Because Plan B is always better than Plan A (Bike trip from Canada to Cali!)

Here en lies the official documentation of the epic journey of two lovely lady friends and their adventures to overcome the odds and do an official "fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants" bike trip. Please be warned, the stunts enlisted below are not necessarily advised and were done by non-professionals. Not recommended for everybody.
To start things off, I would just like this to be a testament that traveling does not have to cost you an arm and six legs. I survived over a month on less than $500 which amounts to roughly $12/day. "But Jenna, that's absurd!" you might say. "That barely covers a six pack a day and a donut, how did you ever make that happen?" Well friends, let me tell ya.

My Jamis Aurora Elite (aka Lachlan) donated to me from
Justin at Life Cycle in Eugene, OR. Best. Bike. Ever. 

Trip Basics: Mission: Canada to California via b*tchin bicycles and the 101 Highway at about $10/day. Kayla, our friend Roby and I left in early May starting in Bend, Oregon. We took a train through

Kayla, Roby, and me after catching the 5am train to Seattle
after trying to quietly open a bottle of champagne.

Seattle and explored for awhile then trained up to Anacortes,WA. Note: Always check to see how many spots are available for bikes on the train. The best bet is try and find commuter trains so that you don't have to worry about boxing up your bike. From there we cycled up to catch a ferry to the San Juan Islands which we rode around and explored for about a week. Then we took off to Sydney, British Columbia and rode down to Victoria to catch a ferry back to Port Angeles. From Port Angeles we picked up the 101 Highway and started working our way down. Roby, our third initial compadre on the trip, had bike difficulties outside of Port Angeles which left Kayla and me to journey alone. We followed the 101 through the Olympic Peninsula, down through rainy Oregon, into shithole Crescent City, CA, and all the way through the Redwoods and into Arcata before I had to ship my bike home.  After crashing on some random people's couch for a few days, we found a ride on Craigslist to take us to San Fran where we couch surfed yet again before Kayla had to leave for her job in Oregon. She missed her first train out so we ended up going down to visit friends in Santa Cruz and hang out in an vacated office (illegally?) for a few nights.

So here goes the crucial ingredients to having a super, banging, balling, awesome time on an impromptu bicycle trip covering over 1000mi over the course of a month and a half:

Kayla in Oregon on our trial ride outside of Bend

- Find the right buddy: Kayla and I were a match made in heaven. We met when we both picked up work at a ski lodge in Utah late in the season and it's been love ever since. We were both entirely on board with dedicating the vast majority of our budget to vivacious liquids and cutting corners where we could. Neither of us really trained, although both of us are semi-avid runners and we'd been skiing all season, but def no hardcore cycling training. Neither of us had a problem sleeping on random people's couches or going weeks without showering (the goal was one shower per state) which really made the trip the amazing adventure that it was. I definitely could not have asked for a better companion!

 -Nothing fancy or specialized! First of all, we didn't buy anything fancy or extraordinary for the trip. We got most of our gear from thrift stores in Utah and Oregon and opted out of wearing bike shorts, which our lady parts initially were not a huge fan of. We would generally start every morning out by giving the rating for what level our vags were at for the day. Some were a lot rougher than others, let me tell ya. But moral of the story, it was done and I don't think I'll ever shell out the money for the padded goodness that constitutes bike shorts. I also did the vast majority of the trip without a cell phone, which my mom wasn't too excited about, but you find a way around it :) Hellllo free public libraries..

- Hit the early season: Another short cut made was that we went earlier in the season (we started in May) before all of the campsites and parks had officially opened up. While this did put us at the risk for hitting the tail end of the rainy season (which it did), it also gave us the advantage of being able to essentially "stealth camp" aka pull off on the side of the road and camp wherever, because park rangers and campsite hosts weren't around just yet. But this also meant a bit more planning on our part as a lot of the amenities at the campsites weren't turned on so it required a lot of stopping at gas stations to fill up water beforehand to last through the night and next morning.

