An Island to Oneself

     Being that this past weekend was not much to speak of - I did taxes a lot of the day Sunday - I will finally do what I mentioned I might a few weeks ago: review An Island to Oneself, by Tom Neale.  While it took me quite some time to read the book this most recent time around, as work and fun weekends tended to get in the way, I enjoyed it nonetheless.  As I brought up in a prior post, I had read the book once before and had been known to make the claim that it was my favorite book I had read.  While I may not be making such a claim after reading it a second time, I still believe it is worth the time to read for anyone with an adventurous side.
     The book was published back in the mid-1960s, and the story itself takes place in the late 1950s and early 1960s which was when the author voluntarily gave up his lifestyle in the "big city" of Rarotonga, Cook Islands in preference of one by himself on an uninhabited atoll in the South Pacific called Suvarov.  I found this book to be exceedingly interesting not only because of how crazy it is to think of someone actually going through with such a plan in order to live a completely self-sustaining life, but also the insight into Tom's thoughts throughout the campaign.  "Perhaps I was a little overawed by the challenge I had taken on.  I was fifty now.  And this dream of mine had been essentially a dream of youth.  Was I too old now to turn this dream into successful reality?" 
     Since reading this book the first time many years ago, one passage really stuck with me and upon reading it again this time around I made sure to take note of its exact wording.  The passage comes about when the author, a native of New Zealand, returns home after being away for a few years in the New Zealand Navy and then many more years while island hopping, taking odd jobs while seeing different parts of the South Pacific.  He was twenty-eight years old upon his return and, being that it was 1931, he had not been able to talk to his family in many years.  "Ten years is a long time, but before long I was back in the family routine as though I had been away hardly more than a month.  Yet, somehow, I remained an outsider in my own mind.  I had seen too much, done so much, existed under a succession of such utterly different circumstances, that at times I would catch myself looking at my mother sitting placidly in her favorite chair and think to myself, 'Is it really possible that for all these years while I've been seeing the world, she has sat there each evening apparently content?'"
     I'm not exactly sure why this quote struck a chord with me, but I think it has to do a lot with a desire to not live a monotonous life and to never be too content.  While most people I know can sit down and crank out a season of the newest TV sitcom or watch a hit comedy movie enough times to easily rattle off a page-long list of quotes, I have always been unbelievably inept as such a thing.  I'm not even very good at sitting still long enough to read a few chapters of a good book.  I prefer to be a bit more active, though if I'm going to take the time to sit down and watch a movie or read a book I almost always try to make sure it's one that I will come away better for having done so.
     The biggest thing I take away from the quote is that I do not want to end up being that person sitting in the same chair ten years down the road and instead would much rather be the person seeing the world and having adventures while the rest of society sits idly by.  But I digress.
     At the end of the day, I recommend reading the book.  If you can't get your hands on a copy then you can find a pdf version of it here: http://www.privateislandsonline.com/an_island_to_oneself.pdf.

Best Weekend Yet??

     Last weekend was one of the most action packed and overall fun weekends I've had since moving to the Denver area.  Over the course of the week leading up to it, I was able to successfully create a plan which included meeting up with three old friends, one of whom I had not seen in about a year.  I opened the weekend on Friday night by picking up my buddy at the airport who flew in from Atlanta and watching some winter Olympics in preparation for the next day.  At 3:45AM I got up to let in another friend that I used to work with in western Colorado a couple years prior.  He had driven in from Oklahoma with a friend I had not met before and they were able to get about an hour of sleep before we all hit the road to Vail on Saturday morning.
     We were lucky enough to not run into any bad traffic on the way to Vail by leaving at 5:30AM or so.  We hit the slopes bright and early after meeting up with another former coworker of mine who still lives out in western Colorado.  The day was full of skiing/snowboarding new runs on the mountain, including my first double black diamond (which was quite hard) and we all had a great time before heading to Glenwood Springs for the night.  Being totally exhausted from a full day of being on the mountain, we got dinner and had a few drinks in Glenwood before ultimately hitting the hay early.  The next day I awoke early to take my Atlanta buddy to the Eagle airport, where he flew out of.  Afterwards, my Oklahoma friends and I headed to Loveland, where I had not been before but had always driven past on I-70 while heading to other destinations.  Loveland far exceeded my expectations and we were able to get in another solid day on the slopes while hitting up the upper reaches of the mountain and tackling more double blacks, which I never would have imagined I would be boarding at the beginning of the season.  I won't bore you with too many details of the day but I will leave a few pictures of our great time on the slopes.  The weekend ended by getting some pizza in Denver before saying goodbye to my Oklahoma-bound buddies.