Beyond Borders Adventure Retreats

09/02/2026

09/01/2026

Chalk the Block had record participation despite the early rain. Love Fruita’s love for art. 🎨 Go Fruita Fruita Arts and Culture board

08/31/2026

Around 1873, shortly after moving to Argenteuil, Monet had a boat built with a small wooden cabin on deck, just enough room, in his words, to set up his easel. He got the idea from his friend and fellow painter Charles-François Daubigny, who had built a similar floating studio years earlier, nicknamed Le Botin, to paint scenes along the Seine, Oise, and Marne rivers.

The boat gave Monet access to views no one could paint from shore, sailboats gliding past, reflections shifting on the water, riverbanks from angles only reachable by drifting alongside them. He worked from it regularly at Argenteuil throughout the 1870s, and his friend Édouard Manet even painted him at work aboard it in 1874, with his wife Camille seated nearby.

Monet later brought the same boat with him to Giverny, mooring it near his water garden and using it well into his later years. He painted the boat itself several times, including a well-known 1876 canvas titled The Studio Boat, now held at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.

The original boat no longer survives, but full-scale replicas have been built for exhibitions, including the one shown here, giving visitors a sense of the cramped, floating workspace where some of Monet's river scenes were painted.

08/31/2026

Somewhere we want to go…

Lempuyang Temple, Bali, Indonesia 🇮🇩 That flawless reflection under the gate is a phone-sized mirror held below the lens 🪞, and the queue behind you for it can run for hours. What is real is the view itself: two stone halves of a split gate framing Mount Agung across the valley 🌋. Go at sunrise, when the volcano is still clear of cloud and the line is only starting.

📷: [IG]

08/30/2026

After spending 178 days aboard the International Space Station, astronaut Ron Garan returned to Earth carrying something far heavier than mission data or space equipment — a completely transformed understanding of humanity.

From orbit, Earth does not look divided by countries or borders. It appears as a single, radiant blue sphere floating in darkness. There are no lines separating continents, no flags marking territory. From 250 miles above, human conflicts suddenly seem small — while our shared connection feels undeniable. 🌍

Garan watched lightning storms stretch across continents, auroras flowing like living curtains over the poles, and city lights glowing softly on the night side of the planet. Yet what struck him most was not Earth’s power, but its fragility. The atmosphere protecting all life appeared as a paper-thin blue halo — almost invisible, yet responsible for everything that breathes and survives.

This experience triggered what astronauts call the Overview Effect — a profound shift in awareness. The realization that humanity shares one closed system. There is no backup planet. No escape route. No second home. 🚀

From space, Garan began questioning humanity’s priorities. He believes the true order should be simple: planet first, society second, economy third — because without a healthy planet, nothing else can exist.

He compares Earth to a spacecraft carrying billions of crew members, all dependent on the same life-support systems. Yet many of us act like passengers instead of guardians.

From orbit, pollution has no nationality. Climate systems recognize no borders. The divisions we defend on Earth simply do not exist from above.

Seeing Earth from space did not make him feel small.
It made him feel responsible.

Because when you truly understand that we are all traveling together on the same fragile cosmic ship, the idea of “us versus them” quietly disappears — replaced by one unavoidable truth:

There is only us. 💙

08/29/2026

You can complain about the weather or feel it on your skin and take it in.