Do You Know Where Holla Bend Is?

Sometimes the first sign of a new journey is not a plane ticket, a reservation, or a destination.

Sometimes it is a text message that makes absolutely no sense.

At least that is how it happened for me.

After discovering the NASA coordinates that spell UNSTOPPABLE and deciding to turn the idea into both a book and a long-term adventure, I became increasingly absorbed in the possibilities. I researched locations, examined maps, compared destinations, and started imagining what the journey might look like in practice. The more I explored, the more real the project began to feel.

There was only one problem.

Nobody else knew what I was doing.

At least not yet.

One day, I sent a text message to a longtime friend who lives in Arkansas.

The message was simple.

“Do you know where Holla Bend, Arkansas is?”

As you might imagine, that question arrived with very little context.

Before long, additional messages followed. Some involved Arkansas. Others involved locations in Canada, Bolivia, Iceland, and various other places associated with the NASA letters. From my perspective, the conversation made perfect sense. I had been immersed in the project for weeks and was already thinking about possible routes, destinations, and future adventures.

From her perspective, it probably sounded as though I had suddenly become obsessed with random locations scattered around the globe.

Eventually she called.

She wanted to know what in the world was going on.

As I explained the NASA project, the book, the letters, and the growing list of destinations, the conversation gradually shifted from confusion to curiosity. Yet looking back, I do not think the most important part of that conversation involved Holla Bend, Arkansas, or any of the other locations I was discussing.

I think the most important part was something neither of us explicitly said.

For the past several years, my health challenges had occupied an increasingly large part of my life. As my condition worsened, uncertainty became a constant companion. Conversations that once focused on future plans often became focused on navigating present realities. Energy that might once have been directed toward new adventures was frequently devoted to managing symptoms, appointments, treatments, and the many unknowns that accompanied them.

Then something began to change.

Following treatment and a long recovery process, I slowly started stabilizing. Improvement was not linear. Progress did not occur in a straight line. There were setbacks, frustrations, and periods of uncertainty along the way. Yet over time, something that had been missing gradually started to return.

Possibility.

Looking back, I suspect my friend recognized that change before I fully appreciated it myself.

The evidence was not found in a medical report.

It was found in a series of increasingly bizarre text messages about obscure places she had never heard of.

The person asking about Holla Bend, Arkansas, sounded very different from the person she had listened to over the previous several years.

That person sounded excited.

Curious.

Hopeful.

Interested in the future again.

In many ways, the conversation marked a turning point.

The project was no longer something that existed only in my imagination. It had entered the real world. Other people were hearing about it. Trips were being discussed. Possibilities were being considered. The journey had become something more than an idea.

As for Holla Bend itself, it remains one of the destinations I am most likely to visit. Not because it is the most remote location on the map or the most exotic destination associated with the letter B. Quite the opposite.

It represents something far more important.

It reminds me of the moment when the journey stopped being theoretical.

The moment when plans began replacing limitations.

The moment when possibility started returning.

And all because of a simple question. Do you know where Holla Bend,