I used to go camping when I was a cub scout. I didn't like the bugs, the cold nights, or the hot days, but one thing I always wanted to do on a camping trip was go exploring. There wasn't that much to look at, but that didn't deter me; whenever there was free time, if I wasn't playing football, I'd want to wander through the trees and up the hills to find what was nearby. I haven't changed much over the years - when I got my driver's license and first car, it meant that I could explore Fort Worth and nearby country roads after school and on the weekends (fortunately that was before gas prices tripled). At college, I'd go for a walk almost every night and enjoyed walking in different directions to different things nearby. Once I graduated, I moved to Irving, which was a part of the Metroplex with which I hadn't been particularly familiar. The first few months, I explored my immediate area on foot, but quickly ran out of sidewalk. The city itself didn't offer much more by car. And, after a lifetime of living in the Metroplex, even living near the geographical center of it all, I still couldn't think of many more new things to discover for myself. And over time, I'd visited all of the nearby cities and even large towns in Texas. I'm no Vasco DeGama, I don't really care to discover things, I just like seeing new things and I felt like I couldn't explore anymore, living in D/FW. I felt like I'd seen it all and anything that I hadn't seen couldn't easily be explored by foot, which is the best way to explore. Sure, I could take vacations, but while that would satisfy my curiosity for part of the year, that would still leave 50 other weeks stuck in the same old place. That's one of the things that prompted this move across the country: a desire to explore. I'll have a whole new neighborhood, city, and part of the country that I'll get to know for the first time. And, even better, I'll get to explore this city and its surrounding natural beauty largely on foot. Who knows what will happen once I've seen everything in the Pacific Northwest, but for now I can't wait to release that energy within me for exploration.