Welcome to our adventure

Serenity, adventure: life is a chaotic hum-drum stress test of drones and robots without serenity and adventure. Without engaging in the unknown, and finding peace and rest away from the chaos, what are we? We’re born, acquire knowledge to become useful, exchange knowledge and skills for materials that we think make our life easier, but often become one more thing we’re having to give our resources to. In adventure however, we engage in risk, we engage in creation, we expand our knowledge, we keep the flame in our spirit alive that once roared in us as children when we were taking in gargantuan amounts of data every day and learning faster than we knew what to do with that knowledge. It’s so tragically easy to slip to a point as adults where we only learn what we must to stay employed, to pay bills. Adventure once used to trigger our adrenaline and sharpen our mind. Now our nerves are raw, we don’t engage in adventure anymore, and despite this our fight or flight response is responding to anything and everything, making us as flighty as deer and as angry as yellow-jackets. Adventure is supposed to take us out of our comfort zone, and also bring us into an expanded level of freedom. Serenity is needed as much, even more, as a companion to adventure. We need a time and place to rest our nerves, to gather in, to recharge, to breathe freely, and rest easily.

It’s in pursuit of serenity and adventure that my wife Angel and I are starting a blog. We’re starting it in part to connect with people of similar thoughts and passions as our own, and also to share our perspective and experience with all who wish to partake, and, with any amount of Providence, provide a supplement to my income to make it easier to find serenity and adventure in our life. What is adventure to me, Ken? Well it’s hiking, camping, exploring, canoeing, backpacking, hunting, and fishing, but I can honestly say I never have enough time to really engage in any of those activities as much as I would like. It should be though. We live in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. It's easier to show roughly where this is than explain it.

North Carolina is rich with outdoor activities, hiking, camping, backpacking, rock climbing, trail walking, rappelling, beach walking, etc etc. There are hundreds, if not thousands of miles of trails and greenways across the state, and I've walked a lot of them. I want to try to walk them all. I'm still young, though not young, at 33 I'm not middle aged by any means, but not a young 20 something with energy to spare either. My hope would be to somehow turn hiking/camping/backpacking into a viable income: starting in North Carolina, and eventually turning to neighboring states, through-hike the Appalachian Trail, Continental Divide Trail, and Pacific Crest Trail before I'm 50.

We have three kids, the oldest is almost ten, and they love the outdoors, so far. They haven't broken into backpacking and true primitive camping (as in no bathrooms of any kind) yet though, so these are trips to come.

In the mean time here was a spur of the moment evening hike to Tory's Den in Hanging Rock State Park. A quick walk with lots of stairs, a chunk of history, and a decent waterfall.

Speaking of waterfalls, we also love waterfalls. Waterfalls and getting to them are the picture definition of the concept of serenity and adventure meeting in creation and blending in their wild and yet peaceful torrents. North Carolina has a lot of them, over 40 that are easily found on Google, and supposedly over 100 that are in a trail guide I have yet to find, but from what I’ve researched there are at least that many. That will make for a lot of trips, a lot of pictures and video, and most importantly, a lot of memories.

While I love adventure and need serenity, Angel loves serenity, and needs adventure. We both find serenity in gardening, in getting your hands dirty and caked in the Carolina clay, in harvesting vegetables and enjoying the fruit of our work. We also keep chickens and enjoy the fresh (gluten free, ha!) eggs and get a lot of entertainment and laughs from watching them. There’s something unbelievably peaceful and serene about watching animals go about eating and singing and fulfilling their whole purpose in all its simplicity.

Something we lack so much in this life and in these times is serenity, peace, and stillness. In a time when so much entertainment and stimulation is pushing an agenda or a narrative, and stimulating every last nerve. This continues until we find ourselves needing chemicals to deaden the nerves (Alcohol, SSRIs, Xanax, etc.), and then different chemicals to bring the nerves alive again (amphetamines, cocaine), and chemicals to regulate our own body's natural chemical/hormonal releases. I have found that when time is taken to reduce stimulation, and immerse one's self in creation the body will regulate itself. There is much that could be said about this, and perhaps in time will be. I write some, almost exclusively poetry, but dabble in other types of writing as well. I'm not good at sitting still though, and trying to quiet or still my mind is almost impossible: writing helps, gardening helps, being outside, in nature, all helps. Should I just sell everything and go live as a trail-wandering vagabond? The deep wild in me whispers an emphatic "yes," but I know that isn't practical in this day and age. How I would have loved to be an assistant to the likes of John Muir, Samuel Clemmons, Theodore Roosevelt, or George Washington Carver as they explored the land and the plants therein, improving techniques in wandering and plant uses.

Digging deeper into the concept of serenity and adventure: my wife and I are followers of Jesus Christ, "Christian" being the popular, overused term. Christ is our ultimate peace and serenity. I cannot help but to bring Him up in conversation about nature, gardening, adventure, and walking through His world in all its splendor. I will try not to be too preachy, but it is who I am, my identity is in Christ, through Him I'm an adopted child of God. I'm not perfect, I'm messed up, ranking with the worst of sinners, but I want to do better. I say this, hoping to take away any shock from readers. We're all walking our own trails, and we're all struggling with something. I strive not to judge people for sinning differently than me, and would not force anyone to engage in a relationship with God. Arguably outside of western culture it tends to be harder to believe than not to.

Even in the west it is not the pop-culture staple it used to be, but is becoming more looked down upon. That said, I love you, you reading this, I believe with all my heart you're made in God's image, and that He loves you too. I believe God is perfectly loving, and so must also be perfectly just, and whenever our lives come to an end our lives are measured. Exactly what they're measured against, whether just against the moral laws of the Bible (i.e. 10 commandments and a couple others) or measured against social norms or our own personal standards: we all fall short against any standard. We're innately flawed and gravitate towards selfishness-which, when examined, could sum up most of what God defines as "evil" and "sin." That's why Jesus came into the world, being fully God and fully man. He was able to live a perfect life and took on the punishment of sin (via death on a Roman cross) for anyone who puts their faith in Him and invites Him into a relationship in their life. He (God) raised Jesus (God, more on this eventually) from death to life so that we could have hope in Him, that He has power over death and promises us a resurrection from death to life. In God's perfect justice anyone not covered by the grace provided for by Jesus' death is guilty of punishment, not just of death, but death into suffering. Anyone covered by the grace provided for by Jesus' death will be welcomed into the presence of God and heaven. Again, any Christian who loves as they ought should want anyone they come in contact with to join them in asking God to adopt them, saving them from eternal suffering, and joining a vast family of adopted children of God. It's a lot, and there's so much more. It's a concept so simple a child can wrap their mind around it, clinging to it fully, and yet it's so deep, complex, and nuanced that the wisest minds can turn it over for years and still hardly grasp it. So if you don't want to read about that, I understand, and while I would love it if you did, feel free to skip those parts as you must, but I do invite you to my perspective, to see these written snap shots (and literal snapshots) from the metaphorical trail of my life, and the literal trails I walk on.

So we invite you to follow us on our adventures, and invite you to join us in the serenity of gardening, and invite you to join us in the serene adventure of our walk with Christ (kind of a christianese term, I'll try to avoid those, or explain them, but it's like it sounds, walking with a friend down the trail of life). We'll make a point to post about the outdoor adventures here, at least once a week, and gardening or chickens once a week, and about our faith as we feel lead. Please comment, say hi, and we welcome any constructive advice. We'll be setting up media across a few platforms in weeks to come, and possibly a Patreon for anyone who wants to support us and get to know us a little deeper than what we do here.

Thanks for the read, we love you, and are thankful for you.

Ken.