Carey and I met at a bull riding competition. While neither of us would have been there under normal circumstances, we received the same scholarship from the State Fair and the award presentation was at the halftime of Xtreme Bulls. Since our last names both started with “M”, we stood next to each other in line, and after a bit of conversation, we discovered that we were in the same film class. Carey invited me to sit with him, and the rest is history.
A couple of years later, during our junior year of college, we studied abroad together in Italy. Living in a country that places such beautiful value on good food and quality time was a great experience. Cheesy as it is, heading to Tuscany for some good wine and parmesan was one of the best decisions we made in college. Somewhere between freezing our toes off during Carnival in Venice and catching a random train to Slovenia, we made some truly wonderful friends and solidified our love of finding great food.
Italy solidified our love of travel. I have spent 2 summers backpacking around Europe and a summer wandering SE Asia. Carey spent 6 months in Colombia and China after we finished our undergrads. After getting married, we continued to find great places to explore, ranging from Egypt to Hawaii.
If there is one word that best characterizes our relationship from the very beginning, it’s “adventure.” Whether it was going to a bull riding competition or traveling together, we’ve always kept a sense of adventure. One of our favorite films is Up. Like Carl and Ellie, we like to live by the motto “Adventure is out there.” This is why we decided to move forward with a year-long trip around the world.
Now, planning a year-long trip around the world is a crazy combination of fun and stressful. There are interesting elements like researching where to go, finding new restaurants to check out, and planning elements of our trip with friends and family.
Then there are the stressful elements. What are we doing about our cell phone numbers? Where are we storing things? How are we getting as many direct flights as possible? What are we packing? HOW AM I GOING TO GET GOOD MORNING COFFEE?!
We’ve spent the last year planning and solving these issues (pro tip for my fellow coffee lovers – get an Aeropress). While I’m sure many other issues will pop up along the way, I’m incredibly excited about our next adventure.
Most importantly – we could not do this without our wonderful friends and family. We are incredibly lucky to have people in our lives willing to hold on to our things, keep an eye on our mail, help us move – all the things involved in packing up and exploring this crazy place.