Welcome to our Journey for Jonathan! What an exciting time! Next week is the culmination of months of exhaustive preparation and planning. Once again many thanks to all of you who have stepped forward in so many wonderful and unique ways to make this journey possible.

As planned, we will be departing the Avitia's land in Gatesville on Jonathan's birthday - March 13, 2014 at 8:00 a.m. We will have a small ceremony and then it's time to hit the trail! The weather forecast looks good right now so it should be a beautiful day to set off on our ride.

Moving forward, we will be posting photos and updates from THIS BLOG so if you want to check in on our progress this is the place to do it! At the bottom left corner you can subscribe to the feed which will automatically send you any new updates or you can always just type in the blog address to check our progress.

In the meantime, all that we ask is that you keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Donna, Hart, Durango Bobwire, and I will be a team for the next few months as we steadily make our way through Central Texas, the vast Llano Estacado, the Kiowa Grasslands of New Mexico, the Front Range of Colorado, and finally the Rocky Mountains to Wind River Ranch.

Before we have even begun we've seen this journey offer healing, introspection, smiles, tears, and laughter. It is my sincere hope that as we begin and as we proceed that Jonathan's Journey blesses all those who become a part of it. Thanks again to each and every one of you and see you on the trail!!

~Winston

April 8, 2014

Hi, this is Donna! We have realized in our travels that some people do not know the background behind the journey so we thought we would add this information to our first post so that everyone can know the whole story. We are so happy that so many people are now following along with us! Below is the Kickstarter campaign information that we used to raise the money for the journey. It describes how this journey came about and tells a little of Jonathan and Winston's friendship. Keep following along with us!!

A story of friendship, brotherhood, and the quest to fulfill a final promise.

The Goal

To fulfill a final promise I made to my best friend Jonathan Avitia, I will put his saddle on a horse and ride from his family's ranch in Gatesville, Texas, to Wind River Ranch in Estes Park, Colorado. After the journey is complete, I will write a memoir that recounts the journey on horseback and tells the story of the profound impact his friendship had on my life.

The Story of Two Friends

Two best friends: Jonathan on the left and me on the right

Many things have been said of friendship. Aristotle said “Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.” Shakespeare noted that "Faithful friends are hard to find."
Those of us who have experienced it know that the mark of a true friendship is that it’s indefinable. It simply is. That was the nature of my friendship with Jonathan Avitia.
We had the typical small town childhood. We drove his second hand go-kart, swam in the Bee House Creek by my house, and were on the same football team in junior high school. Through time, he became the brother I never had.
Jonathan's friendship inspired me. He had a mature understanding of the world around him despite his youth, and we often talked about big ideas and the importance of having a vision for your life. Some of my best memories of him are the times we would sit around at his family's land outside Gatesville, working on his truck in the driveway, or under a shade tree "philosophying" about life and its intricacies.
During the first winter after we both left Gatesville for college, Jonathan called me from his dorm room at the University of Colorado in Boulder and invited me to come up to the Rocky Mountains and work at a place he had worked the previous summer. At that time in my life - still a teenager - it had never occurred to me to do something so drastic and adventurous. Excitedly I agreed and spent the whole spring imagining what it would be like. Were it not for Jonathan's constant encouragement I never would have had the strength of spirit to do something so seemingly epic to a kid from small town Texas.
The summer of 2001, I met Jonathan in Gatesville and we loaded up his truck and headed off to Colorado. I had no money and no certainties about the future, but I distinctly remember the palpable sense of excitement in the pre-dawn light of that Texas morning; the adrenaline that came with the feeling that you were fearlessly casting away from the safe harbor and sailing off into a bold new world of possibility and adventure. Neither of us knew at the time but we were embarking on one of the greatest adventures of our lives.
We hired on at the "camp" Jonathan had worked at previously. But as it turns out, the camp was a Christian guest ranch called Wind River Ranch near Estes Park, Colorado. The ranch was a place of unimaginable beauty, nestled high in the Rocky Mountains in the Tahosa Valley. I immediately fell in love with Wind River- its people and its purpose. Jonathan and I were there on and off for the next five years, living life to the greatest extent we knew how; everything from cattle drives to lightning storms, bear encounters, blizzards and wildfires. It was adventure personified. We became friends with thousands of people along the way that live in every corner of the country. Still today, it is difficult for me to articulate the profound way Wind River affected both of our lives.

View from the Upper Meadow at Wind River Ranch -a favorite spot for many past guests and staff

During that time of our lives we bonded as only brothers can, cast by the fires of hardship, adventure, and struggle. We entrenched ourselves in the mountain way of life and through our numerous adventures exploited life to every manner of its depth and fullness.

