Not everything is fully planned, which is fine by me, but we have already constructed quite an ambitious agenda. Leaving July 1st from our home of the past 5 years, we will be heading to Montana to fly fish around Gardiner, Ennis, and surrounding areas, including Yellowstone.
From there, we will turn our attention North through Glacier, Banff, Jasper, and Yoho before heading East toward Terrace, BC and eventually Prince Rupert to AK. It seems incomprehensible to make such a journey, and while it feels we have all the time in the world, I also feel strangely limited. Can we do it all, can we see it all? I have found myself applying pressure for adventure for the past several years. When I take a step back I realize it was because my time was so limited- cramming adventure into Thursdays or weekends before having to go back to work and be a regular person. Though we are getting closer to the day when I will be laid off and unemployed, that aspect still seems unreal. It will be like a constant weekend or a glimpse of retirement while still being young enough to enjoy the things we really love the way we really love them (not knocking retirement age here, just a fact I won't be able to hike and snowboard at 65 like I can now).
So far we have our plans sketched out until mid September with a lot of leeway from that point. I have wanted to photograph the Tetons in the Fall for so long now, and to know I will be realizing that dream soon enough is beyond exciting. Other than the foliage, I am looking forward to wildlife sightings/photography from the Tetons all the way up to Jasper.
I feel so fortunate to have this opportunity to spend a year away from the grind of healthcare and to be able to do so with my best friend and partner by my side. Here's to some great days on the water and among the mountains and streams we love and others we will come to love.
We're really doing it! Today commemorates our van build kickoff, and as I'm sure many seasoned van lifers can relate, we spent what felt like a gazillion hours at Home Depot searching for and purchasing materials. Since we're just starting out, I'll take a minute to provide some insight and backstory into our motivation to jump into this lifestyle.
Shaun and I have been married nearly 14 years after growing up together and dating throughout high school and mostly through undergrad in our home state of Tennessee. We moved to Maryland where we both attended graduate school. Growing up in East Tennessee, we both developed a love for the outdoors, exploring the Smokies, hiking (both of us) and fishing (Shaun) and really missed that aspect while living in Baltimore. Yes, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania offer amazing outdoor pursuits, but the population density there was becoming more than we could bear. After completing an extended clinical rotation in Colorado, I knew the west was where I wanted to be. It took less than a nanosecond to convince Shaun, and we moved to Washington in 2009. We have never looked back.
Both of us maintain full time careers, he in education administration, and I in healthcare. Weekend warriors who always feel like there's not enough time. After enduring some trying times and losses, we've decided to really embrace the idea of uncomplicating our life together and put all of our efforts into spending more time together and more time in the outdoors. The van will allow us to realize the first step in our dream of traveling full-time. We both snowboard, fly fish (he convinced me), and hike, and find that waking in the 4's or 5's in the morning to race people to parking lots, fishing spots, or trailheads to be exhausting and limits us from living in the moment. Now we can head up Friday night and stay gone till Sunday evening. Eventually, we hope it will evolve into something more, but here we are. Thanks for reading, and I hope you will follow along for updates to our build where we will cover strategy, struggles, successes, and more.
Thanks again!
Amanda