In my last three posts, I shared about my road trip from Los Angeles to Denver in order to attend the wedding of my friends’ daughter. Even though my posts focused on the national parks and sights I visited on the way to Denver, my trip had another purpose behind it. Although I had grown up in Jacksonville, Florida, I had spent the majority of my life and my career in Los Angeles, but I had come to realize that circumstances were directing me to choose a new direction and adventure in my life. It was time to move to a new location and lay down a new foundation for the next stage of my life. As I mulled the options over, I realized that my friends had spent the last twenty years in the Denver area and saw this as a good balanced option. My hidden goal in this trip was to ask their opinion regarding my idea to move near them. If their answer had been anything close to “Are you crazy?”, my plan would have shut down immediately. However, their response was exactly the opposite as they were excited at the thought of me moving to Denver. For the last few months, I became very busy in putting my plans into high gear.

Having a solid base in life, a home, is a common goal for most people. However, no place remains constant over the course of time. I had found a nice townhome close to the beach. I kept it well maintained and remodeled it to my tastes several years back. I had good neighbors and a solid base of good friends within a very vibrant world-renowned city. Yet, after I had lost my job nearly four years ago, the ability to maintain a base lifestyle while covering promotional expenses for my self-published novel had begun to eat into my standard savings, and I am still too young to tap into my retirement funds without penalty. Except for a mortgage, I had no debt, but should I tap into the various avenues of debt available to me to support me and keep me in my “home” until I find a new source of income or reach retirement age? For many, keeping that center of their life, their home, would be worth the debt, but for me, the center of my life is me and my friends, not a inanimate structure, so my decision had to be based on what was best for me. Because of the location of my townhome, its value had skyrocketed over the years and there were many places in this country where housing and the cost-of-living were a lot cheaper.

Still, financial considerations are only a small part of a major life-changing decision. The sense of exploration that I have developed in my love of traveling became the major part of my decision. Traveling to new locations for a quick vacation helps to balance one’s perspective, but setting down stakes in an entirely new neighborhood and environment really stokes the explorative spirit and provides an in-depth lesson in the operation and evolution of my true home, Earth. I grew up in a location on Earth where warm tropical waters extended a humid atmosphere most of the year over a landscape that stayed within a thousand feet of sea level and a laid-back Southern culture struggled against a wave of Northern transplants. Upon graduation from high school, I announced to my parents a college selection that would take me to an opposite coast in this country where cooler ocean currents and a series of small and large mountain ranges had created a drier and sunnier set of basins and valleys which had attracted a diverse population dependent on the automobile and proud of the entertainment culture that attracted worldwide attention and acclaim. Now, I was seeking a new environment, far from ocean breezes and a sea level altitude, and what appeared to be a very politically balanced culture. The Denver area, somewhat centrally located in this country and continent, situated a mile high from sea level at the base of the Rocky Mountains, and experiencing growth from a diverse influx from across this country, seemed to fit the bill in my selection to start a new life adventure in a new home with a new set of neighbors to discover as friends, while exploring the wonders of this Earth from a broad new perspective.

So here I am, writing this in my new home in the Denver area, waiting for the moving company to deliver my furniture and past history of accomplishments sometime in the next week, anxious to begin the next major exploration of my life. It will be exciting to start living the next great adventure.