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January
2002
Dear
Visitor:
Welcome
to Expedition: North America 2002!
If
you are visiting this site for the first time (or if you have visited
before and are now skipping through), the entries for 2001 and after may
not make a lot of sense if you don't start at the beginning,
in 2000. For this journey is an unfolding adventure that is only partially
completed. And even though I am writing it, I have no idea how it will
end. Thus, like a book, picking up in the middle will only confuse you.
For
2001, even though the log entries are dated for those months, you will
note that I am actually recounting my experiences in November and December
of 2000. Those experiences that I wasn't able to write about at the time.
Many
years ago, when the idea of this adventure began to materialize in my
mind, I saw it clearly as a personal journey of self-discovery. It was
something that I had to do alone, with no fanfare, no support, no sponsors
. . . no Website. At the end, I believed a new person would emerge.
A
person with a much better understanding of how life worked for himself. A
person who had left behind, somewhere on the back roads of North America,
all of the debilitating thought processes, fears and behaviors that had
been programmed into him since birth. Those things that had kept him from
living the life he had always dreamt of, and instead, settling for the
mediocrity that society tells some of us we should be grateful for.
When
I reread this, it sounds so cliché. But I know I am not the only one who
feels this way. I know I am not the only person who has ever woke up and
wondered why he couldn't make a living doing something he loved doing.
As
you explore this site, you will see how my "private" journey changed
to include sponsors, a potential TV series, this Website and an
educational aspect for school children. And you will see how it all
collapsed on itself, to leave nothing but the journey . . . and this site.
And
so my journey continues: a search for Universal and personal truth. Long
before I took my first step, I knew it would take me places, in my mind,
in my heart and in my soul, that I have never been. I knew to expect the
unexpected.
But
I didn't know to expect the inconceivable.
And
that is where I have been, since leaving Key West on that rainy October
day.
The
first few months of this adventure read like most log entries might. But
in November, 2000, I started to be "guided" in a direction I
hadn't even considered -- guided in ways that sometimes terrified me.
For
such is the nature of an adventure: A true journey is one that puts no
limits on the outcome.
And
so, Dear Reader, I say this to you: read with an open heart and mind. If
what I write seems improbable to you, imagine what it felt like to live
it. It serves no purpose for me to make up or embellish my experiences.
And, if truth be told, my life on the road would certainly be a lot
simpler if I didn't have the cost and worry for updating this site from
the middle of nowhere.
But,
I can only presume that there is a reason for why this site survived the first
phase of this project, and why you are here, reading this now.
And
so I commit my experiences to record . . . with no attachment to the
outcome.
For
now, I remain halfway to nowhere . . . .
Robert
Lewis Knecht
Phoenix,
AZ
1
January 2002
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