An Update from Erin

Hello everyone, it’s me Erin, Dave’s girlfriend and co-founder of Traveling the Americas Adventure!  I think Dave has done such a wonderful job on the blog so far.  What a Mench.  Among other things I have been learning Yiddish from Evelyn and Hirsh, who are featured in the bocce video. My month on the East Coast has been very rich.  Every member of Dave’s family is so warm, unique, passionate, smart, generous and accepting.  I learned about the importance of rationalism from Dave’s dad, got in running shape with Dave’s mom, meditated with Dave’s other mom, got to be a farm girl and CHILL with Dave’s other mom, and ate amazing meals ALL THE TIME with all of his parents.  It was a blast meeting his extended family in NYC and having all his family on his mother’s side admire their family ring that Dave gave me.  Him and his family share many of my interests, so I got to really soak in the amazing green spaces of Philly.  We also got to go to a farm that Linda and Amy have a CSA at.  The mural arts tour by bicycle was totally inspiring.  Between the delicious and healthy meals were lots of walks, tours of gardens, and outdoor adventures.  I am very thankful for this month. 

Another highlight of the trip was seeing my friends, Pat, and her family as well as my college buddy, Elizabeth and her family.  What amazing people.  Pat’s compassion, love, candor, wisdom, spunk, and openness were delightful to be around.  Elizabeth is such a wonderful role model for me of a patient mother and loving wife.  Her baby girls are adorable.  Maya, her 2 year old is a new friend of mine.   

A couple of days ago I took a solo mission to a Zendo, a Zen Monastery, in Northern Pennsylvania.  I got to be really quiet and slow things down about 100 notches.  My mind was like a racehorse when I arrived!  The trees were glorious colors and the garden was producing Hercules carrots and beets (huge).  I spent the weekend with a priest and a Japanese student who were role models of dedication to practice.  Some gifts I came back with are a renewed awareness of impermanence, a more grounded practice of sitting, peace, and the understanding that there is a little bit of George Bush in everyone.  Also, I was told to always ask the question, “Why am I here?”  Not really to find an answer, but to live in the question. 

So now I am on the airplane, with my sweet patient love filling out the customs form to enter Mexico, writing to you and am so grateful for my life.

Helping to Fight Crime

While waiting in line on Halloween, I posed with two guards at Eastern State Penetentory’s Haunted House: Terror Behind the Walls.

Finishing Work and Hiking the Lost Coast

The last day of work at Lucasfilm Animation was probably my favorite day there, and not just because it was my last day of working for 10 months…well, partly at least. The day felt like one giant string of great connections to the people there. I had a wonderful series of goodbye breakfast, goodbye coffee, a group goodbye lunch, and all the way to a Friday party for the company where we then went to have goodbye drinks and darts followed by dinner. I had hardly socialized with anyone at work before this day and I found myself severely missing them all by the end of the night. The true highlight of the day was getting home late and giving Erin my family ring, the lover’s knot. This ring has been in the Stern family for 4 generations and is a symbol of our commitment to each other. The next day Erin and I drove down to Santa Cruz for an over night camping and wedding celebration for my friends Stacey and Crow. We then proceeded back to San Francisco where I met up with one of my closest friends in all the world, Andrew. We borrowed my house mates car and drove up the 101 for five or so hours until we turned off to hike a portion of the Lost Coast, a famous 20 mile stretch of beach for hikers. We arrived late in the afternoon and after gathering our gear I promptly lost my camera to the beach, followed by high tide. Fortunately Erin has the same camera as me, but I lost all of my glorious pictures from an amazing back packing trip in the Sierra’s. Just picture me in the mountains fly fishing in glacial lakes. Anyways, Andrew and I set forth a few more miles and found a lovely spot on the beach along the bluffs to camp for the night. That evening the clouds came in and the rest of our trip was mysteriously foggy. I awoke to the sound of the waves crashing and dragging the pebbles back and forth. This is one of my most favorite sounds in the world. Thinking the tiny park map we had was good enough to hike with, Andrew and I set out to find a good hike for the day. When we arrived at a creek and canyon that we thought was the trail we were looking for we attempted to follow it. Some how we found ourselves bushwhacking through dense forest along a rushing creek and then along an incredibly steep canyon wall with loose dirt, rocks and tons of poison oak. When all we could see was up for hundreds of feet into the dense fog we decided to turn back. We headed up the beach another mile or so and found the real trail, a 3000 foot accent that felt unforgiving but afforded incredible views over the clouds and showing some beautiful Northern California mountain peeks. The temperature went from 50 degrees to 90 degrees by the time we arrived to the top. My most vivid memory of the day was after running out of water and having eaten summer sausage (with the worst dry mouth of my life with a horrible after taste) we arrived back at the creek fiercely sucking on our water filter, not even giving our water bottles time to refill. Andrew was a great companion for this trip and it was a joyous occasion to be in the wilderness with him for three days.

Grrr

Welcome to our travel blog!

Hello.  Finally…we’re making good on our promise to keep you updated with a blog of our travels.  We have been traveling for close to a month and we have many adventures and hundreds of pictures to show you.  Make sure you sign up for the newsletter if you want an email digest of our posts.  We promise to entertain you.

Love,
Dave and Erin