Finding Peace

"Life After Pasties", I've decided to call this. Yeah, I don't know about it either. It's now been 3 months since I left the UP to start anew in California. It's one thing to leave for a trip, a vacation, a bike ride across the country, all the while knowing that you're coming back. But it's a whole other experience to leave and not know what's next, not know if you'll stay where you're going. It's the kind of experience you know all along is coming, that you tell yourself you're preparing for, an "After I finish this degree..." type of thing. Then it comes up and you wonder if you're ready.

As soon as I reached Colorado, I knew I was ready.

The biggest challenges out here have been pacing myself, keeping in touch with people, and finding peace in a very busy place. Southern California has lots of cool nooks and crannies tucked away where you can find solitude, but there are also more people than I've ever seen in one place, all going about their own business in a hurry. Luckily, there's a bike path just a short detour away from my daily commute.


The wilderness park a few miles north is nice, too. It's a 5 mile loop, basically a fire road, with cut offs for mountain bike trails in Marshall Canyon and a climb up to Potato Mountain, which I have yet to try. But if you go up at night, this place feels like another world. The hikers and joggers are gone, sometimes there are a few bikers, but it's so quiet, cold, and dark compared to the city. In 10-15 minutes, I can escape to a world overlooking the smog below, smelling of sage and full of crickets and other odd noises in the night, all the while 10-15 degrees cooler.


Finding peace: check. Here's to keeping in touch. Pacing myself will have to come later.