The Joys and Challenges of Traveling Solo Across Alaska

Here’s a multi-faceted realization I’ve found in recent years: I absolutely love to travel solo — and most people absolutely do not. Traveling solo doesn’t daunt me; indeed, it ignites something primal and wondrous in me. Comparing myself to how most other people travel, though, is another mountain: Why are they not like me? Why am I not at all like them?

Alaska, At Last

Back in 2020, in that early sliver of what was sure to be a promising year, I started making preliminary plans to visit Alaska. Known widely as “The Last Frontier” and my own final frontier, too. I’d traveled to 49 states since touching down in Hawaii a couple years prior, and it was time, at last, to conquer them all. Well. We all know why that trip didn’t happen. And it’s been plaguing me ever since. Three and a half years of longing for Alaska. Until now. I refuse to long any longer.

Four Seasons of America; Four Seasons of My Soul

Now months removed from this trip, I look back and notice something of a correlation with both the climate of these diverse corners of America and also the climate of my soul as I encountered each one…

I Can’t Believe I Came From Her

My grandmother died. These words rattle around my heart like pinballs that won’t settle, even a week beyond her funeral. And yet I wonder if the settling of these pinballs would be any better – the finality of their lodging into the belly of that machine, no longer kept alive by another flap of the paddles. Mayme Alice was the last of my grandparents to leave this earth, and undoubtedly the one with whom I grew closest.

2021: Wasted

I look back on this year and can’t help but feel the wince of apparent wasted time. The lethargy of a lingering pandemic, the apathy of my creative soul, and the heavy, sometimes brutal work of ministry. Of holding less and less tightly to relationships – even if it means letting some go. My 34 years of life feels increasingly like a bell curve. Isolation and worthlessness filling the lowly cracks of my adolescence; a rising wave of optimism for my twenties, filled with new friends and adventures aplenty; and a steady decline of ambition into my mid-thirties.

Our New Alivelihood

In one sense, how convenient for a pandemic to occur in the year 2020-21 and not 1920-21: for many of us to work remotely and stay “connected,” at least in some sense of the word. But I’ve felt the strain of not experiencing a dimension beyond screens on screens on screens. Experiencing the dimensions of humanity and creation interwoven again. Last week, I saw humans with hats and cameras and boots and smiles walking all around me from the blues of Lake Tahoe to the beige of Death Valley. Humans: exploring, basking. Like we were ever ago made to do, like we evermore shall do.

Older Than Jesus

Growing up, Jesus always seemed so much older than me. Not like eighty or ninety or a hundred “old,” but when you’re only eight or nine, thirty years old feels a hundred years away. But now to have lived the ages of 30 to 33, I have a new perspective on the life of Jesus. Turns out he was way younger – and way stronger – than I’d thought. I’ve had a tumultuous three years; perhaps the most shaping three years of my life. Again, as a storyteller, I can’t help drawing parallels with Jesus’ thirties.

Beyond the Rot of This River

I’ve become more justice-minded in this year of isolation – to do something with this faith of mine. To borrow a vivid example from Ronald Rolheiser’s “The Holy Longing”: to not just retrieve dead bodies from the river, but to go upstream and find the source of all this death.

5 Years With a Blue Ridge Home

Come whimsy or mayhem, for five years running the road keeps leading me back here to the Blue Ridge. However many nights I’ve actually slept in a bedroom here, it is indeed starting to feel something like home. I stared at the hills the other day and prayed, “God, please don’t let it ever grow old.”

To Watch the Storms of My Sadness

Gluggavedur, “window-weather,” is the notion of watching a storm from afar. Of being safely indoors, warm and secure, while the storm brews on the horizon. Lightning, swirling clouds, and rain – all seen through a pane of glass. The concept can be taken metaphorically, too, to separate yourself from your swirling emotions within. Of creating a space between you and the storms: sadness, anger, stress, fear, etc. Of not ignoring these hard feelings, but being aware of them, watching them from the other side of the glass…until they eventually pass.

What Will I Have Done This Year?

Instead of saying, “What do I want to do this year?” try saying, “What will I have done this year?” It’s a productivity tip I learned from Donald Miller, and I’ve never been more eager to implement this subtle mental tweak for 2021.

