Adventures come in all shapes and sizes AND appear in all types of places. One of the most powerful is an INNER ADVENTURE. Listen to Inner Guide, Mary Hoffman explain her powerful techniques to guide you through the depths of your inner being to discover new parts of yourself. In part 1 of Inner Midlife Adventure with Mary Hoffman, Mary talks about the process of using the dominant and non-dominant hand to tap into our subconscious. In part 2, Mary talks about connecting with our body through the subconscious. And now in Part 3, Mary talks about connecting with the spirit. It’s an adventure you won’t want to miss.

Adventure Tip: Resist the urge to constantly go “Out There” to reinvent yourself. Include an “Inner Adventure” to your adventurizing.

-Tracy Pattin

Click Here For Inner Midlife Adventures Part 4

Click here for Midlife Travel Adventures part 1.

The movie, Eat, Pray, Love, has sparked a fascination for crossing the globe to find yourself. Sort of an inner-outer adventure. With my innate wanderlust plus the opportunity travel (because of my dad) with my airline passes, I trekked across the world in my 20s. Not sure if I “found myself” but I tested the waters. It was sort of an Eat, Pray, Love journey. Of course I did a lot of eating and yes, there were some hot romances, but the only praying I did was to make it to my next destination, or that the Algerian Border Guards wouldn’t shoot us and would let us into Morocco.Blank books were the rage then (blogs weren’t even a thought) so I decided to keep travel diaries of every trip. And now, I wrote theYES!book about those adventures, other people’s adventures and ways for you to get inspired to do your own adventurizing. Here’s an excerpt:

Sahara Adventure
Adventure Tip: Sometimes an adventure is not about how perfect and fabulous it is. It’s about the experience. This adventure was filled with hot, dirty, lonely days, dysentery, scary moments, depressing towns. Yet, it was the most fascinating experience of my life. Often when we change our attitude about a situation, we discover a great new adventure. Marcel Proust said, “The real voyage of discovery consists not of seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

Camping across North Africa with Australian travel group San Francisco-London (Then overland across Europe and North Africa) Flight 30, Gate 2B
8 available coach seats 3 paying standbys/5 non-revs (including me)

I can’t miss this flight. Then I’d miss my next adventure—camping across North Africa. Once again, I have to wait for my name to be called. I can’t decide whether I’m special and privileged or just a freak. Seems I always have to not know until the last minute to go anywhere.
Got middle seat, middle row, back of plane.

Adventure Tip: We must allow ourselves to not know so we can get out of the comfort zone that keeps us from knowing ourselves, testing ourselves on a deeper level.

London-North Africa-London Bus #2366 (more like an oversized hippie van than a tour bus) “Reserved” seats 14 Available seats 16 One male Kiwi (New Zealander) 11 female Aussies (Australians) 2 female septics (Aussie nickname for ‘Yanks’ because it rhymes with septic tank=septics=Penny & I) Tunis, Tunisia

Crossing the Sahara

Miles and miles of sand dunes. As we drove along the road, Berbers—nomadic people of the Sahara—strode along on camels, oblivious to the 107-degree weather. I wonder what their lives are like? What do they think about? Women walking with babies on their backs, a man with his head wrapped in white clothwearing a grey robe just sitting on a cow. They move from place to place. Are they happy? I’m not right at this moment. It’s hot, so hot. Not steamy hot but sandy, bristly hot. Rod Stewart’s Maggie May on the tape deck distracts me from this lonely, endless, two-lane highway of hypnotic hotness. I’m so glad I’m not one of those Berbers. But maybe they’re happy being wanderers. Our rest stop breaks up the monotony. We all take dibs on a sand dune to pee, crouching behind the hill so the truck drivers don’t get a glimpse, leaving our stamp of toilet paper flying in the wind like little white kites. I hate this. I love this.

“Remember, the rest of the world is not like Saratoga.” I remember, Mom.
Adventure Tip: When we experience something so different from our daily lives, it makes us look differently at ourselves. Maybe those Berber people were the happiest people on the planet. Adventure opens our eyes to new experiences, whether we’re loving where we are or hating it.

Sfax, Tunisia

Camped in an olive orchard. Why did we pick this trip? It’s so much work. Penny and I were sitting in our tent and suddenly three gypsy women with babies on their backs came right into our tent to look at us. They just stared and smiled. We smiled. In that moment I felt this strange connection. Like we were family. Another old man came by on his wooden cart. Stopped. And stared. What is he thinking? Could it even be translated? Did it need to be? I wonder what their lives are like.

