Sharing stories and adventures about all things coffee, stories, and stoke
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Travel Journal
From the very beginning Loam Coffee has been about supporting trail advocacy and new trails. Whether that is supporting our local trail alliance, sending innumerable bags of coffee for dig days across the U.S. and Canada, serving coffee to trail builders, or having our own Trail Builders Blend to raise awareness … we believe this is an important topic.
What I’ve learned is that it’s not as much as what we do nor how we explore … as long as we’re out and about doing this together. Making memories. We can go to the coast and do nothing other than walk along the beach and look at the waves. Or hike to a waterfall we’ve been to several times. The “what” is not as important as the “why.” And that is to be together and make memories.
So often when we utter the word “adventure” we are usually thinking of or referring to far off places. The kinds of places that require either long road trips or a plane ride … with a few connecting flights en route. While those certainly live up to being noteworthy adventures, maybe we need to expand on the term “adventure” a bit.
It is no understatement to point out that 2020 was a year for the ages. While hopeful, it’s not like 2021 was the quick turnaround we had hoped for. In rapid-fire succession one traumatic event has happened after another over the past year. This goes far beyond COVID-19 and all of the deleterious effects from it (death, job loss, poverty, bankruptcy, etc). It’s just been a really challenging year since the pandemic hit. Not only that, but it has taken a psychological toll on us all. We’re simply worn out and tired. We need a reprieve. An outlet. An escape. That is why exploring is a gift.
When it comes to mountain biking most of us are mere mortals. Our skills are so-so and probably A LOT better in our minds than in real life. We also feel the internal tension because we’re not all criss-crossing the globe on Instagram-worthy mountain bike expeditions (especially now). Or if we do they’re not as often as we’d like … or admit. So what do we do in the meantime?
Micro-adventures.
There’s something buried deep within our psyche to avoid pain. Or if we’ve gone through it we quickly block it out (or try) and years later what we recall is a sanitized version of the events minus the pain, the struggle, the adversity, and the emotional and physical exhaustion we may have felt that the time. Obviously when it comes to true trauma … childhood abuse … loss … there is no sanitizing it. It was and is horrific. A broken record that we try to forget or at least attempt to mute.
We have the same inclinations when it comes to many of our so-called adventures, right?
