Trip Report: Bishops Castle in our VW Bus

Description: Bishop’s Castle is entirely built by one man, Jim Bishop, over the course of his lifetime. A quirky, intricate maze of stunning DIY artwork, engineering and imagination. This roadside Southern Colorado attraction used to be little-known. Today, likely made more infamous through Instagram, Bishop’s castle is widely known and visited. Watch your step, hang on and leave the pets in the car.

Length: A few hours

Favorite memory: We drove our 1974 VW Joy Bus to visit Bishop’s Castle after an overnight in Hartsel, CO. Jim Bishop himself was onsite three different times we’ve visited. Always leave a donation. Be generous.

Season: Anytime

Keep going-

Aaron

Bishops Castle fire breathing dragon
Nearing the top of Bishop’s Castle, the ironwork continues and so does the exposure.
Cathedral style enormity and stain glass windows meets Tim Burton.
Bishop’s Castle is 100% donation dependent. Be respectful. Be kind. Be generous.

Life List: Climbing Both Matterhorn

I want to climb both Matterhorn. The Matterhorn in Switzerland 14,692 feet above sea level, the mountains of mountains, jagged-toothed and magnetic. The Matterhorn in Disneyland 147 feet above sea level; the summit is towering above Tomorrowland, home to an abominable snowman.

While I’m living, I will to summit both Matterhorn.

Who do you know at Disneyland that can help advise me on how to go about realizing my dream?

Here’s my Life List I first wrote in 2016.

The Matterhorn in Switzerland, formidable, ominous, technical and so inviting.
Forbidding access to most, Disneyland’s Matterhorn. I’ve held the dream to summit her concrete shoulders since I was eight years old.
Mountaineers summit bid on Disneyland’s Matterhorn towering 147 feet above the submarine lagoon. Difficult to access in its own unique way.

Writing a Life List (Stuff Ya Wanna Do)

Personally, I don’t love the term “bucket list”. I prefer the idea of focusing on the things I want to do while I’m living vs. before I “kick the bucket”. I’m weird that way.

In 2016, I wrote this Life List and started checking things off the list, removing some as things change and adding new items to aim for.

Five years later, reflecting on this original list, I see how most of these ideas remain important to me. I’m also not the same person I was five years ago. For example, Leith and I are not planning on adopting #29 a baby brother from Swaziland 🙂

Areas to keep the dream alive

  • Summiting the 14’ers here in Colorado
  • Write another book by age 50
  • Climb both Matterhorn
  • Celebrate 70 years of marriage and attend my kids weddings

Areas I’m no longer interested *

  • Building and running software companies
  • Performing a Ted Talk. Fine if it happens, but not a primary goal.

LIFE LIST 2016 by Aaron McHugh

Written January 2nd 2016

While I’m Living I want to…

  1. Visit and hike some portion of the Great Wall of China
  2. Work from Anywhere.
  3. Perform a Ted Talk in 2017
  4. Attend my children’s Averi and Holden’s weddings
  5. Write 5 (4 more books) published or self-published by age 50 (2020)
  6. Meet and spend 2 hrs w Bono from U2
  7. Leith and I celebrate 70 yrs of marriage (2063)
  8. Climb bot the Matterhorns: Switzerland and Disneyland by age 48 (2020)
  9. Climb remaining 22 (17 now) 14’er (14,000 foot peaks) in Colorado by (2019)
  10. Climb all fourteen (14) 14’er in the Washington and California by age 55 (2025).
  11. Work in an orphanage with Averi and Leith for a week before Averi graduates high school (2019)
  12. Work with interesting people of my choice every day (in progress)
  13. Live in a house designed by my brother
  14. Backpack or Mountain Bike the Colorado Trail (finish unridden sections) by (2018).
  15. Live debt free
  16. Take my grand children on a tour of the United States by car, boat, plane, RV, bicycle, and walking.
  17. Live abroad for one year
  18. Visit Rome with Leith. (Updated: We stopped at Rome on the train in 2019 🙂 got close)
  19. Free women in sex trade industry. Personally participate not just send money.
  20. Build two software companies that do not require my daily presence to run. *
  21. Build Work Life Play to have 500k subscribers
  22. Run Walt Disney Family Museums social media and marketing. *
  23. Run the Rim to Rim to Rim Grand Canyon race in 2016
  24. Work Life Play podcast weekly for 2 yrs (Update: 2020 -50 new episodes)
  25. Compete in Ironman Kona World Championship by age 60 (2030)
  26. Visit Cinque Terra, Italy with Leith for our 25th wedding anniversary (2018)
  27. Earn 1 M$ in a year without my life becoming a train wreck.
  28. Matt and I drive Hwy 1 in California in a sidecar and motorcycle
  29. Family goes to Swaziland Africa and adopt a baby brother *