One year Jonathan purchased a saddle. I remember ogling over the saddle - admiring it for its design and beauty. I often joked with him about buying it but each time in jest and as an honest rebuke he said, “It ain’t for sale.” One summer he decided to let me borrow the saddle for the whole summer. A good saddle is like a good pair of boots - once you've broken it in and become accustomed to it, it's difficult to give it up or use another. At the end of that summer, it pained me to return the saddle. It was worn with the scars of use - aged leather rubbed shiny and clean by the rhythmic rocking of the horse's gait. After the last trail ride of the summer, I again offered to buy it from him but to no avail.
Our years at Wind River Ranch shaped and molded how we would live the rest of our lives. The mountains came to represent the wildness and freedom of our youth. We both went into the mountains as boys and came down as men. Working at Wind River Ranch was a life changing experience. While we both had made many mistakes in life, Wind River came to represent that which we had done right: dreaming big, living life to its absolute fullest, and embracing every moment.

Hauling horses from Wind River Ranch to Texas

Shaking hands on the agreement that we would one day run a ranching operation together.

When our time at Wind River was over, we carried with us the essence of our time in the mountains. It always went with us. And we approached life in the same spirited manner trying new things and embarking on exciting adventures. We spent the better part of the next decade moving from adventure to adventure. First we spent a few years in the Texas Hill Country where Jonathan used his architectural skills on a collaboration to design The Marquardt Ranch. Later we moved to Nashville and after that we both ended up in Shreveport, Louisiana, where we found ourselves working in the movie business. We even went to Puerto Morelos, Mexico, and stayed by the beach for a few weeks simply because Jonathan thought it would be fun.

Test "driving" a scooter on one of our many adventures in Puerto Morelos, Mexico. (It was on this trip that we both ran out of money and spent a memorable afternoon in the shade of a palm tree trying to figure out where we could get more money.)

White Sands, New Mexico, on the set of the Jack Black movie "The Year One." Jonathan was Harold Ramis' assistant and driver.

Our entire friendship was a grand adventure and it pervaded every aspect of our lives. We challenged each other to think as big as we possibly could, and then think bigger. We each faced life with all its uncertainties and possibilities knowing the other always had our back.

Jonathan leaning on his saddle at his family's land in Texas.

Hanging out at the Avitia's land. From left to right: Jonathan's dad Pepe, Jonathan, his saddle, and me.

Change of Plans

On October 6, 2011, everything changed. Jonathan began an unexpected journey no one could take with him. After feeling a strange pain in his chest, he went to the doctor. The pain went from a curiosity to nightmare as he was diagnosed with an extragonadal germ cell tumor. Within four days he was at M.D. Anderson in Houston receiving treatment.

Jonathan before one of his treatments at M.D. Anderson with his girlfriend Lindsey

Jonathan's life immediately became turned upside down. The next sixteen months were a roller coaster of emotions as Jonathan persevered through one hellacious treatment after another. During that time, he even married his girlfriend Lindsey and did everything within his power to keep a positive attitude about his unwanted journey through sickness.

The Promise

By October a year later, almost all of the treatment options had been exhausted. Those of us close to him watched him endure pure hell, pushing his body to the limits to rid itself of the cancer. Somewhere along the way, Jonathan began pondering something I think he had always avoided thinking about. He assembled a list of wishes for his personal belongings in case he did not survive his fight with cancer.
One fall day I received a text message from Jonathan. During the course of the text conversation, he told me that were he not to survive that he wanted me to have his saddle and black cowboy hat. Since our days at Wind River, the saddle had become much more than a saddle.
It had become a powerful symbol of our friendship.

Five months later - in the pre-dawn hours of March 27, 2013 - Jonathan passed away. He was thirty-one years old.
We were all there: me, Jonathan's family, Lindsey's family and Jonathan's college roommate from Colorado, Kevin Kuoni. We witnessed the horrid beauty of death; that my friend's pain was over, his battle finished. Now we had to figure out how to live in a world without Jonathan Avitia and somehow carry on the adventure. The sadness and grief that washed over the room in that moment is something I will carry with me forever. It is something I will never erase from my memory.
After the funeral, I retrieved Jonathan's saddle and black hat from his parent's house in Gatesville. I returned home with the saddle and set about resurrecting it from the years it spent in a garage unused and gathering dust. I took a bottle of Neatsfoot oil and an old rag and began working the leather back to life. Each time I ran my hand over the saddle I thought of the many memories I had with my friend. Each swipe of the rag brought back a cherished moment; a laugh. As I cleaned the saddle and began to bring it back to life, I came to realize the immense symbolism of the saddle; a last physical vestige of our friendship. Its mere presence in my house reminded me of the promise I made to him months before.