Kayla and me and Neil's house in Seaside, OR

- Take up offers to sleep on the couch: It never seized to amaze us the acts of kindness we were graced with along the way. Generally, whenever Kayla and I rode into a town after cycling the 30-60 miles each day we would try to find the local dive bar. Talking to the locals about the best place for camping proved immensely helpful and gave us a much more civil introduction to the town we were crashing in, as opposed to merely a pin point on a iphone. We were always amazed at how many people would non-creepily offer up their couch or backyard to us and buy all of our meals just to hear about our adventures. We also utilized warmshowers.org which is the cyclist version of couch surfing and the way that we found Mr. Neil in Seaside, Oregon. Neil came into our lives after we cycled nearly 100 miles that day to get out of Washington and cross the Oregon border via the historic Astoria Bridge. Neil was amazing as he left his house unlocked for us and the other random guests that he had staying and offered us fantastic accommodations, our first shower in about two weeks, and great conversation about his travels around the world. I have never met a more inspiring person and it was truly touching to see his zest for life in everything that he does. Absolutely amazing.

- Leave technology at home: As long as you are well-prepared, half of the fun is getting lost or straying off the beaten track. Kayla had a smartphone on her which we used a bit at first, but ultimately we decided to do it the old fashioned way by picking up maps at ranger stations to figure out campsites, stopping at the local library for some free internet access (usually a 15 min limit so act fast), or stopping in and asking the locals. This way, we were able to stay at some of the most beautiful locations that we wouldn't have found otherwise and we also found backroad routes that way we could minimize our time spent cycling on the highway (especially after Oregon when the shoulder drops off). We were able to make amazing friends by trusting our faith in humanity and not keeping our noses dug into our smartphones or taking the easy way out.

Kayla and Mr. Gregory who we rode and camped with
for a few days and showed us how to properly brew
campfire coffee using a strainer and sticks

- Make friends!: Whenever we did stop at an actual campsite to stay, it usually had a few others doing the same Highway 101 bike tour. Hiker/biker camp sites are usually either free or only $5 so they're definitely the way to go! Generally the sites are one giant area with no room for a vehicle so you really get a chance to get to know the people staying at the site with you. It's always a great asset to be able to make friends and share resources. We didn't carry certain items such as chain lube because we knew that wherever we stopped someone else usually had it. It was always great to stop and exchange food and stories over the campfire.

Kayla and Roby snacking near Crescent Lake, WA

- Don't be a picky eater: First of all, condense everything down and lose the packaging. After we bought food we would lose all of the extra boxes and packaging and reuse the same three ziploc bags to shed the extra weight and not take up too much space. Kayla and I each had a single tupperware container that acted as our bowl/plate and a single spoon which was all we needed. No need to buy any expensive sporks or collapsible containers. We both bought ours at a thrift store for about 50 cents each. Winning! We would generally eat the same things about each day. We had a gallon zip lock bag full of oatmeal that we would put flax meal in, then lunch would primarily be oatmeal and something cheap from the gas station, and then dinner we would generally make beans or instant stuffing or mashed potatoes with veggie protein added. I definitely underestimated the amount of food I would consume on a daily basis and if there was one thing that I learned, it was to eat, eat, eat! We were doing about 50-60 mi/day and it took a looottt of energy to maintain that.

- Choose beer!: We also found that beer was an excellent source of carbs to get the job done and help us punch out those last 15mi to the campsite. And naturally we didn't want to carry the extra weight of all those vivacious liquids so we found it crucial to drink a few before continuing on :) The only food that we ever really carried with us was oatmeal, instant stuffing, and lotttts of coffee. We found it worked best to buy whatever we wanted for dinner on our way to the campsite that way we weren't lugging around extra cans of anything all day. We would definitely stock up if we knew that we were going to be riding through National Parks with jacked up general store prices for a few days, but other than that, we figured out a cheap and effective system pretty early on. I think our most creative campfire meal was a conglomeration of instant stuffing with sour cream n' onion chips mixed in, wrapped in a seaweed sushi roll. Not my favorite meal, but truly a testament to what can happen if you get four or five desperate cyclists pooling resources over a few beers. If you can contribute a beer to a campfire dinner, you may be considered God's gift to man.

-Don't pay for wood: We actually saw a sign advertising organic firewood $10/bundle. One, isn't all wood organic? Two, why pay for a bundle of wood when you're surrounded by trees. Dumb.

