The WANDERLUST is real……

I feel like every opportunity we get when we step into the woods, drive down forgotten roads, explore tucked away secrets in Nature , my heart expands, my mind clears, I can breathe. I am so extremely thankful to live where we do, to call this corner of the Earth our home for a while… It has opened me up to a sense of self I didnt quite know was there, that I had been missing all along. The noise of the artificial to the quiet of the Natural, is such a miraculous thing.

Last Saturday morning I could feel that stir crazy energy rising up inside of me, that pull to put aside anything we “had” to get done, and just pack the car with a tiny bit of snacks, throw on some Tom petty (thanks husband) and peek at my kids in the rearview mirror while they sat in the back of the van, starring out at the mountains as we drove threw a new piece of country…

On many of our outings, we have seen this Mountain in the distance we have named “Mt Crumpet” sticking up in the air like a sharks fin. Strangely enough when I typed “mountain hikes near me” into Google, it popped up! Mt Kokuzo. It claimed in the description that it could be quite challenging for kids, especially towards the top, but we were all down… Little did we know, the top entailed a cliffside rock climb with a small rope and teeny peek. Were we at the right mountain??? I think so? There were many trails up there, and we couldn’t read the Kanji, but regardless, we hiked as high as we could, leaving the summit untouched… my ego is not that big to risk injury or death! So not too many views out to the surrounding areas, yet I dripped with pride and joy as we stumbled over rocks together, slid on thick layers of wet leaves, admired the hundreds of spider webs closing the barrier between the trees… The way my babes have learned to love this, the way Tea overcame the challenges of the climb, us all together on these journeys, heart overfilling.

On every one of these hikes, no matter how big or small, that want for more simplicity runs deeper through my veins… I dream of the day where we can fix up a crummy old RV and travel the National Parks, the deserts the dirt roads that lead to the middle of nowhere, yet somewhere in the States. For now, we get to live in Southern Japan. In a place filled with so much Natural beauty and history and countryside it blows my mind… I never thought moving to Sasebo would give me this outlook on the Natural World. It isnt what we saw in pictures before arriving here, yet its filled me with such, well, Wanderlust.

Till next time… xoxox