“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
– Henry David Thoreau

My big ah-ha is self realizing that adventuring is not the same as vacationing. I know “vacation” if you will—that sweet word that promises fun in the sun or on a ski slope—time off, meals, chilling, and pleasure. Where I could get relief from pressing anxieties, fears, and worries.

What I experienced these last several weeks traveling out of the back of my car – however much it looked like a big fat vacation – was not really one. I kept up with my Reiki clients. I prepared for my first podcast. I had moments when all the dashboard lights came on in the middle of nowhere and I panicked until I learned more about pulling codes and checking fluids. I was finding my edges. I was absolutely at peace with my alone time.

Having people suggest I was on “holiday” or “beach bumming” felt not entirely accurate or respectful. My time on the road and away from the day to day stresses, I will simply call radical self care. And, it was so much more than that.

I spent quality time at the beach and at numerous state and national parks. I am blessed to have had that time to breathe in and breathe out by the ocean and in the desert, but I was also processing. A lot. I needed to be in these magical serene environments for unwinding and emptying. To take time to observe the tiniest life forms at low tides and watch for signs of monarch activity and red tails. I found myself drunk on the aroma of the eucalyptus trees and the flowering jasmine. To reduce my doing doing doing to establish a more balanced way of being would actually require every bit of that six plus weeks I was away.

I didn’t complete the projects I had hoped I would. I was taken by the scenery and the way I was feeling being by the water. Being on the road was not conducive to working on my computer. I surrendered. There had to be wisdom in that.

Allowing myself to find my own rhythm and structure to the days was novel. To let go of knowing what day or time it was and to find my own relationship to self, other, eating, sleeping and resting. Not bound by schedules was freeing. But really, I was also aware and had one toe back in Boulder.

What I undertook could be classified as more of a healing excursion but why do I even have to defend or name what it is I did. Truthfully, these road trips that I have found recently are absolutely changing the way I am relating to myself and to the world. I am touched by the people I meet and the places I visit.

Yes, it was sacred time away. An essential resetting. Fun too. But I lived in a perpetual place of not knowing and that is not easy. That required a lot of trust and faith. But I am thrilled. What a great time I had. I know I am fortunate that the reframe for me in having sold the home was to see this time without a house as an opportunity.

“When we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.”
– Wendell Berry

I slept in a Whole Foods parking lot—too tired to go farther; I slept in my car along the side of the road a few times—once I woke up to see glowing red canyon walls and my body shivered with joy. I subletted a room in a shared house with the most amazing young male housemates. I found campsites in small towns by clicking on an app on my phone, I found BLM land and RV sites. There was a lot of winging it. Now I am house sitting and finding that to be really great.