Get Off The Couch!

I know, it sounds like a shoe commercial, but just because a shoe company may have said it  to sell shoes doesn't mean it's not a reasonable request. The point of this month's editorial is not so much about fitness as this phrase usually implies, but rather, about a person's ability to procrastinate until there's no time left to do those things in life that are worth doing.

Have you traveled to all the spots in the world you want to see yet? Have you been to the countries you would like to visit? Do you plan to? If so, exactly when will this happen?

A few days ago, the famous Wall Arch at Arches National Park fell down. It's a normal event, and a natural part of the erosion process that is constantly in motion at the Park. So what's the big deal? Well, a few weeks before that, I was at Arches for a couple of days camping. I had planned to photograph Wall Arch, but put it off because it was summer, and the days were a little hot. I thought I would come back in the fall or winter and take care of the picture. After all, who wants to go out and hike around a bunch of rocks in the summer? So, I put it off until another time. Well now, that time will never come. The arch is gone, and may as well have never been there.

You might be wondering, “what's the big deal about an arch?” Nothing, really. Except the symbolic image that it creates to illustrate that nothing is forever. Putting off something now means that you might never have the chance to do it again because the opportunity might just go away.

When my Wife and I retired from our day jobs, we had a plan that involved a reasonable amount of traveling to “see the world”.  Knowing that plan, we promptly bought property in northern New Mexico, built a house, and went right back into debt. Before long, we were debt servicing a house and not traveling.

We sat down a few months ago and had a family “business meeting” , and asked ourselves, “is our goal of traveling still valid? If so, exactly when do we think it will happen?” The honest answer was, not in our lifetime on our present course.

So the house went up for sale, we moved out into our 5th wheel, and haven't looked back. The arch may have fallen before we got the picture, but we're getting to everything on the list as fast as we can. How about you?

New column!

This month we met a a fellow traveler named Travis Rymer and his wife Sharon while staying in Estes Park for a few days. Travis was interested in writing for the magazine occasionally, but he wasn't going to necessarily be where we are planning feature articles. Because we try to find ways for folks to contribute, we came up with a new column called “Along The Way”, and Travis will contribute this month's article. What we have in mind is to use this column for folks who want to contribute occasionally by writing short pieces about places they've seen along the way. This won't necessarily be a feature piece, but a few paragraphs and a few pictures about something interesting in your journeys that you might want to share with other travelers.

So, if you travel around north America and see something of particular interest you want to share, take a few pictures, write it down, and send us a note. If we agree that folks might want to know about it, we'll put it up in “Along the Way”.

Don Fink, Editor
RV Adventure Magazine