Changes...

Finally, time to relax and work on another post. Although it’s taken me at least 5 days to complete this post, so I’m not really sure what happened to relaxing, but I certainly know how work played a part.

Where to start…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to make this trip more than just a massive hemorrhaging of money, a year’s worth of mileage on my truck in a month’s time, and the potential for failures of epic proportions.

I want this trip to mean something. I want to leave pieces of myself as I go, thoughts, memories, and the experiences of traveling. I want to break out of my shell and meet many new people from all kinds of different backgrounds and walks of life and share my story in hopes that they will share theirs also. In the end I hope to take as much with me as I intend to leave along the way. I hope to leave the old me behind so the new me can move forward. Life after this trip will be all about changes, changes in scenery, changes in career, and personal changes.

I’ve often thought, the most true experiences in life come from truly experiencing life, and that’s what I hope to do.

On this trip I will pass through some of the richest areas in the country, as well as some of the poorest, most desolate and dying areas. Each person I meet will have a story to share – good or bad. Listening and sharing in those experiences is what will set me apart from the rest of the “tourists” that pass through daily. Abandoning a naturally selfish nature and opening up to new experiences, new people, and new stories. Listening. Learning. Caring.

The easiest way to share my own story and my life is to pass along my blog as I go. Obviously the best method of doing so requires talking to the people I meet along the way - the waiters/waitresses, hotel clerks, gas station attendants, and anyone else who I may cross paths with. The ultimate goals: making friends, creating (hopefully) lasting ties, and gathering/sharing knowledge as I go. Knowledge that I can use and pass along for the rest of my life to come.

I’ve devised a seemingly easy way to accomplish this task. Cards.



By handing out cards, like the one above, with my blog address on it, the people I meet along the way can follow my trip, my thoughts, and my photos as I go. I don’t need something flashy, just something simple to trigger their memory so they won’t forget me when I’m gone. In the end, that’s what life is really all about – being remembered, living on, even after death, until the last person has forgotten you.


“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” – Mark Jenkins

The Plan

It’s time to get down to it. The plan at hand. Where I’m going, what I’m doing, and why I’m doing it.

As I mentioned previously, my desire to travel and see all that the world has to offer is currently encumbered only by my schedule and lack of savings. The first step involves eliminating those two issues so that the plans can move forth.

I have been at my current job for… 4 years, 1 month, 28 days, 9 hours, 59 minutes, 12 seconds. This means I have 10 months, 3 days, 1 minute until I reach the looming 5-year mark. But who’s counting, right?

Since day one, I have been contributing money to a retirement plan, for a job I have no intention of staying at long enough to retire from. I’m 23, I’ve got a long ways to go till I plan to retire, or would even be eligible for that matter. This means, when I leave, I have two options for the money. Take it, or leave it. I can take it as cash, minus the taxes, or I can leave it until I reach retirement age. While the second option seems to be the most responsible, it’s a private retirement program run by the county I work for so there’s no more contributing to it unless I invariably come back to work here. Transferring it to a new retirement system might work, if I knew where I was going and what the new retirement system allowed, but even that would come with a loss of money.

So, now you’ve heard me reason through my options, to basically justify the choice I’ve already made, which is taking the money and running. Enter, crazy plans…

What better way to enjoy my new found freedom than feeding a totally impulsive desire to take off into the sunset?!

The destination? 12,000 miles of open road.

I’ll go into more detail as I make more plans, because planning is my character flaw. That’s not to say that planning is ever a bad idea, but overplanning beyond reason can drive one crazy. As if I wasn’t already.

12,000 miles of traveling. If that doesn’t scream mental case, I don’t know what does. Why would someone go through that kind of trouble? Flying is so much more convenient, right?

Flying doesn’t offer the opportunities that a road trip does. There is no real scenery on the inside of an airplane as you crisscross the country, unless you count the people watching as scenery but I could get that at the mall for free. There’s something to be said about packing all that you need for a month and seeing the sights on your own time, where it doesn’t matter if you make your connection and your bags don’t get “accidentally” rerouted to Timbuktu by the cleverly bored baggage attendants.

With 12,000 I could drive from Montana to Sydney, Australia and halfway back. Ok, not literally, because my car is not submersible, nor does it float. Unfortunately… Instead, I’ll stick to the highways and byways of the U.S. and check a few items off the “Bucket List’ along the way.

42. Travel Route 66 from one end to the other.
51. See all of the Pacific Coast Highway.
37. Travel the entire East Coast by car.
10. Visit New York City, and spend more than 8 hours there.

By now, you must have guessed what kind of craziness I’m talking about here. Both coasts, NYC, and Route 66. That would mean literally crisscrossing the country. I’ll post a map for a little visual aid…



Now that you’ve seen the craziness I intend to embark upon, I’ll let you absorb that for a while so that I have some time to plan out my next post.


"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."
— Chris McCandless, "Into the Wild"

The Beginning

I must admit, this is my first real attempt at a blog. I’ve never really had a reason to make one, and I didn’t think anyone cared to read my daily thoughts enough to actually post them for the world to see. I can’t claim that anyone will want to read them now, but this is mainly for my own purposes to track my thoughts over the next year or so. I hope to keep this updated as things progress and I hope that someone out there enjoys reading it as much as I hope I enjoy posting.

That being said, time to get to the meat and potatoes of it all.

In less than one year now, I hope to close one chapter of my life and begin the next. By this time next year I will be finished with my degree, I’ll have passed the 5-year mark at my current job and be vested, and I’ll be less than a month away from the start date for the National Park Service ranger training academy in Mount Vernon, WA. That’s really where the whole story starts…

If you’re reading this, you may already know a good deal about me, but for those who just happened to stumble across it, I feel I should give you some background. I’ll spare you a number of details and try to stick to the story at hand.

I’m 23, working full time as a 9-1-1 dispatcher and volunteering as a firefighter/EMT. I’m also attending college, online of all places, for a bachelor’s degree in criminology/criminal justice. I’ve always had a strong desire to travel and, as luck would have it, I’ve found the ability to do so over the years. In high school I attended the People to People Student Ambassador program on two occasions, traveling to Australia and New Zealand in 2003 and to England, Ireland, and Wales in 2005. The buck doesn’t stop there. I’ve also been to the Caribbean – the islands of Saba and St. Maarten/St. Martin, as well as many other small trips in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

Willfully wanderlust is a term I’ve coined just for the occasion. It’s mainly nonsensical, but at the same time it means something to me. By claiming to be willfully wanderlust, I mean that I have a strong desire to travel intentionally on an impulsive manner. It doesn’t matter where I’m going as long as I’m going somewhere.

What’s all this got to do with my blog, you ask?

In the next year I hope to accomplish many things. I hope to finish my degree and quit my job. Yes, you heard me correctly; quitting my job shall be an accomplishment. Once those two things are completed, I will embark on a great adventure to see the U.S. from coast to coast. The details are still in the works, but I have about 10 months to plan it all out. That is what this blog shall be for.

For the next 10 months or so, I will be posting thoughts and plans, as I make them, for this grand adventure. After that, I’ll keep it updated with thoughts and pictures from the road.

The world is at my doorstep from here on out. There’s no stopping me now.

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

Note: I realize this post leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Stick with me, and I promise they’ll be answered in time. This is my first post after all, I’ve gotta make sure there’s something worth coming back for later.