Complacency is the enemy. Joseph Campbell, detailer and explore of mankind’s myths and myth-making, called settling for the status quo “falling asleep at the river”—the river you were meant to cross as part of your divine story. (Everyone has a divine story). A scholar and writer I respect called...

It was a hotly contested election. Tuesday, November 2, 2004 dawned as another sunny day in Colorado Springs. It was chilly in the morning but would get up to the 60’s by midday, and I was growing used to the quirks of weather in the Rockies after eleven months....

Disaster was still hanging around even after the trip from Purgatory was over. It clung to me like a musty smell, and each relieved sigh seemed to be followed by another unsuspecting revelation. My brakes had failed, I had visited four car places just to get a diagnosis, had...

My expectations for small town sports bars in strip malls on Sunday nights were tempered from too many conventions and business trips over the decades. There would be beer, of course, bottles and cans and maybe a draft Lite or two—domestic. Wine selections might come from a box or...

I had packed my portable audio gear intending to do my Sunday radio show from the road. The golf resort’s wi-fi was strong enough to make that simple and fast. I also had to produce two features and two commercials before Monday, but I could do that when I...

Big disasters usually arrive solo, but small disasters almost always travel in packs, like wolves. The brake trouble I had upon arriving at a regional convention in York, PA didn’t interfere with the next day’s activities at the golf resort. I was part of a sampling of groups from...

An alternate definition I saw for adventure was: Travel + Disaster I’m tempted to downplay the times when a trip seemed so perfect in the planning then did an about-face and began rolling down the long slope toward utter chaos, finally landing like shards of glass in some unasked-for...

I wasn’t intending to post about the Coronavirus. My plans to become location-independent and launch a real—not-virtual—series of travels to foster and track Third Act adventures might have been born during the pandemic, but they are not really related to it. The idea to experience more of the world...

This is a blog about not settling. About not slipping into a familiar comfort of memories, half-regrets and complacency during the last chapter—the latter 30 years or so–of life. Not continuing on the path of least resistance. I know firsthand how our later years bring greater physical challenges. People...

My friend Robert was a genius—one of the few I can honestly give that label to. We worked together on a publication and we’d go to a Parisian-ish café in east midtown Manhattan for lunch where we’d share wine and brie and baguettes, escargot or whatever happened to be...