I was born in the Pacific Northwest and grew up on a tiny island in the Pudget Sound. At an early age my parents helped cultivate a sense of adventure for the sake of adventure. Our family adventures would be as extensive as walking to the other end of Fox Island to taking long hiking trips up Mt. Saint Helen and extended camping trips to the Olympia National Forrest (the only rain forest in the northern hemisphere, btw). We would go on long drives to just see where it would lead us, and more often than not we would find amazing and beautiful places. We found Washaway Beach, an area where the Pacific Ocean literally erodes miles of the coast line every winter taking farmland and houses, because the road simply ended on one of these drives. It became a regular summer camping spot.
My parents also had some more extreme ideas about travelling. For instance one summer they insisted that we needed to learn Portuguese, because we would be moving to Portugal. I even did a report on Portugal for school that year. It never happened though.A few years after talk of immigration to Portugal died down, my parents started talking about moving to Florida. At first, I thought, "Eh, this won't happen either". But they were serious, and in October of 1998 we moved to Florida.
Naturally, my parents didn't just fly the family to their new sunny home. Where's the fun in that? Instead, my parents bought a late model Chevy Suburban and a 19 foot travel trailer. We took just over a month to drive down the Pacific Coast, across the Southwest, down into the South and finally to Flagler Beach on the East coast of Florida.The trip was epic with lots of little side adventures. Hiking up an "Extreme Rattle Snake Area" to see "Grandfather Cuts Loose the Ponies" along the Columbia River, caving in the Siskiyou Mountains in Oregon, San Fran and the Redwoods, the Navajo Reservation, Mesa Verde in Colorado, the Grand Canyon, the Alamo, New Orleans and Florida...
Fast forward 15 years. Danny and I have been together for just under 4 years. We are total opposites, except for our unadulterated love for adventure. Kayaking desolate bayous, music festivals in West Virginia, impromptu bike rides across the 7 mile bridge in the Florida Keys.
We are a never say die, if we got ourselves in this mess we can figure ourselves out of it, wonder whats around that bend kind of couple. And it has been fun, a lot of fun. 
Naturally, when Danny started getting close to graduating with his B.A., talks of future plans started circulating. As a youngster, Danny spent summers in California, and when I went across the country the first time I fell in love with Colorado, so it was no question that we wanted to move west. But, it became apparent that neither of us knew exactly where we wanted to live, nor how to relocate with our pets and years worth of stuff.Then one day Danny said the magic words, "We could live as modern gypsies, going wherever the call took us." Naturally, I thought of my previous trip but didn't see how we could pull it off...
After much research, we started bouncing the idea off family and friends.
Now we are simplifying our belongings and looking for a truck and travel trailer. This week I gave my boss my official 4 month notice, she said she really appreciated it. I think we may have found the perfect truck too....
We will keep everyone updated through this blog as we get ready and, of course, the adventure from the road in a few months!
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