Sean and Peter just casually milking the goat

- Work on farms along the way: So I found a farm to work on upon landing in San Francisco after Kayla took off to go work in Oregon for the summer and it was the most affordable way to hang out in California. Free room and board, free meals, and a free tour guide essentially all for donating free labor! I landed outside of Sacramento working with Sean (the farmer) and his trusty Swedish assistant, Peter. I think it was when we all went swimming in the glacier fed pond after having a few beers with lunch that I fully realized that my life is a joke. I still can't figure out how I was lucky enough to be able to work with those two guys for a few weeks before shipping out home. We would spend the morning hours working and watering and then spend all afternoon swimming, slacklining, or just laughing til we cried. We even all piled in the truck with a few road beers to go see the Sierra Nevadas and spend the day rock climbing and hiking. Wicked. There was no cable, no internet, and he was completely off the grid. My favorite parts were the outdoor composting "toilet" and the solar powered outdoor shower that was West facing without a door so you could go and watch the sunset after a hard days work and just be completely one with your surroundings. Heaven. Definitely going back there! You can find farms by either A) going to the towns farmer's markets and asking around if you're just swinging through B) WWOOFING (Worldwide Work on Organic Farms.. I think) or 9) helpx.net is also bomb status

Kayla and me in Santa Cruz, CA after she missed her first train

-Just crush it and let it ride!: The amazing adventure that unfolded would not have been able to happen had we not trusted that everything was going to be alright. We definitely hit some major road bumps (Kayla's three flat tires and a massive storm in Tillamook, OR) but it was the
experience of the lifetime just by letting go. We would both do signature mating calls before entering each town which basically just involved random "Ay yi yi yi yi!" being shouted from the tops of our lungs after being the only people on the road for the past two hours. We met amazing individuals along the way and created memories to last a lifetime. So if you think you don't have the money, time, or capabilities. Let me tell ya, you do! It takes a heck of a lot less money than living in your apartment when you take into account the utilities, food, rent, cable, and cell phone bills you pay. Not to mention you're probably working 20 to 30 hours a week just to make that feasible. So just drop everything and consider cycling around, meeting awesome people, not working a day unless you choose otherwise, and just having the time of your life. Totally possible, my friend.

You Really Don't Ski? (Alta, UT Jan 2013)

 *Disclaimer: These blogs are severely out of order but ah well! Better late than never!

I have always hated the cold. My friends and family joke that I'm cold blooded as I am literally always freezing, which is why I think it came as such a shock that I was getting ready to head out to Alta, Utah in the dead of winter to work as a server at a ski lodge when I didn't even ski. I think my mom took it a bit personally and my brothers kept advising that I needed to "stop running

Graham in his rockin onesie!

away" but I've honestly never looked at it that way. I love my friends and family in Rantoul, but my life has always become in enriched in ways that I didn't even know possible by all the new people that I meet and new experiences that I have in a new place. Life is about living, pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones. On a biological level, the more you do something the more neural connections that get devoted to that particular task. If you work all the time, you begin to become work driven and it begins to consume your life, same with schooling and making a life somewhere. You become devoted to that task and it's easy to forget that there's so much out there and an alternative way of life. My brothers insist that eventually I'm going to have to "grow up" but I think I've done more growing in the past year travelling place to place than I did my entire college career. I've just discovered an alternative way of life that works for me personally and I intend to follow it.
  With that being said, I flew into Salt Lake City knowing absolutely no one and had no idea what I was in for. What I didn't realize was that I would yet again be in for the experience of a lifetime. I landed a job at the Rustler Lodge which happened to be the most expensive lodge to stay in with guests paying nearly $500/night just to be there and ski there. With this came enormous perks. I stayed in dorm style housing with the rest of the employees where we all got free food, free ski passes (what?!?!), free use of the outdoor heated pool, jacuzzi, and eucalyptus steam room, as well as tips and salary on top of that. Best. Job. Ever. I literally got paid just to live and work with my friends all day. Teresa and Hallie were amazing roommates and Kayla who came late in the season as well soon became one of my best friends.

  Our schedules worked out so that we would get two days off every week but on the days that we did work we would have two shifts staggered that way we could either ski in the morning before working lunch and dinner or ski over lunch if we had to work breakfast. When I first arrived at the Rustler, everyone was super warm and welcoming. I suspect that this was the case solely because I had a vagina as there is literally about a 12:1 ratio of guys to girls. But regardless, everyone was
extremely shocked to hear that I would accept a job at a ski lodge when I didn't ski as they were all super intense awesome skiers that eat, breath, and sleep skiing. My roommate Teresa turned out to be the most amazing person in the world and I feel so lucky to have had her in my life. She is so incredibly caring and loving and just has a passion for life that is so refreshing. She patiently helped me learn how to ski and thanks to everyone throwing gear my way and the Powder House in the basement of the lodge giving me free skis for the season in exchange for beer, I was all set up to  give it a go.
 I spent my winter skiing on the groomers, playing dominoes with the guys at night, going down to the valley for beer runs as all the beer in Utah is 3.21% alcohol unless you go to state liquor store, and playing games all evening in the EDR.

