Zach's Story: The Sweet Life

Throughout my life I have had this vivid imagination, and as I got older I used this imagination to draft up an image of what I wanted my life to be like. Who I wanted to be. What was to come. Now as I have aged the plan has taken on different forms and has become more realistic (in that I RARELY dream about being a nomadic rodeo clown when I grow up anymore...). There are certain things that I know will happen and need to happen: I will be THE GREATEST FATHER to multiple children. I will be an upstanding person in the community, who is involved in many ways. I will have an extensive library. I will have a hammock perch. Those things are a given and now I am starting to hone in on a more solidified vision. As traveling is really starting to take a hold on my life I have this overwhelming desire to go out and EXPERIENCE life. Now I was raving about living  out of state... however, as Jared gets older I want to be around to witness him really grow and develop. Watching his footba

I have spent a handful of time in the SW recently. Having lived/worked in Austin, Texas for a month-and-a-half; camped in the pan handle of Texas at McClellan Lake, trekked into the Palo Duro Canyon, from there I worked on a farm in Tiejeres, NM for a week spent some time in Albuquerque, then spent 3 weeks in Alamogordo (with a casino weekend in Santa Fe). Throughout this time I have really come to appreciate the SW. It has so much more to offer than meets the eye. You can be captivated by the vast desert expanses, admire all of the mountains on every horizon, experience a culture entirely different from the Midwest, and so much more. Cowboy boots, authentic Mexican food, 2-steppin, country/latina music, dry heat, simple living to mega-cities, the SW is a unique place. You can go from mountain towns, to towns that make you feel like you are in ol' mexico, to meccas all in a day. Down here even the sun beats down on you differently. Life down here is so drastically different that

My GRAND ADVENTURE, the trip of a lifetime! Well I have traveled through half of my summer of purposeful placelessness and I have experienced so much. This trip has been more than I could have asked for. Transformations are beginning to take shape in me, I have seen and been captivated in ways that are hard to put into words, information has been absorbed, new experiences have been chased down. When friends ask me about my trip it is almost like a chore to begin, not because I dislike talking about it, rather that there is so much information to present to them. Feels, sights, sounds, connection... these are not easy to pass along via word of mouth (and I consider myself to be quite the orator!!!). However, in thinking about my travels and my wanderlust there is a part of my finding myself feeling immense gratitude for certain aspects of my "day-to-day" life. I always say this but the grass is not always greener. For clarification I am not saying that I want to be home or t