Faire du Camping!

So I’ve been constantly listening to a new podcast called ‘Coffee Break French which covers a variety of topics in little 20 minute snippets….enough time to learn with your latté, as they say. In any case, to my surprise…it all just seemed way too ironic…the next lesson was about going camping. The EXACT item I was about to do just a day later. Creepy ironic, I thought to myself. So yes, as my time here in America comes to a close, I chose to squeeze in just one more trip to try out the new tent and get a heavy dose of serious down-south American hillbilly culture.  VP, Martha, and I all headed to the Red River Gorge, KY to meet up with climbing buddies, Andrew and Allison, and it was such an amazing, gorgeous (yes, roadsigns do say ‘Red River Gorgeous’, ha) weekend. It was severely hard to pull ourselves away to get back in the car to head home yesterday to go back to our daily grinds. Andrew and Allison, on the other hand, have been living by their own grind for the past few years. We all look at them in wonder and awe as we say, how do they do it? How do they get by? Those two have been driving around the country, living out of their car, camping, working odd jobs, whatever…just to make ends meet so they can live by their own rules, see new places, and most importantly, climb. Sounds a bit romantic in a sense, but unrealistic. But then again, they are proving this can, in fact, be a reality, and the rest doesn’t matter as long as you find what you love to do and do whatever it takes to do it. I feel like my destiny, here, isn’t too far off, as I’m quitting everything in life here in Chicago, and just moving away to figure things out, but unlike those two, I know I’ll at least have the comfort of running water and electricity.