LOCALS ONLY

The Road Is Ending, But Not Done Yet.

Posted on October 13, 2015 by Scott Bender

“Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun”

Pink Floyd – Time

My last blog was around 14 days ago… It’s funny how two weeks out here can have a years worth of memories compared to the life I was in just a couple months ago. I remember flipping the pages of my calendar thinking, wow, another month came and went. Maybe if I was lucky enough, I had a weekend get-a-way and escaped from the mundaneness… but maybe not. My life revolved around a clock. 9am be at work. 1pm take lunch. 7pm go home. By the end, I was sitting in my office during lunch and watching Netflix so I could have a little false sense of escapism. Now… I look at my calendar to simply know what day it is. It’s funny how things change, and as you look back at your past, it can seem like another life… and yet it was just 2 months ago compared to where I am now. A lifetime of memories in between.

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Posted in adventure, advice, airbnb, art, asian, backpack, bbq, beer, blog, blogging, breath, camping, canada, cellphone, clouds, coffee, communication, cooking, disney, DIY, donuts, dream, drink, drunken noodles, eat, eat happy, explore, father, food, foodporn, friends, friendshio, friendship, funny, happy, heaven, hiking, ice cream, kindness, las vegas, life, lion king, listening, love, movies, music, nature, noodleporn, noodles, outdoors, pacific northwest, peace, people, quotes, recipe, road trip, sky, snowboard, solo, star, stars, summer, talking, travel, trees, trip, wander, wanderlust | Tagged adventure, airbnb, be happy, beer, blogging, booze, camp, camping, communication, discover, explore, father, quotes | 4 Comments

A Continuous Telling of Road Trip Adventures

Posted on September 30, 2015 by Scott Bender

“Boy, don’t you worry.
You’ll find yourself.
Follow your heart,
And nothing else.
You can do this,
If you try.
All that I want for you my son,
Is to be satisfied.”

-Lynyrd Skynyrd ‘Simple Man’

I am writing this blog on a front porch, of a family I have never met, in a city I have never been and it is beautiful outside. The sun is out, the air is crisp, and the sky is an endless shade of blue. I am in suburbia right now, choosing to stay in a families home over a studio apartment in downtown Bozeman, Montana. Why? Because I have been in so many cities recently, and I have also been by myself in the mountains and the woods, but I haven’t been in a home. I haven’t seen a married couple with kids, a front yard, a dog, a real life Norman Rockwell painting. And it is lovely. It’s quiet, beautiful, and all together simple.

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The Pursuit Continues… Alone.

Posted on September 20, 2015 by Scott Bender

“The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” – Christopher McCandless

Friday:

Well Hello again (Mr. Rogers voice). I guess the last time I wrote I was in the midst of Portland, Oregon. So to continue on… The day after my ‘solo’ day we made a decision to stay in Portland one more night. We switched to a different airbnb (who happened to be the nicest lady with the coolest husky dog ever… if anyone wants to go half-sies on a husky, I’m down). We had a new neighborhood to explore so we shook off our hangover from Thursday night football and too many wings, beers, and late night cocktails and got after it. Besides, we had a serious destination in mind that had been a plan for a few weeks; Tattoos. Continue reading →

Posted in adventure, advice, airbnb, art, asian, backpack, bbq, beer, blog, breath, camping, canada, cellphone, clouds, coffee, communication, cooking, disney, DIY, donuts, dream, drink, drunken noodles, eat, eat happy, explore, father, food, foodporn, friends, friendshio, friendship, funny, happy, heaven, hiking, ice cream, kindness, las vegas, life, lion king, listening, love, movies, music, nature, noodleporn, noodles, outdoors, pacific northwest, peace, people, recipe, road trip, sky, snowboard, solo, star, stars, summer, talking, travel, trees, trip, wander, wanderlust | Tagged 90s, adlib, adventure, advice, airbnb, bao, bbq, be happy, beer, blog, booze, camp, camping, canada, cell, cellphone, coffee, communicate, communication, cooking, disney, DIY, donuts, eat happy, eats, explore, father, food, foodporn, friends, friendship, fun, garden state, girl, happy, heaven, hiking, home made, ice cream, justin timberlake, las vegas, lion king, listen, listening, locals only, localsonly, movies, music, nature, nom, noodles, outdoors, pacific northwest, park city, people, phone, poetry, recipe, road trip, short story, ski, snow, snowboard, solo, spicy, sriracha, star, stars, summer, sunday, talk, talking, travel, utah, vacation, wanderlust, whiskey, wondering, yosemite | Leave a comment

Locals Only ‘Bite Sized’: Komex Fusion and Hooligans Bar & Grill

Posted on September 16, 2015 by Scott Bender

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The Road Trip Continues

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Scott Bender

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” – Andy Warhol

Hello again!

Ok, so let’s not waste your time, to begin from where I left off – the quaintness of the hotel life was quickly interrupted by the beauty of the outdoors. We left the hotel early in the morning and drove through the Redwood National Forest in Humboldt, CA. It was something out of this world and in the world of Fern Gully or Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Continue reading →

Posted in adventure, advice, airbnb, art, asian, backpack, bbq, beer, blog, breath, camping, canada, cellphone, clouds, coffee, communication, cooking, disney, DIY, donuts, dream, drink, drunken noodles, eat, eat happy, explore, father, food, foodporn, friends, friendshio, friendship, funny, happy, heaven, hiking, ice cream, kindness, las vegas, life, lion king, listening, love, movies, music, nature, noodleporn, noodles, outdoors, pacific northwest, peace, people, recipe, road trip, sky, snowboard, solo, star, stars, summer, talking, travel, trees, trip, wander, wanderlust | Tagged 90s, adlib, adventure, advice, airbnb, bao, bbq, be happy, beer, blog, booze, camp, camping, cellphone, coffee, communicate, communication, cooking, disney, DIY, donuts, eat happy, eats, explore, father, food, foodporn, friends, friendship, fun, garden state, girl, happy, heaven, hiking, home made, ice cream, justin timberlake, las vegas, lion king, listen, listening, locals only, localsonly, movies, music, nature, nom, noodles, outdoors, pacific northwest, park city, people, poetry, recipe, road trip, short story, ski, snow, snowboard, solo, spicy, sriracha, star, stars, summer, sunday, talk, talking, travel, utah, vacation, wanderlust, whiskey, wondering, yosemite | 4 Comments

The Road Trip Has Begun

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Scott Bender

“Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”

John Muir

I set my alarm for 7:30am. I turned on the A/C, got in bed, put on my Apple TV and watched some episodes of LOST (I am rewatching it and it’s amazing… I have forgotten everything!). Then I took some Xanax to help me sleep since I am an insomniac, plus the fact my brain kept repeating one thing over and over… this is going to be the last time I sleep in my own bed for the next 5 weeks.

The road trip begins.

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Locals Only ‘Bite-Sized’: Container Park, LV

Posted on August 27, 2015 by Scott Bender

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Why I Quit My Job (and Decided to Road Trip): The Pursuit of Happiness

Posted on August 25, 2015 by Scott Bender

“We travel, initially, to lose ourselves, and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again—to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.” Pico Iyer

There was a television show I was watching in which this beautiful story was told paraphrasing William Faulkner. In the story, a father gave his son a watch that had been handed down through generations. The Father told the Son, that he was not giving him this watch so that he could remember time, but rather so that he could forget it once in a while. And not spend his entire breath trying to conquer it.

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