Exhausted but still full of adrenaline...

I'm sure lots of my friends can relate to this post, it's the result of an adventure-filled day and the effects last for a varying length of time (I assume there's a direct relationship to the level of excitement and duration of the high but haven't bothered to get clinical in any form of analysis). It's been quite a day!

Last night and this morning were the result of 4 years of a slowly evolving friendship, that came close to having something like this happen in 2011 when I kicked off my "retirement" with a trip to cover a bike race in Arkansas. In hindsight it would have been a lot easier to make a visit happen then, already down here (and being paid for the travel!) instead of a multi-day multi-thousand mile venture that still has dates in the days to follow that I have to meet (like being in Las Vegas when Andrea arrives! :)

I look back and think "coulda, shoulda" and I add that to my list of life's lessons. As it turned out it worked better than any of us coulda expected... Lar had that "minor" bit or surgery after turning 65, which prompted a wedding to happen too. And for the record he still takes cream and sugar in his coffee... all you VW friends have to help break him of that habit so he & Maggie won't have to repeat all of that!

Then I put my life on a strange path called halo, one that I don't recommend unless you really need to go there. That didn't really impede us meeting, it did really put life into a new and precious perspective.

But things have a way of happening if they can, and this is one of those happenings that seems to have happened despite all of the participants rather than because of us. So a Friday evening in April just happened to be the window that opened.

(Now... the adrenaline test: this is all preamble to the day I want to describe, I very much enjoyed the preamble and I suspect when I start writing about the day itself I'll hit that wall where everything that was making it possible just goes "poof".) It's after 1AM Mountain time, which makes it after 3AM Eastern time (and my body clock is still on Eastern so I expect I'm screwed for an early start tomorrow).

Back to the tale though... I coulda stayed longer (woulda loved to!). I shoulda been more persuasive in suggesting they join me for the weekend and we could explore sites they know and love (justified by getting them back into camping mode and "testing" RoadHaus to make sure he's ready for the next trip they are planning). Instead we looked over maps and talked about places that are sources of inspiration. I'm looking forward to tapping into that, today on the road wasn't a good start on the inspirational part. It sure was on the life lesson scale though! What an amazing day. And here I am at almost 3:30AM body clock time still rambling on. The tale of the day on the road will be a separate entry though, I finally feel the tug of exhaustion...

I will close with a parting shot though, it's one I put up on Facebook as it captures a bit of what I felt as the day was starting to wind down. A beautiful sky, a ribbon of road, and a weathered Westy :)