Ski Pole Frisbee! Goal: Knock the beer can off of the
opponents ski pole with a frisbee without them catching the
can or the pole

Favorite Memories:
-St. Patty's Day!- Getting Brian smashed at breakfast and watching him run into poles all day,
breaking the shot glasses while trying to do the CarBombSki (Copyright Mike Campanelli), spray painting Aaron and Mike's mustaches green, pounding beers and Irish Car Grenades on the ski lifts all day, having everyone barely functioning at work.
 -My Birthday!- Mike and I nearly getting arrested
-Running the 9 miles down the Canyon with Andrew and then hiking 3 miles back up before hitchhiking a ride back to Snowbird where we'd stashed beers for when we were done. We got a few more beers to drink while we waited for the bus then went and sat in the hot tub and pretended to watch Sherlock Holmes before work.
-All the nights playing dominoes in the EDR or judging an Iron Chef competition
-Rustler Prom with Darrel and his Flava-Flave! clock around his neck and my team winning the 30 rack challenge despite Andrew sabotaging everyone with his Smirnoff Ices

dominoes with Alex

 -Frank!- Attending a party on the top of Wildcat which involved sitting with employees from all the lodges in the snow throwing hot dogs at people as they did skied down the mountain doing back flips and 360s in ridiculous outfits (or in the nude). Andrew was super resourceful and brought a grill up and we all just sat and drank as we watched people crash and burn or in Willy's case, pull off a double back flip. After having way too much to drink, I successfully yard saled (i.e. skied over a cat track and lost all my skis, poles, helmet, and goggles) as Andrew sat by and watched it all happen.
- The last night getting to drink all the left over wine and beer in the lodge and finishing off the kegs while making a whirl pool in the outdoor pool

Shot Ski before the Hoe-Down

Grilling out on the top of Wild Cat watching people
do stunts down the mountain before getting
hot dogs thrown at them.. classic.

Andrew and I at the Rustler Prom

There were so many great times with people that chose to live life to the fullest and go against the normal pattern of go to school, get a job, get a car. It was so refreshing to hear everyone's summer plans of living out of the their car, being raft guides, retiring for the summer before the next ski season, backpacking for the next two years, and it was great to be able to plan my next adventure. We loaded up Roby's stick shift truck (take that Max) and I drove it all the way back to Oregon while he rode his motorcycle before we met up with Kayla to start our 1000 mi bike trip down the West Coast. Whoooo!

Back to Society and East Coast Reunion (Dec 2012/Jan 2013

My beautiful mother

*Again, it only took me a year to get these up but the blogs finally made it!*
 Upon returning to O'Hare airport from wherever in the world I'm coming from, I've made it a tradition to grab a Starbucks coffee as it represents everything that is America (i.e. Capitalism and crap). So after grabbing my first non-instant coffee in monntthhhs I was greeted by a gigantic hug from Kev at the airport. We threw my stuff in the back of his car and jetted back towards Naperville with our heads out the window screaming "We're in America!!!!" while drinking

My brother's dog on Christmas after he took down the whole
Christmas tree

my favorite road beer that he had waiting in the car for me. Best. Friend. Ever.
 I took my first hot shower in weeks and ate veggies for the first time in a lonnng time. Towards the end of my stay all the veggies from the garden were dead and gone so we were solely eating fried potatoes and bread in Georgia. The next day we met up with my brother and Annie to go surprise my mom in the hotel her and my sister were staying at before Rheanna's appointment in the city the following day. She was shocked to say the least and we spent the following day walking around the city before heading back to good ol' Rantoul.

Me and the fam!

