I Believe I can SOAR!!

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

One of the most rewarding pleasures we have working as camp hosts at

is meeting the travelers, the adventurers, the wanderers.

Each encounter stirs something inside. I am instantly drawn to the tales of their journeys and find myself mesmerized by their words, like a child listening to a favorite bedtime story.

Last evening, a young man rode in, bulging backpacks strapped securely to his bike, and I knew he had a story I longed to hear. When he spoke, his English accent revved up my engines for not only was he an adventurer, but he was from another country! Jake is a twenty year old from England who started riding from San Francisco to Baltimore in May. He crossed the Rockies. HE CROSSED THE ROCKIES! I’ve driven through the Rocky Mountains, and experienced the wonder and awe of their immense size and beauty. I’ve thought about Lewis & Clark and all the other explorers seeing them for the first time – and here is a guy who pedaled to an altitude of 11,000 feet and accomplished the trek just like explorers of the past. We talked for hours.

I have a soft spot for bicyclists, for I married one. Bruce set off on his bicycle in 1999 – long before I met him – and traveled from Key West, up the East coast, across the country to Missouri – a six month quest that I never tire of hearing him share. That one piece of his story is what drew me to him . . . and resulted in our hippie wedding in the woods! He woke up the adventurer in me . . . and everything is different now.

We’re getting close to setting off on our own quest to go and discover places we’ve never seen, meet people who share a similar dream, experience the freedom of life on our own schedule. It has taken a few years to prepare for this journey. There’s been times we’ve hit a wall and nothing seemed to work to move us forward. There’s been challenges and setbacks, education and mentors, mindset transitions . . . it all has provided the tools and maps we needed to make it happen. And now, we’re so close to the starting gate that we’re jumping up and down, doing cartwheels, giving high fives, and grinning at each other like we have a secret too good not to share!

There’s one place on my bucket list that is the marker for me – the place that, when I am there, I will know that all our planning, all our work, all our struggles have come to fruition. When I stand in the Redwood Forest, at the base of the the trees that reach up for hundreds of feet, I will know.

It’s our time – time for us to soar! Yep, I’m playing this song by R Kelly and singing along . . .

I believe I can fly
I believe I can touch the sky
I think about it every night and day
Spread my wings and fly away
I believe I can soar
I see me running through that open door
I believe I can fly
I believe I can fly
I believe I can fly

If I can see it, then I can be it
If I just believe it, there’s nothing to it

Hey, if I just spread my wings
I can fly
I can fly

So, watch for us – we’ll be the ones drifting along with the clouds on a summer day . . .
Bruce and Trisha