I'm waiting in the Denver airport for my trip back to Houston following my two week stay at the Boulder Co-Housing Community. What a great start to my journey. My hosts, Greg and Chris made sure my experience was a good one. 

My beautiful and gracious hosts in Boulder

Greg showed me around Boulder on bikes. Chris taught me secrets to healthy eating. They invited me into their home every day for good food and conversation and they introduced to me to as many of the community members as possible.

Greg talked to me about the value of tapping into my feelings—a skill I've not thought too much about. I admitted to him that I took an emotional intelligence test last year and was surprised to find that some of those skills needed further development.

I co-hosted a community event with one of the community members—Stephanie Heacox who also lives in the Gold Run Condo complex. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. She renovated her condo into a lovely place and she had every gadget imaginable for entertaining. We prepared lettuce wraps and I shared a TED talk to generate dialogue with the 10 members in attendance.

Greg shared with me a web-based, software tool he and Chris and another community member, Brian Dunn, created called Inside Feedback that got me excited. It's something I can use personally and perhaps something I can promote as a valuable tool in my travels. Certainly Chevron and any business or educational endeavor could benefit from using it for a better understanding of emotions.

The first week on sabbatical I packed up most of my belongings from a luxury, high rise apartment with a beautiful view of downtown Houston into a 8x8x12 foot storage pod. 

No way that it's all going to fit in this tiny box

I say most because some of my things have been set aside for my trip in my gently used, 24 foot Winnebago which I purchased in October. The first quarter of 2015, I spent weekends painting the interior and becoming familiar with my soon to be home on wheels and during the week paid to have professionals refurbish the rest of the interior so that it would look and feel like a place I want to live in as I embark on a journey to explore intentional communities across the U.S.

It was a challenge trying to determine what to throw away, what to take to Goodwill, what to give to family for safe keeping and what to take with me in my limited 100 sq ft of space verses what to box up and pack away for a year. I had no way of knowing for sure if the storage pod would be big enough nor exactly what I would need to bring with me.

Some how, some way it all fit and the remains went into the RV. I spent the weekend organizing it before flying to Boulder CO today to spend my first 2 weeks (Apr 6-17) at a co-housing community in the Gold Run Condos on Boulder creek. I chose the Boulder Creek Co-Housing Community as my first stop on my trip for several reasons. Firstly, it's a beautiful part of the country and one reason I wanted to explore was to determine if another part of the U.S. would work better for me than my hot and humid hometown of Houston. Houston has a short and lovely fall and spring intermixed with a very brief weird and wet, unpredictable winter. But it's those long, hot summers that last too damn long that are killers. So, I decided one day that I don't have to be constrained to Houston. With a lot of thought and planning I decided to go on an adventure to see what next might look like for me.