The Trek thru the Parks

www.trektheparks.com

Grand Teton National Park

Today marks the first official day of my four month sabbatical / National Park Walkabout. I am now no longer gainfully employed having resigned my position with Hunter’s FX Luminaire effective May 28^th.

So…what the hell possessed me to call it quits for a bit and screw off for the summer? I suppose the idea of taking an extended leave of absence began a year ago when Terry and I sat down with Mary Zimmerman…a Financial Planner. Actually, Mary considers herself more of a “life planner” than an actual Financial Planner. Her role was to help us see the forest for the trees in our up and coming journey down that mysterious financial trail known as “What-will-you-do-with-the-Rest-of-your-Life” once you’ve flipped a final farewell bird to the working world. We really never did get to the financial planning part of the “trail”; however, it was during our sessions with Mary that the seeds of semi-retirement were planted.

After the initial get-to-know-each-other chit chat, Mary begins the life planning process by having us write down what we’d do with our lives if we found out today that we would drop dead in exactly 5 years. Contemplating that question is a real mind twister. Try it on yourself.

After we finished that exercise, Mary ups the ante and says “OK…now you find out that you’re dead in a year. Now how do you live your life?” She continues posing her gut wrenching questions and asks us…”If you found out today that you’d die tomorrow, what would you regret NOT having done?" Whoa! Deep stuff when you really…I mean really stop for a moment to contemplate your answers to these questions.

So…I begin to write down a bunch of stuff I’d like to do…before I die. The old Bucket List if you will. And in that Bucket, I kept finding “trek along the trails in our National Parks. Write about those experiences and take a bunch of pictures along the way.”

Next I read a book about an overweight, middle-aged journalist who decides he’s going to hike all fifty-six 14,000’ peaks in Colorado…in a year’s time. The fat fella does it! Mark Obmascik is the author and the book’s title is Halfway to Heaven….a great read. And then there’s Julie. She decides to cook all 524 recipes in the Julia Childs cookbook in a year. She does it. Writes a blog about it. Her story ends up as a friggin’ movie!

Then there’s me. In September, my son Charlie and I fly off to Alaska to visit Denali National Park. I’m still mulling around my answers to the questions Mary had posed to us months ago. Well here I am…visiting one of our National Parks. But that isn’t enough. So…here comes the goal. My birthday last year fell on 09/09/09. According to the silly movie 2012...the end of the world is to happen on 12/21/2012. There are 40 months between my Sept 9th BDay and 12/21/12. So why not trek thru 40 Parks before the world goes to hell?

There you have it. Before I’m too old and too decrepit to trek around the Parks at a desirable pace…I’ve set my mind (and body) to dip into my Bucket List….NOW… rather than later.

So…what made it possible for me to do what I’m about to do? First of all, I owe a debt of gratitude for this adventure to my loving and supportive wife and family who have put up with my workaholic ways for many, many years. I have always thrown my entire body at my work and often in the process left family behind in my pursuit to earn a buck.

I am also deeply indebted to Ewing Irrigation…Josh and Nory Beadle…all the fine folks at FX Luminaire, Hunter Industries and many others for the opportunities and rewards gained throughout my career. Because without these folks…our trek would become a much more daunting challenge. A sincere “thank you” to all of you who have helped me develop and expand my life’s experiences throughout the years.

The New Hobitat

Time to try out the new digs we’ll be residing in during our Trek….before hitting the first campground. No sense in attempting to assemble this Hobitat thing in the middle of a windstorm without getting a feel for what it’s like beforehand! We’ll camp out in the back yard! Oh yes…we’ll break in the ol’ Hobitat!

Terry bails on me…however, I try out our new “digs” last night. Tent camping is about as close to roughing it as I could get Terry to agree to. Of course, we need a queen size inflatable mattress, two new sleeping bags, the Hobitat 4 Tent in which one can actually stand up in…and all sorts of other gear from REI before she’d even consider the camping thing. I want her to get a feel for what it will be like sleeping amongst the stars in our new home. Not to be. She and the dog left me outside alone and moseyed upstairs into the comforts of the air-conditioned house.

The original plan was to take CharlieDog with us on our Trek. But I soon came to learn that dogs are not welcomed guests at the National Parks. You can keep them on a leash and walk them around the campgrounds…however, they are not allowed on the trails. Hell, I don’t want to hang around the campgrounds…I want to hike the friggin’ trails! So what to do about the C-Dog? Solution: I get CharlieSon to move into our house for the time we’re traveling so he can dog sit the C-Dog! Problem solved!

Back to the tent camping thing. We shall see how this works out. Me being a gambling kinda guy… I ain’t putting too much money down on “They will camp for 3 nights…then hit a hotel on the fourth!” The oddsmakers have it 3 to 1 that more nights will be spent in hotels than in tents. Care to place a bet!

Terry and I are as giddy as teenagers as we prepare for our upcoming Trek. We’ve been piecing together the pieces of our National Parks puzzle over the past few weeks…taking training hikes, putting together our living accommodations for the next few weeks and plotting out our destinations. If all goes well, we hit the trail on Saturday enroute to Zion National Park. Then off to Bryce, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, Arches, Rocky Mountain, Black Canyon, Mesa Verde, Petrified Forest…and then home. Stay tuned friends.