family – The Pursuit of Life

October 19, 2016 / 4 Comments

A New Adventure | Moving Home to Florida

Article Circle, Alaska

What an incredible sabbatical this has been. We have been on the road exploring the West for 7 months and our road trip has recently come to an end. I am in mourning. BIG TIME. I have loved this time for us to be free, to explore, to see the most beautiful, varied, breathtaking landscapes that our country has to offer, all on our own time without a schedule, without normal everyday stresses, without any strings attached. It has been a dream – that is the only way to describe it – and it already seems like a dream. Like it didn’t happen. I have to remind myself that it did happen and we were so lucky to have been able to take some time out of real life to explore and satisfy some wanderlust for a while. If you think it has gotten the wanderlusting out of our systems, you are sadly mistaken. It has only whetted our appetites for more travels, more meeting new people, more adventures, more crafting our lives to be what we want them to be. But now it’s time to put down some roots and get back to reality, as much as that pains me. And so we have moved back home to Florida!

Florida life

September 12, 2016 / 1 Comment

Live With Intention | Building Your Tribe

Rendezvous Island, British Columbia

I love the idea of building a tribe and collecting people consciously and intentionally. One of the most important life decisions that we can make is who we choose to surround ourselves with. Several weeks back we spent some time with new friends at their amazing home on a tiny island off the coast of British Columbia. We were having lots of inspiring and insightful life discussions, my favorite kind of chat, and a few times they mentioned the idea of collecting people along the journey of life. They sort of rephrased it and said – well not collecting people, as if that somehow sounded strange. And I thought – what’s wrong with collecting people? I love it. It is one of the infinite reasons that traveling is my absolute favorite thing to do. I collect people I meet when I travel as some people like to collect t-shirts from the places that they visit. It is vitally important to be thoughtful and intentional about collecting the people that you include in your tribe – so how do you do it? Here are 5 types of people who should be in your tribe.

1. Those Who Will Lift You Higher

May 14, 2016 / 0 Comments

Should you take your dog with you on your road trip?

Adventure Dog - Traveling with a Pup on your Roadtrip

If you have ever met us, you know how obsessed we are with our pup. Our furbaby. Our darling princess queen bee nugget Coconut. So when we decided to take a long road trip around the Western U.S, we thought well of course we will take Coconut with us! Well, that’s what I thought. Ryan was a little more practical and said – maybe we should think about this a little more. And of course I won out and we took her with us! But there are some serious things to consider when deciding whether you should bring your dog along with you on your roadtrip.

Coconut was with us for 5 weeks on the road and we absolutely loved having her along for the adventure. After all, you wouldn’t leave your kids at home for such a grand adventure, so why would we leave our fur-kid at home?!

April 19, 2016 / 4 Comments

EASTERN SIERRAS, CALIFORNIA

Also known as that time I took my in-laws to a nudist colony.

Ancient Bristle Cone Pine Forest

Ryan is obsessed with the Eastern Sierras. He’s been a couple of times on fishing/camping trips with his buddies, and he raves about it every time he returns. So when Ryan’s parents were coming to join us on our adventure for a couple of weeks, he really wanted to take them to the Eastern Sierras for part of the trip. We drove our little caravan of campers up from Joshua Tree to the Eastern Sierras, which is an area of central California that falls on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains, close to Yosemite and Sequoia National Park but on the other side of the range. It is a beautiful, remote part of the state where the mountains fall straight down into a beautiful open valley. It’s difficult to get to, which is why it remains relatively unspoiled and off the beaten path – perfect for us!

March 30, 2016 / 2 Comments

THE PURSUIT OF ADVENTURE | FIRST WEEK – Florida and San Diego

Well we have certainly gotten off to a slow start on this trip! And that’s just fine by me. One of my goals for this adventure is to slow down and take my time and enjoy the present without worrying about what the future holds – whether that’s two days into the future or two years into the future. And so after a couple of days in Big Sur, we headed south to San Diego, where some of our favorite friends live. We dropped the camper in front of their home in Cardiff, headed for a late night dinner at Pizza Port in Solana Beach, and the next day we were off to Florida for a few days. Our nephew was being baptized, and conveniently we are temporarily retired and so we have all the time in the world to head back to the East Coast for such a momentous life event as a baptism! Ryan and I have always said that no matter where in the world we live, we will make it a point to not miss the important family events, and that includes the time that we are on this road trip.

Ah, sunny Florida

March 17, 2016 / 0 Comments

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPY | A CAMPING-THEMED SEND OFF

MAY THE WIND UNDER YOUR WINGS BEAR YOU WHERE THE SUN SAILS AND THE MOON WALKS. – Tolkien

We had the most amazing send off for our big road trip a couple of Saturdays ago. My parents flew in from Florida and co-hosted a camping- and fishing-themed send off for us with our neighbor besties Eric and Liz. It was the perfect way to embark on this great adventure and reminded us how lucky we are to have such a wonderful community in San Francisco.

February 5, 2016 / 19 Comments

THE PURSUIT OF ADVENTURE | A SABBATICAL

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me – Walt Whitman

We are going on a road trip. For six months. We’ve taken leave from work, given our landlord notice and done our best to purge all of our extra belongings. And so begins an expedition of sorts, an odyssey to explore the West, see where an unstructured life will take us, and give ourselves time to exhale and relax and just be. Here’s why.

Why Not?! It seems like a no brainer – if you find yourself with the opportunity to take a sabbatical and put some wanderlusting into action, why on Earth wouldn’t you? Well, yes. But it’s so much easier dreamt than done. We, like most of you, have for years heard about those people who have cast aside their responsibilities, sold their belongings and quit their jobs and traveled the world. And we always thought wow, I wish we could do that. How lucky those people must be. And then it hit me about a year ago. Why not? For better or worse, I have always been someone who thought: if he can do it, I can do it. And so we started to really think about it and to think about what we would want to do with some time off.

The Pursuit of Life

Tag: family