Seeing as how I’m starting to get regular followers and readers, I guess I should make a post that dives a little deeper into who I am.
As written on my About page, my name is Phil. As of this writing, I’m 46 years old, I have a 22 year old son and have been married and divorced once.
Growing Up
Going back to my early childhood, I guess I could say I’m lucky in that I’ve been able to see much more of the country than most, but that’s because we moved around so much when I was growing up.
I was born in the L.A. area in California before we moved up to northern Oregon. We then moved across the country to southern Florida, then back to California, then Las Vegas, Nevada, then BACK to California, all before I was 18.
That’s not to say I had a great deal of exploration in these areas. My parents worked retail most of the time and were not available for outings or adventures. I can only ever remember one true family vacation while I was growing up, I think when we were living in California for the second time. We took a trip up to northern California, visited the Winchester House and Hearst Castle, then on to western Nevada to the Ponderosa Ranch where they filmed Bonanza, and Virginia City. Aside from that, I had little outings, but usually day trips or weekend camping excursions.
After the most recent move to California in 1993, I met the woman that would ultimately become my wife. In our first 12 years together, we moved twelve times, the last of which was to New Mexico in October 2006.
New Mexico – Feels Like Home to Me
As I also mentioned in my About page, I LOVE living in New Mexico. The culture, the history, the scenery, and the food, I love it all! As mentioned in the New Mexico True theme song, New Mexico feels like home to me.
As much as I love New Mexico, I never really had much opportunity to explore it outside of Albuquerque and its surrounding areas. In fact, up until my last trip to Santa Fe with Jarrod at the end of March, I’d been to Santa Fe like four or five times. In over 14 years. There’s no excuse for that. I mean, really.
There had been times where I wanted to, say, ride the tram up to the top of Sandia Peak, but that never came to fruition.
I thought things would be different when I divorced my wife in 2013 but that wasn’t the case. I entered into a very long term relationship soon after that where I could not financially support the wanderlust I felt, so we stayed in and around town.
Living for Me
In very early 2019, that relationship ended. I decided at that time that I was going to go ahead and do the things I wanted to do, and not let anyone stop me. I dedicated that the only thing that would stop me from doing what I want to do would be lack of resources (such as money, gas, supplies, etc.)
I have an affinity for doing research. Lots and lots of research. Like, obscene amounts of research. On anything I want to do. Hiking, camping, fishing, sightseeing, you name it, I’ve done a TON of research on it. I found the New Mexico True Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail (I’m so sick of typing that out… can I call it the GCCBT from now on?), the scenic byways in the state, and other cool stuff, even within the state. Things were going great on that front… until…
COVID Ruins EVERYTHING
Up until February 2020, I had made some progress on my To-Do list but then the world came to a screeching halt. I met Brandy and after a few months of quarantine, we finally broke out for a trip to Colorado, setting off a string of at least a trip a month for nearly a year. We’ve done Colorado several times, the Midwest US, Ruidoso, Carlsbad, and countless road trips in and around town.
I am very grateful for my time with Brandy. I was able to do things with her that would have taken much longer to get done had I not met her. But, alas, that time is soon coming to an end.
What’s Next?
As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, my time with Brandy is quickly coming to an end, but as I mentioned in that post, I am not going to let this time apart deter me from doing what I’ve longed to do. I will continue making whatever trips I can, and, more importantly, I’m going to focus more on my health. I am going to make sure I exercise regularly and hike at LEAST once per weekend. Even if it’s a paved municipal trail through a city park. Hopefully before long, I’ll be able to expand out to short weekend trips before going whole-hog and doing week long trips to other areas of the country. Furthermore, I’m looking forward to the time when I can take a long, multi-day hike, rucking through the Sandias, Manzanos or even up in the Rockies somewhere.
That’s Me
So that just about sums up who I am in a nutshell. There’s a lot that I’m leaving out, stuff that no longer defines me, but stuff that’s important in what’s led me here. For the casual readers that happen upon my website though, that’s not important.
It’s not about where I’ve been, it’s about where I’m going.
As I’ve said before, and I will continue saying, I appreciate each and every person that has touched my life, from Alan and Brittany and Veronica and David to the random WordPress users that stumble across my little corner of the web, stopping by to visit means the absolute world to me.
More to come later. I promise.
-Phil