“As I, walk through this world,
nothing can stop, the Duke of Earl”
You have to earn jealousy
Enough said!
Believe in Ideas. Believe in Yourself.
Of course, it gets muddled when other religions teach the same thing that yours does. I find that it’s good to list what you believe and not what you are labeled as. For example, I believe in the Christ is okay, but saying that you believe in not stealing is better. I have homosexual friends who have this very dilemma. They believe in Christ and consider themselves to be Christians, but at the same time they are homosexual. They know that in their religious belief, homosexuality is considered sinful and wrong. Thus they have to reconcile the dissonance between what they believe to be true and themselves. I do not envy people in this situation.
This isn’t only a religious problem. I see this happen a lot in politics as well. People believe in a candidate, but don’t believe in all the ideas they have. Also, people will believe in a particular party and then the party changes an ideal they stand by and there is mass confusion. The republicans (and others) who were in office under George W. Bush, assisted him in racking up massive amounts of federal debt and plunging the country into a never ending war are very different from say, Eisenhower, who advocated for limited government and less debt.
Instead I find it better to follow ideas and believe in them than in people. Finding someone who will share all the same beliefs that you do is next to impossible, but finding someone who believes some of the same ideas that you do is a path toward mutual understanding and acceptance.
Believe in ideas. Believe in yourself.
Learning to take a vacation
I’ve always been a work-a-holic. As with many people I find it difficult to just sit and do nothing. If I go to the beach, I have to be swimming to some predetermined location. If I go to the mountains, I have to be hiking and taking pictures. If I go on a road trip, I have to be going somewhere. It’s difficult for me to simply enjoy the moment that I am in. I get bored and restless. So as a result, I spent most of my life working to reach some goal. When I was in high school, I earned money for college. When I was in college I worked for a degree. When I had a degree I got a job so I could support a family. I don’t have a family so in the end I find myself with nothing to work for. So I’m switching it to working for the weekend. I needed to learn how to take a vacation. I needed to learn how to enjoy life around me. I found that I had lived in Southern California all of my adult life and had never driven an hour to see Joshua Tree National Park… I had wasted years and then it was time to fix that.
The first step to learning how to take a vacation is to learn to leave work. I went into work and blocked out everything past 5:00. Then when people actually scheduled meeting past them the hard part came. I declined the meetings. It was stressful at first and my boss didn’t understand (he’s a work-a-holic too), but after several months I found that people didn’t care that I left work at 5. For crying out loud we laud the flex hours we have available!
The next step was to learn to take a day off. My bucket list came in handy for this. I took my calendar, and took my bucket list and decided I would do something on my bucket list one weekend out of the month. And that would take a Friday off. So I scheduled three Fridays off, put in the vacation requests, got them approved and then took the day off. It was difficult as I’m bored if I had nothing to do. But, the bucket list gave me something to do so I was still engaged in some activity and not bored.
As I finished up the bucket list of things around town, I needed to travel more. So I decided to go out of town. This required two days off and I found it much easier to do than before. I discovered that what I was actually doing is setting boundaries between my professional life and my personal life. I also found that come Monday morning (or the next day in the office), I had a much more exciting weekend than my colleagues. Most people like to sit at home. Using a bucket list and challenging your comfort zone allows you to experience more joy and fulfillment out of life.
Now some people have a profession that allows them to just go and take a week or two off. A friend of mine, who is a chef, had a break because her kitchen shutdown for winter. So she saved up some money beforehand and headed to Ireland and visited there for a few weeks. If you have that opportunity go for it… If it’s hard to set boundaries, try what I did and see if it works for you.
Some interesting places I’ve been since I started doing this are:
- Visiting the Valley of Fire
- Hiking the Grand Canyon
- Hiking Glacier Point, Lower Yosemite in Yosemite
- Visiting the Sequoia National Park
- Hiking Vernal Falls, Nevada Falls, Illouiouette Falls, Glacier Point, and Sentinel Dome in Yosemite
- Rock Climbing in Joshua Tree
- Visiting the Devils’ Golf Course, Artist’s Drive, The Lowest Point in the US in Death Valley
- Hiking Longs peak in Colorado
- Hiking Zion’s Emerald Falls, Angel’s Landing, and Temple of Sinawava.
- And Many More…
Words for the Soul – Clay Christensen’s talk – How will you measure your life?