 I had anticipated that going from no heat, no electricity, no showers, no indoor toilets, no English speaking but also no waste, to the abundance of sh*t that is America would be hard but I really underestimated it. I had become accustomed to my simple life in Georgia where nothing was really that easy; if you were hungry you had to wait the 20 minutes for the water to heat up on top of the fire and if you wanted a hot shower you were totally out of luck. After coming home from teaching at school I would literally play with Nata all afternoon or go help outside with the farm work, never stopping to turn on the TV and no lengthy meaningless conversations given the language barrier. It was so beautiful just to be able to sit and read or have interactions with Gia and Irma in which we would laugh until we cried and didn't even have to say a word. At night Irma, Nino, Gia, and I would watch the Georgian version of Dancing with the Stars if we had electricity and give our own scores and critiques and spend our evenings playing weird Georgian card games that I still don't understand. It was great just to literally spend time together as a family. Working, playing, laughing, and just being together. So needless to say going from that back to the States was simply overstimulating and something that I wasn't prepared to handle.

Our attempt to recreate a lunging photo from our adventure in
Poland next to the largest tree this side of the Mississippi

 Even to this day, a whopping 5 months later, I still prefer to hole myself up in my room or go walk out into the middle of nowhere just so I can sit and think and not have my mind filled with seemingly meaningless interactions. I literally couldn't talk to people for the first couple weeks when I got back and I still find it hard. It's definitely made think in a whole new way about how as people we interact with eachother and how convenience has changed our lives indefinitely. My brothers joke about it, but I'm always halfway serious when I say that I'm going to just go drop off the face of the earth somewhere someday.
  So with the me wanting to silently slit my wrists after watching so much food being thrown out all the time and taking out more trash in one day than my host family would see in 3 months I was ready for a good societal break. One night while Max, Carly, and I were nearly blacked out in the hostel in T'bilisi we made plans and even booked flights for a reunion on the East Coast which

Carly, her friend, and I working on houses for Habitat for Humanity

could not have come soon enough. So with Kev being a champ among champs, I said good-bye yet again to go fly into Atlanta to meet up with Max so we could road trip up to Folley Beach, South Carolina to meet up with Carles.

Carly and Max before our epic volleyball sesh

  It was quite possibly the best trip ever as we could all talk about our transition back into the normal world and how it impacted us and it was great to help Carly get ready (both mentally and physically) to go back to Georgia for the next 5 months. We spent our days walking on the beach, playing sand volleyball and working on a Habitat for Humanity site for a few days with some of Carly's friends. All in all it was great visit and we got to meet Al-delicious, Carly's future 40 year old roommate who was super accommodating and a riot all the while.

Me and Carls

 I'd been on the job hunt before I left Rantoul and knew that eventually I would run out of money (story of my life) and that I'd need to get a job soon. I had been offered to take my job back up at the hospital working full-time graveyard shift again but wasn't really ready to be stuck in Champaign as I was still planning on doing nursing school there in the Fall which would tie me to the area for the next 2 years at least. So while in good ol' South Carolina I got a call from Meg at a ski lodge in Utah giving me the offer to come out for the rest of the season and work which could not have come soon enough. So after roadtripping back down the East Coast with Carly and Max and hopping on the plane back to Chicago I said goodbye and helped Kev leave for New Zealand then jumped a plane to Alta, Utah to go spend my winter at a ski resort. The fact that I had no idea how to ski and absolutely zero gear seemed like a bad idea at the time but life works in funny ways.

Fairwell to Saqartvelo! (Dec 2012)

Kev and I in T'bilisi after he arrived

Well I made it out of Georgia! It was literally the most amazing experience in the world and I feel infinitely enriched by the journey that I've had and the way of life that I became accustomed to living. Towards the end of my time there, I was lucky enough to have Kevin come and visit me for some much needed "American" time. He was such a good sport and didn't even blink when we

Kev and I at the Rugby game watching Georgia vs. Japan

mentioned that the people that Carly and I found to pick him up from the airport were a bit on the intoxicated and hazy side and may or may not have passed out at the wheel at one of the stop lights on our way to pick him up. He endured the awkward stares of my village and smiled like a champ when I didn't even bother to translate that most people thought we were going to hell for sleeping in the same room without being married. Fortunately,  my host family (like countless others) assumed that Americans were a bit on the "floozy side", if you will, and absolutely loved his visit without a question. Nata especially loved having him around as they would play Uno for hooours which I was pretty burnt out on by that point.

