Newfound Wanderer

[Steppingfeet]

Thank you for the response, and thank you for the kind and warm welcome. I am glad to read that you discovered the material far earlier than I, thank you for sharing your first encounter! It's been refreshing first to pour through the material and now to discover similar other-selves. Quite wonderful.

Traveling has allowed me to learn that America is like a beautiful fondue pot of 10 or 11 cheeses (New Orleans, 11, is an outlier...smells bad but tastes great). Depending on the blend and your personal taste, you may enjoy or loathe some more than others. It has taught me to not trust the media whatsoever, and that there is far more good than bad in this nation when it comes to the people. I'm somewhat broad with the statements as it's a lot to consolidate into a few statements, but I try to relay that the nation of America is full of beauty and wonder. You enjoy travel as well, do you have a favorite state or national park? I'm overly fond of Teuton and Rocky Mountain NP.

Afghanistan is what it is. I wasn't fighting Taliban, my unit took the jobs from local lumberjacks (and took the lumber mill) and put them all out of work. Those men put together a militia and really gave us an ass whopping over a couple of years.

Once again thank you for the kind words, it's a good feeling to communicate on this platform with similar other-selves.

I don't totally distrust the media, but I do think that the incentives of profit-based media and the algorithms of social media amplify disturbance and create a funhouse mirror of ourselves. And I so appreciate your optimism. Have you heard of an amazing woman who went by the name of Peace Pilgrim? She was something of a mystic, also a pacifist and a peace activist. Beginning in the 50s she began walking across the country on foot. She did that seven times over the next 28 years. (And I just learned was the first woman to complete the Appalachian Trail in a single season.) I remember reading a small book of hers years ago. I don't remember if she opined on the media then, but she had a perspective like yours in seeing goodness all around her.

National Parks? Our hearts are out West. My wife interned at Yellowstone for a summer, so that is her spiritual home. Really hard to narrow down but I'd say the string of parks in southern Utah - Canyonlands, Arches, Bryce, Capitol Reef, and Zion. The Colorado plateau/four corners area in general is heaven, we'd live in CO, UT, or MT (montana) in our dream world. We've done a 3-day 30-mile backcountry in Rocky Mtn NP. The Tetons are extraordinary. Did you hike there? We've taken a couple dayhikes up into the mountains from Jenny Lake. I love how the mountains just seem to arise out of the lakes when looking west.

We were leaving Sand Dunes NP some years back and a senior citizen volunteering for the park's campground came to collect our ticket. We talked with her for a bit. She and her husband had sold their home and took up life on the road in an RV. I think they spent several weeks at a time at different campgrounds volunteering. My wife and I wondered if we were seeing our future. We love the thought of the nomadic life and we are really grateful for America's "best idea" - it is a beautiful place, this country.