Take your wildest wish or Dream, hold it tight in your heart and then let go of it. Throw it to the top of the highest mountain, watch it bounce off and hit a shooting star. That star will explode and the dust of your wish will fall all around you and become your world, your adventure. I've had a lot of wild dreams in my life and try to travel to the most remote places that I can get too, so I can truly experience a new culture. Mongolia was the biggest off-the-beaten path trip I could ever imagine: it houses the coldest capital in the world, the least developed roads, and is the least densely populated country on the whole planet. I knew this trip was going to be huge, but nothing could prepare me for what actually happened. There was a semi loose plan: I wanted to find the Reindeer people and I was supposed to meet Bata on a dirt road with no name, cash, and 12 hours from the city. The directions were: drive to the edge of the town Moron, turn right and look for a water tank. After days of travel in an old Soviet van through the vast open steppe, across bridges made of wood planks, getting stuck and unstuck, and multiple wrong turns I found Bata who knew the right people. Getting there, I learned that steppe grasses make great emergency toilet paper and Imodium is a great invention. There were so many ways this could have gone wrong. When the van couldn’t go any further, I’m met with horses by Enkhbaatar who is 30 years old but looks wiser than his years, the wrinkles around his eyes like the roads of many journeys traveled. I, two years older, felt younger than life beside him. I get on a horse and follow him into the mountains. At camp, Enkhbaatar hands me a purple pine cone he finds on the ground, builds a fire, pulls out satchels filled with green tea powder, black tea leaves, and salt. He adds his ingredients to water and reindeer milk. The reindeer milk tea is mild, salty, and leaves a buttery taste on the roof of my mouth. We drink the tea and look out past the mountains we have already crossed over. Enkhbaatar teaches me a few Mongolian words, as a herd of reindeer stop by our camp. The reindeer make a grunting sound, like whispers against stone. Their split hooves click as they walk like they're tap dancing. There are no names of roads or trails to lead where I am. I am far North, off the beaten path in a magical place so remote that has purple pine cones. Reaching the Valley of the reindeer people I feel lost, yet found. I set up my small tent next to their teepees or Orts and find myself becoming a part of their life. I sit throwing stones in the creek that wraps its way around the valley and pretend I'm throwing away my material things. Enkhbaatar's son sits with me and I teach him the word, "wow." I throw a stone and it splashes. I think that was my car. Enkhbaatar's son exclaims, "Wow!" I throw another stone, there goes my laptop. Splash. "Wow!!!" I continue to throw stones that create a rhythmic beat through the valley of splashes and a child's enthusiastic "wow." Back home I can think of uses for my material objects, yet in the taiga thinking of them makes them all useless. For the first time in my life I can survive with things found around me in my natural environment: I fish with a stick, am learning what plants to eat, and drinking reindeer milk tea multiple times a day. I sit in the Orts and watch the children ready for bed. At night, a used and well loved sheet of bubble wrap is brought out; all the bubbles have been popped long ago, like years past of blown out birthday candles. A blanket is laid down and then the bubble wrap to line the baby's bed. Enkhbaatar pulls out a bible, tears a page from it and begins to roll a cigarette, sprinkling in loose tobacco he keeps in an empty vanilla wafer jar. He laughs, lighting his cigarette, the lines traveling from the sides of the corners of his eyes deepen like trails through the mountains. Bible page cigarette smoke fills the Orts. I breath in the air and listen to the sounds of a whispery language. In Mongolia the most praised Gods are the God of the sky and the God of fire. The God of fire brings warmth through the long winters and the God of sky brings rain for the meadows so the reindeer can eat. Would these Gods be the same in California vs the Northern Mongolian taiga? Do all my material possessions only matter based on my location and the culture I am fully embracing to live? In the morning I help milk the reindeer as the sun rises and the sky turns from purple to pink. The milk is brought inside and boiled until it becomes curdled and thick. Then is poured onto a piece of cloth and pressed, under the sun, between large stones. It hardens and becomes a brick of hard dry cheese that is cut into cubes. The stone cheese is chalky and sour. I hold it inside my cheek, letting it dissolve into a powder that clumps in my mouth and decide I prefer salty reindeer milk tea. I'm offered another piece that I politely take and slip into my pocket for later. The dogs stay outside and guard the reindeer. At night, they sleep on reindeer dung to keep warm. I bond with a dog that learns to look for me when I exit out of an Orts. I feed him bits of cheese from my pocket, our little secret. I feel an airiness in my chest, pressing against my ribs as I scratch the dog behind his ears and imagine my objects burning into pink clouds that mix together with bible cigarette smoke and make up the Sky Gods above our natural world.