The Road Less Traveled!

It's a fine line between Crazy and Stupid....trying to go up that mountain road on a street bike would lean more to the stupid side. My nerves are still a little shot over my attempt on this crazy adventure! But, there is a Life-Lesson in this…should you read it All the way through!

I’ve been blessed enough to travel the world, and on occasion, take some rather crazy and adventurous trips. This particular trip was a motorcycle trip up to the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Colombia, South America. Is it oil and gas related? Not so much, but if you read through, you’ll find the same since of adventure and risks that is very relative to our industry, at least for me it is. I’ve taken many risks in this industry of ours, some good, some bad, but I’ve always taken the risks, that’s my nature, and it extends beyond the oil and gas industry!

From a simple motorcycle trip to the Sierra Nevada’s, to an extreme trip per my route back home! The path I chose was meant for off-road vehicles and 4-wheelers, etc. My bike certainly looks tough, starting to call my bike the “BEAST”, but it’s still a street bike and not meant for this type of riding! My riding skills improved dramatically on this treacherous journey, but my old bones, including the broken ones fused together with titanium, just can’t handle roads like this anymore. The ‘road’, so-called, has large rocks, several water runoffs with very muddy spots, very slippery, major washouts, and all Up Hill. I made it approximately 9km (5.5 miles) up this road. The rocks and washouts were the worst part of it….I’d stop several times when I came across the real ugly parts, survey my path moving forward, and try to choose the best possible way without crashing the bike, much less ending my life. In most cases the path upwards only had one choice, and not a good one, just a real mean and nasty road, but moving forward/upwards was my determination, so a choice had to be made, wrong or right, moving forward was the Only Option!

I learned that you just gotta go for it, don’t stop, there is no going backwards (which happened a few times), just keep moving, bouncing, trying to keep your balance and staying upright. After many close calls, I decided to head back down, which was in itself rather nerve-racking, “I don’t want to go back down this ugly road!”, my God, barely made it up, going down is going to be WORSE! I really wanted to take the ‘back-way’ from my hotel for my return trip home but made just 9km before heading back down and taking the same route via Minca. Should I have been Stupid enough to try moving forward, would have been another 33km (20 miles) of what I can only guess could have been the end of ME!

Sometimes the ‘Road Less Traveled’ is less traveled for a reason! Would I do it again?!? In A Heart Beat! No question about it. My life has always been about taking chances, stupid or crazy, I live for the next adventure…sometimes I try to talk myself out of it, but in the end, I always seem to be willing to take the risk, face my fears, and just go for it! My life philosophy is simple: take the risks, take the road less traveled, take chances…..you may get hurt, let down, lose your shirt, but in the end, it’s the chances you don’t take that haunt you!

Life Lesson? Take Chances, you can do it, even when you fail your mission, you still gain the knowledge, you still gain the experience, you still have overcome what many around you would not Dare Do! You may fail many times in your life, but the only TRUE failures are the ones you never even Tried!