I guess it's a good thing that I've been pretty steadily busy in 2023, not having too much time to reflect and write about it. To be frank, it's a daunting task to reflect on all that has transpired in a year, given all the various 'projects' that I am committed to. As it relates to this project, I intentionally didn't interview as many people as in the years past, as the backlog of raw material was becoming unmanageable. Even though I have 'processed' many of the interviews, the real work of digesting the content and building a narrative around it hadn't really begun. One of my intentions this past year was to find a writer to help with the project and luckily, one of the people I interviewed was up for the task.

Although I experimented with this idea during a trip to upstate NY last year, I anticipate more interesting results this time around while exploring national parks. Weaving dharma into these epic hiking adventures feels appropriate  , and incorporating dharma into daily activities has gradually become a regular part of my mind training beyond meditation. 

About this time last year, I was the road for about a month and half and little did I know how different it would be from the pandemic days. I suspected that it would be my 'last' significant roadtrip given that my day job was finally returning with the pandemic subsiding. I felt pretty good on how much progress I made on the road trip in terms of interviews but I was pleasantly surprised how the rest of 2022 finished up.

I continue to be grateful for the time I've had in the 2021 to focus on this project and my personal practice. Despite have very little professional work, I was able to get by financially and continue refining this project have  more clarity. I was made my goal of being about to interview 12-15 people per year and visit a few new cities that I hadn't been to before.  In particular, I go the chance to make my way to Crestone, a epicenter of Buddhist retreat centers of a town of 500 residents. Although I only spent a few days there, I positive I will be back for one of Tysokyi Rinpoche's week long teachings. 

I heard from various sources that Crestone CO was the seat of many buddhist retreat centers for a very small town and I had thought it was because of some government policy that encourage this type of concentration. As it turns out, there was a land grant by one of the 16th Karmapa's student that promoted the development all these centers. Since I spent most of the time interviewing people of the project, I didn't get to check out the town as much but in general, it's fairly undeveloped as a town so I am not quite so sure that I would want to move there anytime soon! I found this write up from a travel writer about Crestone that gives more history about the town.