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.
Home Sweet Home
Well it’s official, we are off on the grand adventure. On Tuesday, we moved out of our apartment, took the final boxes and Ryan’s road bike to the storage unit, said farewell to a few friends who wanted to send us off, and we drove out of San Francisco. Not before stopping at Comcast to return our modem of course. No matter how romantic I’d like to make this trip, there are the practicalities of life to deal with. Like dropping off the modem.
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.
Explore.
People often talk about living life to the fullest. It’s one of those phrases thrown around casually and nonchalantly, a generic mantra to live by. I have lately been thinking about what it really means to have a life fully lived. Perhaps it’s the new year, or the alarming number of friends who have loved ones with newly discovered illnesses this month, or just a time of transition for me. Whatever it is, it’s been weighing on my mind.
One of my favorite things about San Fransisco is how many great places are close by for quick get aways! This year for our anniversary we hopped over the bridge for a weekend getaway at Cavallo Point, a beautiful hotel tucked away right under the Golden Gate Bridge just north of the City. The hotel is housed in an old army post called Fort Baker and the buildings were built in the early 1900’s, and renovated and reopened as Cavallo Point resort in 2008.
Montana is a truly beautiful place. One of my happy places. It is peaceful and wild and free. I so highly recommend a trip to Montana if you are looking to spend some time in the great outdoors! This summer we took a week long trip with some of our friends to Montana, with half of the week in Ennis, in southern Montana, and the rest of the week in northern Montana at Glacier National Park.
Ennis is a quintessential all-American small town, a must if you are in southern Montana. It is quaint, wholesome and beautiful, situated in a valley surrounded by three mountain ranges. A place where you can spend your days exploring, fly fishing, hiking and day-tripping to Yellowstone, and your evenings cooking big family dinners, drinking wine or whiskey and soaking in the relaxation of Montana.
A weekend getaway is necessary from time to time. It’s good for the health, for the imagination and for the soul. If it can involve a little bit of luxury, all the better! Our weekend getaways almost always involve the opposite of luxury, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. However, staying in a swanky hotel from time to time isn’t too bad either. And it’s good for the beauty sleep in a way that sleeping in a tent will never be!
This weekend we headed on the red eye from San Francisco to Miami. Some dear friends of ours got married Friday night and they were so kind as to choose The Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables as the home base for all of the wedding guests. What a treat it was to stay there, and I only wish we could have stayed longer. It is a lovely hotel, with beautiful architecture and thoughtful touches that make it feel so much like a Mediterranean getaway.
Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit. – Edward Abbey
To travel is an essential element of life. It doesn’t have to be epic, cross the world, hop around from luxury hotel to luxury hotel kind of travel. To see new places, meet new people, learn about other cultures and experience things that you would never be exposed to at home – these are surefire ways to open your mind and live with intention. We travel often – many, many weekends out of the year are spent in little adventures around the west coast, but we also love to see the world when we can get away from work for a bit. Our most recent big international trip was to Patagonia, and one of our favorite activities while we were there was a fly fishing float trip down the Caleufu River in Argentina, near Bariloche (which I mentioned briefly here). After months of anticipation, R.Swig has finally put together a Go Pro video of that part of our trip! Read more
For Labor Day weekend, we headed south to San Diego to visit one of my besties from law school and her husband, who have newly relocated from New York to San Diego – quite a change for them! I haven’t ever been to San Diego, so I was looking forward to exploring a new part of California and looking forward to seeing two of our favorite people in their new home. Lots of people have said that we’d love San Diego – it’s a bit of a mix of California and Florida, where we grew up. While we were only there for a couple days, I’d say that I agree. Beachy and laid back like Florida, but with California’s mountains and the Pacific that I love so much.
We drove all the way from San Francisco to San Diego – unfortunately not along the beautiful coast, but through the dusty middle of the state, down the 5. Particularly dusty with the terrible drought we are in. We of course brought our furbaby Coconut with us – if we can bring her somewhere, she always comes with us, and she loves a good roadtrip, especially if she can stick her head out the window. The drive was long but not too bad and we were so happy to finally get there without too much traffic.
Coconut – the ultimate road tripper
Part 2 of Crater Lake, Oregon – a quick Fourth of July trip to a beautiful national park. Saturday we again hiked down to the lake and hopped on the boat to take us to Wizard Island! A few of us hiked to the crater at the top of Wizard Island, while the rest of us hiked to the other side of the island for some fly fishing, a newly acquired (and quite tricky) hobby of ours. We caught rainbow trout and brown trout.
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