Our Little, Big News!

Just when we thought we had our plans all figured out (at least until after Russia), we got one more life curve-ball thrown at us, and once again our plans have morphed into something completely new. So, without further ado, here is the big announcement…

We Win Some, We Lose Some

One night in December, while we were back home in Fayetteville, I was checking my Facebook feed. One of my running girlfriends had posted a link to a local article and announced that she was looking for a partner to compete with. Her statement intrigued me and I clicked on her pasted link. Isn’t it funny how the smallest, most innocuous moments in life like that can lead to some very interesting and unexpected changes? Well, in our case, the link lead to a reality TV show casting, to be held in Fayetteville, of all places. Producers from LA were picking new contestants to compete in sets of two on a spin-off of the Bear Grylls show. Castings were being held nationally in 9 different cities, and somehow little ‘ol Fayetteville had made the cut.

Inspiration For The New Year

So how is everyone doing on following through with their New Year's resolutions? Me? Not so good. I didn't really go into the year with specific resolutions, but I did have some general life goals in mind. So far: eating healthy, Check! sticking to a regular running schedule, Fail....Well, in case you've been looking for some motivation on getting in shape this year, look no further than this epic blog.

One Year Without A Job

December 31 was exactly one year since I quit my job. For the last year both Skyler and I have been unemployed or as Skyler likes to call it FUN-employed. Before going on this adventure I used to often wonder what being unemployed would be like. I've been employed to some degree since I was fifteen years old, so it was hard for me to imagine. Would we have gobs of time? Would we get bored? Would we worry about money? Would I worry that we made the right decision? After all, we did quit our lucrative jobs in the middle of a deep recession…most people gave us the “you must be crazy” look when we first told them about our plans. Well, I gave it some though these past few days and I've come to the following conclusions.

2012- The Year in Review

This year we have a lot to be thankful for. This year we finally realized a dream that had been in the making for over 5 years. That dream never had a clear and concise picture to it, but the main elements were freedom and adventure. I can honestly say this has been the most memorable year of my life and I am really happy that I got to spend it with my best friend. Over the twelve months we have made leaps on our understanding of each other, ourselves and the world. I feel that I have grown as a person. We have wondered if we will look back on this year years from now and say "remember that amazing year?". I actually kind of hope we don't. I hope next year will be just as exciting and that we will continue our adventures with the same sense of freedom and excitement as we have this year.

Here's The Plan, Stan

After many, many long conversations we've finally come to some kind of a decision about how we will proceed from here. Without further ado, here it is:

- We have decided that ultimately we want to live in Portland, Oregon next.

Quick Fun Facts

While traveling the last 9 months, we've kept track of all of our spending. Down to the penny. (I'm a sucker for numbers, what can I say?) Each time we spent money, we recorded how much we spent, when we spent it, where we spent it, and what type of expense it was (restaurant, RV parking, pet care, etc). This was useful in terms of comparing how we were doing against budget and also just fun to look back on, in retrospect. WE SPENT HOW MUCH ON GAS????

And Then We Were Home

Monday morning we packed up our truck and trailer in Memphis and set sail for our hometown, Fayetteville, Arkansas. We'd driven this 320 mile stretch many, many times before from when we'd lived in Memphis and went to visit home. Sky could have probably driven it blind by now. We drove by downtown Memphis, crossed the bridge over the Mississippi River, and then traversed all the way across the state of Arkansas on Interstate 40. Forty five miles further north from there, on Interstate 540, and we were home. WHAT???

Memphis, TN- Almost Home

After Nashville we only had one more stop before going home for the holidays, and it was Memphis. We had lived in Memphis for 3.5 years, and had last been there when we moved back to Fayetteville over 2 years ago. Having lived in Memphis for so long we knew what we would find there, but were interested to see it from a visitor’s perspective. I wondered if Memphis would seem different to us now that we’d seen so many other cities around the US and had something to compare it to.

The Difference Between Sky and I

While hiking in the Shenandoah Valley the other day Sky and I had a funny moment. We were on the return portion of our out and back hike out to the waterfall overlook. At some point I realized that we hadn't spoken a word out loud in over twenty minutes. I had been thinking about our future plans, making mental to-do lists in my head. I had also been going over potential job interview questions, in the case that we decide to pursue jobs when we get back home. I was trying to remember the work vernacular, the jargon that I’d thrown around the last few years of my corporate career. Words like go-live date, supply chain optimization, forecast accuracy, and supply network planning were busy flying around in my head.

