Insignificant, Trivial, Overstated, Humorless, Self Indulgent, Rudderless, Fickle, Hateful, Polluted, Unhealthy, Confused, Manipulated, Brainwashed, Enslaved

I suspect that it is fairly common for vaction travelers to wistfully contemplate leaving their real lives behind and moving lock, stock and barrel to their recent destination just as soon as possible.

I suspect that it is equally common that this rarely happens. In fact what usually happens is that after a short while, a suitable transition period, we all settle back down into our former lives, tormented to varying degrees by the realization that we will not be moving to Xanadu any time soon.

I have had these feelings myself when traveling to some beautiful and peaceful setting. I guess it is part of the relaxation of our minds that allows us to enjoy the fantasy of the never ending vacation. However, the trip from which I have just returned was very different from any other, and has much more deeply affected my thinking.

About a month ago I took my youngest son who just graduated from the University of Kentucky, to a place about one hundred miles above the Arctic Circle in Alaska to spend time alone out on the tundra. The experience was life changing.

First, our depth perception was altered. From our campsite we could see details in the landscape over sixty miles away. We could watch curtains of rain sweeping across the Baird Mountains and judge when the rain would pass by us, how close it would come and whether we would see a rainbow.

The world was completely silent. One calm morning I was awakened by what I thought was the sound of my son's air mattress leaking. Upon further investigation we realized that it was the sound of a stream, not more than four inches deep, trickling over rocks a half mile away. Our hearing was heightened.

The air we breathed was highly infused with oxygen and nitrogen as it blew in from the Bering Sea, over floating chunks of melting ice. It was rich and every lung full was invigorating.

We drank perfect water from the mountain stream, walked as much as eight miles a day through very difficult terrain and climbed a thousand feet or more at a time. Our hearts, our legs, our lungs, our red blood cells and our brains were highly nourished, we became incredibly alert, more fit and filled with energy.

We watched as the shadows of passing clouds changed the hue and color and contrast of the mountains. We stood among four hundred year old black spruce trees, watched thousands of caribou meander along ancient migration trails beaten into the mountainsides over thousands of years.

We were alone in the last frontier. Our needs, our comfort indeed our survival depended on us. We came face to face with liberty like never before. And in that place and time we came face to face with a world which must have been very much like the frontier of early America.

Unless and until you see liberty the way our founding fathers must have seen it, you will have a difficult time fully appreciating what it must have meant to those men who so fervently fought to establish and protect liberty for the rest of us.

Returning home this time we came back from a different place altogether. And the world to which we returned looks very different to us now.

It seems Insignificant, Trivial, Overstated, Humorless, Self Indulgent, Rudderless, Fickle, Hateful, Polluted, Unhealthy, Confused, Manipulated, Brainwashed and Enslaved.

But I'm back.

Sort of.

Comments

I get the same feeling every time I go to The Ludlow Bromley Boat Dock for a beer.