Today it’s time to pack my bag again and travel further. I’d love to stay longer with this lovely family, but there are more places to go and more people to see. I say goodbye to the children when they go to school and then hang out with Darin for a while longer and talk more about life. Darin is good in reading people, seeing how they really are. I ask him what he sees when he looks at me. He tells me the exact same thing as another spiritual man told me on the ferry from the South Island to the North Island of New Zealand. Things about my character and the path I’m on in life. I’m impressed and keep things in mind. In some way this is again an adventurous journey as also a spiritual journey. That’s one of the things I love about traveling, you learn a lot about yourself and life as you travel to new places and meet new people.
I say goodbye to Darin and hope to see him soon again in the Netherlands. Then I drive to Mt Raineer, another National Park in the list. It’s nice and green here and makes me think of Yosemite. I keep driving to the top where the hiking trail is that I planned to do, but already soon I see that everything here is still covered by snow. I do start the hike, but each step is heavy because your feet sink down deep in the snow. What’s more is that it’s really cloudy today, so you can’t see much. After about ten minutes I decide to turn around and at the visitor center I text Darin if it’s okay if I stay a day longer. I missed the family already and don’t feel like driving many hours today.
Darin texts me back that they’ll be home tonight and I offer to pick up pizza on my way home. I’m looking forward to staying another night with them. The adventure of traveling alone is the main part of the vacation, but staying with friends is also a great part of it. I’ve said it before, the people I meet here are the best part of the journey. In about two hours I’m back in town and stop by the pizza place. Then I drive back to Darin’s home and surprise the children with my return. We play volleyball again in the front yard and when everybody is home we have dinner. Pizza and taco’s, a good combination. In the evening we watch a movie and hang around in the living room. Everyone is excited that I stayed another day and I’m happy about it too. Tomorrow I will travel further again to visit Olympic National Park and maybe also the Northern Cascades National Park. I plan to leave in the morning so I have a full day to travel.
