We taken a lot of drives into the woods, mountains, coastal highways and places we never been before. Almost without fail we discover something that makes us sit back and go “WOW! How lucky are we?” We once drove on a one lane dirt road on the side of a mountain with a 1000 foot drop two feet off the side of the “road”. This drive made the Going to the Sun Highway look like a trip to your grocery store. I would never in a million years for all of Bill Gates money EVER drive that god forsaken road again. It was that terrifying but I would never trade that experience again, it was that exhilarating.

Another time we found a beautiful series of waterfalls cascading through a gorge. We’ve come across ancient cedar forests, wildlife you don’t normally see and some of the most beautiful views on the planet. I take our family cars places that that most just shake their head at. “Werle, your nuts.” Maybe so but it’s paid off so far. Every so often though it just doesn’t work out.

It’s a little nerve racking when your 5, 10, 15 miles back in the mountains on a logging road and the ruts go from “careful….careful” as I straddle them to “Bill, we have to turn around!”. Following a map that shows a road leading to a campground that either never existed or ceased to exist is frustrating at best.

That’s what life, the corporate life and working for the outsourced IT crowd became for me. Those hidden gems never materialized. The ruts from the rainstorms became too muddy and deep. I had to turn around and take a long hard look at the map again. Life and work has become a dead end. Those warning signs that something is wrong in my life and at work screaming that maybe I should turn around have become impossible to ignore. Time to turn around and quit following the road to nowhere.