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Dear Reader,

It's been a few months since my last update. I've been busy having lots of adventures, including visiting an incredibly remote spot in Panama and nearly breaking my legs, two national parks, Yosemite (picture below) and Pinnacles, a trip to my homeland of Wisconsin... I actually can't even remember all the adventures I've had. Too many to write about. It reminded me of the story below, which highlights the irony of living your life versus sitting in front of a computer writing about your life. I think this is relevant to us all in this day and age of social media.

Cheers,
Scott

The Untold Adventures of Life

Note: You can read the full story below, but visit my website for bigger and better photos, to leave a comment for others, and more.

When I was younger, I wanted to do something never done before. I wanted to conquer the world and stand on the tallest mountain. As I grow older, I see every day as a new adventure. I was once told that if I wanted to find God, I need look no further than a flower. That stuck with me. It has turned into my unsolvable koan. (A koan is often a paradoxical riddle used in Zen Buddhism to provoke enlightenment.) I am fascinated by the things I can discover in my own garden, and how every day is different.

So, as I grow older, sharing my adventures becomes more difficult as my definition of an adventure becomes less colloquial. Everything — Yes, I believe everything! — is an adventure of exploring the unknown and experiencing things never experienced and creating things never created. The challenge is having the eyes to see it, and I believe that if I am living a life full of integrity, I tackle every day like a new adventure. Not only is the world filled with wonders, but it is also a world where you can create new wonders. In a way, it isn't the top of the mountain or the flower in the garden that is wondrous, but it is the creation of the new experience — the combination of both you and the flower. And, everyone who climbs that mountain or sees that flower will create something new and add it to the oeuvre of humanity.

I hope this story provides a little inspiration to you, my reader. For me, the author of this article and my life, it is a note to myself, a reminder that I've lived many adventures that remain untold, like lunch with some billionaires in the Bahamas, living in a tree house in the Dominican Republic, being seen on the BBC as one of the drunken revelers on New Year's Eve in Manchester, hunting rabbits as a child with a homemade bow and arrow, and many more. I'm afraid someday they may be lost to history. Even my famous book about cycling the world may be lost when I'm no longer here to shepherd it through a noisy world. But... Isn't that the way of most adventures... most days?... most lives? Perhaps I should worry less about recording my adventures and just go live another one. Perhaps, they will die with me. Perhaps that is where they belong.

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El Capitan

Here is one of the most amazing and beautiful scenes that I've ever seen. (A seen scene. Haha.) Driving by late at night, I looked out the car window and saw what I thought was a constellation in the sky, but it was actually the lights of mountain climbers resting on the side of the mountain. It takes about 4 days to summit the one-kilometer peak, so climbers spend the night in hammocks that they attach to the face. Making the scene even more amazing is the actual constellation of the bigger dipper, upside down above El Capitan.

If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend the documentary "Free Solo," where climber Alex Honnold becomes the first to summit El Capitan without ropes. And he did it not in 4 days, but 4 hours! Truly one of the most remarkable athletic feats of any kind, ever.

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