Today is a workday. The Starbucks opened at 5AM, so when I wake up around six in the morning, I don’t need to wait but I can just start working straight away. It’s still very quiet at this time, but I still put in my headphones, because I can use some motivation. I listen to a couple of motivational videos like I do more often. Their main message is that you create your reality with your own thoughts, something I believe is true. You can’t always choose the situations you get into, but you can determine how you react to it. I think that’s so powerful.
The funny thing is that when I’m working and being completely focussed, I can forget my surroundings and even that I’m on the other side of the world. Like I said the other day I don’t miss my work while I’m here, but fact is that I do enjoy it when I’m doing it. The nice thing of having an online business is that you can do it wherever in the world as long as you’ve got internet. I work until four in the afternoon and then I figure it has been enough for today.
I drive to Redwoods National Park, which is only 45 minutes away. There is a long hiking trail that goes by some of the largest trees in America, but you need a special permit for that and the visitor center is already closed. So I take a shorter hike that follows the creek through the woods and also leads via some big trees. They aren’t as tall as the ones I saw in Sequoia National Park, but still very impressive. After a full day of sitting behind the computer, it’s nice to be out here in nature.
I hike the trail for about two kilometers and then turn around, because I want to be back in town before dark. I plan to come back here tomorrow for the long trail. The towns close to the park are very small, so I decide to go back to Eureka where I stayed today. The visitor center won’t open before 9AM tomorrow. so I have time enough in the morning. Just before seven I’m back at the parking place where I also stayed last night. There is also a Subway here, so dinner is taken care of as well. It’s interesting that despite the fact that it’s free, usually I prefer to park at public places. I think it’s because there are more people and there is food and coffee. And truth be told, it saves quite a lot of money since most campsites here cost between 25 and 50 Dollars, so I’d rather spend that money on food and drinks. I do miss the cooking from the car as I did in New Zealand, that’s just not really possible at public parking places. I think I’ll do some more camping this Summer when I’m back home.
A day like today also makes me think about how to continue this blog when I’m back home in a couple of weeks. Of course it’s much easier to write now that I’m having a lot of adventures while traveling. I think it’ll be a nice challenge to keep writing when I’m back to normal life. Or maybe the real challenge is to find the adventure in normal life. We’ll see how that goes when I’m back in the Netherlands. Today was a nice combination of a workday and also spending some time in nature.
