Early June 2015, I feel like the calendar is on fire. Burning a low flame, but inexorable. How has it consumed more than two months? So long ago I chose adventure, why haven’t I headed north yet?
I watched as the flames ate April. The severance package came with a general overview of what to expect, but with a lot of ambiguity. It was over three weeks before it was sorted out. At the same time an inner dilemma about solving for time, money or adventure. It is important to build on a solid foundation, so I wouldn’t have done it another way, but April is gone.
May’s glowing embers drifted upward on a hot draft. Long delivery times ruled out choice after choice of vehicle, while financing limited the field further. Settling on this trailer was fortuitous, but a process of successive elimination. Now the vehicle is chosen the focus can move toward route and activities, customizing the trailer. I have been making arrangements for my local responsibilities while I will be away. Now May has drifted away.
Today, I am waiting. My outfitter job done, everything is gathered in bins, not loaded in the trailer yet because of the ongoing work. One last trip to the welding shop for skid plates and a raised frame is a little over a week away. So I can’t head north to Alaska quite yet. Over two months and still not on the road. The time wasn’t wasted, but when I came up with the idea, I thought I would have been on the road days later.
Contemplating the low flame, I sit quietly, thinking. I can’t head north yet.
But wait! A week would make a perfect test run! Let experience be the judge of my planning, and give myself a chance to correct before I head into lands unknown.
So, let us away on a shakedown cruise, and let the adventure begin today!
