Four weeks. Seven states. 4,500 miles. Thirty-one days on the road. Twenty-six days of wild camping. Zero bear encounters. Five total showers. But we’re finally back home. Stepping back into our house felt strange. Stepping into our home felt like stepping into an AirBnB. It didn’t feel like it was our place. It took a couple of hours of getting back into the rhythm of home life for that feeling to dissipate. Home for the past few weeks was our 1999 Mitsubishi Montero…

Karissa and I were peacefully woken up from our slumber by the sound of soft waves breaking on the beach. It was a distant, but gentle, pop. It was infrequent, but just frequent enough that, through our crusty, dreary, eyes, we were curious enough about it to poke our heads out the tent’s window.

Pop... pop... pop….

Our eyes strained to focus against the tent’s mosquito netting. But it didn’t take long for us to spot the source of the noise: a distant pod of whales playfully slapping their fins on the calm pink and purple predawn water. 

As an avid cook, I find building a relationship with your ingredients is incredibly important. These relationships form the more you use them. I quickly started to know what good, and not so good, products were and where to get them. The more I cooked, especially with any kind of animal protein, the more I wanted to be a part of the whole process —from hunt to plate.

When you cross the finish line of a marathon, you can finally take that first initial sigh of relief. Months of training for the race lead up to that very moment. You did it. You’re finished. You did a great job of getting there. You kept to your stringent training diet, you kept going to the gym, and you gritted your teeth and showed up to those Saturday morning 6am mileage runs. But, after receiving your medal, taking in a few much needed after-race refreshments, you know that’s when the hurt really starts. You take your trainer mandated ice bath, then a massage, and followed only by days of leg stiffness and pain.

Living in the moment is something I always find myself struggling with. We patiently waited for the winter weather, and our schedules, to align for our trip to Yosemite National Park. We’re always on winter weather-watch. We missed most of the big snow dumps this season, and was quickly becoming late season. Snow days were becoming rarer and rarer….

It’s been four weeks since we left our home. Four weeks of being on the road. Four weeks of eating meals from our truck. Four weeks of incredible scenery, unpredictable weather, and endless memories. Our home has become a faded memory at this point. Our future consists of what’s happening the next few hours, or, the next day….