We started out for Moab in the late morning. It was weird not to be travelling by bike. I felt helpless not being able to stop where and whenever I wanted. The last pit stop before Moab, I swapped my gear into Lindsey’s car. Ardel had suggested I share a camping hut with the girls so we could all save money. For some reason, the girls agreed, and I certainly wasn’t going to complain. We found a cabin about a mile from the centre of town, unloaded our stuff, and then hopped back in the car and headed to Arches National Park.

Arches was amazing. It was trippy. It was totally exciting. We’d pick out different shapes in the rocks; a face, animals, even a big “screw you” middle finger rising out of the desert.

We did a small hike to the South and North Windows, then another to the viewpoint overlooking delicate arch. The sky was threatening rain, but rather than getting soaked we were treated to a rainbow over the rocks. The dark skies contrasted with the saturated red of the rocks. We eventually watched the sun set over the desert and admired the myriad of changing colours with every passing minute. It was bliss. And great to be sharing the experience with people that appreciated it in the same way.

For dinner we hit a Mum and Pop diner in town, filled up on meat and veggies and generous sized ice cream sundaes. We headed over to Ardel’s campground to pick up my bike and ended up talking and drinking with him until the late hours.

I knew when I started this trip, a lot of it was about finding out what I wanted to do after the trip was over. But I found that thinking about these things made the trip less enjoyable. So I let the questions go and started to enjoy just being in the moment and living each day as it came.

Cat’s suggestion was that instead of worrying about trying to impose my future plans on the trip, look for clues within the trip itself. What is it about the trip that I really enjoy? What aspects of it stimulate me? What meaningful coincidences have I had that have pointed me in a different direction to which I’d originally planned?

She warned against just having the set goal of breaking out of structures like the mediocrity of 9-5 employment. If I have no goal in the separation from the things that have tied me down, what will I make out of it? I’ll just end up being free, but will be aimless. I need to have a good idea of what it is that I’m doing this trip for, so I have a good idea of what I’m leaving behind and what it is I’m searching for.

I need to be open to new ideas that are presented to me on this trip, be creative with them rather than just having the idea of destroying what I was trying to leave behind. Use the new ideas as building blocks.