The Cardinal Challenge South: Slipping Away
The following is a reprint of a story originally written for Salsa Cycles. Given that the Cardinal Challenge originated with the Lesson Collective, we thought it was only appropriate that it found its way home. Enjoy!
The best vacation is the kind that takes you away from yourself. I think about my mother’s words and can still hear her wistful tone as she would daydream about a vacation after long days of work or during particularly stressful times. I asked her once about her affinity for learning new languages, (she was fluent in three but passable in six) and she told me, “Learning a new language is the ultimate vacation. People don’t just say things differently, they say different things.” Initially, I took that to mean I needed to travel far and wide to truly learn, experience, and live life to the fullest. If I expanded my horizons just far enough then maybe I would get it. Maybe I would feel connected to something bigger and more profound. Maybe I would be fulfilled and whole. I spent most of my twenties working hard at decent but short-termed jobs, quitting, and spending all of my savings to explore new cultures and languages. I wanted and sometimes needed to walk, run, or bike along diverse lands always with that faint, effervescent hope of finding myself truly away.
In recent years, with a deeper sense of self, I find myself away more often, in travel, in thought, in connection, in simply being outside in the great mountains or along the churning rivers running through them. This summer, as I started pedaling south on my loaded-up Salsa Timberjack mountain bike as part of Brett’s Cardinal Challenge, a local adventure quest, I wondered, “is this a vacation?”
I was exploring new territory, I was shifting my center of time so that daylight dictated my plans more so than my watch. I was feeling free and self-sufficient. What is a vacation really? Town was bumping when we left. We rode along the bike path towards our river put-in, passing parking lots full of cars, a few locals mixed in with the hordes of out-of-state plates. Weaving carefully along the path, my every instinct jolted with a need to get away.
After stuffing our gear and inflating our pack rafts, we carefully positioned our bikes on top of the boats to ensure adequate distance for paddle strokes. Most of this would be mellow flat water with occasional ripples, but we also had a few diversion dams to navigate.
After I centered myself with the weight of the bike, my paddling became smoother and my attention could drift. My eyes wandered along the shoreline of the country homes at the water’s edge to the clouds floating steadily by above. The occasional wave of a habitant or the bark of canine companion gave way to isolation and desert cliffs. Solitude beckoned.
When we reached our camping destination and my partner/husband/adventure guide took off for an exploratory hike, I sat calmed by the natural unfolding of evening to night. Nature swirled from annoying flies and mosquitos to the soft sounds of deer munching on the vegetation with inquisitive, energetic birds darting across the river from plant to tree to shrub. Only 20 - 30 miles from home and yet the pace of life, the feel of my typical lifestyle was comfortably left behind. Light slowly faded, but the darkness came quick.
The next day, we easily navigated the initially disconcerting dams and the river route transitioned swiftly towards the take out. In that last mile, I felt the river would too soon become trail. I was not done drifting. I tried a little harder to take it all in…to slow the brain train. As if conjured by my own need for serenity, a pale blue herring glided effortlessly by to stand in regal elegance along the shore.
Shortly thereafter, it became time to unpack, repack, and transition to a short bike ride before hiking through ancient ruins. Exploring the site and wandering through timeworn doorways, I was lost in a sense of faraway travel mingling with next-door familiarity. I had never been here, but I had heard of it for so long…literally for 10 years. Friends would talk about visiting the Aztec ruins that are only about a 30-minute drive from our home. That is frequently the way of things—we rarely play tourists in our own communities.
I climbed around, read signs, and imagined a foreign way of life, a time of both simplicity and great effort. Suddenly, I felt that blissful disconnect…the slip from self, followed by the sense of being truly away from the everyday, the routine, the commonplace. I was officially on vacation.
Sweet single track. What? Here? How? I ripped by an oil rig, launched onto a rugged slice of dirt, darting between hoodoos and interestingly textured slick rock. My expectation of boring, flat, mostly paved roads was annihilated with each whipping curve along the trail. We did ride pavement away from the ruins, but for only a few miles before discovering a mountain biker’s remote playground.
The adventure continued as I slammed on my brakes before crossing a shadowy tree root that turned out to be a rattlesnake. A flat tire kept slowing Brett down. A ramshackle old cabin stood on the edge of the road majestically filled with humming birds. A terrifying pavement stretch of erratic drivers flying by with barely a side mirror’s clearance. A breath of relief as we returned to the bike path unscathed. A successful adventure quest within a radius of less than 50 miles.
There is something so deeply compelling in a route that leads you away and also returns you to home. It’s the cycle, that cyclical feel of it all. Maybe that’s why spinning my wheels is a good thing as long as I’m astride my bike. Vacationing near home is a wondrous experience.
Diana Davis
Diana's life philosophy is that it may be hard to take new risks, but it is harder to live with regret. Diana enjoys sharing her passion for wellness, adventure, and living life to the fullest through her written words and as a practicing occupational therapist.