Introducing our heroes...
Trip Start
Sep 17, 2007
1
2
272
Trip End
Oct 08, 2008
Ellicott City,
Maryland,
United States
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Meet your hero
Travis has been described as a nerd, geek, and dork. Of
the three, he prefers nerd, since geeks are strange and dorks are
awkward. He thinks everyone makes fun of him because he gets good
grades, but it could just be his personality. He has two younger
brothers, Zach and Josh, making him the eldest with all the associated
problems which that entails. Well travelled, Travis has lived in
Australia for four years, seen a good portion of the United States,
been to Italy, studied abroad in Spain, and traveled to Thailand.
On a side note, to read about some of his travels in Spain visit http://www.travelpod.com/members/youngt.
He went to the University of Maryland, College Park and graduated this
May with a degree in Electrical Engineering. After a
long-distance relationship throughout college, he married Erin (your
heroine) on 07-07-07 of this year. Delaying decisions about work
and graduate school, he's stealing a year out of the rat race to
find/enjoy himself.
Meet your heroine
Erin is not like other people. And we mean this in the nicest
way. She is also a nerd, but of the history kind (don't ask her
about her thesis). Quite adorable when she's in a good mood, she
also has a tendency to be extremely unhappy if she isn't in control of
the situation. We think that this trip will be very good for
her. Erin has been to Russia on a school trip and Japan to visit
a friend. She went to Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota to study history,
graduating in three years. She returned to College Park and got a
job for a year while Travis finished school. She has quite a
large family, all of whom should be faithful readers of this travelogue. Erin is
taking this trip because Travis is persistent, and she thinks it might be fun.
How THE TRIP came to be
The trip has its origins in the summer before freshman year. I
was very interested in hiking the Appalachian trail at this time, and
started to look up online journals of people who had done it.
From here I stumbled upon a few around the world journals. I
spent a lot of time reading about these people and their amazing
adventures. And I knew I wanted to do it as well. Studying
abroad helped to nurture the travelling bug, and plans began to take
shape in my mind. At first it was little more than a dream and a
pleasant way to pass the time. During college it gave me
something to look forward to when the workload piled up. I told
Erin of this dream very early on, and after we had established that she
really didn't want to hike the Appalachian Trail with me, she did agree
to this trip. So when she came to College Park she got a
temporary job to earn enough money to make this trip possible. I
had been saving since I got my first job. It's kind of something
I do. Officially, however, Erin and my family can no longer call
me a miser. A miser hoards his money for the sake of
hoarding. I SAVED my money and will spend it all this year.
So there. Anyways, the dream slowly became reality, and here we
are, ready to go.
~Travis
