To go...

To always be moving in the direction of a never-setting sun is a beautiful thing. To be driving with no ulterior motives; to reach a goal; to see the sun finally set over an ever-stretching horizon separating only sea and sky. To go: how wonderful.

I recently went on a week-long road trip with five of my favorite people. Our goal was to reach the West Coast. That was it. We had two rules. First, no chain restaurants. Second, if we saw something that drew our interest - anything that offered an opportunity for adventure - we would experience it. Examples: riding a rollercoaster in the middle of the desert, with no visible civilization for miles; veering off a highway to take a road less taken; and simply stopping to take in wherever, whomever, or whatever we were currently experiencing.

We saw antelope grazing the plains. We saw trains cutting their ways across the barren landscape of the desert. We drove through snow in the Continental Divide. We drove over one of man's greatest achievements. We realized how small one of man's greatest achievements really is when compared to the canyons, mesas, mountains, and seas of sand that we saw along the way. We were humbled and empowered. We were six boys taking as much we could from an opportunity that life had given us.

We need to take as much as we can out of life everyday - no just when we're going places.

We're always going places.

We're always seeing things we've never seen before.

We just have to look. And we just have to go.

I just have to go.

Invention is Dead

As a young boy, I had dreams of building a hovercraft.

Real dreams. I would lay in bed for hours before I could fall asleep - drafting imagined plans of my future transportation - going over them continuously until I had them just right. Then, when I finally fell asleep, I would do the same thing. I would turn my plans over and over again. Sometimes, if I was lucky, I would have actually built my craft. Even more rare were the dreams that allowed me to ride it. But these just gave me something to look forward to.

At first, my imagination was devoted to a hovercar: a real car, such as would be marketed out of Detroit. Then, I realized that I had neither the means nor the capability of creating such a vehicle. So, I focused my thoughts on a hover-scooter: something that I truly believed I could make as a 10-year-old boy. I had done research. I had looked for materials. I was still in need of a high-powered vacuum cleaner motor. And a battery to power it. After these things, all I would need was the skirting material. Then I would have everything necessary to create a rough prototype of my scooter.

I never tried. I never even tried to put it together.

It would have worked. I swear it would have worked. Even to this day, thinking about it (the plans are burned in my mind), I have full confidence that if had the tools and the money, I could create a functional hover-scooter.

I have to make it work.