My life changing Journey

In 2012 I took an incredible journey, which will have changed my life forever. I think of this trip quite often. It was right about the time when the original "Chronicles of Cod" started and was the same time that I fell in love with putting thought to word, I blasted out daily video updates and slept in the back of my Nissan all across Americas Walmarts.

I am aware that some people have a challenging time spinning out of sad situations. I do not mean to rub it in the face of these people. Rather, I hope to inspire travel and the pursuit of happiness. I will share it in the hope of even sending one person on a path to happiness.

Walking the beach in search of Roosters in Mexico.

One of the most amazing things that I have taken away from that trip was the ability to make myself smile on command. It usually starts with a moment of self-pity or self-doubt. Maybe a "WTF am I doing here/doing this right now?" or " I should be doing something more/better than this." I then start to think it's not all so wrong and turn a 180 and begin to think I am really happy here right now at this moment. I am doing nothing wrong and have a lot to be thankful for. I've tried and tested it many times and even when I am feeling my most sad, I can still make myself smile by trying to not focus only on the bad and reminding myself of the good things remaining in life how good I really do have it.

Mexican ATM’s will sometimes just “run out of cash”. they still take it from your account but it won’t spit out the dough. Early morning after crossing into the Baja waiting for the bank to open and try to get my 5000 pesos back. It ended up only taking 4 weeks haha.

I'm not sure if there was a specific event that started this all or not (as I don't recall one) Maybe it was the constant encountering and overcoming of what seemed to be big problems. They were big problems because they were the ones in front of me. Every day there was something it seemed, but you just kept chugging forward and having fun. Being able to make myself smile like this has been such a fantastic tool for dealing with little lows that have come up from time to time. There is always something you can laugh or smile about. I hope to salvage my writings from that trip and get them up on here one day.

My first Rooster. This was a hard won battle. Looking back tho this one came easy as its been likely 50-60 days since my last.

The trip started with a road trip from Calgary to Houston. The next stop was Belize for a couple of weeks of Permit fishing and some travel and relaxation. I then flew back to Houston and headed south for Corpus Christi area and ended up staying in Port Aransas, Texas for three weeks. I fished redfish (rather unsuccessfully) and met some lifetime friends there. I left Houston and travelled Northwest towards California, meeting some old clients along the way. I stopped in San Diego for a few days and crossed into Mexico and made my way down into the Baja. The plan was loose at best and had some twists and turns. I stayed in Baja for around a month as I recall and then drove to Los Angeles and flew back to Calgary. I then flew to Cuba for a few weeks aboard a liveaboard with friends and then back to Calgary and flew back to LA to get my rig.

One of the best things about travel is the people you meet. I’ll butcher the spelling of his name but this is me and my Cuban friend “Horetti"

I'll never forget crossing back into Canada when it was finally over. The border guard officer asked where I was coming from. I explained all that I have just explained in the last paragraph, but backwards and each move was prompted by the officer. They just looked in the back of the rig and said, "pull in right over there." They searched the vehicle and I fell asleep in the waiting room. I am typically nervous around cops and at border crossings and get weird even tho I've done nothing wrong. So the fact that I was relaxed enough to fall asleep was pretty unique for me. I guess I'd already crossed 7 Mexican Military checkpoints been through customs in 4 countries, so I had some practice.

Baby Perm from the Belize leg of the journey.

Go travel if you can, spend some time by yourself, when you need company . . . . find some. Sort your thoughts out, have no plan, meet some new people, do some new things, get outside your comfort zone. It doesn't have to be a big three-month deal like mine was. Go for three days. You'll be glad you did. . . . . . I am.

While in Port A I went out shrimpin’ (inspired by Forrest Gump) with “Lake” from Vietnam. Super cool experience and it didn’t cost a dime. I actually ate my self to near sickness on shrimp and took a shopping bag full home so I guess you can say I came out on top.