The Best Year in Years

Three-hundred and sixty-five little days. Is that all it’s been? It seems like a decade since my wife (Ella), dog (Otis) and I (Brian) left Colorado on this journey. 

Brian, Ella, and Otis

Having sunk roots in the same place more or less continuously for almost 20 years (and Ella for her whole life) we'd reached a point of stagnation, where our lives seemed hopelessly fixed.

We needed an adventure. 

Enter the travel nurse.

Being a nurse is probably a good career, but not for me. Any job where something called “sputum” has a chance of getting in my eyes is beyond my weak stomach. But Ella is good at it, and—at least on sputum-free days—seems generally to enjoy it.

One year ago today, Ella accepted a position as a travel nurse. We sold or stored almost everything we owned, crammed our lives into the space of a Toyota Rav4, and put rubber to pavement. We've been back only briefly since.

PART 1: The Mountains are Calling (Sun Valley, Idaho; 8/28/2016 to 12/23/2016)

We arrived in Idaho on a Sunday night and found ourselves in a wilderness of the strange: grocery chains we’d never heard of, references on the radio to people and places we didn’t understand. It was altogether novel and unsettling. But all-in-all the change was fresh and pleasing. I felt like I was at the brink of a discovery. 

Ella and Otis at one of so many lakes in the Idaho mountains

The first night in Idaho, we opted for a walk behind our new house. Otis was on edge, his tail erect, hackles raised and muzzle buried in every passing thicket. He exemplified what I felt: disoriented, anxious, and eager to learn this unknown landscape.

The next four months passed like a dream. 

Trails. Endless miles of serpentine paths gliding through alpine settings. There were so many that we hardly made a repeat footprint our entire stay. The Sun Valley area provided five mountain ranges in which to romp: the Smokies, the White Clouds, the Boulders, the Pioneers, and (most impressive of all) the Sawtooths. For alpine/mountaineering enthusiasts, it was paradise.

Hot Springs. Central Idaho is ripe with geothermal action. There is sublimity in lounging in a natural hot tub, soothing bubbles tickling up tired limbs as nature unfolds its splendor all around. Such moments are ineffable.

Snow. We skied four feet of fresh powder. These fluffy white heaps were miniature emulations of the grand mountains in which they formed. Snow fluttered, streaked or outright dumped from the sky right up to the hour we left.

When the time came to leave in December, we did so grudgingly. Our first experience living outside Colorado had proven that the world held options. There were so many places I hadn't seen and people I hadn't met. My only fear, as Idaho sunk in our rearview mirror, was if any destination after could favorably compare, or would everything after fall disappointingly short.

INTERLUDE 1: Christmas in Colorado (12/23/16 to 1/5/17)

Ignore the stress of gift buying and the pressure of fleeting morsels of time to every visiting friend and relative and the holidays are special. Family coalesces, forging memories that last a lifetime. We spent a white Christmas with our family back in Colorado, but it was doomed not to last. Our next destination was calling from over the horizon.

PART 2: Rain and Redwoods (Eureka, California; 1/5/17 to 4/24/17)

We arrived in California in the apogee of one of the worst storms in years. It was fitting that rain would usher us away three and a half months later.

We are small-town folk. While Eureka, California is a city of only 30,000, the outlying area of some 200,000 felt like a bustling metropolis compared to what we were used to. In Idaho our apartment stood in a sea of pine trees. At night we had to be cautious when walking out our door of close encounters with marauding wolves. Bugling elk sang us to sleep. In Eureka our apartment stood in sea of concrete. At night we had to be cautious when walking out our door of close encounters with meth-addled homeless. The thunder of truck engines sang us to sleep.

Playing on a redwood, the tallest trees in the world

This makes our time in Northern California sound all bad but it wasn't, not by a long shot. We lived for the first time beside the ocean, learning to glide back and forth with the tide. The musky perfume of the sea filled the air (when you stepped far enough from the urbane downtown to smell it). Waves collapsed with undulating thunder onto endless beaches. Rugged coasts and conical sea stacks provided roosts for squawking birds, and (best of all) we were surrounded by a forest of the world’s tallest trees. There were many magical moments in this novel environment. While Idaho had been like an variation of Colorado, California was something different altogether.

One of Life's Forks

Alas, three months passed as they always do (quickly) and the time came to decide on our next destination. We stood at one of those proverbial forks.

