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From a death in the family to the combination of two families, the last couple weeks have been a crazy juxtaposition. Our life allows us to shape it in any way we want. Don’t want to be in rain for the winter? Lets go south. Want to go to South America? Done. But yet there are still things you cannot control. My grandma was sick for a while and even though I was given time to say my goodbyes it was hard to hear the news.

Thank you for the memories Grandma

But there are things that we are in control of. On December 9 on the beach in Monterey California, with our dogs running around us and the waves crashing around us, I asked Samara to spend the rest of her life with me. We have created a truly magical life together and I cannot imagine spending it with anyone else. I am head over heals in love and am lucky to have such an unbelievable woman in my life. Unlike our life, I tried to plan the perfect time and make it perfect but the beach with our van and our dogs running around just felt right.

 

Our previous life seems father away than ever. And yet, we are still learning how to live our new one. It has been five months since setting dsc_0055 out on the open road and we can honestly say that it hasn’t at all been what we expected. We tried not to have any expectations, but you can’t really get away from them all together, can you? Literally every aspect has changed in our life down to how we brush our teeth and the kind of coffee we drink in the morning. Having what is quite possibly the worlds smallest fridge has even made the way we buy food change. While we are still learning the best ways to do things, we are happy to say that for the most part, we are loving it. Don’t get me wrong, five of us in a van poses a challenge, but we have learned that this challenge is only really present when we are in cities.

Vanlife: A messy, claustrophobic and absolutely wonderful way of life.

IMG_4412.JPG After an intense love affair with Colorado (for anyone who hasn’t gone, go and allow yourself at least double the time you intend to stay there, it is AMAZING), Myles and I headed north toward Wyoming. We were told by quite a few people that Wyoming was home to some of the most beautiful and ever changing scenery. After crossing the border and instantly finding some hot springs, a new found favourite activity of ours, we were very happy to be there.

After driving through Wyoming we stumbled upon this lonely Syncro wasting away. Our undying love for these vans got the better of us and less than twenty four hours later we found ourselves with the keys in our hands and a forty-eight hour permit to leave the country.

When we started this trip we had an idea of what it was going to be like. As much as we tried to do this without expectation and without any planning, nature set in and we couldn’t help but dream about our freedom. But, as always, reality is different. When we started this life, we were much like children at recess, running in circles basking in our new found freedom. We are now more like children after school – still running around hyped on sugar, but we know we have a little more time than the 15 minutes now.

In two months of Vanlife we have only paid to sleep once (I am writing this from an air-conditioned room in Saint Catharines, Ontario). We have slept everywhere from the mountains outside Lillooet to a department store’s parking lot in Wisconsin.