It's just been one of those days. Instead of the up-at-sunrise, Subaru/Harley-ride-to-the-horizon kind of days it was just one of those stay-indoors-doing-nothing kind of days. It felt good.
The big walkabout came this evening with a trip to Dunkin Donuts for coffee. Regardless, it is always an adventure of some sort!
When we began the WalkaboutChronicles.com project it was crafted to be a community in which people shared the personal growth, change and adventure experiences of their lives. We have always found great insight and joy in reading these sorts of life stories. Our original idea was to offer a central location where those perspectives could be published and shared as guides to others who are seeking out the path of their own journey.
Looking for a way to catch a small ray of light in your day? Check out this article about Two of Us, a simple way to deliver and receive a smile from a stranger. And really, who couldn't benefit from that? Some interesting facial recognition technologies will help to make sure you are actually smiling!
Once you've read through the article, check it out for yourself at http://2uv.us/ and have a few moments of fun in your day!
Steven
The Subaru is, for us, the ultimate walkabout companion: Trusty, helpful, versatile, and comfortable! Sharing a look into one of our personal spaces for your entertainment (and desktop screen, blog post, or other personal use)!
Feel free to make use of this for your desktop screen, blog post, or other personal (non-commercial) use. Add your photos to the Walkabout Chronicles flickr pool! Most of Steven’s photography is available for purchase at http://StevenTryon.com.
Steven
This pond sits between my apartment and my place of work, forcing me to pass it twice a day in the car or on the bike. It continues to haunt me as I am never satisfied with the photographs I capture of it. But I keep trying. Sharing for your enjoyment, desktop screen, or other personal use. Enjoy!
Feel free to make use of these for your desktop screen, blog post, or other personal (non-commercial) use. Add your photos to the Walkabout Chronicles flickr pool! Most of Steven’s photography is available for purchase at http://StevenTryon.com.
Steven
If life’s journey be endless where is its goal? The answer is, it is everywhere. We are in a palace which has no end, but which we have reached. By exploring it and extending our relationship with it we are ever making it more and more our own. ~Rabindranath Tagore
We explore the world around us to extend and expand our relationship with it. Like any relationship, it requires attention, focus, presence, respect and love. This connection we seek with our world is what inspires us to jump in the car and just go every chance we get. We do not need a particular destination for these adventures. Our palace is everywhere.
There is a great deal of focus and online discussion these days about the idea of minimalism. The notion of minimalism originated as a way to describe movements in art and music where the artist focuses on simplicity and only the most essential features of the work. Today it is more likely to be associated with a way of being that focuses on living with only what we need.
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. ~Hans Hoffman
We believe the origin of this term is still describing the same thing, a movement in art. Each day and every experience is our blank canvas, an opportunity to create our life. We can choose to do this with simplicity and clarity, focusing on only what we need. Joshua Becker, of the web site, Becoming Minimalist, describes it in this way:
Minimalism …is marked by clarity, purpose and intentionality. At its core, minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of everything that distracts us from it. It is a life that forces intentionality. And as a result, it forces improvements in almost all aspects of your life. (Read his full article “What is Minimalism”.)
As the caretakers of Walkabout Chronicles, we practice what we preach: We make a point of getting out to experience a journey as often as possible. Recently, we found the time and opportunity to spend three days in Boston Massachusetts and we wanted to share some of those experiences with you.
Heading into a walkabout like this takes just the right combination of pre-planning and a fair dose of completely winging it! Too much planning and scheduling creates stress and frustration. That is not how a walkabout should be. Rather, a combination of these elements typically brings it all together in a very cool and enjoyable way.
During the planning portion of our trip we identified a few things that we wanted to see such as the New England Aquarium and the USS Constitution. We also knew we wanted to walk as much of the Freedom Trail as we could. And of course, we wanted to find ways to appreciate as much fresh seafood as possible – starting with some New England clam chowder! For accommodations, our hotel, the Comfort Inn – Boston, was a few blocks from the nearest MBTA station but they offered a free shuttle service to and from the station 24 hours a day. The incredible convenience of the subway system proved to be a major bonus for our adventure.
By Steven J. Tryon
We get all of the bills paid every month so that makes us pretty lucky. However we don’t have lots of money to toss around at things like expensive hotel rooms. When we travel, we need a simple and clean place to sleep and take a shower. Beyond that, we really don’t have any expectations or needs. Our bet is that like most of you, we believe that maximizing the experiences we have while traveling is the way to immerse ourselves in the world of our journey. Spending too much time in a hotel room just defeats that plan. And so the more the room costs, the less value we feel we are getting for our modest dollars.
With all of that in mind, we began the preparation for an extended weekend in Boston, Massachusetts. For this trip we wanted to try a new way to find that simple, clean, and inexpensive hotel room. The criteria was pretty simple: In addition to our modest needs, we wanted to locate accommodations that were near one of Boston’s rail stations. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) is well known as being clean, safe, and the absolute best way to navigate the city. Being close to a station would mean quick and simple movement from the hotel to any other destination and then back again at the end of some very long days.
