"Don't think that you have of necessity done with walking or cycling tours now you are married, as you can't leave your wife and go away with your old chum. Why not take her? If you will moderate your ardour, and be content to walk fifteen miles a day instead of twenty, and to carry a slightly larger knapsack (you'll never feel the difference), you and your wife can have the most delightful walking tours together. Or if she cycles, and you will think less of the miles you cover than the charming villages you investigate, you will not need a better chum than she can be.
Quote | from a letter that Christopher McCandless wrote to his 81 year old friend Ron: "You really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live with unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing more is damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. And so, in short, get out of the Salton City and hit the road. I guarantee you will be very glad you did. But I fear that you will ignore my advice. You think that I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me. You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest sights on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every American should see at least once in his life. But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day. I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover. Don't settle down and sit in one place. More around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time, Ron, and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience. You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances. Ron I really hope that as soon as you can you will get out of Salton City, put a little camper on the back of your pickup, and start seeing some of the great work that God has done here in the American West. You will see things and meet people and there is much to learn from them. And you must do it economy style, no motels, do your own cooking, as a general rule spend as little as possible and you will enjoy it much more immensely. I hope that the next time I see you, you will be a new man with a vast array of new adventures and experiences behind you. Don't hesitate or allow yourself to make excuses. Just get out and do it. Just get out and do it. You will be very, very glad that you did." Astoundingly, the eighty-one-year-old man took the brash twenty-four-year-old vagabonds advice to heart. Ron placed his furniture and most of his other possessions in a storage locker, bought a CMC Duravan, and outfitted it with bunks and camping gear. Then he moved out of his apartment and set up camp on the bajada.
Our 2011 Winnebago Longreach motorhome is for sale.
After a hectic couple of weeks of following cycling road races across two states, today we had a rest day. The boys rode their own bikes around the adjacent caravan site to ours all morning. It was heading for 40 degrees today, the first day in another week of stinkers over 40 degrees. We decided to go into town for a dessert lunch of Bavarian chocolate cake and apple strudel at The Hahndorf Inn. Mum bought herself another animal heat pack, this time a little pig that we've called "Hamdorf". She already has a sheep one and each of you have your own dinosaur heat packs. Erik's is red one named "Stanley" coz we bought him in Stanley Tasmania. Oscar's blue one is named "Toasty" coz he's toasty warm and Magnus's is named "Bronte" coz he's a Brontosaurus. My heat pack is a normal one and it doesn't have a name. I don't name things. That's stupid.
What an awesome day! Stage 5 of the Tour Down Under at Willunga Hill. Oscar had another epic climb amidst a huge crowd. As popular as ever, he scored high-fives from cyclists all the way up the hill. Cadel Evans lost the lead today, by just 1 second, to Team Orica GreenEdge cyclist Simon Gerrans. Aussie favourite Jens Voigt (from Germany) won most aggressive rider of the stage. At 42, he's the oldest cyclist in the peleton and definitely one of the nicest. We were so tired on the walk back down that we hitched a lift in a SA Police patrol car. Then, just to top the day off, we had to call the RAA to fix our Suzuki after an unsuccessful test of the 4WD transfer case saw us unable to get out of 4WD. After two hours, we were finally on our way home to Hahndorf. It was still an awesome day.