“God doesn’t employ accountants or statisticians”
“God doesn’t aggregate us into groups of people”
“God will measure my life by the individual people who’s lives I have blessed”
Inspiring Song of the Day – Drift Away by Dobie Gray
“Give me the beat, boys, to free my soul,
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away…”
Passing through the Tetons
The Tetons have long been on my bucket list. As I was traveling through Wyoming, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to go and see them. It’d be like I was shooting myself in the foot. Also, I’d have the opportunity to chat with a ranger about the possible hikes in the area.
I was approaching from the south so I came into them from the Jackson hole area. The rise of the Tetons out of the plains is indeed quite impressive. As this was a car trip, I didn’t do any real hiking, but I hit up all the pull outs and looked at all the scenic views.
There are a lot of great things to do at the park, like hiking, camping, rafting, and bike riding. Going to parks like this makes me wish I had a bike so I could take it a little slower and enjoy it more.
A quick visit to Jenny Lake is enough to make anyone wonder if they should actually drive home or decided to retire their old life away and move to the mountains.
The next stop was up Signal Peak, which had a cell tower at the top! So I was able to hook up my phone and my computer and do a little work. Lame, I know, but sometimes you need to check in.
The final stop was to watch the sunset over Jackson Lake. The mosquitoes kept biting me to get me to move so I used some mosquito spray and it worked surprisingly well.
Conquering Mt. Bierstadt and taking Mt. Evans the easy way! – Day 3
All good things must come to an end. The Chicago group and Des Moines Group left early. We all got up and started taking down the tents. The Denver group headed out the night before as they can just go home quickly. The flying group and the California group were the last to leave. As I left I stopped to enjoy the sun rising over the Rockies! As my mother listened to John Denver when I was a child, his song, “Rocky Mountain High” always crosses my mind whenever I’m here. Particularly the lyrics:
“He was born in the summer of his 27th year,
coming home to a place he’d never been before.
He left yesterday’s behind him.
You might say he was born again.
You might say he found a key for every door”
Conquering Mt. Bierstadt and taking Mt. Evans the easy way! – Day 2
Everyone who’s ever camped with me knows that I’m a light sleeper… You have to be on your toes to make sure you’re ready to run when the zombies and axe murders show up. So basically anytime anyone unzips their tent or talks or walks around, I have one eye open. You’ll get to the point where you’re still too tired to open your eyes, but you’re definitely not dreaming like you wish you were… And the sleeping bag is toasty warm and the outside is friggin’ cold and your bladder is starting to talk to you… Eventually the bladder always wins!
So we get up around 3 and start eating breakfast. My diet’s a bit more structured than the rest of the group so I go off to cook my oatmeal, eat my grapefruit, and munch down some
macadamia nuts and some beef jerky. I finish in about 10 minutes. The rest of the group was busy making sandwiches for the hike (I had a tuna fish packet, a carrot, and a cucumber for lunch). As well as grabbing granola bars (I had a 50/50 mix of cranberries and salted almonds). FYI: Tunafish sucks when you’re hiking. It has nothing but tuna flavor. I recommend bringing some salsa or something to mix with it. Their breakfast was cold cereal and juice with some fruit. Pretty good if you ask me. We soon head out, and by the time we reach the trailhead, the sky is just starting to light up. Unlike when we hiked Longs peak last year, this year we’re hiking up the West side of the mountain so we don’t see the sunrise over the plains. Instead we see the clouds lighting up against the dark mountain.
After some last minute potty breaks, we head out. We’re all talking about how it’s only about four miles to the top and four thousand feet of elevation change and we’re walking across a marshy field and debating about how it’s going to be if it’s four thousand feet of elevation change and only three miles… the steeper it is the tougher it can be.
As we’re going up, the sunrise gets better and better, and a small rain shower moved in to give us a great view. Right when two of our group are taking a leak in the scrub brush! 😀 Nice pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!
Overall the group did really well and we got to the summit before noon. We all ate lunch up there and were basically chilling and relaxing and watching a thundercloud move in. While we were debating whether or not it was heading our way or if we’d have time to get to Evans before it did if it was there was a man who was with a group to our right. He got up and told the group he’d be right back…
We all watched as he hopped along the top of the peak over to one side where he busted out a suit and a tie and put it on. Then he hopped back over to his group, which were kinda wondering what’s up with the tie and everything… where he promptly proposed to his girlfriend! Everyone on the top was cheering as she was shocked and surprised and said Yes! Then while we were all cheering we heard a huge thunder crash and saw some lightning strike lower on the mountain. Needless to say, that shut up everyone and we all had a few seconds of silence while we contemplated our own mortality and the concept that the treeline was almost four miles a way. Promptly someone said rather loudly, “Lets get out of here!” to which everyone agreed and though that it was probably a good idea. Simultaneously we all stood up, grabbed our packs; I took a last group picture, and we headed off the peak.
