January 2015 – Traipsing About

You can’t go home again, wrote Thomas Wolfe. He means we can’t return to “the escapes of time and memory,” those days of youth we reminisce about, a happily tinted past filled with cotton candy and water slides. I think he’s right.

After 15 months on the road, we scooped up the van from its summer parking spot in Idaho and drove to Portland, pulling in for landing earlier this week. Our trip, initially planned as a four month jaunt, finally hit a juncture where no location beckoned us more than planting our feet back home…so here we are. Our tenants’ lease was conveniently up, so we don’t even have to park the van down by the river!

The map! Starting in Portland in the top left, we headed south…and just kept going. Each dot represents a place we stayed the night. The part along the top was our bike tour, and I ended it with our flight from Mexico to San Diego.

In a way, it feels like giving up. The traveler ego inside claws at my logical, time-for-a-break side and yells at me to not hang up the cleats, to keep going because we can! Well, shut yer stinkin’ yapper, ego. It’s time to rest up, wash off the dirt, and lace back up for the next run.

Part of pausing is to reflect. We’re both different people compared to when we left at the end of 2013, and we want to see how it feels to be home. Pre-trip slashing through the jungle of possessions and obligations and the subsequent travel afforded us the opportunity to be emotionally light, grow bedrock-strong in our relationship, and cultivate a sense of inner confidence that we can accomplish whatever we put our minds to. Rather than cement blocks of comfort solidified around our feet, there’s a fresh foundation under us that feels steady yet springy, a launch pad for whatever we aim for next.

Stepping over the threshold of our house made us feel like honeymooners moving into our first home. After three sets of tenants during our absence, it was a pleasant surprise to not see punched-in walls and broken windows, just spotless floors and gleaming glass. We left the house furnished, so the move was easy. Hauling a few armloads of gear and clothes in from the van, plus all the bikes, felt like a fresh slate and a new beginning. I’ll say this much: simple amenities of home attain a fresh sparkle when you’re on the road a long time, that’s for sure. Hooray for washing machines and dishwashers!

A fun number that I calculated was that the rent from our house during our time away more than paid for the Sprinter van. Considering my company allowed us to save money AND our tenants paid for our van, I’d say the “four month winter getaway” worked out nicely. Maybe we should do more of them? Twist my arm…

It’s only been two days, but I already am glad to be landed. I’ve only had one short freakout (while setting up internet, but who doesn’t hate talking to CenturyLink?) that I quickly solved by going for a run up a local mountain. Missed you, Mt. Tabor. More importantly, I’ve connected with a number of close friends and it feels like no time at all has passed, a mark of a great relationship. Seeing them reinforces why we invest so much into our community and friendships. Heck, I ran into three friends just on a walk to lunch on our first day back – it was practically an episode of Cheers!

On top of the memories of this trip, I’m grateful to call many places across the U.S. home. Comfortable friendships and feeling at home in cities all over the place is a gift we are lucky to have received. So while you can’t go “home” to a place the way it thrives in your memories, we can cultivate new homes, even in places we’ve lived before, and I’m finding a new appreciation for old haunts as we touched down during January in San Diego and Idaho before picking up the van.

It will be exciting to hit the road for another adventure when we do. (Utah in April, anyone?) In the meantime, our schedule is filled with time with friends, a plant-based nutrition course for Chelsea, short trips to the mountains and coast, volunteering, yoga, and making sure my employees still know what I look like. Life is busy, but totally on our terms these days, and we’re going to make the most of it.

As a framed print on our dining room wall says, “Wherever we are together, that is home.” It’s great to be here.

Dakota

P.S. The blog doesn’t die here, don’t worry!

Rolling toward Portland after our reunion with the Sprinter!

Rolling toward Portland on a foggy day after our reunion with the Sprinter! Seven months away from my buddy the van is just too long.

Foreigners can stack up like pancakes in tiny Belize, which is less than 70 miles wide. Some hot spots felt like a factory designed to funnel sunburned tourists into attractions; others were remote, serene, and wonderful. We squeezed through caves in water up to our necks (one with full skeleton in it), canoed on rivers with orange iguanas eyeing us, ziplined (as tourists love to do), and generally jumped headfirst into eco-tourism land. It was great fun.