Max in a food coma back at the hostel

  One of the highlights of my last months in Georgia included our Thanksgiving celebration from Tim and Julie's apartment in the city. We toasted and thanked God, Allah, and any other deity lurking out there that we had lived this long travelling every weekend via marshuktas and that they wouldn't let me drive a stick shift car (foreshadowing). I was so thankful to have Kev come visit as he brought me much needed books and cards from my family which definitely helped me to make it through. It got extremely cold towards the end and the only source of heat was from a "pechi"

Irma making chuchella on the pechi, which
was our only source of "heat"

which is a small wood fueled furnace that is meant to heat the whole lower part of the house. My room was conveniently on the top floor.. without heat. There were a few nights that I could see my breath in my room before I went to bed and the most efficient remedy was to fill up an old water bottle with hot water to cuddle with. My last week in school was ridiculously hard and emotional as I had become so attached to all of my beautiful students and co-teachers. They put on a play the last week I was there which was so amazing and the teachers hosted a surprise "supra" for me that nearly brought me to tears (and I'm definitely not a crier). Saying good-bye to my host family was incredibly hard and we spent my last night eating my favorite food "catapille peroshokis" and after moving all the furniture around in the living room, learning how to do traditional Georgian dancing.

Chuchella! Aka boiled nuts dipped in a grape concoction

 Carly had left early (Carlypalooza!), but Max and I got to bro out in T'bilisi the weekend before our flights and share an uber romantic room in our favorite brothel turned hostel. Max is from Georgia the state, therefore verrrry unaccustomed to walking in snow and the locals got a kick out of him falling every five seconds. We had 2 lari beers in our favorite pub with our infamous server Tata and watched as Max failed horrendously at trying to be a true Qartveli man and eat over 20 kinkhali... fail. Big time.  But I made it back to the States and with the help of Kev, was able to surprise my mother in Chicago for her birthday :)

All the teachers at my surprise supra

Zuri, the history teacher, and I after a toast

All the kids had me sign their foreheads my last day :(

My beautiful twelfth graders

Story of his life

Saba and Mari before the big play!

"Now what are you running from?" finally answered...

Seaside, OR after our 96mi biking day out of Washington

 To all of you that have ever made a drastic life change or just felt the need to get out, I'm sure you're familiar with the ever-popular question, "What are you running from now?". To say that my life choices have been a bit different from that of my peers over the course of the years would be a drastic understatement. So I would like to take this opportunity to give the reasoning to my logic and life choices in one easy to access, carefully compiled, and mildly vague explanation in one user-friendly draft that can easily be referred to.
  I will admit that as of recent I have felt extraordinarily defeated. Prior to returning to Illinois to start nursing school, I felt as if I was on top of the world. Like I could conquer anything. Go anywhere, be free and be gone at will. A volunteer trip to the Dominican Republic while I was at the U of I showed me that there was indeed a different way of life, and ever since then I'd been attempting to capture that way of life with quite a bit of success. I've always known that material goods were not my cup of tea. I never longed for the "hard wood floors and nice appliances" or stable jobs that my peers would commonly discuss. It was with great relief that I boarded a plane to Australia and soon thereafter India as those were the memories that I would take from college, not the physical degree and expensive piece of paper, not the days spent sitting in class or in the now forgotten labs. It was the built relationships, memories, and experiences I longed for and still hold dear. However, before each exodus out of the country, there were always those people that would always make the infamous comment: "What are you running from?" or my personal favorite: "You can't always run from your problems". The only answer that I could ever really give, that these sort of individuals could understand, is that I'm not running from anything, quite the contrary actually. I'm trying to run to something. Something that is more than this life and bigger than this community. Something that has been lost in our consumerist and capitalist society. I'm running to shear happiness and the freedom to explore beyond the societal constraints felt at home.
   I firmly believe that the happiest moments of my life stem from the time spent living out of my backpack these past few years. The moments shared between complete strangers that I couldn't communicate with, where the laughter shared between us allowed us to know that there is something deeper than meaningless words that bound us all together. The complete freedom felt while I was playing "Capture the Pig" in the schoolyard of the rural school I taught at in the Republic of Georgia was a feeling I'll never forget. The ease of the laughter and the smiles that helped foster a profound love for children I may never see again as we chased a pig running wild in the schoolyard filled with broken glass and animal feces. There is so much more to this life than merely acquiring material possessions that we'll ultimately feel the need to hold onto and secure for the rest of our natural lives. I hope I never own a home. This one small measure would completely alleviate any pressure to hold onto a job that I hate out of necessity. Owning a home would forbid me from saying "Yes!" to any opportunity that presents itself to me. The ability to take beautiful opportunities that organically present themselves as you put yourself out there and expose yourself to new cultures and people is what makes life worth it. I would have never been able to go to Azerbaijan or Georgia had I wifed up after college or taken a full time job that does nothing for society other than consume my time.
     I sit and listen to the lives of my friends from college and realize that that life isn't for me. The months spent living out of a tent

