One could get into a habit of waking up every day. In fact, I think most of us do without really thinking of the consequences that it entails.

With every day, we wake, we have new wants, and new desires. We make a series of little promises to ourselves, as we plan our days tasks, and we make even bigger promises to ourselves that these tasks we perform most of our week are there to help us enjoy even greater things.

Like I said, one could get in the habit of waking up every day, knowing that a series of small promises may eventually turn into coming clean on a much larger one that we make to ourselves.

But we sometimes tend to lose focus, and break those promises we make to ourselves whether by intention or not, and so we sit here, day after day, year after year, pondering over what it is we want to do with our short lives, and where we want to go.

I won’t sit here and apologize for it though, neither will I say that the last 5 years have been wasted.

Sure, I promised myself I would revisit the North in 2011, and when that didn’t happen, 2012.

And as 2012 passed by, I sold that KLR named Sarah, and to some it seemed as if some of those promises I made to myself to travel north once again would be broken. I started to speak of my plans less and less, and it seemed like my desire to travel north had faded.

But they had not.

Ever since I had traveled down Highway 37, ever since I set my eyes on the Brooks Range, and ever since that moment my toes hit the chilling waters of the Arctic Ocean, a piece of me stayed behind at each of those places.

I have said it before, I am not a person who enjoys the hustle and bustle of the city life, even living outside the main downtown areas is a bit much for me, but I manage.

My heart has always been outside the limits, out in those open spaces, miles from civilization where sometimes it’s just me, my thoughts, and the sound of a meadowlark.

I am not one of those people, who want to live their lives in their box above the coffee shop, who preach about saving this and saving that, while they walk around, their feet suspended by concrete and tarmac several inches above the earth in which they say they are trying to save.

They tell me I should feel guilty for driving around in my dinosaur juice loving, 4 wheel driven, dirt covered ship of exploration. That I should only limit my adventurous ambitions to what public transportation can provide for me.

I’ve watched as land is closed off, told that it is not for me to explore, land that they say is public, yet no public may trespass, where only privileged individuals are able to roam, to experience, to explore.

I don’t subscribe to this new thought that nature should be lived through words and photos you see on some screen, and lead to believe it’s best that your interaction with it be limited to such. I provide these posts in hopes that I may encourage you to put on your boots, walk out that door, take a deep breath and step off of the tarmac and onto the dirt that lays naturally under it before our time runs out.

So this is now where I am, where time has passed to this point once more.

Time is a funny thing, which we are all aware of.  Days seem to fly by, weeks and months do too, and before you know a year or maybe 5 have seemed to pass by in a blink it seems.

But it has been a different adventure these last 5 years for me.

I’ve spent the last 5 years reintroducing myself to me.

I let my love of the outdoors drive me, to change me again, to bring me closer to what I remember from when I was younger.

I look forward to the adventures I have each day, deciding what I’m going to do next.

So what is next?

Next is exciting… Next I return to that land a little of myself stayed behind on.

Next, I pack up my dinosaur juice drinking, 4 wheel driven, dirt covered ship of exploration with some camping gear, a mountain bike, and follow the needle north.