guaranteed

well, here i sit denver-side.

it's way too early in the morning to be honest-- or at least it was when i woke up.

i can feel the evidence of higher altitude every morning when i roll out of bed. i wake up feeling like my mouth has cotton balls in it and my nose is barely breathable because of the golf ball sized boogers that dwell in my nostrils.

awesome.

i haven't "set off" as of yet-- but that's coming soon.

i have been sitting this morning listening to the soundtrack for the film "into the wild"---

(i can't urge each and every one of you enough to go see this movie. its a beautiful depiction of why the open road can be so rewarding. please see it, i am practically begging.)

so there's a song that eddie vedder wrote for the film titled "guaranteed" that is really something special: it's open road, it's freedom, its so many things that i believe in wrapped in to one song. at this point, i don't think there is a better way to start any sort of travel blog than with the lyrics from the tune:

"On bended knee is no way to be free
Lifting up an empty cup, I ask silently
All my destinations will accept the one that's me
So I can breathe...

Circles they grow and they swallow people whole
Half their lives they say goodnight to wives they'll never know
A mind full of questions, and a teacher in my soul
And so it goes...

Don't come closer or I'll have to go
Holding me like gravity are places that pull
If ever there was someone to keep me at home
It would be you...

Everyone I come across, in cages they bought
They think of me and my wandering, but I'm never what they thought
I've got my indignation, but I'm pure in all my thoughts
I'm alive...

Wind in my hair, I feel part of everywhere
Underneath my being is a road that disappeared
Late at night I hear the trees, they're singing with the dead
Overhead...

Leave it to me as I find a way to be
Consider me a satellite, forever orbiting
I knew all the rules, but the rules did not know me
Guaranteed"