coast to coast

1/3/2011

This is Hunt here writing to you on a nice sunny day from the lower east side of Mahattan NY.  I wanted to check in with our blog and talk a bit about our adventures the past few months and share some highlights. Overall, our experience has been simply amazing for Kim and I. An experience we both will both never forget.

Goodbye Portland

October 1^st was our last day in Portland. We moved out of our amazing house we shared with Anne and Logan at 3558 Morrison St. We moved our best friends into their new house only a few blocks away. Anne and Logan played a huge part in our trip by generously offering to store our belongings in their garage. This easily saved us hundreds of dollars that will really come in handy in South America.

Bend, Oregon and my Great Aunt Dorothy

After saying good-bye to our amazing crew in Portland we headed off to Bend Oregon to say goodbye to some of the great people who had changed my life. (Kim had yet to sell her car that had been on the market for 2 weeks and had several buyers fall through). We stayed with Derek and Megan as well as other wonderful people in Bend before we starting making our way to McKenzie Bridge OR. This is where my Great Aunt Dorothy lives. I had not seen my great Aunt in 10+ years and I was nervous and excited about the experience.  We pulled up to Dorothy’s house down an amazing Oregon driveway with 150 foot tall tree’s covered in bright green moss. Following her long driveway we ended up at a gorgeous house that was hand built by my great uncle Preston. As we walked up to the house we found an extremely young looking and acting 84 year old woman. As aunt Dorothy poured us a glass of wine she gave us the grand tour of her house (every room and piece of furniture had a story). Dorothy had moved from California to Oregon in 1974 on a school bus and bought this piece of land with little money to build. Over the years they saved money and her husband press built a one bedroom cabin where they slept on a loft above the kitchen. After 30 years of hard work her husband built this breathtaking 4 bedroom home.  Kim and I agreed Dorothy was an inspiration to us on what the important things are in life. She made us realize how lucky and excited we were to have great families, friends, and the ability to travel.  We spent an amazing night at Dorothy’s house where we stayed up late sharing stories about her travels and listening to Eric Clapton. 

 

California and Oregon Coast

 From Dorothy’s home we traveled down the west coast. We spent a good amount of time camping on the beach and seeing all the sites along the way. We even ended up pulling over on a beach and Kim selling her car via her phone while being 500 miles away. With the last stress of selling her car off her back we heading to Sebastopol  California (Wine Country). There we stayed with Kim’s close friend Joe from college. We ended up spending a few weeks in wine country at Joe’s amazing home making homemade margarita’s and BLTS using lemons and tomatoes from Joe’s garden. He had an amazing outdoor garden where he grew over 70 types of vegetables. We spent the next few weeks seeing friends old and new up and down the California coast from Arcata to San Francisco. We got a chance to catch up with both Kim and my friends (Carlos, Joe, Josh, Lane, Vanessa, Oli, Dante, Cam, Krista, Cassy, Tyler, Wiseman and more) and it was really great to spend some quality time with all these people. 

California to Colorado Drive

From there we headed east to spend some time with our families before heading to South America.  While leaving California we saw a sign for Ocean City Maryland at 2,386 miles away. It made me think how neat it was to have our feet in the Pacific Ocean one day and the Atlantic Ocean in less than a month. It was crazy to think we were going from one side of the country to the other.

We stayed a night in Lake Tahoe California which I had never been to. It was snowing a few inches and we even ended up winning $40 at the Roulette table betting on Kim’s and my birthdays. We continued on to Colorado taking 2 days to get there and stopping in Evanston Wyoming.

Colorado

When we got to Colorado we felt well embraced by friends of ours. We had many friends take us out to dinner as well as invite us to dinner at their homes. I can’t explain how much this helped us. Big thanks to Brandon and Demema, Brian, Riley and Liz, Bret and everyone else. We spent some days staying at friend’s mountain houses covered in snow and some days in a high rise in Denver over looking the Rocky Mountains. I realized while visiting Colorado why it had become so special to me in the 5 years I lived there.

