Living her dream.

So many wonderful and varied hosts on my bike tour! Jerry and Margaret enjoyed a large gated-off ranch with horses and warm weather year round. They had poodles, good food, and friends. She mentioned something that stuck with me. She was living her dream. 

Was I living my dream pedaling across the country? I was certainly living a dream. It almost doesn't feel real anymore. Reading back in my journal, I wasn't sure of very much at all. Retrospectively, this was the trip of a lifetime.  At the time is was hard to think about anything other than my sore butt from the increased time in the saddle. 

Am I living my dream now? In the moment it is alway hard to think past the poopy diapers announced with a "Happy New Year!". It is hard to see past the shouts for "Up! Up! Up!" interspersed with exhausted tears. It is hard to move beyond the thunder of the child bear crawling through our small house at an alarming speed. 

I am glad I'm journaling and sketching now recording these hard moments. 15 years from now I'll look back and I hope I'll say I was living my dream. 

Are you living your dream? What is your dream? Can you think back to a time when you were living your dream?

I don't have all the answers, but I'm going to try to love my life now for what it is AND I am going to chase my dreams. I don't think they are mutually exclusive.

Originally Posted February 02, 2007

Jerry and Margaret's Ranch - 18 miles

We're staying with Jerry and Margaret after a climbing 3000ft over 20.9 miles. It was basically all up hill. They put us up in their unfinished garage. It is huge and their house is huge and it is beautiful. Wendy, their friend the interior designer, brought fruit salad to dinner. They offered us leftovers: meatloaf, chicken barley soup, homemade bread, salmon, and baked beans. It was all delicious. Great conversation and Jerry and Jon spoke quite a bit about their motor bikes. But I'm beat. It was a long hard day and we stopped at their call box by their gate hoping they'd put us up. They have a bunch of sweet poodles that enjoyed getting loves. One was named Reba...

In the morning they had us up for breakfast and coffee. Once again their hospitality was wonderful in their bead board kitchen. As Margaret said, she's living her dream.