You Need to LEAVE

The words “leave” and “stay” keep colliding with one another, over and over throughout my adulthood. I’m learning the equal and opposite power of each.

Change, Leave!

I want to leave my usual ways of changing, leaving. Of always running from things, even if I’m also running to new ones. Of masking my loneliness and shame with adventures and Instagram posts. I want to continue learning to stay for a change, staying for change.

This Disease from Up Top

It’s unnerving not knowing where you are. Like I’m on the bottom level of a parking deck (garage) with no idea how long or far or deep or wide or harrowing this thing goes. Was this last month of infusions a definitive leap toward healing or a total wash? Do I move on to the next phase, or do I start over with something else?

These Hills Have Me

I’m not getting out much these days. I used to sprawl all over this city and region, but I’ve become more of a homebody than ever before. But I’m living in my favorite dwelling I’ve ever built for myself, a homier, “Tom-ier” place than anywhere else, complete with maps and globes and buffalo art; early mornings with lighted candles and open windows and blanketed fog amidst the canopy. It feels good to be a body in this home.

Teach Me How to Live

Of course, I want to travel again one day, set loose to wander once more. I want it badly. But for now, I do have this strange desire to be settled. To stay home and enjoy safety and solitude. And I don’t necessarily feel relegated to this reality, forced into it against my wandering will. For all this restless angst I’ve had since childhood, perhaps I’m finally stumbling onto the cure?

A Time to Refrain from Embracing

Looking down at my precious niece in my arms, I realized it’s really something, how we need physical touch to survive. Need to be swaddled. Need to be held. Need to feel the warmth of another human emanating against us, if only to affirm to one another we are not alone in this desert. To embrace for my soul or not to embrace for my body? Life with an autoimmune disease during the pandemic of the century: one calculated risk after another.

I Am Not in Control

I have control issues. I have known this about myself for a little while now. Counseling has helped me see it more clearly, though I feel I’ve known this for many years prior. I don’t like being at the mercy of my circumstances. Especially the mercy of another human.

Thank You for Being Brave

I’m writing this blog from home. And I never blog from home. Like ever. I have no other choice. Nothing is open. No late-night coffee shops and no early-night coffee shops either, for that matter. Coronavirus has violently disrupted every facet of normalcy. Society’s. My own. Normal Monday evenings aren’t normal Monday evenings anymore. And for God only knows how much longer.

Debt-Free

Before I knew it, YOB was no longer a hobby. It could no longer be treated that way – that is, if I wanted it to grow further. And I did. I knew I could pay off my Juke and be debt-free if I simply kept working at the boarding school through 2017 and maybe a little into 2018. Paying off a 4-year loan in a little over a year was absolutely doable. But that inner beckoning grew louder and stronger.

Mortality

It’s there in my consciousness, a shadow sitting in the corner, unmoving. My mortality. Just . . . there. I will die one day, and this is how it’s always been ordained. This is nothing new. Why has it taken me 30+ years to realize this – really realize this? More than ever, I want to make every moment matter. I want to live every day I’ve been given to live. It’s such a crime for anyone to stay settled and never venture out. I cannot bear the thought for myself.

Back Home to Pennsylvania With My Brother!

I returned to my homeland of Langhorne, PA this Christmas, joining my brother Andy along the way. We ventured to Philadelphia for a day, walked around our old neighborhood, and otherwise enjoyed our history with this place. It was my first trip back north since my grandfather passed away last summer. This is life: the new and the old and everything in between.

My Name on a Stone

I traveled to Pennsylvania for Christmas, my first trip there since Ahh died this summer. My grandfather’s gravestone wasn’t chiseled until just recently, so this was my first time visiting it. Seeing it. It was the first time I’d ever seen my name on a stone.

This Chasm of Calling

On the one hand, I’m thrilled. I’ve never been more passionate in my calling as a storyteller. And yet on the other hand, the more I discover my God-given passions, talents, and deep gladness, the more burdened grows my soul; the more hungry, my heart. I feel the strain in the disconnect between what I want and what I believe God wants for me and others in this chasm of the not yet.

