As my last post explains, we had a great time in San Francisco last month. We enjoyed the trip, loved the boat and are ready to head out on an adventure; however, our adventure will not include sailing. We opted to withdraw ourselves from the running for crewing positions after we returned back to Indy. When we sat down and thought through what about the experience was intriguing for us, we listed several items - however none of them was exploring the South Pacific. We have the South Pacific on our list of items that we would like to do/see/explore/achieve/etc before we die, but for us, it is just not at the top of the list.

So… now you ask… what are we going to do?

Well, after a month of thinking about our options, we have made a decision! We have pieced together several of the reasons that the sailing adventure was appealing to us. We are going to live out of a small space and be mostly self-contained. We are going to be able to go wherever we want, whenever we want to. We are going to be able to explore each location we go for as long as we want to before we move on to another wonderful place. We are going to go places that neither of us have gone before. We are going to engage with nature - hiking, rock climbing, kayaking, canoeing, camping, etc. We are going to have a fabulous time! …. so what is it that we are doing… We are going on a road trip!

We are going to explore the National Parks system. Our very, very tentative route takes us from Indy north to Chicago, then up through Michigan and the upper peninsula, through Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Washington. We hope to make it to Vancouver - but by when is still very open. We are going to visit National Lakeshores, National Forests, National Monuments and National Parks (most notably Yellowstone, Grand Tetons & Glacier). We are pumped and (getting) ready to go!