Risk The Bad Meal

There's a camp fire up by Sleeping Bear Dunes that's still burning somewhere in the back of my head.

I wasn't doing anything important. Just sitting there, watching the flames do their thing, running back through a string of trips that had started to blur together the way good ones do. And next to me, curled up and completely still, was Juno, my dog. 

She's anxious by nature. Loud noises, new rooms, strangers at the door,  her default setting is alert, tense, waiting for something to go wrong. But out there, at that campsite, none of that showed up. She wasn't watching the treeline. She wasn't listening for danger. She was just there. Present. At peace in a way I'd never really seen from her anywhere else. I was also reflecting on having just turned 50, knowing if all goes well I may have 30-40 summers left. That's It.

I also kept reflecting on a quote that is tattooed on my mind! 

Anthony Bourdain said it better than I ever could:

"Be open to experience, be willing to try new things, don't have a rigid plan, accept random acts of hospitality without judgment or fear, don't be afraid to wander, don't be afraid to eat a bad meal — if you don't risk the bad meal you never get the magical one. But I think most important, be humble, be grateful."

That's not just a travel quote. It’s a way of moving through the world.

Most of us are wound tight the same way my dog is wound tight;  bracing for the next thing, managing the plan, guarding against what might go wrong. We stay in the rooms we know. We order the meal we've had before. We call that safety.

But safety was never the point. Peace was.

And peace, it turns out, doesn't show up on schedule. It shows up around a fire you didn't plan for, on a trail you took a wrong turn onto, in a random act of hospitality from someone who owed you nothing. It shows up when you stop managing the experience and just let it happen to you.

Somewhere Nowhere started before that campsite, but it really was driven from a desire to document our adventures but also to focus on the fact that we have limited time in life. It's built on the belief that the bad meals are worth the risk, the trip is worth the investment and getting out is what fuels our souls. That wandering isn't wasted time, and that the version of you that's most at peace is usually the version that stopped trying so hard to control everything.

Be open. Be willing. Don't be afraid of the wrong turn.

Be humble. Be grateful.

Take the time. Take this adventure with us.

-Bryan