One Main Thing

This is one of my favourite regular rides close to home.

There is one main thing I have always wanted. 

It's not money, nor the things money can buy.

It's not a career.

Not fame or popularity or respect.

I did want to write a book, but that wasn't my guiding principle.

The only thing I have ever wanted in life, the only thing that was non-negotiable, was being in nature.

I would rather live material-poor, and nature-rich, than the other way around.

When I was working for money, I enjoyed outdoor work like gardening and landscaping more than anything else. 

Before I worked as a teacher I worked as as a gardener, and after I left teaching, I returned to it. 

When I lived in cities I always chose a rental somewhere I could walk out my back door and into green space.

This was the destination of the first backpacking trip Linda and I went on together.

Soon after Linda and I met, one of our first dates was a weekend wilderness backpacking trip into the backcountry of Glacier National Park, Montana.

As it turned out, it wasn't our last date, or backpacking trip.  

Our decades together have been spent communing with nature as much as possible, whether in the back yard, our garden, or in more remote places. 

Living simply allowed us to concentrate less on stuff and more on wilderness, and we have no regrets.

Experiencing nature is the one main thing we both love, without which, we would surely lose our minds.

Whatever you love you will do anything to protect. 

Imagine what kind of shape our world would in if a love of nature was everyone's one main thing.

Linda getting close to nature while nature gets close to Linda on our back porch.