"That sounds so awesome." "I am jealous" "I want to go along" "How are you going get across the ocean?"
I hear statements like this almost everyday now. Don’t get me wrong, I am truly excited about leaving and the adventures that lie ahead of us. It still never lets up.
For every time that I think I am getting ahead of preparations, I find another item that is a neccesity. For every time that I think we have everything in line with our sponsors, I get another call or an email with another hurdle. For everytime that I go to sleep in peace, I wake up in the middle of the night to a crazy dream.
Today I spent a couple of hours researching waterproof cases for all of our video equipment. You would be suprised at all of the choices. From one company alone I found 5 manufacturers and about 350 different products to choose from. Trips back and forth with a tape measure between the internet and the equipment fulfulled an afternoon of confusion. Foam or no foam, dividers or no dividers, stainless steal bearings, double release buckles, injected polyprople foam, pressure regulation valves, o-rings and waffle foam-the list goes on and on. I don’t know what most of this is, all I really care about is whether or not my equipment will be kept dry and in working order. This whole 2-year expedition thing is not just a little complicated.
Many times lately I look at people with much more simple jobs and can’t help but envy them a little bit. Today I was at a restaurant imagining that I was busing tables instead of discussing expedition matters with Bouey. Sometimes it would be nice if the end of my week was truly the end of my week and all I had to worry about was where to go for happy hour with my friends.
Over the course of the last year and a half I have worked up some debt, spent many sleepless nights and pulled out many hairs trying to make all of this happen. Even though sometimes it is hard to see the worth of all these efforts, I know that I will be encompassed by a feeling that has become all too foreign. After a year of planning and working 12-15 hour days, a cold SPEIGHTS will be like a drink from the holy grail. The level of satisfaction the moment the door closes and we are off to New Zealand will make all of the long nights and dissapointments become a distant memory. At that point I will agree with people when they try to tell me this is going to be the time of my life.
Until then the usual statements out of my mouth will be…
"Oh gooooodddd." "What the hell?" "Seriously, that can’t be the way it works in that country!" "How are we going to afford that?"
And the number one: "Why won’t they just respond to my email?"
