Hey there,
Adventuring is life enhancing! I've just recently returned from an incredible month of snow adventure travels in the USA, and thought I'd share with you how life enhancing adventuring can be and encourage you to do more adventuring in your own life.
I feel so refreshed and alive! So filled with a renewed sense of how magical our world truly is, how wonderful it is to meet new people, see new places and deeply connect with nature.
We started our adventures with a couple of weeks snowboarding and skiing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. What an amazing place it is! Incredible snow and incredibly friendly people. Fresh powder falling from the sky most nights. Blue sky days. Stunning views of the Tetons. It was so much fun that you'd wonder if it's legal :-) I have to say, as I've said before in this blog... snowplay is incredibly life enhancing! If you love the snow, then make sure you get out and play in the fluffy white slippery stuff this year. And if you haven't ever availed yourself of the magic, then let me say, you really owe it to yourself to give it a go. Snow creates a fresh palette of beauty to explore, play and adventure in. It opens up new ways to move through gravity. It facilitates immediate flow state. Meditation in motion. Fun! Exhilaration! Incredible!
We followed this up, with 10 days in Togwotee, Wyoming. An amazing place, where back country snow-mobiling is king! Here we enjoyed sled trips out to Yellowstone's Old Faithful and Grand Canyon regions. Such a stunning contrast of volcanic activity, steaming guysers and the pristine beauty of ice and snow.
Snow-mobiling is an incredible way to explore the wilds. The power is awesome! Snowmobiles really are Life Enhancing Devices! And going backcountry on 160HP freedom machines is a whole 'nother way to mix adrenalin with passion and scenic beauty. I was in petro-sexual heaven :-D
We also went dog-sledding. Gliding along the trails in sleds pulled by 12 trusty and ever-willing hounds. What a hoot! It's also a wonderful way to explore the back-country. And boy do those doggies love to run! They are ever so eager and wag their tails the whole way there and back. Hearts of gold and boundless energy. After a day of dog-sledding I felt uplifted and inspired by both the experience and the role-models set by our team of dogs. They know how to make exercise fun and how to pull together to achieve. Wonderful.
Finally we hopped across from Wyoming to Minnesota for 10 days of snow adventures with our good friend Thomas 'Sully' Sullivan. Sully is an amazing person. So full of life and passion for making the most of every single day. He is a writer with some 80 published novels and short stories and his work broadly ranges from the excellent and Pulitzer nominated literary satire THE PHASES OF HARRY MOON through to sci-fi and thrillers, including his latest paperback release THE WATER WOLF (free chapter on his web page). If you haven't already, check out my blog posts on some of Sully's takes on life enhancing: Inspiring your Soul and Freedom is life enhancing.
Sully invited us over to the States to stay with him and go x-country skiing under the stars in the back trails around Elm Creek and Crow Hassan. He was the impetus and seed crystal for our snow-adventure holiday. An incredibly generous and gracious host, he took us out snow-shoeing and x-country skiing in all his favorite places, where we got to appreciate his fine culinary treats (raisin bread peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with melted coffee blast ice cream...) and all the fractals you could ever desire in the starkly contrasted decidous trees silhoutted by the moon or sun, depending on the time of day we were out adventuring.
Along the way we got to do an ice fishing adventure, and serendipitously connected with some of the wonderful people we met on our travels.
Adventure is life enhancing!
Yes, adventuring is truly life enhancing! New things, new people, new places. It connects you with a deeper sense of self. Connects you with the world. Opens your horizons. Suffuses your life with freshness, passion, adrenalin and energy. Adventuring makes you feel alive in ways that normal day to day life just can't provide.
So here's my gift to you... a question...
What adventures can you bring to your life now? What adventuring could you do tonight? this weekend? this month? Soon. Now!!!!
Adventures don't have to be huge or involve overseas travel. They can be as simple as a walk in the park at sunset. Or a ride on your bike along a new pathway you haven't yet explored. A visit to a beach or forest you haven't been to in a while. Getting out with some friends to a new restaurant. Going away for the weekend. Anything that you find fun, different and inspiring. And even better if it involves being out in the natural world.
As Sully reminds us "The cues to magic are all around you... The magic is in the effort".
So make the effort and go adventuring. It's truly wonderfully life enhancing!
smiles and cheers,
Grant
What a fabulous adventure! Dog-sledding looks such fun, but I'd have to wear some earplugs to block out all the barking they do before they get underway! I've always thought I'd like snowshoeing too, though it might turn out to be one of those things that is harder than it looks. My favorite kind of adventuring involves fog rather than snow, but it's all beautiful, isn't it? (And I'm afraid I might have had to make some adjustments to Sully's menu! smile)
ReplyDeleteWise saying: "If you would have Big Magic in your snow fun, share it with Grant & Fiona Soosalu." Like mandrake root or unicorn teeth, a couple of insanely fun and intelligent Aussies will definitely flavor the magic potion in any season in any locale. We did do it right, didn't we? So in answer to your question as it applies to you guys, I'll just take a wild guess…um, Mongolia? You should go to Mongolia next and resurrect Genghis Khan! As for Jeani’s take on my menu, remember the constraint is that you have to use local food. For instance, when you are dogsledding, first there are 12 dogs, and then there are 11. Yum, Yum. You see what I mean? Hot dog!...I mean goodie. Circumstance will drive the menu. I am absolved.
ReplyDeleteHey Jean and Sully, hot dog, loud dog, yup, it's a crazy funky sport, filled with fun, but then it's a crazy funky world when you fill it with adventuring. And of course, with friends like yourselves to share the adventuring with, we can only do BIG MAGIC and enjoy the wonderful pathways that unfold in our lives. Yes, we did do it right!!!! And that's the only way to do it methinks :-)
ReplyDeleteGrant--
ReplyDeleteI'm late to the discussion...but it's never too late to say thanks for the inspiring 'adventure' blog. I take mini-vacations (daily)but feel due for an adventure. I've had fabulous cross country skiing experiences in Jackson Hole/Grand Tetons--years ago. So glad you all enjoyed your visit to the US to play! Cheers!
Hey Sue, thanks for the thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed and were inspired by the post about adventuring. Let us know what adventuring you get up to, so that we can be motivated and inspired by yourself in turn.
ReplyDeletesmiles, Grant