27/09/2026
Welcome back to Sunday stories: Volume 1 - Edition 6.
If you truly want to live an EXTRAORDINARY LIFE, then you have no other option than to adopt the mindset of putting EXTRA into your day-to-day habits and routines.
That’s the hard part. We love our COMFORT. We make it our own personal fortress to hide in….Com”FORT!”
I adopted a powerful belief while training for my first IronMan race that remains at the core of the person I’ve become:
LIFE BEGINS AT THE EDGE OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE!
Ask one of the most powerful questions you’ve ever confronted yourself with:
What am I going to do about this?
Here’s what’s easy. Travel to Mesa, AZ for a quick visit with my parents at their winter home, relax a lot, hug the couch, take naps, watch some movies, eat good food. Drive home and say wow, that was a nice break from the daily grind.
Instead, I chose to leave my comfort zone and designed this trip in conjunction to the full moon that month.
Full Moons. That’s going to be a chapter from the book I’ll publish someday. Since my birth, there have been 811 full moons (yes, I’m that old, but never act like it) and I have a lifetime of great memories running in the countryside under the surreal glow of the moonscape.
My 4-legged girlfriends are always with me for this monthly long run, and they cherish the experience as much as I do.
So, I pack up the dogs and we drive 1300 miles…..
We’re going to run a full moon desert marathon. 26.2 miles.
Mom drives me and my girlfriends to our designated starting point about 5 miles southeast of Sun Lakes. This highway runs parallel to the Santan mountain range and I’m very familiar with the course as I’ve ridden hundreds of miles there on my bike training for triathlons. It’s always a great way to escape the sub-zero Iowa winters to find a slice of summer if only for a few days.
Of course, Mom is worried and lovingly suggests that I might be crazy for what we’re going to do. I assure her that my countryside upbringing and years of Boys Scouts have me prepared for whatever might occur…
The first 5 miles are wonderful. Just as we planned. This is just bliss!
Then chaos.
About 15 miles to the west of our remote desert highway is Interstate 10. This is the main artery of traffic between Phoenix and Tucson and ultimately, Mexico. There had been a catastrophic multi-vehicle car accident, and state troopers immediately closed the highway in both directions to permit prompt access for emergency personnel and tow trucks.
The quiet desolation was suddenly transformed as our remote highway was the designated emergency alternate route for Interstate 10. Cars and trucks are now flying by….of course, they are all pi**ed off and delayed, so they are mostly white knuckling and driving way too fast! This is insanity. If we stay on this road, I know som**hing terrible is likely to occur.
We run well off the side of the roadway; I water the dogs with the collapsible bowls I carry in my gear bag and begin to formulate our escape route.
Having Mom or Dad pick me up wasn’t an option. I feared for their safety and absolutely did NOT want them navigating this treacherous traffic, so we had one option left.
OFFROAD!
I have my iPhone, GPS on the watch and my Boy Scout compass.
I know what you’re thinking. Wait….running through the desert at night? Are you nuts?
Hidden in my gear bag was an LED headlamp with 3 lights and fully charged batteries. It fits perfectly on my cap and if you saw me from 500 yards away, you’d have thought I was an oncoming train. Yep. That bright.
We plan to cut through the Gila River Indian Reservation and intersect with another state highway about 10 miles to the west that takes me north back into suburban Mesa and then home to Sun Lakes.
As many of you know, I wrote this post last week and lost it while attempting to add pictures just before publishing. I need to stop for a minute and grasp the profundity of what I’m about to re-write. It is like a script from a movie, and I can’t believe this is my life…..
Or should I just stop here and leave you hanging until next Sunday?
I know, buckle up. LET’S GO!
About a mile into this new route, just as the noise and commotion from the highway is fading to our rear, I hear a new sound: Crazy, wild horses! There must have been several and although we never saw them, all three of us could certainly hear them running away from this “disturbance” from their once quiet evening. So cool.
Then, only minutes later, we can hear AND smell the wild javalenas. You don’t want to mess with these wild pigs ever! And, worse yet, they have impeccable smell, terrible eyesight and they HATE dogs with passion! (They mistake them for coyotes).
The Boy Scout Motto: Be Prepared.
I stopped to remove two things from my gear bag. A can of high-pressure bear spray and yes, a pistol (that I am licensed to carry) just in case the worst possible scenario develops. And sadly, sometimes you never know in the remote desert when you might come across someone cooking up a batch of m**h. Too many tragic stories and I don’t plan to be one of them.
Fortunately, we change our course away from the herd and quietly listen to make sure the coast is clear. The dogs, who obviously smell 1000x better than dad, are agitated and ready to get to work protecting me. Out comes the water bowls for a cool drink and we begin again…
Less than a mile later, we come up upon what is obviously an unmarked cemetery. It is the burial grounds for the tribe and there are no paved roads leading in or out. Our course correction just happened to intersect with this, and I know I’m on sacred grounds. The light from the full moon reflects off hundreds of white tombstones and it is a stunning sight.
I was getting ready to take a picture and only then noticed my iPhone was at 3% battery!! WAIT-WHAT?!
I took no pictures and immediately turned the phone off to conserve battery if I had to make an emergency call! Our remote route was far away from cell towers and my phone used up all the battery searching for a signal. This could be bad, what if? In my gear bag, I had a small remote battery charger that I thought was ready to use. No such luck. No charge.
Now, in the still of this moment, the dogs both perk up their ears and intently look in the same direction. I hear it too… What? It can’t be! It is the sound of children laughing and playing. I see no lights; we’re in the middle of the tribal burial grounds and the sound is not som**hing all three of us imagined. The highest heart rate on my Garmin tracking device that evening was at that very moment. 188 beats per minute.
Can’t. Make. This. Up!
We need to get out of here. As we approach the edge of the burial grounds, both dogs keep looking behind us as if som**hing is following. I can now hear my heartbeat. Even the dogs are spooked. Let’s keep going!
Only moments later….. a very LOUD RIPPING NOISE erupts from behind us! It happened so fast, my heart is in my throat now! Streaking across the sky is a large fluorescent green meteor that hits the mountainside downrange several miles away. We could hear the impact soundwave as it echoed across the desert terrain.
Now my brain says full stop. I pray. Not in fear, but in awe, with gratitude and joy.
How did this happen? Lord, are you speaking? I’ve had years to think about this, and I believe the message was simple.
Live in AWE of His creation and look for the small things that make life special and profound!!
We have clearly strayed off course somewhat, especially since the phone was turned off and I was using my compass bearings instead of the GPS device. I finally see lights in the distance and just a few miles later we arrive at the intersecting state highway that will take us north back to town. Except we’re several miles south of my intended route so our 26.2-mile run turned into nearly 33 miles at the end of the night.
We get to the edge of town, and I stop at a Burger King parking lot, turn on the phone and call Mom to assure her we’re fine and just a few miles from home. She is relieved to say the least and 30 minutes later we arrive.
Both dogs immediately ran to the large water dish, just filled and drink and drink! Ana, my German Sheperd, goes straight to the corner and PLOPS onto her plush dog bed.
Isla, my Siberian Husky, doing what only a Husky would do, runs back to the front door as if to say, THAT WAS AWESOME, LET’S GO DO IT AGAIN!
To this day. I have a hard time believing this wasn’t a dream. It was real, it was my life and I will never forget the most important lesson from that day.
Leaving the edge of my own comfort zone was the investment I made, and the dividend was MILLION DOLLAR MEMORIES!
What are you waiting for?
I can’t wait to hear your stories someday.
Just. Do. It!