Ella was offered a travel position in Santa Barbara, California, a beautiful ocean-side city known for exquisite beaches and a vibrant economy. But on a whim Ella had a applied for a full-time, year round position in Seward, Alaska, a tiny town embedded in the rugged Alaskan mountains. We had always wanted to live in the far north. Neither of us had expected to hear back from Seward, but one day, after she'd already accepted the position in Santa Barbara, the call came:

We were wanted. In Alaska.

The choice could be distilled to this: Santa Barbara would be easy. Housing would be found and paid for for us. It was a short, three-month commitment. But although it was a beautiful place, Santa Barbara was not our dreamland. In many ways it was not much different from where we had just been. Seward, on the other hand, would be rugged, committing, and far from our families. Contracts would stipulate we had to spend a full year at least. It was risky. We would be on our own. But Alaska had been a dream of ours and this was our chance. The biggest thing holding us back was our fear to take a risk. And that is never a good reason not to do anything. 

Alaska...we are coming.

INTERLUDE 2: The Great Road Trip (4/24/2017 to 5/11/2017)

The memories of our 18-day journey from California to Alaska will always be fond. The Oregon coast. Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Seattle. The Inside Passage. The Yukon. So many amazing places, all of which entirely new. As I detailed much of this trip in an earlier blog post, I won’t go too deeply into the story. We saw some of the most beautiful sights the western United States had to offer. This road trip was a journey within a larger journey. It was the type of adventure I will recall fondly for decades. It was, however, only a prelude to what is likely the climax of this life-altering (and ongoing) bildungsroman.

PART 3: The Last Frontier (Seward, Alaska; 5/11/2017 to ?)

The boat harbor in Seward, Alaska. This is nearly 2,300
miles from Glenwood Springs, Colorado as the eagle
flies

Alaska takes its official nickname “The Last Frontier” for a reason. Much of the state is brutally rugged and remote. Wildlife exists much as it always has. Blue glaciers tumble from cuspid mountains. Moose and brown bears plod across hundreds of miles of unfettered wildlands oblivious to the trials of the modern world. In terms of size, Alaska would swallow the United Kingdom, France and Germany combined, yet is home to a mere 700,000 people. 

In a sense, Idaho and California were merely training. The sparse wilderness of central Idaho provided a functioning warm-up for the behemoth scale of Alaska. The coast of Northern California acclimated us to the rhythm of the ocean.

After three and a half months here now (roughly the same amount of time we spent in both California and Idaho), Alaska had proven to be everything we hoped and more. I understand the addiction of this place. Life at the edge of the map has a way of reminding you that you are alive. It is a slice of a time long past.

I am excited to experience the full cycle of a year in this place and learn the lessons it is willing to teach.

FINAL THOUGHTS

As the eagle flies we are 2,288 miles from where we started. We are our past selves, and we are not. I imagine myself a year ago and I picture someone cloistered and naïve. I see a truck spinning its wheels in the quagmire. I was halfway up a mountain stranded on a narrow ledge. Above it was too steep to climb and below too risky to retreat. This year was the foil, the glider that lifted me away. Circling in the sky, I think I understand that this mountain has always had many faces, and infinite variations to the top.

I have come to think of this long adventure as “the Search for Home.” The whole point, after all, was finding the place to settle down. Buy a house, start a family. Where will this home be? Idaho? California? Colorado? Alaska? Somewhere else? The question lingers….

For now, there can be no doubt: it was the best year in years.

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All writing is the original work of Brian Wright and may not be copied, distributed, re-printed or used any form without express written consent of the author. Find out here how to CONTACT me with publishing and/or use questions 

18 Days Up the West Coast

A three-week journey up the west coast of North America from Eureka, California to Seward, Alaska, the hamlet of 3,000 people we now call home. By boat and by car, my wife, my dog and myself spent eighteen days adventuring northward along the beautiful shore of the Pacific Ocean through the redwoods of Northern California, the rugged beaches of Oregon, the rain forest of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, the braided islands of Canada’s British Columbia, and the dramatic escarpments of southern Alaska. By the end we’d spent eight nights in hotels, three in a tent, three on the deck of a 408-foot ferry boat, two at a friend’s house, and one in a dusty cabin. In total 2,367 miles passed underneath the wheels of our car and another 1,215 miles through the turbine of our ferry boat. We visited four American states, two Canadian territories and witnessed some of the most beautiful terrain western North America has to offer. 

What follows is a mostly visual account of that journey.