But for me, exploring nature is best done away from crowds, and that’s where Half Moon Caye shines. A tiny speck of an island, it lies 60 miles off the coast of Belize. Leaving the reggae jams of the coast behind (Caribbean influence is strong in Belize), a 2.5 hour boat ride ended with waving palm trees beckoning us to the sandy beach in the reef system of Lighthouse Atoll.

You can kick off the shore directly into a swirl of tropical fish, nurse sharks, barracuda, octopus, and turtles. From the hammock in front of our tent, the clear green Caribbean stretched out into the distance, waves rumbling in. Frigate birds soared overhead, stenciled into the sky. The serenade of a conch shell announced meals three times a day. Yep, I’m talking about a real, off-the-grid island adventure.

And the best part? No crowds. Thanks to oversight by the local Audubon Society, only 20 people at a time visit Half Moon Caye. It’s a remote paradise at the intersection of land and sky, Belize and the Caribbean. Red-footed boobies and the frigate birds nest together by the dozens, turtles lay their eggs on the beach, and hundreds of hermit crabs etch paths into the sand. As a German guy on the trip said, “I’ve never felt this close to nature.”

This frigate bird barfed up food for its juvenile kiddo, then flapped off to search for more grub.

This frigate bird regurgitated food for its juvenile kiddo, then flapped off to search for more grub.

Coordinated by fantastic guides, days began with sunrise yoga on the beach and then morphed into snorkeling, bird watching and kayaking the reef, plus a night snorkel where I saw my first sparks of bio-luminescence. Giant buffet meals were gobbled up and the travelers gelled into a group of friends. Under a full moon, we chatted nightly until the power went out, then started adventures anew in the morning for four luxurious days.

If there was any disappointment with the trip, it was the stark reality that you can’t escape the effects of civilization. Even hours off the coast, snorkeling around in a World Heritage Site called the Blue Hole (a collapsed cavern 1000 ft wide and 450 deep), plastic trash occasionally floated by. A bottle cap here, a wrapper there. It was easy to mistake remnants of plastic for a jellyfish, and I understood how a turtle might snap it up and choke on trash. A poignant reminder all of us leave a footprint that affects the entire world.

The famous Blue Hole. (Photo from Wikipedia.)

On the shores of the island, we launched a beach cleanup near the nesting area for the bird colony. Picking up toothbrushes, plastic utensils and straws, we hoovered up remnants of a society too comfortable with single-use disposables and packaging. Miles from industry or any big cities, the ocean delivered garbage from afar. Seeing this steeled our resolve to continue eliminating that kind of plastic from our lives. The simple stuff can make a difference – even while traveling, we carry reusable water bottles, refuse straws at restaurants, and bring our own take-home container to restaurants (Styrofoam is the worst!). It’s a drop of effort in a huge ocean of trash, but big movements start small.

A red-footed booby keeps her egg warm. (Photo credit Chelsea.)

Gents, don’t try this at home! The frigate birds inflate a big air sac in their neck to attract the ladies. It can take up to 20 minutes to puff up to full size. (Photo credit Chelsea.)

Our final morning, we headed back. Eyelids heavy from the drone of the boat engines, most of us dozed. Then someone shouted, “DOLPHINS!” At first, it was actually just a few short-finned pilot whales, blunt noses poking out of the water. Then came the dolphins, dozens of them, whisking through the waves. At least 50 stuck with the boat for a half hour, jumping high, zooming under the boat and shooting into the air on the other side. Some did full flips, others triple barrel rolls. No footage entirely captures the moment as they surrounded the boat, but I briefly tried (click here for YouTube video) before simply enjoying the display of nature’s awesomeness. A stunning experience and a fireworks finale to our trip.

Escaping to the remote magic of Half Moon Caye was hands-down one of the finest travel adventures I’ve had. Such a perfect place to enjoy nature – I can’t recommend this experience highly enough. Skip the craziness of Caye Caulker and San Pedro and head to the island for a trip you’ll never forget.

Here’s to your next adventure! More photos below too.

Dakota

P.S. A great organization that we support is 5 Gyres. They conduct research and communicate about the global impact of plastic pollution. Check out their work, they kick butt!

P.P.S. You may have noticed a lack of underwater photos. Chalk that one up to me dropping a camera for the first time ever. Unfortunately, it wasn’t even mine – sorry, bro-in-law’s roommate. RIP, GoPro…I hope someone finds you on the bottom of the river in that cave. I’m still glad I swam through it.