One of the people we met at Wind River Ranch was Randy Wolff, the executive director of Fireside Ministries. We have remained friends and being a writer himself, Randy encouraged me to write down all my memories of Jonathan, what his friendship meant to me and how it transcended my life.
I began working on the manuscript. The following is an excerpt where I talk about an experience we had at Wind River.
"We lived a life on the edge in the mountains. One night we sneaked down to the barn under the light of a full moon intent on going for a midnight ride. We took only bridles and headed toward the horse corral. Even in the darkness, I managed to find [my horse] Ruby, easily recognizable by the notch missing in her hoof. The notion was reckless, but we were twenty years old.
Jonathan picked a horse named Catalina, and together we left the corral and - riding bareback - moved up the side of the mountain along the horse trail. Even with a full moon, the woods were dark. The light did not penetrate the thick pines above us. We moved quickly up the trail at a trot. Jonathan dared me to lope, and I dared him back, and before I knew it we were loping up the trail – totally blind. That feeling – that experience – of loping through the darkness was liberating. As far as horsemen go, very few will ever trust a horse entirely. There in those dark woods, I could not see my hand in front of my face, so I simply went along for the ride. It was foolish, but it was the kind of foolish that pays dividends in beauty. I went along with the sublime moment hearing only the whoosh of the wind, the thunderous cadence of the hooves and sensing nothing but the smell of the pines. It was a place I had never been before.
With no warning, we broke through the edge of the forest and exploded into the moonlit upper meadow of Wind River. My senses were filled with the pure rush of adrenaline. I felt the cool air rushing past me as we ran through the mountains. We kicked the horses into a full gallop and my senses went into overdrive. I could see in the distance the haunting glow of the snow-capped Mummy Range sleeping under the moonlight. It was one fleeting moment, where I felt separate from this world, in limbo somewhere between earth and heaven, entirely connected to Ruby and separate from the world around me. It was the kind of moment where you knew you had tapped into something so sublime, so beautiful, and so powerful that no matter how hard you tried the rest of your life, you would never be able to articulate it - leaving you to not want to explain it at all. Rather, it would be easier to keep that moment locked up inside knowing damn well that the only other person who would ever understand would be the one who experienced it with you."

For months after Jonathan died, I struggled with how to honor my friend's legacy. His loss was so profound in my life, that even just writing about it didn't seem sufficient. I wanted to do something that would be a noble gesture and a lasting legacy to my best friend.
I knew I had to fulfill my promise.
At first I laughed off the idea of actually riding a horse a thousand miles. It seemed like a silly notion, and the nature of the world is to ask why? But the more I thought about the epic nature of our friendship, and the way we had challenged each other to think bigger, dream bigger and have a vision for our lives, I realized that doing exactly what I said I would do would be the best way to honor the memory of my best friend.
We live in a confusing world where nothing is ever black and white. Life can be complicated and tragic but I love the simple beauty of doing what you said you would do - no matter how difficult it may seem.

The first ride in Jonathan's saddle after he passed away.

One fall afternoon, about six months after Jonathan died I was in my garage cleaning his saddle when a cool breeze swept in and the pine trees around my house started swaying. I couldn't help but think of Colorado and how often I had seen the boughs of the pine trees dance in the wind.
I had a sweeping moment of clarity where I realized how I could honor my promise while at the same time honoring Jonathan's memory.
I would write the story of our friendship, make the trip on horseback as promised, and tell our story through the lens of that journey.
That's where you come in.

