Long Distance Travelers "not us"

We went to the San Mateo Harvest Festival the other day. As we walked in, we noticed this Model A parked just outside, along with Candelaria and Herman selling books. That's Susan on the right, not Herman. It turns out that they have driven this car from Argentina to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, having a child during the trip. Somehow they found time to write a book about their trip: Spark Your Dream and now are planning to drive their car across Asia. I had a point when I started this, but Susan has been quizzing me from across the room "ou habite vous", "vous vous apelez, comment?", etc as we try to master phrases from our rudimentary French class, and my train of thought was derailed. On our last hiking trip in France, we were talking to our hostess in English, after she heard our attempts at French. She: "How many times have you been in France" Us: "Well, five times". She: "Isn't it about time you learned French?" So, we vowed to take lessions as soon as we got home, and now have had two sessions of feeling incompetent. Anyway, we bought the book, and I can hardly wait to read it. I'm so envious of such a trip, though some parts of it would scare the hell out of me. There is something about each day being a new and yet familiar adventure that is very appealing. Something like that is at the core of most long distance hikers. The other thought I had is that this requires a certain degree of obsession - another trait of long distance hikers, and I thought of Harvey Butchart and his drive to hike and document all the Grand Canyon trails - at the expense of his family. I'm extremely lucky to have Susan, who is a co-conspirator when it comes to getting out on the trails. If she weren't into hiking, then I would be doing something else that we could share, but there would be something missing. The only time I feel truly at home is out on the trail.