Anything Mentionable is Manageable

I saw the new Mr. Rogers movie, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” It’s unlike any other movie I’ve seen. A unique story structure, beautiful set design, and phenomenal acting. “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” is a movie that will stick with me for a while. I was teary-eyed the entire way – both from the sheer beauty of this story and its haunting connections to my own.

Pen Strokes and Chisels to the Soul

I’ve grown more in the last two years than the previous ten. More than ever, I feel God’s hand guiding mine like pen strokes while chiseling my soul. A mystical also brutal process.

My New Asheville Apartment Tour!

I just moved back to Asheville after a summer of travels. See my new apartment, including my awesome new studio space, and hear me talk about coming plans for this YouTube channel, including my new video sendoff!

Sexy Changing in the Staying

Traveling changes a man, certainly. It’s what draws me to the road and the skies, again and again. The blaze of colors to my exterior and interior alike. But staying put changes a man, too, I’m better realizing. It’s not as sexy. Not as readily apparent sometimes.

A Safe Place to Vomit My Heart

I returned to counseling last week for the first time in six months. Counseling, therapy — I never know what to call it. How about a safe place to vomit my heart? Above all, I’ve needed two things sorely: Scripture and Jesus. Even after just one session back, I feel enriched: a session bookended with prayer as I shared the overview of my story. I started choking up after just twenty minutes.

God’s Love is Still Reckless

When “Reckless Love” first came out in 2017, I, like many others in Christian worshipdom, fell out of my seat. For the last year and a half, though, as many songs just do, it faded. Back at church, the electric guitar strings belted a familiar intro. One I’d not heard in a church setting for many, many months. “Reckless Love” returned to my life. And I couldn’t skip it this time.

Good Morning. How Could I Not?

But through it all. Every single day. I have much to be grateful for. Blessings in abundance despite the clouds and gray, here and still coming.

Plot Twisting

My life has featured a lot of plot twists I never saw coming. Especially these last two years. It’s been brutal. It’s also been necessary for the furthering of my story, I now realize. A story that wasn’t going anywhere. Stuck in a sleepy, apathetic comfort.

Playing With My Parents’ New Lakehouse Toy

My #RunningOut road trip is taking longer than anticipated to run out. But in the meantime, I will be productive and listen. And kayak. Day 107 and counting — by land and now by sea.

99% of Toms

I wish to be different than 99% of humanity, yes, but lately I’ve pondered a new concept: what about being different than 99% of Toms? If 99 versions of me would choose to do one thing, do I simply follow along, or do I dare counter with the 1%?

Like a Butterfly in an Aquarium

It sounds lovely to be the butterfly, to have the spotted wings and ventures. But oh the process. The waiting and waiting, the changes upon changes one must first endure. There is no zapping to the butterfly stage. I imagine most of us want to be the butterfly but rarely the change required. And not just a singular change but multiple drastic, awkward, even painful changes.

Stranger in a Familiar Land

The road has led me back to the Blue Ridge. Back in these hills rolling like moonlit shadows, just like I remember, just like always. I’ve been gone from this place for 82 days. Traveling as far away as Colorado and Maine and losing a grandfather along the way. And the way is still unfolding before me.

Itch

I’m itching for home. God, I’m itching for regularity again. I’m itching for therapy and CrossFit and training for a marathon and the same coffee shops and writing my third book and building local friendships and taking Your Other Brothers to bold, new frontiers. I’m itching for this road trip to end.

Death, Delight, and an Unexpected Return to Acadia National Park

My grandfather’s death a few weeks ago prompted a significant change to my #RunningOut road trip’s course. And so, I returned to Acadia National Park in Maine for a reunion with a pivotal white sand beach, remembering Ahh’s legacy of love while piecing together the puzzling pages of my next chapter.

Leave Me Alone

I’m grieving more than just the loss of my grandfather — a hero, a giant, an embodiment of God’s love. I’m grieving all relational brokenness. I’m grieving human death for the first time, yes, but I’m also grieving everything else that separates humanity. Divorce, war, disagreement, misunderstanding, vitriol. Friends who aren’t friends anymore.

