Purpose

Hello, Blogging world! Ben and Taryn Phaneuf here. We are newly married - a writer and an adventure guide. There's more about us here, so I won't go into that now. I write from the farthest west Ben has ever visited in the United States. Colorado is the first stop on our summer trip that will include hiking, rock climbing and general sight-seeing in the parts of the U.S. that still feel wild.

Ben put it quite simply this morning: He's the adventure guy, I'm the mellow one. I'm ready to admit that it's true. Luckily I have an over-productive sense of curiosity and a thirst to prove it's all in my head. Ben knows it's all in my head, so he looks me square in the eye and says I can do what he can do. Every day with Ben feels like climbing Everest. It's fulfilling, wrenching, and full of joy. It's talking to strangers and believing I just met the most interesting person God made. Ben shares my curiosity and none of my hesitation.

We decided to keep this blog as a way to keep track of the adventures we take. We can do that with pictures and journal entries, though. I know myself well enough to say I prefer writing with a pen and paper. But we would love for this to be us for the rest of our lives, ya know? Traveling, writing, doing terrifying things, writing, meeting people, and writing. Here's proof that this is what we're about. We're also incredibly close to only a handful of people each, and it'd be a shame to cut them out of our goings-on for no other reason than we've chosen to be nomads.

And so begins our journey of 10,000 miles.