My Introduction

Hey guys,

Well I am going to assume that you already read the main page intro and I will take it from there talking more about myself and my personal feelings about this trip leading up to and everything I am going through.

Let me first tell you more about our travel plans and our big scheme. When I first cooked this idea up it was in probably October of 2009. I knew we were making good money and looking at our expenses and everything; thought that it was reasonable to save up enough money where we could travel the country frugally for a year and also have enough money to get back on our feet by May 2010. Well we weren't very disciplined in saving money. We still ate at expensive restaurants a ton and basically bought what we felt like for the most part for the next 7 months. We were still able to save money but it just wasn't enough to leave when we thought we would. I kept on keeping on and we eventually got there in October. I worked hard on the Bus from about August onward. I am a bit frustrated with myself because after doing so much work on my Bus I realize that I could have done a ton of work on it while I waited for my brand new engine to be built. That's in the past and I am just going to have to take what I could get done in the past short months. I know the Bus isn't perfect but I am confident that it is reliable and I pray that it will make everywhere we wish it to go.

Leading up to this trip I went through many ups and downs. I was of course very happy and excited when I bought my Bus. I got it off of thesamba.com where all VW fanatics go to get their parts. I drove down to Alameda purchased the Bus for 1300 dollars and had it towed to Sacramento. After getting to my parents house, Anna and I lived in an apartment, I quickly pulled the engine and sent it off to get rebuilt.

As I waited for the work to get done I had to let certain important people in my life know my plans. I was volunteering for a Christian organization called Younglife for the past year and a half. I let my Area director, Kevin, know that at the end of the spring semester 2010 I planned on ending my role as a leader there at Downtown Sacramento/McClatchy High School Younglife. He was sad that I wouldn't continue on but was very excited about our potential trip. I was attending church at Restoration Life and helping with the High School group, Zero Gravity, too and let them know I would be stepping down at the end of December 2009. Everyone was sad but excited.

Letting my parents know was scary. I knew they wouldn't be happy for us and would be giving us every question in the book to try and deter us from our adventure. To this day I still think my Mother is very against our trip and very worried about us. That's OK though, this just lets me know that she truly cares for and loves both of us :). I had worked everything out in my brain enough where I was very convicted that I could pull this trip off and if it fails we had a back up plan.

When we weren't able to make the May leave date like we planned it was very disappointing. Anna and I felt like we were questioning whether we really wanted to go on this trip or not. We were questioning each other and I know I felt like Anna was doubting my ability to pull this off. We still said we planned on this trip and that we just needed to become more disciplined and I needed to work harder on weekends on the Bus. I got the completed engine in early June. I got it a day before I left for Younglife camp up in Woodleaf. I had an amazing time up at that camp beat up on kids (in a playful sense) and connected with them. I truly had an amazing experience there that I hadn't felt like in awhile. One of the best things about the week was Anna was camp Nurse! I got to see her there the entire week unlike the past two previous years where I just had to leave her at home. We hope to volunteer at other camps around the country as we travel.

After the Younglife camp I just couldn't get back in gear to working on my Bus. I went a month without touching the brand new engine that sat in my parents' garage. I was depressed and felt like as I waited longer to get going on the bus the harder it was to start. I finally sucked it up and got going. Now the wheels were in motion and we got everything situated...


... Sorry for how long this is I know in the future the blogs won't be this long and hopefully mostly pictures and video :)


Well I quit my job at the end of August to concentrate fully on the bus and Anna kept on working till we were just about to leave.

Today was our first day of travels and it has already had some really crazy twists and turns that we definitely didn't expect. I will blog about them in the morning hopefully. Right now I am sure you are done reading and I am done writing.


Peace