Wednesday 18th of April, 2018, the first picture was taken. We had just left Wal-Mart due to the failure of warm clothing. We rummaged their clothing section for long john thermal underwear because it was cold and we were about to endure a nature vacation. We were standing at the Mesa Overlook in Colorado Springs watching the sun come up over what I believe is Pikes Peak. Once the mountains decided to show us their glow, and we had our fill on pictures, we decided it was time to go eat some breakfast.
We found our way to a tiny little restaurant in Manitou Springs, Mo's Diner, where I had a hot plate of biscuits and gravy. It was only 10am, and we went for a little hike at a park in the town of Manitou. It's funny how it worked out, while we were standing at Garden of the Gods park taking pictures I snapped this one. Little did I know that it was the exact spot we would be hiking in Manitou a few hours later.
On our drive to the hot springs is when it all started to happen. I remember Lisa being asleep for most of the ride, and I rode with no radio most of the time. The whole time I was just in that flow state. I was absorbed into the experience. Then, all of a sudden, I remember the road begins to level out for a second, and then it was just like Mother Nature turned all of her beauty on for me. She showed me her majesty. She showed me the feeling of belittlement to the extreme. She showed me her love, and I had no choice but to pull over and absorb. I can't even put into words the feelings that I was feeling, and had no idea they were even possible to feel. There was so much might, so much beauty, so much love, so much order, it was bliss. I can still feel how I felt that day at that specific point in time. From there, it was time for the descent, we were close to the resort.
The resort was beautiful. The water itself was probably 50 degrees, but you could move rocks around where the hot springs were to get it at the perfect temperature. It was an experience I would never take back. I had never been to a place where the deer will let you just almost walk right up to them. I had lamb at the restaurant at the resort for the first time, which didn't turn out to be to my liking. Their potatoes were delicious though.
On one of the last days we went hiking in the national forest. That brought up a lot of emotions and weird feelings from a guy who's lived his whole life in the midwest where there aren't really any predators. I had myself thinking about mountain lions, bear, rattlesnakes, you name it, I was thinking about it. I don't know if that's me paying my respects or being a scaredy-cat, but we went on. It was the weirdest thing, someone had been out there putting markers on the trail, but they were using zen rock stackings for the markings.
Then as of nowhere as we are up in the mountains hiking, I hear this sound of something just HUGE coming from the sky above us. It was a plane. I couldn't believe the difference between being at 14,000' as opposed to being at 700' could be so enormous. This plane sounded huge because it was huge. The whole experience just took me so far outside of my comfortable everyday box; I was noticing little things but in such a different way.
I think traveling is good for the soul. I think it helps us get back to base and forget about the everyday grind that most of us have to do. It helps get rid of some of the stress that we're wearing on our shoulders, literally. It also forces us to grow as a human being and experience new things. It shows us how we have a mind of our own that through action, we feed our soul what we want, but through being is where we absorb information causing the urge for action.
I feel one of the most important things for a happy mind body and soul is definitely traveling. I don't think it matters how far or where you go. I think what matters is that we make time to keep in tune with ourselves.
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