Sometimes you get a bug. Home doesn't quite feel right and sometimes you think you need to make a change. When I was younger I would do this, jump at this feeling and move or throw everything away. Travel seems to sooth this impulse for me. When I need something to be different and I convince myself it is a core part of my life, a trip, like this one puts it all into perspective. That is what travel is for, perspective. I am a pretty grateful person, but any part of me that forgets to be grateful is always reminded when I come home from a trip.

I made Dustin drive the whole way, because I am a wuss driver. I balanced my very expensive camera an unsteady branch so we could have at least one photo of us together. The stress of it made us grumpy, so we are fake smiling in the photo. We drove a lot. We went to vancouver, bellingham, lopez island, seattle, portland, la push, forks, and canon beach and did this all in our little car in 7 days. I taught a calligraphy class, I met internet friends and some of them let me stay in their homes and showed be their lovely lives. We had a wrecking ball belt out session, because my husband likes to sing when he drinks energy drinks, which he had to do, because remember I made him drive the whole way. There was fog, and waterfalls, and good food, and wine, and the ocean, and the canadian border, and so much green.

I owe a lot to this specific one. All the beautiful people I met motivated me to do what I knew I needed to do. The day after I got back I walked into my bosses office and with a heavy heart said It was time to make the change. It has been a couple of weeks since I've gone full time and there isn't one morning when I don't wake up just filled with appreciation. My work is what I love now, truly unbelievable. Truly.