As we work our way through the next path to choose in life, there are two big long term projects that are captivating my mind and both have been reinforced over the past few days thanks to our stay at the Wolpert family cabin in the mountains of Pennsylvania and the book Cruising in Serrafyn by Lin Pardee, which I borrowed from No-Car in Toronto.
The big ideas are that one, we’d like to build Urbyville and start by building a small cabin for us to live in. We’d like to have land for a garden and a place we can call our own. The other big idea is the cruising idea. For me, this would entail a significant amount of time living and traveling the world via a sailboat. I’ve had an obsession with the water for many years and it is something I am still very interested in making happen.
After our time in New Jersey in Ocean City, we went to visit our friend Aaron whom we met while working at the Running Spot back in Cincinnati (where Julie and I met during college). His family has a cabin they built themselves with the help of friends. It has no running water and no electricity. We used an outhouse similar to those used while hiking the AT. It was a great time. We had good conversations, good running in the hills on the dirt roads and untraveled country roads, and we had lots of time to think, read, and imagine how we would build our own cabin.
With all the reading time, I was able to finish a fun narrative about a couples’ experience building and sailing their boat from California through Mexico and Central America before eventually ending up in England. It wasn’t the best written book but it got me back into imagining how I could actually make this happen; it also got me into the sailing lingo. They also said that many of the other cruisers they met were actually families with young kids. I’ve heard this before but it was motivating to hear it from someone out there sailing the world.
We are currently in Baltimore, MD visiting family in between visiting our old roommates Steve and Brian from Annapolis (they currently live closer to DC). We are then heading back to Ohio before heading out west to Portland. From there we look to start our next big adventure which we’re planning to start September 1ston bicycles heading South. The website will be updated soon to Urbyville 2.0 with new features and more info about the next adventures. Thanks to all that have stayed with us during the “In Between” part of our travels. We’re looking forward to further adventure and will do our best to keep the stories entertaining and inspiring.