Stories From Sea

I’ve always loved road trips. I could’ve been a good trucker…maybe still will be. When I was in high school I joined an overlanding club, and drove all over Montana with strangers from the internet. When I got to Montana State, I started dreaming about the ultimate Road Trip. I looked at what it took to join a Dakar Rally team, how far the Trans-Canada-Highway was, how to visit all 49 states in a car, and ultimately the Pan-American Highway: The wild route from Prudhoe Bay Alaska, to Ushuaia, Argentina. I mapped it out, and sat patiently for the opportunity.

Then I met Joe. California bros are not usually welcomed well in in Montana, but Joe is unique. He’s positive, resourceful, adventurous, and turned out to be an awesome roommate. We started talking about the Pan American Highway and plans started to fall into place.

Then I moved to Ohio, Joe got married to an awesome adventure partner, Hannah, I found an adventurous girlfriend, got the perfect Truck, found the decent job to help save and finally, found the inspiration we needed; DesktoGlory.com Desk to glory is a blog of a Canadian couple who made the trek in a 1989 Toyota Pickup, ext cab, 5 speed…which just so happened to be the exact truck I had just purchased.

Fast forward 3 years, Tay and I got engaged, and we found a second round of inspiration. Destabilization in Central America, and VoyageofTheRascal.com. Dwyer was our age, similar career, and similar personality. He sailed solo from Seattle to chile with the goal of skiing to the boat in the glaciers of Patagonia. Oh, and Team Tre got a dog.

The next two months were a whirlwind. We hired a yacht broker, found a wedding venue, looked at a few boats, low-balled a guy, and bought one. A 32 foot dreamboat: Scooter.

A year later, my resignation letter was sent, the trucks were packed, and we drove from Cincinnati to Seattle to move from a 3 bedroom house, to a 100 square foot bathtub.

Here goes nothing.

Hank

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PART ONE – Voice of Reason

As I sit here and try to figure out my feelings on what this summer will hold I struggle to pinpoint what I’m really feeling. There are days or moments where I am super excited about the thought of our “new normal” and there are others where it totally overwhelms me and I want to throw these plans in a blazing fire. My hope in writing  this that it opens up a conversation that I think many people are having within themselves. I hope it creates a safe place for you and me alike to process, struggle with and reflect on what lies ahead.

If you are someone who, like me, is married to an adventurer, someone always seeking the next big trip or excursion, then this series of posts may sound familiar to you. Joe has always deeply desired a monumental trip or adventure. When we first started dating it was flying around the world and sharing the gospel with anyone and everyone. He is also someone that will make it happen when he puts his mind to it. So in this case, he began taking ground school classes and classes that would get him closer to a pilot’s license. As we grew and changed this dream turned into driving the coast from Alaska to Argentina. The western coast of the Americas. This dream surfaced during the later years of college when we were living in Bozeman. Joe began sharing this dream with our close friends and honestly I had not given it much thought because I knew it was far off, and I was certain it was going to change at some point. I think this lack of excitement and thought I gave it came from a deeper place of uncomfortability. I had never in a million years thought I would do anything other than what I had witnessed while growing up. I would go to college, marry my best friend, get a job, live in a house and eventually raise a family. Little did I know at the time, there would be many more steps and things to be done in my life time than that small set of expectations.

Two of the people Joe shared this dream with are some of our very best friends to this day. At the time the guy in the couple had decided that this was something he wanted in on. The only difference between he and Joe was the number of cars in which they wanted to take on this journey. Joe was set on the four of us in one car and he was set on two cars. It was honestly kind of a funny joke of a conversation each time we had it. Funny and light hearted in the way that still did not have me convinced that this would actually ever happen.

Fast forward about a year and these two wonderful humans are visiting us in Seattle. During their time visiting, many life changing things took place. The first and most exciting was their engagement. Joe and I were lucky enough to get to witness that joyful moment and snap a few pictures of the event. On the drive back down to Portland, the crazy boys decided that we needed to take the long way home. And not just any long way but all the way up to the most northern part of Washington down to Portland along the coast. This would be a taste of what that “epic road trip” could entail. But it was on this road trip that the idea of a sail boat came to the table in part due to the fact that Joe and I had started watching a YouTube channel called SV Delos. The dream had now morphed to sailing down the Pacific coast of the Americas. Once again, it was just a fun idea to me. Even though they were talking and planning more seriously, coming up with what it would take financially, and what the timeline would look like, I still took it all in as just a dream. Not something that would come to fruition anytime soon.

Stay tuned for more…

xx Hannah