospitality as travelers and hosts.
”this would be the norm in europe” i’m told, and
i’ve taken to happily explaining the concept of inviting strangers into a home to share an interaction and to re-see our own familiar.
we all have seat-creased journals in our pockets, a favorite pen, and a fervor for learning.

i’ve learned so far that nebraska is long, but the sunsets seen from I-80 are amazing;
that i don’t require elaborate accommodations, maybe just a clean six feet by three, my sleeping bag, and pillow;
that i might be mildly (but tolerably) allergic to cats;
that i am more easily swung about a place by my experience with its people than the sites i see.

speaking of sites, I’m going to go take a tour of a tea factory and ride a bike through Boulder Creek

here’s a video of a Nebraska sunset

we’re going to get cheese today

we’re going to get cheese today!