This Life List is a reflection of the Work Life Play that is important to me today, Saturday, January 2nd, 2016. It is subject to change and revision. I am aiming my intentions towards these goals, events, experiences and quests. Like Walter Mitty, I want to live a life of Adventure. I will invest in meaningful relationships, experience all that this life has to offer and challenge myself in my Work and in physical accomplishments.

Trip Report: 75 stories Underground in Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Description: In 1901, eighteen-year-old cowboy James Larkin White witnessed a moving black cloud over the Chihuahuan Desert of southern New Mexico. Brazilian free-tailed bats were feeding at dawn and dusk, swirling above one of the most spectacular caverns and underground wonder. Today, Carlsbad Caverns National Park is accessible by walking 1.25 miles down a long steep ramp, winding into the cavern’s mouth. Carlsbad is the largest easily accessible cave chamber in North America. Backcountry caves are also accessible for the adventurous, requiring permits and technical caving equipment.

Length: One to two days

The rewards: Our spring break father-son party explored both the famous main cavern and one backcountry cave, which I can’t recommend. Our teenage boys didn’t find the experience of bushwhacking through cactus and up tangled desert trails rewarding. After rappelling into the slit access, we opted for a retreat.

Season: Spring, Fall, Winter

Keep going-

Aaron

The main entrance into Carlsbad Caverns. Smooth walking trail of 1.2 miles descending into the main caverns.
Our boys after being dejected from our backcountry (non-tourist route) spelunking adventure at Carlsbad Caverns.
The mighty great room Carlsbad Caverns.
Adventure Carlsbad Caverns picking our way back to the car after aborting our spelunking descent into the abyss.

Trip Report: Hiking the Narrows Zion National Park

Description: There is no trail, only river and wet feet. Hiking the Narrows in Zion National Park is one of the most unusual slot canyon trail experiences you’ll find. Hiking up the Virgin River, most people begin at the Temple of Siniawava on the Riverside Walk. Walking upstream as far as your adventure spirit leads. Throttle your adventure from a two to ten mile aquatic romp walking, wading and swimming. Before you hike-check the weather.

Length: A few hours to a full day

The rewards: A challenge that you can throttle up or down based on your party. Family friendly, but probably not a place for kids under the age of 8-10. Endless beauty, unique and memorable desert experience. Time your adventure in the off-season of Fall or Winter to reduce the crowds and watch the weather forecast for rain. The canyon is prone to flash floods.

Pro tip: Rent gear including wetsuit and rubber booties.

Season: Spring, Fall, Winter

Keep going-

Aaron

Before you step foot into the Virgin River, the trail meanders upstream.
Starting the Narrows trail. Notice how wide the slot canyon walls are here at the beginning.
Exquisite beauty in the Zion Narrows with contrasting vivid colors from emerald green to crimson red.
The Narrows slot canyon pinches down to
The Narrows can be a zoo or you can find yourself alone in moments of solitude. In November, I shared the experience with a handful of other explorers.
Just outside of the National Park, Zion Adventure Company was dialed in for enhancing your Narrows adventure.

