I just finished a 20,474 mile trek around America. It took me a full five months. I took my time, stayed in a lot of motels, visited all 48 states and saw a whole lot of things.

  The list of what I saw and visited is very long. And I did so many of the common tourist things in America: New York City, Hollywood, Niagara Falls, Yellowstone Park, New Orleans, The Redwood Forest, White Sands, and on and on. I got a full look at what America is.

And all of that was wonderful. But.... During my five months journey I would occasionally get a profound moment of joy. When it came; it was almost overwhelming.

So when did this happen? Was it while at a national park or big tourist attraction? Was I staring at some kind of a special and famous thing like Niagara Falls or Mount Rushmore?

No.... This feeling of profundity came to me at various time while I was simply driving.

You see, if you are a traveler you might understand what I mean and if you haven't traveled much this is going to be difficult to grasp.

But there is a spectacular beauty in America. And in it's diverse landscape. We have just about everything you could imagine here. There are the exceptionally hot and lush areas of Florida and Louisiana. There are the beautiful and colorful forests of New England, the mountains of Colorado, the coastline of California, the deserts of New Mexico, the red rock canyons of Utah, the prairies of South Dakota, and the miles long cornfields of Iowa.

And some of it is so magnificent it evokes a feeling.

A feeling of awe and wonder. A feeling that this little Earth we live on is special in a way that goes beyond words.

It always happened when I was simply driving alone on a road or a highway. And it is a connection. Something that we all have -yet rarely experience. A connection, not to the man-made wonders and achievements of this world. But a connection to the profoud and beautiful mystery that is life.

These moments started occurring after I had been on the road for at least two months. I believe it took me some time to shake off the regular world and start seeing things through different eyes. I was more open after being in this new type of life on the road for a while.

During the course of the five months of travel I found myself slowly unwinding. It took time, and it took effort but I rarely rushed to or through anything. My plans were vague. "I wanted to See America". So I just kind of made my way all around it in a zig-zag kind of fashion.

I didn't rush from point to point, seeing sights then moving on to the next thing. I took my time. My sense of time changed. There was no schedule for me. Other than that over arching goal of seeing America in four months. (Four months was what I had initially calculated before I started on the journey. It ended up taking five months.)

Gratitude

And after all of that I have an overwhelming sense of gratitude for how lucky I am for having been able to do it. It has been a life-long dream for me; really!

I a grateful to my car for being so reliable. It never broke down, it never over-heated, and I never even got a flat tire. I did end up in Nevada with a little bit of a shake when braking so I spent a day by taking it into a shop and getting the brakes done. Glad I got them done at that point because the trek from South Dakota through Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Washington State is a trek full of mountains. Which means a lot of very steep upward drives, then downward drives and that is tough on brakes.

I am also extremely grateful that I somehow found the means, the resources, and the time to do this journey. I am truly blessed.

I am also grateful that I have the health for it. I am pushing sixty and doing something like this has been nagging at me for a long time. Before I made the decision to actually do it I often had the thought that I really should do it before it is too late and I can't do it for health reasons.