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Siesta Key, FL

"Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure." - Paulo Coehlo

I’ve spent a large part of this year traveling for my job.  It began in Southern California last February, and I’ve been all over the country and met people from coast to coast.  I’ve spent a lot of time in airports, cars, buses, and taxi’s.  I’ve sat (and slept) many hours just trying to get from point A to point B.

Killington, VT

I’ve done Bikram yoga in a California and snowshoed a marathon distance in Vermont.  I got stuck in a blizzard in Massachusetts, and done flutter kicks in a lake in downtown Des Moines.  I parasailed in Florida, navigated UP a double black diamond slope in Pennsylvania, crawled through culverts in Staten Island, and climbed trees in Texas.  I took on a Beast in Killington.  I spent six hours stranded at a Park and Ride in Red Hooks, NY with two of my best friends.  I've seen the sunrise in 11 states in the last 11 months.  I seem to be good with travel debacles because I also gotten stranded in Wisconsin overnight and with a demagnetized credit card and made some brand new friends at the hotel bar at midnight and somehow managed to catch a 4 AM flight to Dallas the next morning.

Staten Island, NY

Airports have been interesting.  I shared beers with a priest from Ireland in an airport during one delay (I bought, in case God was keeping track) and helped break up a bar fight in the Newark Airport.  I also had a bag of bagels stolen from me on that trip.  Who steals bagels at an airport?

I’ve sat with nuns from the Philippines, and sat in the middle of a collegiate baseball team.  Literally, right in the middle.  That was a fun trip. 

In 2011, I also logged time in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Connecticut, Kansas, Washington, D.C., New Jersey, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Colorado.  I’ve racked up my fair share of frequent flier miles and become very good at packing.  

Our fridge of postcards

My girls get mailed a postcard from every place I’ve been and I bring a magnet home so we can put them on the fridge.  This week, I’ll be taking them and making placemats so that when we eat dinner as family we can talk about the times when I was off on adventures.  They love to hear about the people, the places, and sometimes they even get to come with me. And as they grow I will continue to push them to explore outside our door and find out that there things out there that are worth the time, the money, and the investment to see. 

I've always been a person who believes in the power of leaving home and exploring new places.  Alone or with others, home somehow comes with you and returning home you’re usually better and for me, seeing my girls faces, I’m grateful to have a home I am so happy to rejoin. And you don't return to the same place because as much as you change so does everything that surrounds you, however subtlety.  But taking that step out not knowing what's on the other side or what waits when you return is the biggest part of that choice.  Life is change and a balance of listening to who you are, who could become in a  immersion of unfamiliar, beautiful, and wild.

That's real. That's living.

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