Zach's Story: The Sweet Life

I have recently been cast back into the real world for roughly a month.... I will say that this transition back has been quite the task. Having come off my 3-month road trip I found a new motivation, vision, direction, and drive to become a heightened version of myself. Achieving great feats... taking on new learning.... finding fulfillment and to continue to work enthusiastically! However, the real world struck and it struck hard. It took me a month to get back into the hustle and bustle of the real world. Time management has been tough as I have found work consuming a great deal of my life. In all honesty, it has not been pleasant. I feel as though my momentum and achievements have halted as I returned. The passion I had this summer is not being harnessed like before, I do not have the time to pursue the hobbies that I had envisioned taking on, and I am not captivated in the ways I thought possible. However, as I am catching up with the stressors of the real world again, and I am fin...

This summer has been formative and informative. So many insights and perspectives have been gained. I truly feel as though I am returning to the world bigger and better than ever. I took on new learning, jumped out of my comfort zone frequently, lived in a variety of settings, met a bigger variety of people, was captivated by nature in ways I had never been before, I gained new focus, priorities shifted. I truly feel as though I have become an adult now. This trip encouraged so much growth and gave me new direction. I am going to be more present when I am at "home" (while still traveling when I can). I am a new fan of alone time and grew more mellow on this trip. Not talking all the time turns out to be quite the relief. New hobbies and interests have been acquired.... it is actually hard to articulate everything that this trip has meant to me, but it has encouraged me to think about teaching again, and doing so in a different state. A bigger focus is going to be placed upon ...

This summer's Grand Adventure has taken me far and wide, but in all of this time I have found myself spending the most time in New Mexico. Spending 3-weeks in various mountain towns of New Mexico. This is partially due to the fact that my aunt and uncle live in Alamogordo, so there was added incentive, but it is equally due to my love of this place and my desire to live on a mountain. Coming from Minnesota this environment is drastically different from anything that I grew up with. In Minnesota we have deep woods, lakes, and fields of corn... arriving in New Mexico I am finding that there is an impressive amount of environmental diversity. The desert landscapes that are historically pictured in your mind's eye when you envision New Mexico are accurate of some regions, however, they are not indicative of the state as a whole. My trip took me through Texas and into NE New Mexico. Driving through you are going to see cast desert/arid landscapes suited with massive windmill farms, ...

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 fo...

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...

The Odyssey, and folklore of the time, often depicts these mystical beings called  Sirens . These creatures demonstration special abilities as they were a symbol of lust and longing for explorers on the sea. Perched on rock formations, jutting out from the sea, these  Sirens  would lure men to them with a hypnotic song. Weary seamen would then seek out this beautiful song and would end up shipwrecked and marooned on a small island (if they were lucky). On a less morbid note, I view myself as responding and being in-tune with the  Sirens  call of the wild. My mind set differs from a large portion of my peers. The meal prepped week, 9-5 business day, and debt fumblings make me squeamish. There will always be time to build up your savings, but the time to explore is NOW. In fact, the time was yesterday. In this growingly globalized world we have access to limitless opportunities. To think about living in the confines of a land-locked system scare me.  So i...