Meet Roaming Rick James!

This story is going to sound crazy.......

Until about 6 or 7 years ago, the only destinations to which I'd been were my home country of the good ol' USA (there are some great places here, don't get me wrong) and Canada (near Montreal and Thunder Bay).  But then 2 things got the wheels in motion that led me to where I am today.......

Event #1:   BTS- DNA-  Yes, you read that correctly, a K-pop song literally changed my life.  As teenagers, my daughters enjoyed the same music any typical teenage girl would like.  Then one of them heard this song by BTS and was hooked.  Soon after, the other daughter joined in.  Eventually, the only music we listened to was K-pop (it is rather good music!).  Wanting to know more about this culture, we had plans on taking a 2-week trip to South Korea in the summer of 2020...and then covid hit, so those plans were 86'ed. Still, my daughter dual-enrolled in multiple Korean classes at the local university, and she made her college selection based on which university offered the best study-abroad options (one of her two majors was Spanish). Fast-forward to college, and she was able to study abroad, either for a full semester or for service projects, in Seoul, Spain, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Peru, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Japan.  Naturally, I wanted to visit her in some of these places, and I then caught the international travel bug as well and have not looked back.  And to think, all of this started because of a K-pop song.  You never know what unexpected thing will alter the course of your life!

Event #2:  Casey Willax-  My older daughter decided to attend the University of Findlay in northwest Ohio (an EXCELLENT school, btw).  So naturally, I was going to be sure to visit her during the winter months to see some snow that rarely occurs here in Georgia and of course to snowboard whatever nearby ski "hill" I could find.  I determined that Mad River Mountain was the closest option to her university, so I headed over to YouTube to get the low-down on this resort in Zanesfield, Ohio.  In my search, up pops a video by this guy named Casey Willax.  After watching the complete video and learning all I needed to know about the resort, I was hooked on Casey and his content.  I think I have watched every video of his since then (and many of them multiple times-  check out my favorite from Boyne Mtn, Michigan).  Well, you can't watch a Casey vid without hearing the terms "Livin' the Dream" and "Overstoked", two things that describe his adventures to a T.  The more I watched, the more I came to realize that life isn't about working yourself to the bone at a job that ages you exponentially, retiring around 65, and dying soon after.  I made a promise to myself that I would not become the person that allows that to happen to himself.  I don't know if I'd ever have realized that if I hadn't come across Casey and his unbelievably well-done content.  

The moral of the story......

Don't ever discount things that happens to you in life; anything, no matter how seemingly small, can alter the course of your life for good.  And listen to those messages.  Never tell yourself you can't do something, you're too old to do something (I'm 52!!), or that you should just stick to the status quo.  Get out there.  And listen to the greatest company motto ever created, by Nike:  Just do it!