Now there are different ways of going down the mountain depending on your comfort and experience level. There was a lot of calm, rational, easy going people, who were hiking down the trail one step at a time… and there there were a few nutcases like the Peak 4 Poverty photo guy who was boulder jumping down as fast as his legs could carry him. Either way, it didn’t really matter as we only got about 100 meters when the hail storm started wailing on us.
I passed a little kid who was only 7 (and a real trooper) who was partially being sheltered by his father. The kid was taking it in stride and as I passed I heard this conversation:
Kid: “Wow! I can’t wait to tell mom!”
Dad: “Um… maybe we shouldn’t tell mom about the hail…”
Kid: “Why not!”
Dad: “Because she won’t let us do any more hikes…”
There’s danger everywhere and if you don’t embrace that then there’s no reason for you to live your life anyway. I got ahead of the group and was watching to make sure I wasn’t near anyone who was holding on to metal hiking poles while the thunder and lightning was going on. Eventually, I found a few others and we regrouped and hiked together from there. We arrived at the vans in several different groups and once we were all there we expressed dismay about not going to the Sawtooth and a few were suffering from altitude sickness. So we decided that we’d drive to Mt. Evans (which contains the highest road in the continental US.)
The drive to Mt. Evans took a long time… Probably longer than it would have taken to hike it from Mt. Bierstad… Just sayin’ (1 mile hike vs, 50 mile, 2 hour drive)
Once we arrived at the top of Mt. Evans, everyone did another dash to the bathroom as we’d all been making sure to hydrate ourselves after the hike. We took a quick pic and there was a display that pointed out where Longs Peak was (woot!) From the parking lot you can’t see Mt. Bierstadt so a few of us decided to hike the extra 200 meters to the summit and take some pictures.
There were some amazing views from up there. I took some time alone on the top to reflect on the idea that I was sitting on top of a mountain in the rocky mountains where as just a couple of days ago I was in the sweltering heat of goblin valley. The ability for us to travel in this day and age is awesome to say the least!
We quickly went back down and then headed back to the campsite. Funny enough, the other groups got lost and ended up getting to the campsite a little after we did. We all go together for some tasty hamburgers and I pulled out the sweet potato chips and had ourselves some delicious grub.
In the end it was an epic hike with rainbows and hailstorms, with some of the most generous and awesome people I know and I think we all took away some great stories from this great time.
After dinner, it was dark, and lacking a campfire and being awake since 3:00, everyone was asleep pretty quick.
Conquering Mt. Bierstadt and taking Mt. Evans the easy way! – Day 1
One of the groups I love is the Peaks 4 Poverty group. They organize hikes and use the profit from those hikes to fund orphan’s educations in an orphanage in Tanzina. If you would like to know more about them, visit them at : http://www.peak4poverty.org/ . 
I’ve done a couple of hikes with them and this time they wanted to conquer Mt. Bierstadt and Mt. Evans. They sent out an email asking if anyone one was up for it and I’m always up for another adventure so 16 hours of driving later, I’m sitting in the Rocky Mountains where the weather is a cool 73 degrees, next to the Tenmile Creek, just off the 70 getting ready to head to the campsite to meet up… For kicks and giggles I check to see what the weather is like back home and it’s a egg frying 105 degrees… I turn my phone off for the next few days and get in the car and head out to the campsite to meet up.
The Peak 4 Poverty group is a volunteer based organization so no one gets paid for anything. That way all the proceeds go to the orphans. This time they had asked me to be the photographer. I always take my camera and take lots of pictures, but this time I needed to make sure I’d get all the standard pictures like the one on the peak and the one at the beginning with the banner and some other group photos and action photos of everyone.
Amazingly enough, I arrived at the campsite within 30 minutes of the Iowa and Chicago groups! The maps were accurate and the campground was easy enough to find.
Unfortunately, the USFS had changed the fire restriction to Stage II the day before so even though I brought firewood, I wasn’t able to burn it at all. We ended up using Propane Stoves to cook and as usual, without the campfire there’s a lack of a center point to the gathering. It seems human nature for us to gather around fires for warmth, comfort, and good times.
Then it started to sprinkle and we all went back to our tents to sleep as we knew we’d be waking up around 3:00 a.m. to make it to the trail head for the hike. The plan was to hike Mt. Bierstadt, then head across the sawtooth to Mt. Evans, and then hike back down to the trail head.