The truck was ready, and I had sat on this idea long enough. I listened to a Joe Rogan podcast driving back from work one day with Ash Dykes, a Welsh adventurer who was know for things like walking solo across Mongolia. I had never heard of him. Joe asked how he decides to do things like this, and how he gets the motivation. Ash Dykes said he just tells everyone he knows he's going to do something and then it's too embarrassing to back out. I laughed and thought it was a great idea.
So I told everyone I worked with and my friends I was gonna do it, quit my job and drive as long as I can until my savings run out. I expected everyone to tell me not to do it, to buy some real estate, save my money. But, pretty much everyone I knew was excited for me and supported the idea. I had one more obligation to work, do an overseas trip that I had agreed to and then I was done. I handed in my letter of resignation. I decided I was going to do a trial run, my rental was ending and I figured I'd live out of the truck for a few weeks before the trip, planning to leave Canada as soon as I got back. I drove to the North of Vancouver Island and started learning how much food and water I'd need, when to restock, how the solar system would hold up, and pretty much everything else you could think of.
I still had to come to work once or twice in the 2 weeks leading up to the nearly month long trip, I would use this as an opportunity to shower and plug into ground power at the hangar. These two weeks were not the most enjoyable I'll be honest. I felt like since I wasn't necessarily going anywhere or seeing anything new, the added stress of living in a roof tent wasn't exactly worth it. But I made a commitment. My friend Rich, who lived in a van, told me after a while people would invite him to sleep in their guest room but he'd decline, the van was his home. And I knew from all the courses and moving around in the military it takes a good month to get comfortable living somewhere. So I told myself no matter what, I'd give myself a month once this trip started to get used to living out of the truck before I made any decisions.
I started selling everything I wouldn't need for the trip, my weight lifting and boxing gear, fishing gear, etc. Being 23 and living in rentals my whole adult life, I never actually bought any furniture so that made things easy. I sold everything I could and gave most of my clothes to the salvation army. It was painful to be honest, all these things I bought selling either at a loss or giving away. The only thing I kept was the seat that I took out the back of the truck, my friend Brad let me store it in his barn. The plan was to go on the work trip, come back, and head out. What ended up happening was I came back, after getting some intake manifold gaskets to swap out so I could delete the EGR on the truck and clean out the diesel gunk, I broke the MAF sensor. I couldn't find one anywhere, and it would take nearly 3 weeks to get here via express mail. I am beyond grateful to the entire Doyle family for letting me stay with them while I sorted out the truck. I finally got it all done, and had a date of departure. Stress was high, emotions were high, and on a cold October morning I made my teary eyed goodbye's and hit the road.
Southern Vancouver island is all gated off and difficult to camp. And I didn't want to spend too much time in the Pacific North West because winter was coming fast, that mean a lot of rain. Also being on a tight budget I didn't want to stay in the US too long, I figured I could always come back and do a proper US road trip. That meant the first day I drove straight to the water border between Vancouver Island and the US, and took the Coho ferry to Washington state. Sitting on that boat, I don't think I could describe the feeling. Something between disbelief, nervousness, excitement, and of course sadness. I was leaving my comfortable life behind on the idea that this would be something I would enjoy, I was taking a huge financial risk, declaring I would spend all the money I had if I wished, with no way knowing it would pay off. But 7 months later I am sitting here, writing a blog, making videos, and doing what I can to attain a the financial possibility to keep this trip going.
Comments