In Flight

In flight-

Somewhere over the Alantic Ocean. The last couple days have been long or shall I say the last couple weeks. I have spent more time awake with little amounts of sleep than ever. Sleep deprivation set in and helped me really I belive . It is like a all out endurance race of getting as much done with as little amount of time there is. Some might say endless amounts of time without sleep will only hurt you in the long run. Although right I belive when you cut out everything else including sleep and somtimes food you become more foucused and are able to think more clearly on the moments at hand.

So much to do and little time, endless amounts of thought and ideas go through my head. Talking and talking every sitution over. My cousin Paul to thank mostly. Paul helped me imagine how I would live and what I would be doing. We spent so much time in his shop setting up the boat and making new changes to different parts of the systems. Michell his wife would come out and have her say and make us think in a different way more than once, which was enlightening. Although avalible we did not even drink much beer in fear that we might not get much done, not to say it never happened.

So much more come into play other than just setting up the boat. The biggest question may be how. How am I going to travel down the rivers to the Sea and then all the way to Athens in a little kayak. The argument in this is can it be done? To tell you the truth there is so much unknown but I am confident in the idea. Where to start on this subject: well I know that I will be busy the whole time with the many problems that can and may acure. I use to think that I could just get in the river and float. If you really think about yes it is just that but with many obsticules included. Quality of living is a big thing. As I have said this is no pleasure vaction. My thoughs are that I will always have to be productive. Moving and moving always positive towards my goal. Cutting out the nessary comforts that slow me down. It maybe anything from sleeping on the bank of a river when at night somone wakes me up wondering what I doing there on there land, to having to paddle all day in the rain. Time is a factor I really have so little time with a huge objective. I can only imagine what I will be put against along the journey. Adventure you may say and this it true as adventure is the unknowning.

The boat itself is only part of the plan really. I have plans to film the trip daily, getting as much coverage as possible. Chase Bradburn's idea really. This daily ramdom footage will enabling Chase to edit it down into somthing more pleasuable than a bunch of random clips of me talking to myself. The filming aspect brings so much more logistics into play, more than ever imagined equipment. I think I will really enjoy the filming and it will bring a whole other spectrume to enlighting the real experiance to others.

Imagining can be fun, but the fact is the boat had to be tested. So last week I made my way to west side of the mountains. The plan was take the boat out fully loaded ready to go. Well this did not happen to that exstent. I spent the weekend with friends. Saturday relaxing with plans to go out on Sunday for a nice easy stroll in the Everest area. It was nice to relax after having spent so much time engulfed in process of accualy getting the boat together. The encoragment I recieved form my friends with there disire of wanting to know more sparked enlightenment on new ideas and confidence. We did go out on Sunday. An amazing day with sunshining skys overhead. No wind though and against the current paddling. Somthing to be understood about my boat it is not a sleek fast boat and with that said I was kind of disapoint in the peformance. I did also wish there was some wind to play with. Over all it was a wonderful day with great people and just nice to actually get out on the water. I knew I needed more time on the water and with plans for paddling with my friend Nick the next couple days out in the San Juans. This plan fell though, Nick got sick. I stayed over a bit longer in the seattle area to work out some of the details of planning. Still I needed to get out on the water again. I wanted wind. The wind forcast was showing that Lake wentachee had the best wind even over the San juan area. I went for it and headed back over the mountains. Lake Wenatchee is known for the wind and sure enough with my luck there was no wind. Figuring I would go on and try it the next day. I decided to just go back to Paul's house where I have done most of the planning from and get some projects done and use the rest of the day. So now we are at wedseday and no matter what I need to get out on the water. No wind again but I went for it. All I really need was water and the Columbia river was it. Everything had to go into play here. I would load the boat up as much as I could, still having some project for the boat to finish. Seth Murry come down to help brainstorm the thoughts of final changes. This was it, the boat was in the water, we decided on a few changes and the rest will be figured out on the trip. It was nice getting out and trying the boat as before the ideas we just ideas. I really enjoyed the people who were part of this giving feedback helping me realize how and why I want to go on this trip.

Now that the prossess of brainstorming and accualy putting the boat in the water was done all there really was to do was finish acouple of changes and take care of some last minute tieing up of loose ends. Last minute loose ends can take forever as it may seem. No matter how much time you give yourself everything takes longer than you might think. First thing was my house or shall I say yurt. Nick and Nancy long time friends have so graciously given me a place to live in there yurt. I take this gracious offer with so much graditute knowing that I need to leave the place nicer than I have found it. Cleaning, fixing and moving all my stuff out took longer than I expected but I should have know. Not new to me though I have done this many time and always enjoy coming back to a clean comfortable place I call my home. Home you may say is somewhere you live but to me it is somwhere comfortable and you can relax, the yurt is this way. I imagine myself there when I am away in a busy city or just lost in the world. Splitting kindling in front of the fire late at night just for somthing to do or watching the eagle land in his nest right across the river from the yurt makes life feel so simple. There is more to life that simple relaxing times at the yurt. I know I need challenges, thinking of this this past week while cleaning the yurt gives me relisation that even though Life is great and pretty easy still there is more than life. Leaving life at home behind going and going I am not the only one that it effects. I have so many friends I can not imagine who I would be without them. This maybe the hardest part and in someway the reason I do travel. Understanding the world better and that so many people are wonderful in this world are so great shows me how special the family and friends I have at home are.

So pretty much thats it I am gone. I wrote this on the airplane with no way of sending it. I am in Austria now staying with my friend Dani. I will send this now.