and "stealth camping" in people's backyards while cycling down the West Coast opened my eyes to the good that innately exists in the world. Being able to pack up my shelter and come and go at whim was a freedom that I continually crave. If I had a few expensive certifications attached to my name people would call me a sociologist or a cultural anthropologist, a linguist or an ethnogeographer. However, seeing as I feel life experience is more valuable than sitting in a classroom and paying a shit ton of money to learn "theory".. I am referred to as a hippie or a vagabond instead. Both of which frankly I'm okay with. My grandfather warmly calls me Gypsy Rose... which I feel actually rather fond of.
  I tried the "normal" life. I really did. I gave up everything. I packed up my only pair of pants and my two shirts that constituted all of my belongings, left the farm that I landed on by luck in Sacramento, and came back to Illinois to satisfy society's request. I returned home to my then semi-serious boyfriend, a year long lease, an attempt at a second bachelors in nursing, and a night job in the hospital. It took months of a foggy depression to realize the root of what was making me so unhappy. I didn't fit in here. It was evident. Upon telling classmates that I had just returned from cycling from Canada to California, their initial response was promptly telling me that I was crazy followed by "and what did your boyfriend think?". The decision to drop out of nursing school was by far the best, yet most

Kev and me in Wyomming

temporarily debilitating, decision thus far. While I was so incredibly excited to get back out of there and to stop perpetuating a system that ethically I cannot believe in nor support, it was also terrifying to stop and think, "Okay, so now what?". Within a month of dropping out of school, my boyfriend of a year and half that I desperately loved and cared for broke up with me. So in true Nygaard fashion, within the next week I was out of my lease and commencing the search for whatever is next. I loved Kevin, I really honestly did.
However, I think I subconsciously realized that he was the last string that connected me to my peers here and I truly believe I was clinging onto him for dear life. People don't really get my lifestyle, but they could at least connect with me in that I was in a serious relationship. Well there goes that one. But now I feel truly free. Free to go wherever, do whatever. All I can do is thank Kev for realizing that we were both holding eachother back from what we truly wanted to do in this world and to thank him for letting me go. This life here isn't for me. I don't want the car, I don't want the house, I don't want the serious commitment at this juncture in my life. My happiness stems from exploring. From making priceless memories. We have only one life to live. I don't ever want to say, "I wish I would've...".
      People take this life way too seriously. We're all going to die.  People continually advocate for "Save the Planet". The planet's not going anywhere, buddy. It's humans that are going to die. The planet has survived the switching of the poles, a ferrous atmosphere, ice ages, dinosaurs, evolving chimpanzees, shake weights etc. It's us that are all going to be wiped out (as we deserve to be). So why sit around holding onto essentially meaningless material goods? Why sit around and complain about how broke you are, how much you hate your job? I'm not running from anything. I don't have any problems that I'm running from. I have a life filled with the most amazing friends from all over the world, families on three different continents, beautiful memories of fleeting relationships with strangers and the acts of kindness given freely, and the

My host fam in Australia

yearning to know more and to grow more.
      I consider it a privilege to say that I don't believe in the construct of "God". I do however believe in a natural energy of the universe. A natural eb and flow that makes the world go round and creates a randomness that directly effects our lives on a daily basis. I want to work with that eb and flow... not against it. I've accepted that I'll probably work menial jobs for the rest of my life and that I won't be able to retire early but I sleep soundly at night knowing that life will always work out the way it should. All we can do is try to guide ourselves in the direction we want to go and do something every single day that makes us happy, whatever that something may be.
  I'm not running away from anything, I'm running freely and unabashedly to a better understanding that this world is a beautiful place. Filled with the most exquisite individuals that are often just misunderstood or pitted against eachother in the interest of the government. We shouldn't settle for complacency. My advice to the world: Just keep on keeping on, my friends. Keep on keeping on.