Hello to all you fine people. It’s been about a month since my last update and I figured I would get an update out before I hit the road again. For the past month, I have been visiting with family and friends all over Pennsylvania, New York and North Carolina. It has been great getting a chance to reconnect with all the people I love before I head out of the country.
I am finding that this adventure is as much an internal experience, as it is an external one. After more then a month on the road, I have begun to truly settle into myself in a way I have not known before. I am enjoying each passing moment for the pleasures that it has to offer and have left behind at least for the moment the mundane complexities of life that so often steal so much of our energy. I am very happy…
I have been researching my family history in an effort to eventually publish a book for all my relatives. As I peal away the layers of history, I am finding a certain kinship with some of my ancestors and the adventures that they undertook in their lives � one particular individual is my great-great grandfather Adam Exline, born in 1848. As a young man he quit his job in Pennsylvania, joined up with a wagon train and headed out west into the Indian territories in search of adventure. He found it. He narrowly avoided being killed by Indians after a face-to-face confrontation with a group of warriors, was nearly trampled by a stampeding herd of thousands of buffalo, and woke up one morning camping out on the prairie with a rattlesnake curled up next to him trying to stay warm. After a three year adventure, he eventually made it home safe and sound and settled in to start a family. Hopefully my adventure will be as exciting if not so life threatening.
In a letter that Adam Exline wrote to my grandmother (his granddaughter) late in his life, or as he put it, “the sunset of human existenceâ€, he said, “You know that ones pen or thoughts largely follow his environments. My surroundings are peculiar to many of my fellow beings.†I think there is a lot of truth to the fact that we are greatly influenced by our environment, and I hope that the surroundings I am about to immerse myself in will have a direct positive impact on my thoughts – hopefully all of you will not find me too peculiar, but if you do I am ok with that. 😉
I am going to sign off for now. I am planning to hit the road tomorrow morning, leaving my parent’s house in North Carolina and heading out west for California. I am taking the southern route home and plan to catch some of the sights along the way. Will be home in California for two weeks before I head out to Thailand on January 20th. Send me email – I love hearing from everyone!
Peace and love to all – Happy Holidays!
Matt