A World Without Ahh

“I hope you have a lot of friends one day, Tom.” My grandfather spoke these words to me when I was 15. We were in the car as I joined him on his usual run of errands: the bank, pharmacy, post office. It’s strange referring to him as “my grandfather” — he was always just “Ahh” to me. Even stranger now to think of him in the past tense. My grandfather, Ahh, died this week.

I’m Tired.

I just attended the second Revoice conference in St. Louis. Several of my fellow authors from Your Other Brothers also attended, and we’ll have a full recap/conversation coming to our site next week. But for now, I wanted to shed some more personal thoughts on the conference and my life-on-the-road at large. The main one being: I’m tired.

God See Me

I want more, I want all of it, and yet I also want to rest in the futility of this earthly conquest. I want to wander where I will and when I can, but also to find contentment in the conquest of a single place. I’ve a feeling where that single place will soon emerge, at least for the foreseeable future. But for now. I will wander. I will be purposeful.

Bubble Hopping

Life is often condensed to mountaintop moments or shared “bubble” moments with others. But what if we could be intentional 24/7/365 and make even more bubble moments?

When Jesus Slides Into the Shadows

Before you even know it, Jesus slid into the shadows long ago. You thought he was still there. Like he’s always been. Like he always will be…right? But if we don’t intentionally keep Jesus atop our bookshelf…I think the Father is willing to let us turn other pages. To let us wander without for a bit.

Go to Hell

Maybe instant healing and freedom do happen like that in other contexts, in other humans. I don’t know. I don’t know what that’s like. Maybe for the rest of us, though, the fight never ends. Maybe the enemy comes back, over and over.

Do Not Calm This Storm

Jesus won’t calm the storm with a single word. His way is a way of work. Of picking up crosses daily. Of lugging said crosses up mountains. Of taking the narrower way of all the broader ways available to my wanderlust.

End of Year Emo Blizzard

As 2018 winds down, I find myself in my most emotionally raw, volatile state of the year, probably ever. The North Carolina skies opened with a blizzard this week, and how I wanted this snowy downpour to cleanse it all away.

A Man of God I Am Not

Upstream, of course. I’ve always been swimming upstream. Against the current. The current of sexuality. The current of introversion. The current of inferiority. The current of separation. The current of brokenness and deficiency. The current of not being quite enough of a man, if even at all. Let alone a man of God.

My Weird Little Introverted Internet Life

Like, this is actually my life now. Meeting folks from the Internet wherever I go. Near and far and down the street. I mean, I’ve lived this life for years now. I’m not oblivious to it. I’m just feeling it really strongly today. Realizing I hardly translate my weird little introverted Internet life to others.

Waking Up from a Thousand What Isn’ts

Being present. I find it so difficult. Perhaps my greatest challenge. I entertain a thousand fantasies on any given day. Many of them “harmless.” Or maybe not. A move to this city. A quick wandering to that one. Staying here in the Blue Ridge the rest of my life. Leaving tomorrow. Old friends, new friends.

I Want This Plane to Crash

All we have is this moment. The key is being present. It’s always being present. Not giving more weight to the past or more to the future but just enough weight to all three. Whatever that perfect ratio is, I have no idea. I do know the present must get the largest piece of pie.

City of Macaroons and Broken Dreams

I entered Charlotte with gargantuan hopes. Hopes that wherever I landed after #RunningTo would be the city I’d call home the rest of my life. A city of dreams fulfilled that simultaneously kept adding new ones. I stare at this Queen City skyline with kind of a hopeless sigh. I failed this place.

Gravity Is Pulling You and Me and All of This Down

He is God. He is here. He has shown up. There is nowhere we can go, be it among the Biltmore sunflowers or on a lonely college road, void of God’s presence. Are we blind? Are we just not seeing him?

5 Regrets After 5 Years of Struggle Central

Writing Struggle Central five years ago was absolutely the path God intended for me eons ago. My path as a human, my path as a writer. The gateway to my wildest dreams as an author. Also, a nightmare. A foreign world with implications I’d have never otherwise encountered.

