vagabonds

First, a link: VW Vagabonds

Recently, I bought their book about their travels through Central and South America and Africa in a 60s VW van. I became enraptured by thought of pure, unadulterated exploration and bolstered to learn that they made their trek on average earnings, saved over the course of 6 years. I could maybe do without the old van but it seems to have worked out very well for them.



Today, I quit my job. I was plagued by nightmares all night, some of them during which I told my boss that I was leaving to disastrous effects and others were unrelated in subject matter but no doubt stress-induced. As these things typically happen, the actual resignation was swift and painless, eliciting the tiniest of flutters in an otherwise un-noteworthy day. I left with the mostly solid promise of a position at a local retail outfit that was established for fashion designers from the city to sell their clothing. A kind of boutique/showcase, I will be directing it down whatever path the partners decide to steer it. I am filled with trepidation and excitement at the prospect but it is, in the pit of my stomach, what I would most like to do.

Between when I leave the museum and begin at the shop, Remy and I will be taking a brief vacation to Missouri to visit his brother and to meet his brother's fiance before their August wedding. As per usual, we're trying to cram far more into the trip than is humanly possible so that we can visit friends, old roommates and the IKEA store along the way. We're also hoping to do a bit of camping outside of Kansas City, so long as the weather permits. And, to add to the mess, we're taking both of the cats with us, convinced that they would prefer a long car ride to being left alone in the house for a week.

The first order of business is renting a van, unnecessarily large for the trip down but big enough to hold the sofa and shelves we intend to buy on the way back. Then we have to figure out where we will stay. Ideally, we will stay outside of Chicago on Friday night and visit friends, then spend Saturday night in Indiana on our old college campus. We want to hit up the CD stores that we frequented during school, visit with some friends who still live in the area and arrive in Kansas City on Sunday afternoon. We would head back on Saturday night, spend the evening in Chicago again, so that we can shop on Sunday morning, meet friends for lunch and head home with our booty. In between, there would be camping and exploring KC by bike (yes, we're taking those, too), maybe some video game playing and definitely some sleeping in past any decent hour in the morning.

What I love perhaps more than the travel itself is the planning and preparation. I love to determine an itinerary, make reservations, work everything out down to where we will stop for dinner. Of course, plans are simply a guide for what will go wrong and I enjoy ruining them by stopping on a whim at a roadside antique shop or taking the scenic route. This trip, as complex as it is, will likely be full of precisely the kind of detours that make traveling grand and I will be sure to have my camera at the ready to document every last bend in the road.