Days 1 & 2 Ashland, Oregon

We were ushered into Northern California by rain back in January so it was fitting that we’d be chased out by the same. The drum roll of raindrops followed us all the way to Ashland, Oregon, a city known for its politically liberal ideals and for its renowned Shakespeare Festival. For nine months of the year, Ashland is host to two plays a day (mostly but not all Shakespeare), five or six days a week. Intrigued we tried to get last minute tickets to the festival, but since there were so few seats left, the price of $87 a person was a little too steep to justify on our travel budget. Instead we enjoyed a soak in a local hot springs and did some hiking in the lush mountains.

A great way to get to know a
place is through its microbreweries
and coffee shops

Day 3 The Highway of Waterfalls 

In order to get Ashland, we’d had to turn inland away from the coast, so to get back we took Highway 138, known colloquially as “the Highway of Waterfalls.” We stopped to frolic at the base of several thundering waterfalls before settling into a soggy campsite on the bank of the North Fork of the Umpqua River.

272-foot Watson Falls

Day 4 Oregon Coast (Episode 1)

A stunning stretch of Oregon coast including gorgeous oceanside towns of Florence and Newport. The day concluded at an excellent campsite near the elongated Beverly Beach with a beer in hand and a lurid sunset unfolding over the water.

Day 5 Oregon Coast (Episode 2)

The heart of the Oregon shores. We visited a slew of stunning attractions including Seal Rock, Depoe Bay, and Cannon Beach (made famous in the 1980’s cinema classic, The Goonies.) This truly is a special part of the country with its rugged sea stacks, miles-long beaches and lush verdant rain forests vibrant with color and life.

Rugged coasts of Oregon

Day 6 Into the Evergreen State

The next morning we crossed the Columbia River at Astoria and entered Washington, known as the Evergreen State. Though the first part of the drive was through depressing, economically stressed towns such as Aberdeen (whose only claim to fame is being the birthplace of Kurt Cobain and being home to Billy Gohl, one of the most prolific serial killers in American history), the second part coursed through the magnificent and wild Olympic Peninsula whose rugged, gray coasts are possibly even more dramatic than those of Oregon.

Day 7 Olympic National Park

A day in the incredible wilderness of Olympic National Park. This is one of the most vast and wild national parks in the Lower 48 and includes the Hoh Rainforest, which receives 127 inches of rain a year, making it one of the wettest places in North America. Afterward we decompressed in the Sol Duc Hot Springs as a chill misty rain leaked from the sky.

One of many waterfalls in Olympic National Park

Day 8 Fish Out of Water

A small-town boy all my life, the next phase of the journey was one of the most unsettling, and in some ways the most rewarding. We coursed around Puget Sound to the concrete jungle of Seattle, the keystone city of the Pacific Northwest. Frightened at first by the sheer volume of roaring buses, screeching taxis and shadowy vagabonds, I was quickly enamored by the city’s other side: the impressive array of young, intellectual people and its vast cultural diversity. In just a few block radius we encountered restaurants boasting authentic Middle Eastern, Brazilian, Mexican, Argentinian, French, Irish, Italian, Thai, Chinese, and Japanese cuisine. The multilayered assault of sumptuous aromas forced me into sensory overdrive. Best of all, Seattle matched and possibly exceeded its reputation as one of the great purveyors of perhaps my favorite commodity: coffee. 

Day 9 Museums, Markets, and Needles

No trip to Seattle could be considered complete without venturing to a few of its classic features: the downtown fish markets, the cultural museums, and the Space Needle. We dodged hurled fish at the Pike Place Market, craned our necks up at the 605-foot Space Needle, and spent four hours inside the MoPop pop culture museum, which included excellent extensive displays of two of my favorite topics: rock and roll guitars and fantasy movies/literature. 

The MoPop Museum and the Space Needle in the background

Day 10 Escaping the City

The city is great in small doses, but we were ready to make our escape back to the wild coast. We hit the pavement once again, blazing northward toward the town of Bellingham, Washington, our exit point from the contiguous United States. After a sweaty, steep hike through the rain forest, we met up with some friends in Bellingham who were gracious enough to host us for two nights as we prepared for the next phase of our long journey.

Day 11 The Sun!

