1000 Days of Adventure and Stories

Art Model, Jenny Copyright 2019 Terrell Neasley

 "Still around the corner, there may wait a new road or a secret gate."

~ John Ronald Reuel  Tolkien

This past month, I hit a benchmark that I wasn't even aware of until I was downloading some files from my online backup. It told me that my desktop computer (in storage in Las Vegas) had been out sync from continuous backup for 1004 days, which is the time I unplugged it, packed it, and locked it up on December 21st, 2017. It has been that long since I've had a home where I have all my stuff and lay my head down every night. Since then, it's been hotels, hostels, and apartment rentals... the longest stay in one place being close to 6 months in Xela, Guatemala. 

I know some people thought I'd be back after only a few months. Two and a half years later, I'm still rollin' and no where near finished. Delayed! Halted! Holed up! But not finished. A global pandemic and the current reduced status of the US passport has me unable to move around as freely as I might desire. The Global Passport and Power Index has the US ranked tied for 23rd, but there are 53 countries ahead of us. Bosnia/Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, and even Ukraine are ahead of us. Japan and New Zealand tie for the strongest passport in the world for 2020.  

Art Model, Jenny Copyright 2019 Terrell Neasley

Less countries are admitting US citizens and even here in Vietnam, people still ask me when I got here before they let their guard down with me. I have to make sure they know I was here PRE-Pandemic! This should be obvious, because the borders have been closed and no new tourist visas have been granted since March. But given the recent smuggling incident where some Chinese immigrants snuck in some illegal Chinese citizens and then coincidentally we got a second wave... I guess I can understand.

So how did all this start for me? Well, I've already told you about people who have been influential in my life regarding international travel... The Army showed me new lands and new people. An ex-girlfriend showed me it's not as expensive as I thought to go someplace. My friend Heather convinced me to go with her to Central America and that started me to traveling the way I do now. But there have also been a number of other factors while I was growing up that also heavily influenced my wanderlust. 

Art Model, Jenny Copyright 2019 Terrell Neasley

I think I've always been an explorer by nature. Where I grew up in Texas, there are woods behind my house. I used to venture into those woods with my little brother, Greg just to see where they led and what was within them. We didn't have Google Maps back then. I was always interested in what was around the corner, over the bend, and beyond the horizon. 

I also read books. Who doesn't remember "Where the Wild Things Are"? It's a story about adventure! And I read countless adventure books like this. None was more influential to me than J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and Bilbo's adventure with Gandalf and the Dwarfs. I actually saw the 1977 animated version in the 4th grade during an assembly. All of my 4th grade class saw it. I was mesmerized the whole time. 

Art Model, Jenny Copyright 2019 Terrell Neasley

It was only later on, while I was in high school that I accidentally came across The Lord of the Rings series. Discovering, after all this time, that there was a continuation! Crazy! 

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.” - J.R.R. Tolkien "The Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring"

Art Model, Jenny Copyright 2019 Terrell Neasley

I think that one quote stuck with me best. Along with, "Not all those who wander are lost..." which is part of a poem in The Fellowship of the Ring. Then a year AFTER high school, I learn that there is yet another continuation... or rather a preceding book to the series called, "The Silmarillion". I listened to that one on audio CD's when I found it at a bookstore. I had to have it! I actually first looked at the box and thought, "They are just copying LOTRs!

But all throughout my childhood and adult life, I've had stories of adventure surround me or I was on them myself in the Army. How could I keep still? I had to seek out the horizon. Initially, that was moving out west into the unknown deserts surrounding Las Vegas. That sufficed for a while. But adventure called again and I headed off to Central America 3 or 4 times. Sometimes solo... sometimes with company. 

Art Model, Jenny Copyright 2019 Terrell Neasley

But there was one nagging feeling that gnawed at a spot in the back of my brain since the first time I met someone on my first trip to Guatemala. They had been traveling for a 13 months by the time I met them. I thought I was big-timing it being gone 6 weeks. It pestered me! What is that like to be traveling for years at a time? That was back in 2012. It took me until 2019 to actually find out after crossing my first year of travel. Three more months and I'll be on year THREE! And I feel like I'm just getting started. 

Art Model, Jenny Copyright 2019 Terrell Neasley

Thanks again, Jenny for coming out to meet me in Peru, despite NEVER having met before! That was a FABULOUS THREE WEEKS! Good times, tough times... we made it through blistering heat on the beach and freezing cold nights on the lake. Those are the things that makes the story.