I love fire towers.  These historic lookouts are a great setting for my adventures:

They’re tall – not incredibly tall, but tall enough to get my heart racing.

They always seem to be in the perfect place for showcasing the beauty of the surrounding wilderness.

Oftentimes you can enjoy the incredible background in quiet solitude.

Weather moves a step quicker at the top of these exposed lookouts providing for dramatic scenes.

My favorite towers are the ones with a small cab atop the rustic structure.  It is in these often decaying rooms that I find my favorite subject…a window.

For me, these old single-pane pieces of glass that separate me from the surrounding majestic mountains are a symbol of the barrier that exists between a life of comfort and convenience and a life filled with the adventures of the wild.

The encasing windows provide the superficial protection from the world outside while allowing for distant enjoyment of all that exists beyond the confining room.  In spite of the incredible surroundings these small cabs quickly feel like a trap.

I find the room preventing me from experiencing the world beyond those thin walls.  It’s so easy to forget the journey up those exposed stairs that got my heart racing.  Or the smells and feel of the weather blowing across my face once safely secured in these little room.  Life out in the wild became quickly tamed by the small structure I had sought out.

The moments of joy are replaced by the call of the wild…a return to experience of adventure and wandering out into the wilderness.  So I open up a window and feel the air rushing past my face.  I look down and feel the exhilaration of hovering above the majestic scenery below and I think…it’s time to get going.

These experiences are a metaphor for the times in my life I’ve built a tower at the seemingly perfect place.  I sought and found a place that provided all the convenience and securities I’ve become accustomed to enjoying and quite often expecting.  Even though the tower I built was at the “perfect place”, it wasn’t the right time.  I’m not sure there is ever a “perfect time” to stop exploring, to stop going into the wild, but it certainly isn’t now.

No.  Not for me.

Now is the time to go and be a part of the freedom and unknown the world beyond our rooms provide.  It’s time to go on an adventure.  It’s time to wait on buying into the confining security that staying put in a small area you know so well provides.  It’s time to grow.  To explore.  To find a new side of yourself that stepping outside the known reveals.

So come join me outside.  Find the open window in your life and face the next unknown steps of your journey…your adventure awaits!