The Pacific Northwest is famous for many things, not the least of which is the rain. So far on our trip we had not been disappointed. We’d yet to get through a full day without the benefit of at least a little rain. We were treated to a stunning blue-sky Bellingham day and took full advantage, going for a three-mile hike around Lake Padden and sun-bathing with the company of our books as temperatures spiked to almost 80 degrees, easily the warmest day we’d seen since the previous fall back in Idaho. Of course, no good thing can last forever and as evening fell the rain returned with a vengeance, hammering down with hail and even a few blinding arcs of lightning.

Rugged Olympic Peninsula coast in Washington

Day 12 All Aboard

This was it, the day that marked the end of the road trip and the beginning of the next folio. It was also the day we’d abandon the Lower 48 in favor of lonely expanse of Alaska. To get to the Final Frontier we had to drive aboard the M/S Malaspina, one of the original ferry boats in the fleet of the Alaska Maritime Highway. This was the least expensive, lowest-mileage means to transport our vehicle to Alaska.

The Malaspina, our home for four days

Day 13 Boat Life

A full day barging up the narrow sounds and inlets that circumnavigate Vancouver Island taught me several things: in medium seas I have a tendency to get seasick, and when you pack people into a relatively confined space there is a tendency for them to become friends. By the end of the day we had an international cast of fellow travelers bound by a common destination. It is an adventurous sort that takes an interest in a state as wild as Alaska. It draws the hermits, the misfits, the societal outcasts, the independents, the free-spirits, the thrill seekers. Everyone aboard the Malaspina had a story to tell and the telling/listening exchange, paired with the intense natural drama of the setting, forged a uniquely intriguing circumstance that somehow brought everyone together.

Sunset aboard the Malaspina

Day 14 Alaska

Finally steering back into U.S. waters we docked at a series of Alaskan ports on our way north. After 36 hours on board we could finally escape the steel confines of the Malaspina in favor of some fresh, northern air. That night, as the sun fell over the jagged coastal mountains of Southeast Alaska, a newly forged friendship between myself and a long-haired pianist named Tommy devolved into a two-hour guitar/piano jam session.

Somewhere along the Canadian coast aboard the ferry

Day 15 Port

Though our time on the ocean had been quite fun, we were eager for the boat ride to be over. Under cobalt skies the Malaspina was tied up to the final port in the strikingly dramatic town of Haines, Alaska. We parted cordially with our new friends. Haines was a stark juxtaposition to the busy streets and leaping skyscrapers of Seattle. Here the roads were mostly dirt, occasionally there was a lonely car, and the cloud-cleaving heaps of concrete and steel were replaced by much more massive hunks of granite and ice.

back on land in Haines, AK

Day 16 The Al-Can (Episode 1)

We had made it to Alaska but still had over 800 miles of driving to go (yes, at over 663,000 square miles Alaska is bigger than Germany, France, and all portions of the United Kingdom combined). This final stage of our journey, however, was along a portion of the Alaska-Canadian Highway bisecting the Yukon Territory of Canada and skirting the immense Kluane National Park. Hidden inside this gargantuan wilderness are Canada’s two highest mountains: Mt. Logan (19,551 feet/ 5,959 meters) and Mt. St. Elias (18,008 feet/ 5,489 meters).

My wife, Ella, soaking in the vast Yukon

Day 17 The Al-Can (Part 2)

With the end drawing rapidly near, I was too anxious to appreciate the stunning vistas unfolding all around us. It was raining again and my spirits were dampened. We had driven almost 2,000 miles by this point. Even though it was still some of the wildest and most beautiful terrain I have ever seen, I was anxious to be done with the car and settle down in a more permanent arrangement. After an eight-hour day we arrived in Anchorage, Alaska, the first time since day one that we were seeing sights we had seen before.

My dog, Otis, happy to be done with the car

Day 18 Arrival

From Anchorage it was a short 2.5-hr drive south to the seaside berg of Seward, the town of 3,000 that would serve as our post for the foreseeable future. By the time we descended to final hill and the town opened before us, we were more than ready to unpack the car and stretch our legs for good. We checked in to our temporary housing (a rather rustic one-bedroom cabin) and were greeted downtown by a massive gray whale humping along the bay not thirty feet off the shore. Seward is one of the most beautiful towns I have ever seen. Though the road adventure was over, the true adventure—forging a life in this wild, rugged place—was only just beginning.