Be Who You Are And…

I came across this quote in my friend Katie Arnold’s book, Running Home. I’ve known, heard and even claimed that I’m comfortable in my own skin. I like being me. The bit about “go the whole way” I’ve not done that.

If we embraced all of ourselves, all of our glory and our not-yet-ness, that would change everything.

How might you, might I, go even further today? Go the whole way.


“Be who you are and go the whole way.”

-Lau Tzu

Me at age six or seven in Norwalk, CA on the front porch of my grandparents, Melba and Mike Tarver.

Trip Report: Below the Rim at Bryce Canyon National Park

Description: Bryce Canyon National Park’s infamous crimson-bandit hiding hoodoos and endless vistas remnants of erosions sculpting. I drove our 1974 VW Joy Bus from Colorado to locate a trail that my mother hiked in the 1960s. My only beta, a picture of a slide and a faint recollection of a family road trip story.

Length: One to three days

The rewards: Although the rim’s views are stunning, the real immersion experience of Bryce Canyon exists below the edge. A few hours to multi-day backcountry routes, get up close and intimate with this desert southwest bizarre landscapes. Find them under the rim trail guide here.

Season: Spring, Fall, Winter

Keep going-

Aaron

Snapped on a brief below the rim wandering, my mom’s 1960-era trail recollection was faint. Finding this Bryce Canyon trail became my mission.
These mighty giants commanding presence were inspiring. Very little water, enclosed by a hoodoo fortress, the hidden life of trees in Bryce Canyon.
I’m not certain, but my mom’s 1960’s trail had some similarities in this region of the park. Guess I’ll need to go back to certify my find.
As with any wild place, the further you get from the car, there are fewer people. Fellow explorers returning from a multi-night backpacking trip via Navajo Loop.
Bryce Canyon’s contrast of hoodoos and lonely pine trees is somehow a parable.

A Breathing Space

I tend to cram too much into most days. Especially if they are what I’d consider “good things”. “More must be better” is my non-essentialist mantra when I’m trying to do it all. Judy Brown’s poem Fire articulates the necessity of the space between, to create room to breath. When I’m at my best, I’m prioritizing the space between, transitions and pauses.

Where is too much of a good thing packed in?

What makes a fire burn 
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.
So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.
We only need to lay a log
lightly from time to time.
A fire grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way.

-Judy Brown

Keep going-

Aaron

Cowboy camp near the Arkansas River. Less is more.

Trip Report: After Dark at Arches National Park

Description: Arches National Park invites the artist, historian, and road tripper into sandstone, massive gardens, and geological improbabilities. North of Moab, Utah, shouldered by the Colorado River and home to more than 2,000 natural sandstone arches. Insatiable features like Devils Garden, Landscape Arch spans 480 feet, long and thin, Delicate Arch, inviting the gateway to the Wild West. Trails, towers, buttes, caverns, canyons, and vast beauty away.

Length: One to many days

The rewards: Very few roads with endless trails leading to lost places on the edges. Winter and Spring are my favorite seasons to visit Arches NP. Here’s a full list of must see arches and accessibility.

Favorite memory: Father-daughter pairs, we hiked in at dusk as hikers departed. Our microadventure, Delicate Arch by headlamp under a full moon. Arches National Park is a International Dark Sky park, galaxies visible without light pollution.

Season: Spring, Fall, Winter

Keep going-

Aaron

Being in spaces enormous enough to make you dizzy looking up. Arches National Park contains scale photographs cannot accurately retell.
Delicate Arch at sunset waiting out the moon’s arrival.
Thanks Idletheorybus Instagram feed for this inspirational night time shot of Delicate Arch
Indian Jones and the Last Crusade filmed here in 1989 as the young Indiana Jones espaces with treasure reclaimed from thieves.
The Fisher Towers, outside of Arches National Park, infamous desert rat rock climbing bucket list.
Leaving the car behind, with a pack full of water, and a curious mind will yield endless arches discoveries.

