This is it...

The time is finally upon us! David and I are getting ready to get some sleep before we head out at 4:00 am tomorrow. I think that we both feel about the same way. You know when you're on a roller coaster, and you're climbing up to the really big drop, and you get to the very edge, and you can see down, but you haven't gone down yet? You know that feeling you get in your stomach; that nervous, excited sort of thrill? That's what we're feeling right now.
We know that, above all else, such travels as these require humility. The River has a way of squashing the ego, confounding logic, and casting doubt in the proud. While these attributes of the River may not at first appear favorable, it leads us to get ourselves from the center; from the driver's seat, if you will. We find peace in our lives, not when we put ourselves first and foremost, but when we see ourselves as part of a much bigger and grander story. The vastness and wildness of the River gives us a much bigger, transcendent sort of perspective; one that I have always tried to retain, on it and out in everyday lives.
If you try to take on the River in pride, you'll get beat down. I've always felt that wilderness is a sort of gateway; an experience that one can truly take in only when they have entered in humility. Humility gives us the eyes to see; the ears to hear, and the inspiration that draws us back again and again.

Ais dar ain rend, lie ruin saifyae foldaez usyen lore; sin hedel lae holel; sin hedel lae oday-el; sin hedel lae wan

"In the dark of night, and through the far lands under the sun; we travel to see; we travel to feel; we travel to be."