 

Nebraska and Chicago

After a wonderful week in Colorado we headed to Omaha, Nebraska where Kim’s amazing sister Katie lives. Katie has always been really great to me and her boyfriend Ned continued the hospitality while in Omaha Nebraska. We said our goodbyes to “Kato” and told her we would see her in a few days in Chicago for Thanksgiving. We woke up early and made the drive to Chicago to be met with open arms by Kim’s one of a kind parents. We were met with Kim’s favorite Aurelios Pizza and a case of our favorite wines hand picked and tasted by her Dad. Kirk and Pat wined and dined us and even took us to a hockey game. Once Thanksgiving came we were really excited for the food and to get to see Kim’s Grandparents and family. It was my first Thanksgiving with another family and it was really fun to try their new food and see their traditions. We spent the next few nights hanging out with Kirk, Pat, Katie, and Ned. We played card games and bowled on their Wii.  It was great to spend some quality time there.

            

Annapolis, Maryland

We then begrudgingly decided it was time for us to continue to head east to take on some part time work and Kim’s Jewelry show in Annapolis.  I was very excited to see my parents and the next day was spent prepping Kim’s display for her show and making a few last moment pieces. Her first show went well and it even landed her an open trunk show inside a boutique called Lilac in downtown Annapolis. After the two shows, selling to family and friends for Christmas presents and a few pieces along the way Kim had sold over 30 pieces and made a solid chunk of money to help her with her travels (big thanks to anyone who purchased a piece of her jewelry). We then spent several great nights with my parents and my sister Danielle and her boyfriend Billy. We even went bar hopping with the parents a few times.  Once Christmas rolled around we had a great time helping my mom in the kitchen and both of us really learning a thing or two about cooking. We made Quiche for breakfast and Kim made a amazing Rum Cake! We followed my family’s recent tradition of waiting till midnight on Christmas Eve to open all of our presents.  We both received tons of great gifts from both our parents and family members (THANK YOU SO MUCH).  We then woke up late on Christmas day and spent the whole day in our Pajamas. We even ate Christmas dinner in our PJ’s which was a brand new tradition that I really liked! We spent the following days making about 7 trips to REI getting the proper gear 

            

 

New York- New Years-  Phish

Our last leg was to head to New York for the New Year to see my favorite band Phish. We got to see a bunch of great friends in the process. Kim’s great friend Nate was VERY generous and gave us the keys to his Manhattan apartment while he was away for the New Year. This housing saved us financially and made it possible to be in NYC before we departed for SA. Phish put on an amazing New Years run of concerts and we had a BLAST with all of our friends. The Highlight of the shows were on New Years night when Phish was playing their song Meatstick when all of the sudden a Mexican mariachi band came on stage and sang the lyrics in Spanish then a Swedish group and followed by several other nationality’s all singing Phish’s “meatstick” and doing the meatstick dance. This turned into a huge orchestrated Broadway production of style, song, and dance. All of the sudden Phish appeared at the back of Madison Square Garden riding in a Giant HOT DOG with all four members of the band. They returned to the stage for a giant balloon drop and their version of Eric Clapton’s After Midnight.  

The concert’s ended and I said goodbye to some of our great friends and was wished best of luck by many. We then spent the next two days getting ready and hanging out with Nate who had returned from Montréal. We are just about to ship our cell phones and a package of things back to my parents before we are off. We have everything we need in our backpacks and are ready to go. I am pretty confident we did’t forget anything because Kim is so organized. We had 200 lists and checked them 500 times. So I feel very excited and well prepared. I know that all our loved ones are nervous and excited for our trip. I can assure you that we will make every move thinking about safety first.  We promise to be smart travelers.  I will make it my job to make sure Kim is safe and protected in every situation.

 

While writing this and reflecting over the past few days Kim and I both realized how truly lucky we are to have the best families and friends possible. We know we could not have done this without you guys and we are forever grateful. This is going to be a once in a lifetime experience that will shape the rest of our lives. We are truly blessed to have the opportunity to make a trip like this and we are going to do our best to learn as much as possible and make every day count.

We will try to keep our blog updated at least once a month if not every week.

We will be checking email so if you need to reach us just shoot us a line.

Hunt

Huntfrye@gmail.com

Kim

thompsonkimk@gmail.com

-This has all been wonderful but now were on our way - Phish