When you own a company, you carry it everywhere. It rides in the truck, sits at the dinner table, wakes you up at 3 a.m. doing math it has no business doing. I'm not complaining — I chose this, and I love it. But next week I'm going to try something I almost never do. I'm going to set it down.
From August 4 to 7, I'm headed to Moab, Utah. Four days, about seven hundred miles of desert and mountain, and a short list of things I actually want to come home with — none of which can be bought.
The plan
Where I'm going
Four days on the Colorado Plateau
- Tuesday — fly out of Little Rock at dawn, pick up a car in Salt Lake, and point it south. 238 miles of open desert to Moab, and Delicate Arch at sunset to end the day. Sleep under canvas beneath some of the darkest skies left in the country.
- Wednesday — sunrise back in Arches, a helicopter over the red rock, then Hell's Revenge — a slickrock trail you drive yourself, with the La Sals standing behind it.
- Thursday — dawn at eleven thousand feet in the La Sal Mountains, under Mount Peale (12,721 ft), then north toward Salt Lake.
- Friday — a slow morning, then home.
The real reason
It isn't a vacation checklist
I could tell you this is a bucket-list trip, and it is. But that's not why I'm going. I wrote myself a one-line mission before I booked a thing: adventure with gratitude, walk with purpose, return with peace. The goal isn't to see another national park. It's to come home with a quieter heart — more grateful, more patient, more aware of God's presence in the ordinary Tuesday that follows.
Here's how I'll know it worked. This trip is a success if:
- I slow down, and put work completely away.
- I spend time with Christ every morning.
- I laugh, notice beauty, and feel genuine wonder.
- I take fewer pictures and make more memories.
- I come home with more peace than I left with.
I'm bringing a Bible for the four mornings and not much else. The plan is to leave my burdens at the gate — not because the problems disappear while I'm gone, but because I don't have to carry them alone, and a desert has a way of reminding you of that.
Why I'm telling you
What a desert has to do with your air conditioner
Fair question. You came here for heating and air, not a travel diary. But the way I show up in your home — on time, present, honest, doing the crawlspace job the same as the one you're standing over — comes from who I am when nobody's watching. It's the same standard I learned in the Army and try to keep in the shop.
A man who never puts the work down eventually shows up tired, short, and half-present. I don't want to be that guy in your living room. So I'm going to go get quiet for four days, and I'll come back a better technician, a better boss, and a better neighbor for it. That's the whole point.
While I'm gone
The crew doesn't stop. Central Arkansas summers don't take a week off, and neither do we — the 24/7 emergency line stays covered, and same-day AC repair keeps running while I'm chasing sunrises.
Volume I
The rest of the story is coming
There will always be another customer, another meeting, another problem to solve. But there will never be another August 4 to 7, 2026. These four days belong to me and the Lord, and I intend to be fully present for them.
This is Volume I — the part I can write before I go. When I'm back, I'll bring the photographs and the rest of the field report: what the light did at Delicate Arch, what eleven thousand feet feels like at dawn, and whatever God had to say in all that quiet. See you on the other side of it.
Adventure with gratitude. Walk with purpose. Return with peace.