Each month, you will receive some practical tips on ideas such as eliminating stress, finding your passion, clearing clutter, and maybe even some travel tips and more. Also look for helpful resources including book titles and websites. In addition, don’t be surprised when you find a call to action. I am a coach, after all! I hope you find some useful tidbits monthly challenges. If you know someone that you think may find something of value in here, please forward this newsletter on. And remember…the adventure begins at the start of The Trailhead!

 

Hello Readers,

Welcome to the beautiful Fall season! Here in the Jersey Pinelands where I live, the fall colors are especially brilliant this year. It’s been a great season so far for natural beauty!

 

A couple of years ago in the May issue of this newsletter, I wrote about the joys of realizing where I really wanted to live and how we can discover pleasures in our own backyard. This month, I am revisiting that topic, yet expanding on the subject, a bit. (FYI…you can read past newsletters by visiting www.adventurecoach.com and scrolling down to “newsletters” on the home page.)

 

It used to be that whenever the Fall season rolled around, Robert and I would make plans to go off to a bed and breakfast for a weekend to explore the fall foliage in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, the Catskill Mountains in New York, or take even longer journeys out West to see the golden aspens of Colorado. This year, we are in the middle of selling our log cabin and moving down the road with those 600 acres of wild and beautiful Camp Ockanickon being in our new backyard.  So…with all the prep of a move looming ahead in just a few weeks, we’ve needed to stay close by, instead of our taking our regular Fall weekend jaunts.  

 

For the last few Sundays in a row, we have taken the day off to play. We live on the outskirts of the wild and wonderful NJ Pinelands, a National reserve and biosphere of over 1 million acres, made up of forests, woodlands, tea-colored lakes, streams, and rivers and a diverse animal population. (This is the area where I host many of my outdoor coaching retreats) There are many miles of hiking trails in this area and we’ve been doing an 8-10 mile hike each Sunday. We’ve had the trails mostly all to ourselves and have really explored the interior of this wooded paradise. It occurred to me yesterday when we were out on one those trails how great it was that all we had to do was pack a lunch and drive a few miles to get to the trailhead. (Had we been even more adventurous, we could have even ridden our bicycles there) The big “aha” moment for me was that we didn’t have to spend time, money, or gas to get someplace further away where we would stay at a busy B&B  and sleep on a bed not as comfortable as our own. We’ve simply been exploring those nearby outdoor places and it has been fun and FABULOUS! This idea caused me to realize something…It’s not that we need to give up traveling…which we love to do. In addition, we’ll simply keep open to all the possibilities that exist right here in our own backyard.

 

What about YOU? What do you have in your own backyard that maybe you have not explored for a long time? What do you love? The Outdoors? Arts and culture? History? There are folks who live in Philadelphia who have never visited the Art Museum or the historical Liberty Bell. There are others who live by the Jersey shore and have never visited Island Beach State Park  

Maybe it’s time for you to set aside some quality alone- time or family- time during the weekends ahead and begin the fun search to explore what’s right in your area. This is a great time of year to do it and I’ll bet you won’t be sorry!

 

Challenge at The Trailhead:

Begin today to take a look at your calendar…when could you plug in a fun getaway day to visit a nearby place of interest? Maybe it’s a place you’ve never explored but always wanted to. Where you will you go that will really jazz you? What will you do while there?  Who will you ask to join you? Or…will you take a delicious solitary jaunt? Keep me posted on what you come up with …I’d love to hear!

Patt

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