It has been just over 4 weeks since we departed on our journey from Vancouver, BC and made our way down to Baja, Mexico.  We left the safety of our downtown condo, secure 9-5 jobs, our friends, family, and our fairly normal North American lives.  In a mere 4 weeks, our lives have drastically changed in every possible way – and we’re loving every minute of it.  You may wonder what life on the road has taught us.  Here’s the scoop.

 

DeskToGlory_HOLHC-5

We live in the present.  This is a massive change for us!  We usually plan what we are going to do at most 2 days ahead of time.  Back home Ash had a very organized agenda which would normally always be filled up with meetings, events, plans, etc. at least a month in advance.  Our weekends were completely booked up, and we always lived in the future.  We lived for the weekends, long weekends and holidays.  During our time on the road so far, we have put the past behind us, the future in front of us, and savour every moment of the day.

 

 

DeskToGlory_HOLHC-1

The sunrise and sunset.  When you live out of a vehicle you are exposed to the elements of the natural world – the bad and the good (hence why we slept on a couch in a random building of an RV Park in a wind storm, but that is another story).  Being on the road has made us so much more aware and appreciative of the sunrise and sunset each day.  They also helped regulate our body clocks as we happily left our alarm clocks in a box deep in Ash’s parents’ basement.

 

 

DeskToGlory_HOLHC-2

Our lives are much simpler.  Since all of the stuff we need to survive has to fit in the back of our 1990 Toyota Pickup Truck, we really had to whittle down what we were going to take with us. We have the essentials, nothing more.  We have survived without most of the stuff that was in our condo and have probably forgotten about most of it already.  Our current life priorities are also very simple: find a place to camp, find wifi every so often, find a hot shower, make food, buy food, set up camp, break camp… you get the idea.  We are living with less stuff, but are much happier without it!

 

 

DeskToGlory_HOLHC-4

Strangers are friends we haven’t met yet.  We have been so lucky to have met some amazing and generous people during our journey so far.  Our own adventure has connected us with people that we would not have normally run into.  Being in Mexico for just over a week, we are charmed by the Mexican people.  They always have a friendly smile and/or wave,  and love to chat (despite our broken Spanish) all about the tent, the local food and area, and traveling in general.  While we’re cruising in the Toyota, we can’t help but grin as we get thumbs up signs, peace signs, nods, and big smiles as we drive by.  When we think back to life in Vancouver, we wish we said ‘good morning’ to people we saw on the street, or in the grocery store.  Or given them thumbs up signs.

 

 

DeskToGlory_HOLHC-3

Showers/clean clothes feel like a special treat!  We have learned that if there is a shower, use it.  Use it as many times as you can, because you never know when your next one will be.  Especially hot showers!  As we make our way through Mexico we know the hot showers will soon be a thing of the past.  Ash likes to let the water run just in case the hot appears miraculously (which sometimes it does).  There is a little happy dance that is done, before jumping in and making sure to soap up (and rinse off!) as quickly as possible.  You never know when that glorious hot water is going to end.  Same thing goes for clean laundry.  Burying our faces in our clean laundry and breathing deeply into the fresh scent of laundry soap and hot dryer is something we now relish.

You may think that these life principles only apply to those that are traveling, but the best part is that if you incorporate any one of these into your life (whether you are on the road or not), life might be a little bit brighter.  We’re hoping we will remember these things when we are back at home, but most likely, our lives back home will never be the same because of them.