It All Started With a Cheap Mountain Bike
My mom thinks I’m trying to kill her. For over 20 years, I’ve made her worry. Constantly. It began when I was 13 and used the earnings of my paper route to buy a mountain bike. When other kids my age were sneaking out of the house to smoke weed or try beer for the first time, I snuck out against my mom’s warnings to go on a 100-mile round-trip ride to Estes Park on that bike. It was a ride through the Rocky Mountains on dangerous, winding roads choked with RVs, semi-trucks, and gawking, inattentive tourists. There was no shoulder and it certainly wasn’t a place you want your adolescent son ambling for a day. When mom got home from work that day and discovered what I did, she nearly had a heart attack. I was grounded for the next three weeks. So I snuck out and did the ride again two days later.
Thus began a pattern that came to define my relationship with my mom: I’d embark on some hair-brained adventure that would give her grey hairs and elevate her blood pressure. Knowing nothing about Nepal, I once bought a plane ticket there totally unaware that the country was in the midst of a bloody civil uprising. Telling mom via satellite phone about the car bomb I saw go off in Kathmandu and the brutal acts I’d seen the Maoist insurgents perpetuate in the Himalayas, I realized I was giving her an ulcer in real time from 7000 miles away.
My adventures have included a few trips to the hospital, the discovery of a dead man in the middle of a remote trail in Montana, bouts of illnesses that most people haven’t heard of since they played Oregon Trail, two death threats, and drinking in hundreds of seedy bars with even seedier characters. Every time I tell mom a new travel episode, the worry lines at the corners of her eyes deepen just a little. When I moved from Boulder to a 1-room house in rural Ethiopia five years ago, they deepened a lot.
But I can’t help it. Ever since that first exhilarating bike ride to Estes Park, I’ve had an insatiable appetite for movement. The type or the speed doesn’t really matter—I’m just as happy trekking up the rim of the Grand Canyon at 2 mph as I am zooming towards Guatemala at 500 mph in a plane. It sounds strange but I really need change to be happening around me to feel at ease. Im only happy if movement is on the menu for the day.
Conversely, a comfortable, reliable lifestyle upsets my sense of balance. I’ve tried to keep a good desk job but it makes me drink too much. I've thought about buying a house but it makes me anxious. I've tried to come up with a 5-year plan but it stresses me out. Even though I live what most people consider a comfortable—even modestly successful—life, the monotonous regularity of life in America makes me deeply uneasy.
So after being in Boulder with a stable life for three years, I can’t resist the pull of adventure any more. The 13-year-old in me is clawing his way out, demanding a new foray into the unknown. He needs to see what’s around the next bend in the road. He made me quit my job (again). He’s going to give his mom more sleepless nights. The plan is to spend at least a year wandering Mexico and Central America, but secretly, I hope it turns into much more than that. We also have our sights set on The Great North American Road Trip after that... or maybe backpacking India or West Africa. Just don’t tell my mom about these larger plans. She’s already started buying antacid in bulk in anticipation of our trip south.
Thus began a pattern that came to define my relationship with my mom: I’d embark on some hair-brained adventure that would give her grey hairs and elevate her blood pressure. Knowing nothing about Nepal, I once bought a plane ticket there totally unaware that the country was in the midst of a bloody civil uprising. Telling mom via satellite phone about the car bomb I saw go off in Kathmandu and the brutal acts I’d seen the Maoist insurgents perpetuate in the Himalayas, I realized I was giving her an ulcer in real time from 7000 miles away.
My adventures have included a few trips to the hospital, the discovery of a dead man in the middle of a remote trail in Montana, bouts of illnesses that most people haven’t heard of since they played Oregon Trail, two death threats, and drinking in hundreds of seedy bars with even seedier characters. Every time I tell mom a new travel episode, the worry lines at the corners of her eyes deepen just a little. When I moved from Boulder to a 1-room house in rural Ethiopia five years ago, they deepened a lot.
But I can’t help it. Ever since that first exhilarating bike ride to Estes Park, I’ve had an insatiable appetite for movement. The type or the speed doesn’t really matter—I’m just as happy trekking up the rim of the Grand Canyon at 2 mph as I am zooming towards Guatemala at 500 mph in a plane. It sounds strange but I really need change to be happening around me to feel at ease. Im only happy if movement is on the menu for the day.
Conversely, a comfortable, reliable lifestyle upsets my sense of balance. I’ve tried to keep a good desk job but it makes me drink too much. I've thought about buying a house but it makes me anxious. I've tried to come up with a 5-year plan but it stresses me out. Even though I live what most people consider a comfortable—even modestly successful—life, the monotonous regularity of life in America makes me deeply uneasy.
So after being in Boulder with a stable life for three years, I can’t resist the pull of adventure any more. The 13-year-old in me is clawing his way out, demanding a new foray into the unknown. He needs to see what’s around the next bend in the road. He made me quit my job (again). He’s going to give his mom more sleepless nights. The plan is to spend at least a year wandering Mexico and Central America, but secretly, I hope it turns into much more than that. We also have our sights set on The Great North American Road Trip after that... or maybe backpacking India or West Africa. Just don’t tell my mom about these larger plans. She’s already started buying antacid in bulk in anticipation of our trip south.