It is always interesting to leave a significant town, and ever more so up here where the next significant town is seven hundred miles away. It reminds me of Tom and I hesitating to climb past the relative security of a giant knob on a route in Joshua Tree.

The true traveler finds wisdom, and in that, humility. These trips become a lifestyle, not separate feats or events. There are those who do it for the accomplishment, and for all of us there is great satisfaction in the accomplishment, especially at the moment of completion. But it is not the part we focus on. We focus on the experience, on the states of mind reached along the way, and on the state of mind we are able to keep with us when the trip ends. I realize now it doesn’t matter what kind of motorcycle I get when I return, or what job I end up working in the fall. Those things will matter when the time comes, but for now they mean absolutely nothing. That realization sets me free, and I once again feel the perfect peace of unbelievable mountains, endless daylight, pure people, and the sheer joy of living to soak up every minute of existence my body can manage to stay awake for.

I met a man this morning who just amazed me. I was putting something on my bike outside a store this morning, and he came over to ask where I was headed. I told him I was headed to Fairbanks, and he suggested that Haines is a very nice place to visit.

“I’m on a bike,” I said to him, tired of people suggesting I go ninety miles one-way out of my way to see some sight, when most of them have not bicycled that far in their lives.

“I walked from Anchorage,” he said gently.

I was immediately humbled, and apologized for dismissing him. “I heard about you last night,” I told him. Martin and Marise told me his story. He has been walking around the world for some years now, and he left Anchorage five weeks ago on his way to Vermont where he started. I felt insignificant, not because my trip is small compared to his, but because the wisdom he has picked up in traveling came through so clearly in everything about him: his voice, his words, his gentle reproach. My wisdom is buried beneath a desire to be finished with this trip, to be away from the endlessly repeated questions and comments, and my occasional feeling of superiority over some people for having come this far under my own power.

But being wise, he held no grudge against my youthful slight, and we spoke for a little while. His presence relaxed me completely. He was one of the most powerful people I have ever met, not intense, just a calm reserve of unbelievable strength and resolve.

Meeting him made me realize that walking is the right way to see the world. The poorest person can walk the entire world, there is that much kindness out there to be found. One must simply let go of all possessions, and all fears, including the fear of death. Then one may be free to live.

I sit on a bank just above the Klondike Highway, in plain sight of it, looking out at a mountain which overlooks Whitehorse, the sky that interminably long orange of northern summer twilight, a pleasant wind blowing, and I know everything that ever needs to be known. I know my life can be perfect if I let it. I have slept for less than I have slept in a long time, and yet I barely feel tired in the energy of this absolute freedom and peace. Every time I rediscover that peace and wisdom, I become a little more firmly planted in it, and someday I will be like the wise man of this morning, always keeping that wisdom about me, not letting it be buried, knowing how to let it guide me continuously, not just at times of conscious decisions.