Where (and Why) I’m Wandering Next

Back in the height of my wandering (have I reached the valley yet?), I read a blog about the importance of traveling. I have no idea who wrote it or where the link stands today, but there’s one tip from the post I’ll never forget. I’ve implemented it ever since I read it, and it’s […]

Like a Lost and Groaning Gandalf

I’ve long been drawn to the wise old figures in story — “the mentor,” as the archetype goes. The Yoda crawling around Luke Skywalker’s lunchbox. The Gandalf showing up at Frodo’s round door. I’ve always wanted my own mythical mentor to show up when I least expect it, breaking my tedious present, leading me into […]

Who Am I Now?

Once upon a new year, I promised I’d blog here weekly all year long. I also made a short list of other so-called resolutions, and ten months into this new year I realize I’m only hitting with about 50% success overall. I am so great. At least I still have two months to finish the […]

Introducing my hometown!

Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. Travels and book-writing have kept me busy. Here’s a Snapchat story of my tour through Langhorne, Pennsylvania — my hometown. Some of you may have seen variations of this tour over the years; newer followers may not be familiar. Enjoy! #TMZroadstache

Introducing . . . #RunningToo

Rather than write a verbose post about my next adventure beyond quitting my job, I figured why not just tell you face-to-digital-face?! Check out my video below for all the scoop on what I’m calling #RunningToo. Well, not all the scoop. Gotta leave some room for mystery, don’t I? In any case, comment below if […]

I Need to Hear Again: or, Why I’m Quitting My Job and Hitting the Road

In third grade, my music teacher told us the story of Beethoven. I think it was Beethoven. I’m too lazy to google it now. When Beethoven first started losing his hearing, he inserted a metal tube into his ear to help him drown out the excess noise and focus his hearing. As his hearing worsened, […]

To be still, yet still moving

I moved recently — four whole doors down to another unit in my complex. It wasn’t ideal, but life rarely is. My roommates and I had hoped to move into a house — an eclectic one with a porch, a balcony, a big yard, tucked into the hills over Asheville, perhaps with a long driveway […]

I Love/Hate California

Six months ago, I decided to be reckless. I was out running by a lake near my home in Asheville as that all-too-common feeling of stuckness squelched my every step. I needed a change — what else is new? — something to plan, somewhere to run. As I literally ran in this moment of desperation, my thoughts latched […]

kill the twentysomething

My twenties are gone. Forever. I’ve often been accused of being too dramatic, both on this blog and in “real life.” I’m too emotional. Too heavy and melancholy and not enough amounts of light-hearted and sunny. So, in an effort to balance out my being, I’m going to reminisce on my greatest hits as a […]

The Best Worst Year in the Blue Ridge

I’m the kind of guy who compares anything to everything: my favorite TV show (Survivor) to my least favorite (The Bachelor), the best month (April) to the worst month (November), the greatest year of my life (2012) to the very worst (2006). I can’t help it. I compare. It’s what I do. It’s why I […]

A Broken Record with Yellow Lines

I traveled to Chattanooga over the weekend for a conference on sexuality in the church (you can read my recap on YOB; another post of mine premiering today). I packed up Jude in a pretty rotten headspace on Friday night, and then I hit the road home for Asheville two days later singing to the Backstreet Boys. […]

Hey, Jude

2016 introduced me to not one but two seasons of carlessness — my first bouts without a vehicle since becoming an adult many moons ago. These seasons without wheels humbled me. Most of the world lives without cars, after all. I was still among the 1% wealthiest people, even without a car. Walking to work […]

Snow That Traps and Beckons

I still remember sitting in that YMCA conference room last March, my third day of training for this new job and just my fourth day living in Asheville. I stared out the giant bay windows, mesmerized by flaky snow drifting downward from a vast gray expanse. This city I’d only ever known for summer camps and […]

And to All a Good Riddance

As the grotesque mass of space garbage we call 2016 hurtles toward oblivion, people everywhere are cheering the prospect of a new year. Myself included. We’ve proclaimed this the worst year ever, what with a most bizarre election cycle, the deaths of numerous beloved celebrities, raging wildfires and natural disasters, and the opening of the […]

