By late summer of 2019, I was feeling increasingly discontent with my work, life, and the imbalance between them. I had been working as a blacksmith/fabricator in Illinois, typically putting in 50+ hours per week at the shop, plus another 10+ hours per week working on my own projects (creative development, you could say). Because of this total focus on work, other aspects of my life were neglected. I had little time for other things and felt isolated.

The irony is that I love blacksmithing, but the way I had been doing it for the past few years was leading to a burnout. I felt strongly that I needed a long break. So I did what anyone in his right mind would do – I quit my job and left Illinois in early March of 2020 to go backpacking for 5 months along the Pacific Crest Trail.

But we all know what happened in March 2020, right?

So I sat in my childhood bedroom at my parents’ house in late March 2020, watching the news, watching my plans to go see the world and hit the reset button falling apart. With all the uncertainty, with the various stay-at-home orders being issued, and with the Pacific Crest Trail Association pleading for permit holders to postpone/cancel their hikes to avoid bringing COVID to rural communities along the trail, I stayed at my parents’ house. My permit date of April 23 came and went, and I stayed in Pennsylvania, rather than flying across the country to California.

And there I was: in my late twenties, unemployed, living with my parents, with no plans for the future.

Thankfully, I managed to get some part-time remote graphic design work with a studio in NYC that I had previously worked for. And soon enough I did end up traveling a bit – albeit in a different way than I had originally planned on. I spent six weeks with a friend in Idaho, and while I was there I made time to backpack in Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and the Wind River Range. I was completely blown away by the landscape and wildlife there, and knew I would have to come back someday to explore it again.

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Then in September I moved to New Hampshire to help look after the farm of a family friend for the fall and winter (including taking care of some sheep; I guess now I can add “shepherd” to my ever-diversifying résumé). While living in New Hampshire, I continued to spend my free time backpacking, hiking, and exploring. I summited all 48 of the New Hampshire 4000-foot peaks (and even did 12 of them again in the winter), walked 126 miles of the Appalachian Trail in Maine to Mt Katahdin, picked up winter hiking, and made some new friends while doing it.

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But I still dreamt of backpacking out West, of seeing places I had never seen before. I had spent nearly my entire life somewhere between the Northeast and the Midwest, and, especially after my brief time in Idaho and Wyoming, I knew there was so much more to experience. Unfortunately, the pandemic still presented complications for backpacking the Pacific Crest Trail: frequent hitchhiking is essentially required in order to resupply; and permits this year stipulate that if, at any point during my trip, any state or local government along the trail announces a stay-at-home order, my permit would be invalid. So, over the winter, I instead developed a six-month plan to use my Subaru as a home base and backpack in a new place each week, all while working remotely part-time from my new mobile office.

In early April 2021, I said goodbye to my friends in New England, to the farm, and to the mountains I had come to love, and headed to Pennsylvania to prepare for my trip and spend some time with family. I spent three weeks there, custom-built a sleeping platform and storage compartments in my Subaru, prepared a setup that would allow me to work remotely from my campsites along the way, and readied myself to enact the plan I had been developing for the past few months.

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And on April 23, 2021, I got in my car, and began my 2,101-mile drive out West.

Stats
Dates covered: summer 2019–April 25, 2021
Time since start of trip: 2.5 days
Miles driven since start of trip: 2,101
Miles hiked since start of trip: 0 🙁
Nights slept in Obi the Subaru: 2
States visited: 8 (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah)
Tumbleweeds seen: 4