Explorers Manifesto

Thirteen of us just completed our maiden Explorers journey. Our bakers dozen, explored the frontier edges of big questions through a combination of Zoom virtual sessions and an in-person adventure weekend in Colorado. At the conclusion of our shared exploration journey, I shared this manifesto attempting to synthesize the key waypoints we navigated.

Three big questions framing our exploration

Earlier this summer, while hiking the Colorado Trail, three profound yet straightforward questions occupied my heart and mind.

  1. Where am I?
  2. Where am I headed?
  3. Who am I?

“Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given and sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life. ”

-Saint Paul

Explorers Wanted Men wanted. Hazardous conditions. Uncertainty. Pushing into foreign territory. Prioritizing discomfort and questions over answers. Drawing back to see. “To see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel.” Return transformed.

Number one. Taking small actions often proceed our belief and mindset shifts. Behavior first, small steps lead our hearts forward.

Number two. Our attention must be reclaimed from the pings and notifications of our distracted world. The shallows of life-our distracted living- contribute to disconnection from those closest to us. God’s voice exists in the silence and stillness. Impact and intimacy require our attention. 

Number three. Building awareness of our reactive tendencies creates more choices in the moment. Exploring the old stories that drive our reactivity empowers us to reclaim that negative energy charge and pivot. Be lucid in the moment. “In this Now Moment, I know where I am.” Be your creative best. 

Number four. Adventure creates an escape hatch from the mundane of life. Learning to live outside our comfort zone enlarges and strengthens our identity. Remember David Whyte’s advice, “If we can place our identity at the edge of discovery. Then we have the possibility of a vital life.” Get hungry, get lost, refuse the tyranny of a life of extreme comfort.

Number five. Our lives, vocation, and souls are sacred. Approach your life and work as a tenacious craftsman planting trees transforming the terrain of your domain. Stay on the path laid out for you. Walk with beauty the ground beneath your feet. Remember Jesus’s invitation,  “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.” 

Number six. Listen to your life. What can you NOT DO for reasons even you cannot explain? Deepen your resolve to listen intently- all of your life is speaking. Frederich Buechner “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

Number seven. Our relationships are assets in our wealth management portfolio. The grass grows wherever you water it. The better question- the ones we should ask is not how can I be better, but what is it that they need or want from me? How might I contribute to them thriving? Remember Dave and Sue.

Number eight. Our eulogy is a window into the desired Future State of our life. You are leaving an impact today, for good or not. By working backward from the sunset of our lives, gaps are illuminated in our desired outcomes and today’s priorities, choices, and behaviors. The end is coming. What story are you authoring with your life?

Number nine. Men need friends. Thoreau lamented, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Refuse isolation as a mode of travel in this journey of life. Two are better than one. Choose friendships – even occasionally – go deeper past the plastic veneer and puncture together something real.

Number ten. The making of a brave man requires a whole heart – integrated, awake, “fierce with reality.” Exploring your frontier must become your default setting on your operating system. Life – your life – is waiting to be lived, experienced in vibrant intimacy with God and those entrusted to your care. Wake up. Choose an abundant abiding mysterious life.

Keep going. This is good for you. You can do this.

-Aaron

Explorers in the alpine air of Colorado summit crest of Sentinel Point, CO
Navigating a boulder field before we left treeline.
Touching the sun above the frosty clouds below. Explorers engaging our trifecta questions of Where am I? Where am I headed? Who am I?
Our summit block, lesser known Sentinel Point, CO on the back side of Pikes Peak.

The rewards of exploring our frontier?

One guy wrote this summary about his experience, ready to live forward with more vitality.

“I used to be overwhelmed by the tyranny of the urgent.  
Now, I’m learning to prioritize what is important over what is urgent,
I used to hide myself, thinking I was small and worthless.  
Now I am learning to be myself, and go the whole way.
I used to bury my grief.  
I am now learning to deal with it when it arrives, and be not embarrassed by shedding tears.”

-Explorer