Resurrection Bay in Seward, AK, our final destination

POST SCRIPT

Unfortunately our rather rustic cabin lacks certain amenities. Internet for one. Thus my internet “brownout” persists. The only time I can connect to the web is via short bursts at coffee shops or the library. Until we find a permanent solution to our housing, the slow atrophy of my social media presence will endure. I haven’t forgotten about any of you! And I pray that you won’t forget about me. In the meantime, I am continuing to work hard on my latest work-in-progress and read as many books as I can. But the end is near and soon I will return as a full-service blogger, reader, contributor to social media platforms across the web. Until then…

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If you enjoyed this post, consider signing up for my mailing list. I blog about all sorts of crazy, slightly educational, somewhat entertaining, and occasionally funny topics from what makes an effective first paragraph in a novel to giant redwoods, medieval sailboats, the ancient Mayans and more. If you do sign up, you will get a once-a-week update on my posts and NOTHING ELSE! No spam, no selling your email to third parties. Okay, if I ever get around to publishing one of these works in progress that are constantly haunting me, I might send out an email letting you know. In the meantime thanks for reading.

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Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost...."

For seven months now, I've been a lucky man. Since my wife became a travel nurse in August 2016, the two of us, along with our two-year-old black lab/wirehaired terrier mutt, Otis, have been able to explore much of the western United States in the name of work, getting food and rent paid for and seeing sights we might never see again.

Wife and dog in the Sawtooth Mtns of Idaho

So far we have traveled from our original home in the high mountains of Colorado to the lonesome wilderness of central Idaho across the wasteland of central Nevada to the lush redwood forests of Northern California. We have seen snow-capped peaks with serrated skylines, and clear mountain lakes where the reflection and realty are so identical you could flip a photo upside down and hardly tell the difference. We basked in endless sands on beaches at the precipice of the great Pacific, and climbed the rugged bark of the world's tallest trees. It has been a remarkable journey, and it isn't over yet.

The Stagnant Mire

For years prior to setting out on the soul-searching adventure (what we have dubbed "The Search for Home") we plowed through the typical grind of normal life: 9 to 5 jobs, 40-hour work weeks, repetition devolving to stagnation, months of endless grind looking forward to too-brief four-day vacations.

One day, we woke up simultaneously and proclaimed in harmony it was no longer working. We loved the place where we lived. We didn't love the framework of life we had constructed within it. Before we could settle down, buy a house, start a family, our itchy feet burned to travel.

 So we set out, and as of yet we haven't looked back.

As a writer, everything seems like a story. And so far this personal story is one of the most engaging in my 33 years on this wet rock dubbed Earth. Our current chapter in this story, however, has come to an end.

An Even Bigger Chapter Follows….

Rugged shores of Northern California

Alaska. It's called the Final Frontier. 663,000 square miles of rugged wilderness, sky-prodding mountains, calving glaciers, hungry brown bears, and land as unexplored as perhaps anywhere else in North America. This is what awaits.

For the next year at least we will be in Seward, Alaska, an oceanside hamlet of 2,800 people, encircled by snow-tipped battlements and crenellated glaciers. A place where there are often more whales than people, and the bald eagles are bold enough to grab a careless pet right off your front porch. In the summer there is direct light at midnight and in the winter there might be no sun at all. It's a dramatic change and, hopefully, a fitting climax for this journey to find the place we will one day call home.

The Journey is the Destination

It is 1,718 miles as the condor flies from where I sit right now to where I will be in three weeks. The journey north looms. For two weeks we’ll wend a circuitous route up the West Coast, probing the sights of Oregon and Washington, until we board a drive-on ferry in Bellingham, WA. Four days on a boat will land us on the frozen North Shore at last.

In other words, blog followers, friends and family, I will be experiencing a media blackout for at least three weeks, perhaps longer. But don't count me as lost. I haven't given up writing or blogging. I'm not sick or in trouble. I'm merely back on the road again.

The journey must continue and I promise, barring some unforeseen trouble, I will be back.

A little travelin' music to fit the mood:

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If you enjoyed this post, consider signing up for my mailing list. I blog about all sorts of crazy, slightly educational, somewhat entertaining, and occasionally funny topics from what makes an effective first paragraph in a novel to giant redwoods, medieval sailboats, the ancient Mayans and more. If you do sign up, you will get a once-a-week update on my posts and NOTHING ELSE! No spam, no selling your email to third parties. Okay, if I ever get around to publishing one of these works in progress that are constantly haunting me, I might send out an email letting you know. In the meantime thanks for reading.

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All writing is the original work of Brian Wright and may not be copied, distributed, re-printed or used any form without express written consent of the author. Find out here how to CONTACT me with publishing and/or use questions