Pushups in the Prayer Room: Reflections from a Year Backpacking Around the World

In the spring of 1999, Norm Schriever leaves his old life behind and backpacks around the world for a year, not returning to the US until the spring of 2000. Throughout his journeys he touches down in more than 20 countries in 6 continents, spanning 70,000 miles total, or the equivalent of almost three times around the equator. There is never a dull moment on this wild and irreverent adventure, whether Norm is evading armed carjackers in a high-speed chase in the barrios of Venezuela, exploring ancient wonders of the world like the pyramids, the Great Wall, and Machu Picchu, almost landing in a Bolivian jail for mistakenly being accused of cocaine trafficking, or witnessing the holiest sites on earth in Jerusalem. Along the way, Norm encounters a broad spectrum of human existence and experiences a blossoming of consciousness and spiritual growth that he never anticipated. What started out as a wild, raucous party trip evolves into a man's quest for his life's purpose in the world. Pushups in the Prayer Room: A Year Backpacking around the World is an honest, no-holds-barred account of that year-long odyssey around the globe. Norm's writing, which is enlightening, gritty, filled with self-deprecating humor, yet always authentic, picks you up and carries you along on that crazy journey.

About the Author:
 
Norm Schriever grew up in Connecticut and graduated from the University of Connecticut, where he was never accused of over-studying. He went on to live in North Carolina, San Francisco, Fort Collins, Colorado, and Northern California, with a brief stint in the Larimer County Department of Corrections, who was nice enough to provide him accommodations. He's traveled the world and written extensively about those adventures. Most recently, Norm lived in Sacramento, California, where he was a successful businessman but grew dissatisfied with a "responsible" existence. So, in 2011, after experiencing an epiphany while traveling in Central America, he sold or donated all of his possessions, his cars, and his house, and moved to Costa Rica to pursue his passion of writing. He now resides in the little beachside town of Tamarindo with only flip-flops, a surfboard, and a laptop to his name. His first book, Pushups in the Prayer Room, about a year he spent backpacking around the world, was written within six months in Tamarindo, where fresh ocean air and Baileys in his morning coffee are his secret weapons. His writing is a way to touch people, to illuminate the commonalities of human experience while still "keeping it real," thereby uniting people to leave this planet a little better than how we found it.