I Watched Gilmore Girls and Now I’m Thinking Too Much

I watched the Gilmore Girls revival over the weekend. There. I said it. Laugh at me. Deride me. Label me with your sharpest effeminate nicknames. It’s not like I have masculine issues or anything. I grew up with a little sister who loved Gilmore Girls, and as such, I saw more than a few episodes. I was […]

Shackles and Freedom and the Space In-Between

Your bike chain breaks. The rains pour down. But still you soldier forward into the crosswalk and down the sidewalk. Because inside your wallet is a coffee shop punchcard with 16 holes, the magic number, the promised land, and you’re power-walking toward the place wiping raindrops from your brow. You step inside and reveal the punchcard with […]

I Don’t Want to Do This

I don’t want to do this. But here I am. Blogging. Tonight. Late. After 10pm. Hardly an hour or two to spare until midnight. Just in time for Day 20. Today’s a great example of doing something I don’t want to do after an entire day of doing what I live for. This morning, I […]

Hello, Mr. Moose Head with the Hookah: or, Escaping the Staleness

Tonight I hopped on my bike not knowing where I’d be riding it. The further away I rode from my house, the more the pieces fell into place. A street here. An uphill climb there. A brand new coffee shop where I’d yet to sit and sip and ruminate. This place I found downtown is […]

You and I Will Be Okay

Earlier this year, I lost my beloved Mitsy to old age and a fuming engine on I-81S. I cried over her (wept, really), I memorialized her, and I spent the next two months of my life walking around Asheville until my sister’s old car became my new car — Des. She’s a 1998 Toyota Corolla, […]

What to do when you’re lost and lonely and sad

One of the perks of living in Asheville — a big one, really — is the opportunity to escape to the mountains anytime I please. Growing up in eastern Pennsylvania and then eastern Georgia, I never knew about daily life with mountains. My vision and expectations always encompassed a flat horizon preceded by fields and […]

When I’m Getting a Dog

I’m dogsitting this weekend. Before I moved to Asheville, I never dog-sat or cat-sat or any-other-animal-sat a day in my life. Now, it seems I do it every other weekend. At last count, I think I’ve kept ten different animals alive since moving here. It started with one pet-sitting request at work, and it just […]

I’m Hitting the Road Again

When my roommate left for a trip a couple weeks ago, I determined I’d dive back into Couchsurfing again. I’d hosted 10-15 folks going back to my move to Asheville in February, but only one in the prior four months. I stopped hosting for various reasons. My roommate and I had lots of friends visit […]

Wandering Wednesday #18: Great Smoky Mountain Railroad

You guys. When on earth was the last time I wandered on a Wednesday with y’all? I can’t even tell you. (I mean, I could just look it up on YouTube — it’s right there — but that’d defeat the purpose of such a hyperbolic statement.) A lot has transpired since I last wandered on […]

Four Seasons Later

I wore a sweater to work the other day. I climbed half-naked out of bed with a shiver and noted the morning temperature a brisk 49 degrees. So, I grabbed a light sweater from my closet — the first time I’ve worn one since March or April. Since I first moved to Asheville. Winter. Spring. Summer. […]

That Time I Hosted the Same Couchsurfer for Two Weeks

When I first made the switch from Couchsurfing surfer extraordinaire to Couchsurfing hoster, I figured I’d ease into the transition. Host one or two people a month for one or two nights each, and that would tide me over, remind me of the road without having to leave for so long again. I’d cook my […]

When a Handshake Becomes a Hug

I’m approaching my one-month anniversary of moving to Asheville and manning my very own dwelling place, and I’m slowly figuring it all out, from living room arrangements to cooking my own meals. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how to hang things on walls without puncturing said walls, per my lease, but […]

I’ve Never Been More Hopeful and Terrified

Last week I “celebrated” the one-year anniversary of my cross-continental road trip’s conclusion. And by “celebrated,” I mean to say I cried multiple times by day’s end. No dramatic gasping wheezing weeping sessions, but I dabbed my eyes throughout the afternoon and evening as I looked back at some images from the road, including that final one of […]