Just think, one month ago I was spinning my dad’s globe. I closed my eyes and stuck out my finger. It landed right on North Africa. Penny and I decided that was our next adventure. A continent so far away. Now, we’re there, right here. The gypsies, the old man on the cart, their lives are as far removed from us as that point on the globe, but meeting them face to face makes me realize that maybe we’re not so far away. I hate this. I love this.

The sun disappearing over the sand dunes painted a peaceful, beautiful sunset. I forgot all about the desolate hotness of the day.

Are we there yet?

Nefta, Tunisia

Went on Oasis Camel Ride. This giant, dusty beast kneeled down so I could hop on its bumpy back. The biting flies were everywhere. I think I’m getting used to them now. The camel lurched forward and stood up. I was 10 feet high on this furry, sandy, smelly, spitting rollercoaster. Camels are known for spitting, just like all the men in my life. Greg, our guide, is now flirting with me outrageously.

En route to Tunisian border into Algeria

Another day of dawn-to-dusk driving down a hot highway framed by miles and miles of sand dunes. The Eagles’ song Hotel California makes me homesick. For a moment. All the windows on this rickety, old bus are open creating a dry, hot draft. Our only air conditioning. I imagine being at the ocean in Santa Cruz with a cool sea breeze. Then I look out the window. The gigantic sea of sand yanks me back to reality. No houses, no people, no animals, no California ocean. Just one straight tarred line of endlessness. Suddenly I long for stoplights, tailgaters, skyscrapers, crowds. So this is what loneliness looks like? I hate this. I love this.

Middle of the Sahara

Gas station (sort of)
Instead of tagging a sand dune, we got to pee in a real toilet! What luxury. It was a 4’x6’ cement room. A prison cell. Solitary confinement. Cockroaches everywhere. And the smell. Where’s the toilet? The sink? At least cells have them. It appeared to be that hole in the corner. As I crouched down with my precious one sheet of toilet paper, suddenly I heard giggles. Five pairs of large, brown eyes stared at me through the little window. I screamed at them. The kids laughed. I screamed again, they laughed harder. Then ran away.
“Remember! The rest of the world is not like Saratoga.” I remember, Mom!

Border between Tunisia and Algeria Somewhere in the middle of the Sahara Desert Reminds me of Checkpoint Charlie, East Berlin

-Tracy Pattin©2010

Stay tuned for part 3

With the opening of “Eat, Pray, Love” today, travel is on my mind. When I look back on all those amazing adventures across the globe I did in my 20s and 30s, I’m so grateful to my dad for giving me the opportunity through my airline passes to see the world. And so grateful that I wrote all those travel diaries to keep reliving the great memories. (and now in midlife, I’m ready for more adventures!) Here is an excerpt from my book about adventures of all kinds from across the globe to on my couch:

Tribute To My Dad

I can’t cry. I will not cry. Just breathe. I took a breath. It was my turn to
remember my dad.

December 20, 2008. As I looked around the chapel, my brothers, sisters, my
dad’s longtime companion, and all of his friends were waiting for me to
share my memories. I glanced at the picture on the altar next to his urn, in
his airline uniform, in the cockpit, smiling. I began. “My dad loved flying
more than anything else. He was in heaven at 35,000 feet, every time he
went to work for American Airlines. In fact, in the hospital he told the
doctor he was in the cockpit, and he thought the nurses were flight
attendants. He gave me that gift. The passion for flying. For travel. For
adventure.”

Then, I picked up the YES! book and turned to Chapter 1. “I think this really
sums up why my dad and I had such a love to see the world.” I began to
read. “I love this moment, the engines roaring down the runway…” As I
read the passage, it was like I was taking off on another adventure. I
continued reading. “…and then it happens. That breakthrough moment when
clouds give way to bright sun. We’re racing across the sky, the white
nothingness below and bright blue above turn into one fabulous magic
carpet ride.” I paused, looking around at all the smiles in the room. “And I
know right now my dad is on his own fabulous magic carpet ride.”

I closed the book. With my dad’s life complete, I felt somewhat complete.
So grateful for my wanderlust. My desire to see the world…Or maybe I’m
just beginning another giant adventure.

I hope this book inspires your adventurous spirit like my dad inspired mine.

Stay tuned for part 2 Excerpts From theYES!book. Sahara Adventure.

-Tracy Pattin©2010