LIVE from…A Camper Van!

Australian Colin making his way around NZ

The Road — Fall arrived abruptly here in New Zealand, and summer departed like the less interested half of a one-night stand. It's early March, but in northern hemisphere terms, it's the beginning of September. I should've been expecting fall's approach, but alas, I was not, not this quickly. And so it was last week, while walking down the steep and winding hill that leads from our house to the bays below at Oriental Parade, that I ruminated on all this. No, not just the changing of seasons, which always puts me in a pensive mood, but on the nature of journeying, and the expectations we cart along with us.

As I rounded the bend west toward the city center, drinking in what turns out to have been the last of summer's sunshine, something caught my eye. Painted on the top of a camper van, an "RV" we call 'em in America, was a sign that said, 'Livin' the Dream.'

I poked around the camper van long enough for someone to appear out of it. That's when I met Colin.

Colin is about sixty and from Australia and he's traveling with his adult son, who didn't seem particularly interested in talking to me. But Colin, who was wearing a New York t-shirt, was on a journey. Together with his son, they were traveling around New Zealand in their rented van. They would be on the road, well, as long as it took.

I peeked inside and it looked just like a vehicle would look with two men traveling together for an extended period of time: cluttered, with a side of underpants.

"Are you living the dream?" I asked Colin as we stood outside his van, beneath the sign that suggested that's just what he was doing.

"Livin' the dream?" he repeated back to me in a healthy twang. "I'm livin' the dream every day."

I thanked Colin for more than he knew I was thanking him for, and went on my now-merrier way. As I approached downtown Wellington, something else caught my eye. On a pier that doubles as the city's public diving board, a dozen or so young boys were perched. One by one, they took turns jumping into the water, soaking up the last of the summer sun.

'LIVE from Mongolia!', the true story of what can happen when you pursue a lifelong dream, is available on Amazon (hardcover and Kindle), on Barnes & Noble, and in bookstores internationally. Patricia Sexton also writes this weekly blog series about dream-followers around the world. If you're a dreamer, write us here! We'd love to include you in an upcoming feature!