If you read my blog you know we do a lot of road trips around here... jeep, motorcycle or motor home... for the day, the weekend or 3 weeks.. we love just heading out. A lot of times we will have a destination decided.. but not how we are going to get there... or we will have one point of the trip decided but then end up somewhere else all together. It is a lot different than planning every stop along the way.. which used to be how I would have done it. I like to have lists... and go down my lists checking things off as I go. Which in some things works great. I finally made a list of all the phone calls I needed to make.. what I had been putting off for two weeks ( hate phone calls ) I was able to get it done in ten minutes once I had a list and could check things off. For road trips.. it is an ok way to do it.. and when we were on vacation last summer we did have some things on a list, things we did not want to miss. For the most part though.. we went with the flow..a lot of times that means finding a Walmart to park/sleep in for the night.. at 3 am in the morning. More often than not it means driving around and around in a town you do not know.. into places that maybe a motor home should not go or does not fit and getting lost more than once. Well as lost as one can get with 6 gps units in the car. What it also means... is finding the most awesome adventures... the best small town restaurants and camp grounds and people and sights. Sometimes the best place to eat or the prettiest Mountain or park are not the ones that everyone is going to but the ones that are kept a secret on the road less traveled. I know our best adventures have been off the beaten path :) Might be why we love Geocaching so much.. it takes you to the places no one else seems to go.. or shows you new things about where everyone goes.
Was talking to a friend about this sort of stuff the other day... and then today I logged into another friends blog and saw a quote that touched on the same subject...
"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; But often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us." ~ Helen Keller
Took that as a sign to write about it. Right now I have been trying to find as many roads/doors as I can to get my shop out there. We are adding new ideas to the shop and trying lots of new things... and a lot of them seem to be working.. I am getting about 100x more views... and the sales are picking up. They do not seem to be buying out of the shop too much... but they are window shopping in there and then coming to me with things they would like made custom.. which I am more than happy to do.. I love that artfire lets us work with our customers in so many ways. Right now I am feeling really good about what is happening... trying out lots of different roads and opening a lot of different doors... some of them I head down a bit and look around and see nothing is happening... no views.. just a big open space feeling... I want to feel like it is a waste of time... sort of reminds me of driving through Wyoming this summer... parts of it were rather boring.. nothing to see as fas you can see... then... it seemed like all of a sudden.. one of my favorite parts of the trip happened... we stopped for an easy grab and go cache.. and ended up spending an hour or so exploring some awesome HUGE rocks... and then headed on to the best camp ground of the whole vacation. ( here is the blog post for that part of the trip )
My point in all of this is remind myself to stay focused and balanced.. life hands us detours.. or shuts doors... but it is true that it opens other ones... we just need to look for the adventures and be open to finding new ways and seeing new things. Be willing to accept that sometimes what we want is not what we need. Life is a road trip for me.. as long as I am moving forward ( or sometimes a little sideways ) it is good.. it is when I try putting it in reverse or try driving through a "road end" ( just because the map shows it going through does not mean it does ) that I start having problems. If something is not working then turn... go around a block... pick a new direction... remember though that sometimes we have to drive through some boring to get some awesome!
~Michelle
I needed to read this today. I love your traveling road trip stories and pictures. That pool with the footprint is amazing! This idea about lists...I discovered that making lists on the board for my son is the best classroom tool I have. If there is no agenda written, no list, he will sit and stare, fool around, hide. No matter how many verbal directions I give, the day just does not go well. It's a little scary how influenced he is by my written words. If it's written, he will follow the scheduled tasks. I'm glad that you can break free of your lists and experience a really full life with variety and surprises.
ReplyDeleteI am here with you on this. I recently had my bf move in. Talk about a road trip with lots of adventure and detours. Just good to remember to breathe, ground and center.
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