Running To: Leaving California and Hitting the Road

Last week, my beloved wanderers were let into a secret. They were among the first to learn of my dramatic future-to-be. Today, I thought I’d clue the rest of humanity into my momentous decision. I’ve been hinting at the news for a while. It’s been a hard decision six long months in the making. A decision I finally […]

Onething 2013: How I Viewed the Christian Body Changed

For the last dwindling months of 2013, I kept a secret that only me, myself, and I knew: after Christmas spent with family, I’d fly to Kansas City for the International House of Prayer’s Onething 2013 conference. I received a lot of flack for my ongoing travel secret, inside my family and out, but can […]

When Words Won’t Come

I haven’t posted in two weeks. An empty blogless stretch unmatched on this site since…never. It’s never happened; I always have something to say. Something to write. I write about my life. My faith. I write about struggle. I write about my favorite music or my latest quirky observation of the world. I write about […]

Eastward Ho: Milwaukee Melee

I recently drove across the country to reach my summer camp destination on the east coast. What follows is one of several real-life wandering stories from my incredible “Eastward Ho” adventure. Before I can talk about what I actually did upon my return to Milwaukee, I must first explain the magnitude of my initial arrival. […]

Eastward Ho: 30 Minutes in Chicago

I recently drove across the country to reach my summer camp location on the east coast. What follows is one of several real-life wandering stories from my incredible “Eastward Ho” adventure. I’d thought about just passing by. It was already dark and getting kinda late. I had 500 miles to travel the next day and […]

Wandering Wednesday #7 – San Francisco, CA

I drove to Seattle last week. You might have heard. Or maybe not if you’ve purposely tuned me out. In which case, BLAH BLAH BLAH THE HUNGER GAMES IS ONLY AVERAGE BLAH BLAH BLAH. Along the entire Pacific coast I stopped at various critical junctures. And over the next several weeks I’ll be sharing my […]

Sweet Seattle

I drove to Seattle this past week. I experienced heart palpitations upon first sight of that lovely city. The Space Needle — contributing to such a distinctive skyline. Countless shops and restaurants along a wonderful waterfront. Snow-capped mountains, including the biggest most beautiful mountain in the country — excluding that one in Alaska, which we […]

TMZ: Seattle Bound

This coming week I’ll be driving from Los Angeles to Seattle, with pit stops in San Francisco, Portland, and a magical redwood forest. Why am I doing this, you ask? Why not? I figure if I only live once, I should live. And since Hans Christian Anderson said, “To travel is to live,” well, there […]

Westward Ho! Day 5 of 5

After four arduous days on the road, my westward relocation finally came to an end on Day 5, trekking from Mesa, AZ to Whittier, CA. For the rest of my road trip video-action, check out Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4. Bam. It was surely a week to remember. My next post will […]

Westward Ho! Day 4 of 5

Continuing to take a bit of a blogging break as I vacation with family on the east coast. Last week I started posting videos from my westward move to California last fall; time to continue the trend with my fourth day of travels. For the other installments of my video road trip to the West, […]

Westward Ho! Day 3 of 5

Ho ho ho, who wouldn’t go? Ho ho ho, westward hoooooo! Aren’t these videos oh so festive? Welcome kiddies and kiddos to the metaphoric Hump Day of my week-long move to the West. Actually, Day 3 did indeed occur on a Wednesday. So chew on that for a while. But not too long. Day 1 […]

Westward Ho! Day 2 of 5

In case you missed it, I’m currently in the midst of unveiling my westward move from last year. One day on the road at a time. On Day 1 I drove from my home in Watkinsville, GA to Shreveport, Louisiana. I could abbreviate that gulf state LA, but since my ending destination is the LA […]

Westward Ho! Day 1 of 5

I’m currently on vacation in Pennsylvania and will remain on various portions of the east coast through the first week of January. So as a fun way to close out 2011 on my blog, I’ll be posting videos from my life-altering road trip to the West over a year ago. I title these videos “Westward […]

TMZ: Wanderer

It’s been a fun first week christening my proverbial flagship, thomasmarkzuniga.com, detailing all these different facets of my life. Thanks so much for journeying with me. It’s certainly been a fruitful, eye-opening process for me during a time of extreme transition, and I hope you’ve found my introspective posts at least more worth your time […]