Yesterday during my peaceful drive from Jackson Hole to Telluride I was listening to my favorite talk radio show Ron & Fez, featuring my hero, the funniest, smartest genius, Ron Bennington. He is so great that I named this voyage after something I first heard him say, Winter Carnival. They had a detailed conversation about the video below. (More nonsense from me after the video)

The discussion went into the area of how excited these people were to see this giant truck tire roll down hill, hitting jumps, staying on course, and finally splashing in the water. The video itself is fun to watch, but the point of the conversation was the excitement of the people in the video. That is truly a once in a lifetime moment. All it would take was for one rock or one wobble and it would have thrown that tire completely off balance and never finished it’s magnificent decent down the mountain. The topic of childhood excitement was discussed and how we used to be able to find the joy in such nothingness as kids. We all have those moments. For me it was playing in the woods and finding porn mags and an old car. How and why in the world did either of those things end up in the woods?! There is no way the car was driven there because of all the trees, and why would someone dump perfectly good porn tied up in a trash bag in the woods? Simply for some dumb kids to find? Whatever the reason it was magnificent. It was just completely incomprehensible and exciting at the same time. Somewhere along the line we can lose the excitement for those moments.

They started taking calls about what other peoples “truck tire” moments were in their lives. Mr. B talked about how things were so exciting as kids. One of his quotes was to be “a traveler in life, not a tourist”. It was such an appropriate conversation to listen to during my drive and at this time of my life. I try to live by that theory. Life is short, I have never been closer to the end then I am right now.  I am lucky enough to travel a lot and do my best to experience where I am and not just be a tourist. Right now I am going out of my way to drive all over western North America on back roads and through the small towns. My “tire story” is happening right now, today. Every vista, snow covered mountain, valley, and landscape is being seen with the eyes of boyhood wonderment and astonishment.