Jesses Life in A Nutshell

Me

This is the way this page read when I last edited it 4 years ago. Enjoy the historical laugh. -Jesse , June 2010

Thanks for coming by! It has gotten to the point in which not everyone knows the story up to now. I put this page together to allow people to catch up with what’s going on. Just click on the links on this page to visit the relavant blog entries.

On July 1, 2005, I left my high-paying software engineering job and sold my house in San Diego, California. I sold or gave away almost all my stuff. The intention was that I’d take some time off and recover from the rigors of working for an engineering start-up. Travel the world, see a few things. Figure out what I wanted to do next and where I wanted to live. Did I want to go back into engineering or become a park ranger? Did I want to live in a city and frequent trendy restaurants or move to a cabin in the woods and grow myself a ZZ-Top kinda beard? That kinda thing.

I’ve always enjoyed the great outdoors, and have wanted to visit all 50+ US National Parks. I started shopping for an RV, and came up with the idea of building my own specially built to support longer term stays in more remote areas of the world. Kinda an expedition vehicle instead of a recreational vehicle. I began to seach for places to visit, and my dream of visiting the national parks became that much closer to reality. When I saw the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I decided that I just had to visit New Zealand and backpack and fish that amazing country as well. Now my travel plans included an international element! Sweet.

Unfortunately, I got myself a case of rheumatic fever while visiting Oktoberfest in Germany and it really put a damper on my plans. There was no possible way I could develop an expedition vehicle from scratch after finishing my long recovery. As a sort of end run, I ended up buying a camper from a company called Outfitter Manufacturing and spent a few months parked in front of my mom’s house modifying it.

Finally, on Christmas Eve, 2005, I started on the road. Since then, I’ve traveled to New England, Canada, Florida, Alaska and south to the Pacific Northwest. All this just traveling was just a warm-up, however.

On July 22nd, I started on a 120 day RV adventure to South America – all the way to Ushuia, Argentina (the southernmost city in the world). Drove through Mexico and Central America, shipped the truck to northern Chile. I drove all the way down the length of Chile, crossed the Andes into Argentina and then through Patagonia. Four months to the day that I left Alaska, I was at the “fin del mundo”, the end of the earth!

I Made It!

And now, time to head back to the states and find a quick job to make some money as there is more traveling to do. New Zealand is still on the list. And who knows, I may end up driving around the world!

It’s been a great trip so far. I’ve met all kinds of people, taken a buncha photos, worked all kinds of odd jobs, and learned a lot about myself. And even though I’ve spent 12 months on the road, I’ve decided that this is trip is only giving me the flavor of a particular area. If I stayed in a place long enough to completely explore it, I’d have never made it out of the southwest. On the one hand, it’s exciting to see something new all the time. On the other, it’s frustrating that I only get to see the barest glimpse of an area.

If you want, just put your e-mail address in the box off to the left under the word “Subscribe,” and you’ll get an e-mail whenever I update my site. I promisethat I won’t sell your address unless I REALLY need the cash! So, hop in the back of my camper (it’s not *too*crowded back there, yet) and come along on what should be a great adventure!

Some of my favorite stories so far:

Other things to do on this site: