48

Today is my 48th birthday. It is also the end of year three and the beginning of year four of this blog. Three down, two to go. I certainly haven't run out of motivation or curiosity or places to go or energy. I am more excited about traveling than I was when I started this thing; I can't wait for my next trip; and my mental (and let's face it sometimes it's in spreadsheet form too)  list of future places to explore keeps getting new additions. I have no idea how I'm going to do everything I want to do. One trip at a time, I guess.

Year 48 on this planet of ours was a heck of a year for me on the travel front. I wrote about more trips this year (six) than I did in year one (five) and year two (four). I made it to the southern hemisphere for the first time. I went farther west by far than I had ever been before. I also think I made it higher than I ever have while standing on solid ground. Twice. In one week. And I added four new countries and three new states to my places visited list (that's 44 states total in case you are in any way curious). Not too shabby.

But above all that, I lived. I spent one of my favorite days ever in a canyon in southwest Utah. I bonded with old friends in Alabama. I saw the moon up close through a telescope in the pitch black at 9,200 feet in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I surfed, for crying out loud. And I saw elephants in the wild on my first ever safari, a trip that has been the most perspective altering to date. I won't likely ever be able to go back to a zoo and about every two weeks or so check out package trips to Tanzania and Kenya. Africa  is calling me. Like all the time.

At the top of Haleakala on Maui. You can definitely feel the thin air.

So let's do the annual box checking exercise. When I started this blog, I pledged a good amount of generalities and four specifics. The specifics are, in no particular order: (1) to make it to two new continents; (2) to visit Barcelona; (3) to see Alaska or Hawaii; and (4) to go somewhere that would really have freaked me out in the past. I did half of (1) and all of (4) by visiting Morocco in northern Africa in my first year. I also spent three nights in Barcelona on that same trip so I checked (2) off the list in the first twelve months also. In year two I had nothing. At least in terms of checking goals off my list.

This past year I finally made it to Hawaii, a place I never really wanted to visit but now a place I love in so many ways. I did not, however, make it to a second continent. That one item is now the sole remaining pledge left unfulfilled. I was never in any hurry to get all these things done quickly. This is a five year quest, not a series of one year quests. I don't have to bite off the whole apple every year.

So now it's on to year 49. A year ago, I thought I'd be taking a fairly significant trip within the United States in a couple of months. Heck, I even boasted about it in my 47th birthday post, claiming boldly that I have tons of control over this stuff. Well, I'm not going. But I am going other places instead. God willing, I'll make it to continent number four very soon. And then just keep going. I mentioned a list earlier in this post. Honestly, there are so many amazing and interesting places I haven't touched in this world that my wants outweigh my time off from work by at least three to one. The only thing I can do is keep taking it one trip at a time. Bring on year four!

Approaching the first wild elephants I ever got close to on the Chobe River.