The Plan

The plan is to ride on horseback in Jonathan's saddle from the Avitia Ranch in Coryell County, Texas, to Wind River Ranch in Estes Park, Colorado - a journey of approximately 1,000 miles.
I will depart the Avitia's land on Jonathan's birthday - March 13 - with the goal of arriving at Wind River sometime in May.
Along the way, I will be accompanied by Donna Chance and Hart. (Hart's presence on this journey is significant because in 2006 Jonathan decided I needed another dog and he picked Hart out of a litter for me. Hart and Jonathan were good friends!) Donna and Hart will accompany me in a support vehicle. She has already agreed to handle all the news from the road. She will update every backer on the progress of the journey via social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, and a blog to be set up specifically for the journey. Additionally, Donna will use her vast photography experience to document the entire journey. The photos will then be used for the publication of "Jonathan's Journey" - which I will complete once I have successfully made the journey on horseback to Wind River Ranch.
There are several reasons why I picked the specific route of this journey. First of all, Jonathan and I spent countless hours on his family's land outside of Gatesville, Texas. The land is symbolic of so many things. Jonathan's parents both arrived in America young and penniless so the land is a tangible manifestation of the American dream. It symbolizes sacrifice, hard work, and possibility - a reality not lost on Jonathan. The Land was more than just a piece of land - it kept Jonathan rooted in the possibility that results from pursuing a dream. It was where his dad worked his cattle and where his family gathered for barbecued meals by the large pond - which they call The Tank - and where he and his dad worked together on every project imaginable that comes with working your own land. Most importantly, The Land was one of the places where Jonathan specifically requested his ashes be placed after his funeral in Gatesville. In my mind, it is the perfect place to begin Jonathan's Journey.
I will head west through Central Texas toward San Angelo, across the Texas Big Country and then north toward Colorado.
The Texas Panhandle is vast and has seemingly forgettable landscape, but once you leave Texline, Texas, and head west on Highway 87 it’s not long before the ghostly images of snow-capped mountains start to appear in the distance. At first you think it’s a mirage, but a few more miles down the highway and the mountains become clear and distinct. Still to this day when I make that drive, that moment always stirs my soul.
As Jonathan and I drove that road time and again, it became more than just a road trip. With the years and life experience between me and that moment, I have come to realize that we were two brothers on a great journey - becoming men and leaving behind our childhoods. With every mile between us and Texas we were coming of age. And so, for this reason, I will retrace this exact route on horseback to Wind River Ranch.
To make the trip is no small undertaking, but it can be done. And I would not be the first person to travel such a great distance on horseback. The Long Riders Guild is an international association of people who have undertaken great journeys on horseback. A whole community of equestrians have aspired to do similar trips, and have succeeded.
To accomplish this task, I will utilize my years of horsemanship experience combined with my knowledge of camping and the outdoors.
As far as writing and publishing the story, I have extensive writing experience as well. In 2004, I earned a B.A. in Journalism from Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas. For two years I was a freelance writer in the Texas Hill Country and wrote for several regional publications. I was also published once nationally in Inventors Digest Magazine.
Once assembling the various parts of the story, I will self-publish the book through any number of publishing companies. One example is Createspace, an Amazon company, which allows multiple distribution options for your book such as Amazon.com and Kindle.
By combining my horsemanship skills, my outdoor experience, and my writing qualifications, I am fully capable of completing this endeavor.
Obviously, the financial burden is the biggest obstacle for an undertaking of this magnitude and I cannot do it without your help. While I have been working diligently over the last six months to save for personal expenses, the functional expenses of the journey are the most daunting. Keep in mind our goal of $20,000 is the minimum amount we want to raise based on the estimated costs I have been quoted. Anything over that amount would help to make the journey easier and the end result of the published book more accessible to a larger audience. Achieving the fundraising goal will also allow the financial freedom to accomplish my goal in a timely manner and do it in a way that will forever honor the legacy of Jonathan and our eternal friendship. With your help, I can fulfill my promise to him and in spirit take my friend with me on one final adventure!

Expenses

This endeavor comes with numerous expenses. The following is a rundown of foreseeable expenses in the course of making Jonathan's Journey: horse, feed for the horse, horseshoes and farriers, various horse supplies, traveling with the horse; support vehicle expenses, gas, possible repairs on the vehicle; food for the journey; photography supplies; wireless fees to blog from the support vehicle; self publishing fees, book design, set up fees, publishing of physical copies of the book, possible additional prints of the book in the future; unforeseen miscellaneous expenses along the journey.

Conclusion

"Jonathan's Journey" is not a story about a long ride. It's not even a story about friends. It is a story about brotherhood, coming of age, and the powerful force a best friend can be in your life. Most importantly, I have the chance to fulfill a final promise I made to someone I lost. Anyone who has ever lost someone they love can understand and appreciate this gift. I can only do it with your help. Each small donation will help me achieve my goal. I hope you will join me and by your donation come alongside me in spirit and be a part of Jonathan's Journey.

The Barn at Wind River Ranch - the ultimate destination on Jonathan's Journey

The iconic image of Jonathan, and how I will always remember him.

A Texas sunset at The Land. In the foreground is a memorial garden Jonathan's mom is building for him.

Risks and challenges

This project is fraught with challenges. The journey alone involves everything from the possibility of sickness, lameness, adverse weather, to injury. When I complete the trip, I then face the many challenges of writing and completing a published work. I hold all of these challenges in perspective however, compared to the many unthinkable challenges Jonathan endured on his journey.

Journey for Jonathan

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

The Journey Begins!