Monday, May 11, 2009

Adventure prone!



(me on a roadside in Montana videoing a glacier view across the road)
Time has a way of making everything clear as glass! I find myself in the middle of making some decisions that could change my life forever!

 How true it is when one door closes another opens! I just recited that very quote to a traveler who is making his way across this country on foot! I know he has had a remarkable journey over 3,000 miles walking from East to West...and now its coming to an end and he was having some thoughts of "where to go from here." I know he will find his niche.

You know that other saying...you cant see the forest for the trees? Well I was so surrounded by trees, metaphorically speaking, that I couldn't see the forest...so when I cut a few of those metaphorical trees--behold a path-- with such exciting possibilities that I'm afraid to write about it yet!...I don't want to sway the Yin/Yang that has brought me to this point. I had a dream many years ago...to ride my horse across the country...after reading the book by Peter Jenkins, called Walk Across America. IT was so inspiring, but I had just married and made a promise to have and hold for better for worse, so the timing was way off.

Then my beloved horse Sundance passed away of old age...while I was busy raising my son and turned all my attentions to my family...and my dream sort of faded in the background. I've had some wonderful adventures in my life, in a way I always said I was Adventure Prone....at the age of 17 - 21 rode Race Horses for a living!..yep in those days I was young and strong and weighted in at about 127 lbs!..OK it was a very long time ago...and I took up SKIING and traveled to enjoy skiing in the East, North East and in the mountains of Colorado. I was a contestant of the Anything Goes Road show and made a fool out of myself on TV! 

Then my sisters and I all in our 40's in 1995 & 96 backpacked over 80 miles of the Appalachian Trail. That's not the only backpacking trek we made we hiked the Savage Gulf in Tennessee, and we found out why they named it Savage Gulf...we made other camping, hiking, backpacking, canoe trips, kayaking the keys in Florida, until ....

In 1997 when we were to do our third hike on the AT, driving to the airport to pick up one of the sisters.... I was nearly killed in a high speed car crash along with my MOM. We survived but it took a lot of praying and hard work. 

 To celebrate LIVING.... as soon as we could we took off on an 8,000 mile road trip on the highways of this country traveling from SC to California and then up to Montana and every state in between and visited almost every big park in the west. Mesa Verde, The Grand Canyon, The Mohave Desert, Sequoia & Kings Canyon National park, Yosemite, Virginia City, Sun Valley Idaho, the Salmon River, Glacier National park, Yellowstone, Cody Wyo, Mt. Rushmore SD, and the Black Hills, the Buffalo Valley of Arkansas, Tupelo Mississippi, just a few of the spots we spent time in....What fun we had.

 That same year I went white water rafting in Colorado River! I just couldn't get enough excitement so that next year my sister and I took off for an Alaskan Adventure!..We flew into Anchorage, rented a car and drove 1,600 miles of Alaskan highways including the great pipeline highway to the Artic Circle, we camped outside Yukon Alaska, and took the bus ride 80 miles into the wilderness and camped at Denali National Park...seeing 38 grizzly bears in all...and the excitement doesn't end there.

 A few years later that I got itchy feet and moved to New York City...I got into emergency medicine and went back to school and became a Paramedic! Being a paramedic in one of the largest cities in the world can give you a big rush. I was there for the 911 disaster, witnessed it and worked in it...and then burnt out and retreated, wrote a book about my childhood adventures and came back to home to think about all of that, and wonder whats next?? 

 Well I will never cease to have adventrues in my life... Now an opportunity has presented itself for me to be part of a team going from East to West on the American Discovery Trail...NOTHING has been decided but just thinking of it makes my heart race...

4 comments:

  1. Wow Dixxie!
    Could you possibly pack any more into your life?
    I bet you could, and the latest possible venture seems like another chapter for you.
    Some amazing experiences you've had.

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  2. Keith I think A life full of good memories is a full life!

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  3. And, you have to do something to have the memories. So many people don't do much and have no memories and suffered greatly as POWs; or in their old age, rocking back and forth watching the kids play kick the can.

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  4. Sounds like you've had an exciting life. I hope you realize the dream of the moment. Sounds like it might be fun.

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