Life Choices

So here we are, in the home stretch, with just under three weeks until we're back home in Fayetteville, AR. We made the decision to be home for Thanksgiving several weeks ago, towards the end of our month long stay in Massachusetts. The decision to come home, instead of continuing to explore the East Coast, was mainly driven by impending winter and colder weather. With winter creeping in it has been hard to stay motivated about traveling and exploring. And while the East Coast has been entertaining and seeing our friends has been very rewarding, the constant city life experience has been taxing.

Our Birthday

Tuesday was Skyler and I's birthday. Yes, we share a birthday! Even though this was our 11th birthday to share with each other, the fact that its on exactly the same day delights me to no end. I grew up a single child, my parent's didn't have my sister until I was 18 and off to college. I grew up wondering what it would be like to share with someone else. Being a single child ensured that I very rarely had to share anything, and in the funny way that people with curly hair want straight hair and people with straight hair want curly hair, I wanted the opportunity to share.

8 Month Tripaversary

Today is our 8 month anniversary of setting off on this Great American Road Trip of ours. It's hard to put into words how I feel about that number. In one sense it's as if we just left yesterday. In another sense it seems like We've Been Everywhere (Man!) and its about time to settle back down. All at the same time we find ourselves craving the stability and comforts of living in one place (a gym membership, running groups, a bath tub!) and then again we aren't necessarily ready to settle down in just one place.

Hello New England!

We've made it to New England! It seems like we were just on the West Coast, and here we are in Massachusetts. Crazy.

Hello, home!

Favorite Photographs- New Page

Today (September 16, 2012) we have been on the road 207 days. My digital camera numbers every single picture I take and as of February 22, 2012 (the day we left) I have taken 6,329 pictures. Wow!

I enjoy photography for many reasons. One of them is to document the amazing places and things I have seen. The other is to hopefully share the photograph with someone in hopes of inspiring them to do something exciting, like visit the place in the picture or take a cool photograph themselves. It also makes me happy to think that a photograph of mine could inspire an emotion in someone. Maybe put a smile on their face.

Planning Our Trip East

Our last day in Minneapolis we sat down to plan our visit to New England. We had decided that after Chicago we would head all the way east to Maine and then drive down the coast hopefully chasing the fall leaf colors. Since New England is so heavily packed with big cities, most of which we want to visit, we decided that we would probably have to give up our cheap/free living and opt for mostly staying at RV parks. We hoped that paying the extra price would give us A) piece of mind that the dogs are OK while we're gone for extended amounts of time and B) closer location to the cities so that we could spend less time driving around and more time exploring.

6 Months On The Road: Some Thoughts

On Wednesday we hit the six month mark for our travels. Thinking about what a monumental event this was for us, I started thinking about all that we have seen and what we have learned from our experiences so far. Sky and I got to reflecting on what our expectations for this trip had been, and we came up with several examples of where this trip has turned out to be not what we had expected of it. Not necessarily good or bad, just different.  I figured it might be interesting to share some of these thoughts with you in case you were considering going on an adventure like ours, or were just curious to hear about it.

Heading East

A while back I'd mentioned that we'd almost gotten to the end of our originally planned itinerary for this trip. When we'd sat down and thought about what we wanted to see on this trip, the West Coast was the main destination, with an end point in Yellowstone Park. Today we are finally headed to Yellowstone Park, and I am happy to say that we have decided to keep traveling afterwards. We have decided to cross the country, visiting multiple national parks along the way and several large cities. Our new destination is Chicago, just 10 hours north of our hometown of Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Down Days in Vancouver, WA

We have been here in Vancouver Washington (just outside of Portland) for just over two weeks now. Living somewhere stationary has been a very nice change, and it has lived up to what we were hoping it would be. Portland being the very cool city that it is has certainly helped, but Vancouver has really turned out to be very nice as well.

Why Portland Rocks

On our trip we have come across two cities that we had no expectations for, and but where we came away very pleasantly surprised: Austin and now Portland. Portland has smitten us with its waterfronts, bridges, expansive downtown and multitude of walkable city districts. We have been here just over a week, and have put only a small dent in the long list of things we want to explore in this city.