"Travel" Chapters (3/4)

Chapter 9 of Nomad Life

We called a studio apartment in Frankfurt home for our first eight days abroad. It was a corner unit on the fifth floor of a ten-story building and looked out over the winding Main River in one direction and toward downtown Frankfurt’s skyscrapers in the other. Half-a-dozen stone bridges crossed the waterway, which I'm sure is small by global standards, but is larger than any river back in Colorado.

Chapter 8 of Nomad Life

We arrived in Washington, DC on a Monday afternoon and were excited to see our home for the final month we’d spend in the US before departing for Europe. Shelby parked the car outside of our building as sunlight poured in through the windshield, heating the black leather and plastic interior. When I opened the door, the air was sticky with humidity and the skin of my upper lip and armpits started perspiring. The forecast called for a high in the upper nineties, but it felt hotter.

Chapter 7 of Nomad Life

I’m not from a big city, or even a city at all for that matter. I’m from the whitest of white suburbia. I grew up about 10 miles outside of Boulder, Colorado, and to me, “the city” has always been Boulder, a college town with a population of ~105,000 full-time residents.

Chapter 6 of Nomad Life

Lightning struck near our house, the storm’s roar shaking the warped hardwood floorboards beneath my feet. Birds and bees that were busy moments earlier disappeared. For a few heartbeats, the air was still. Then raindrops fell from the sky—slowly at first, but with increasing density as the clouds darkened...

Chapter 5 of Nomad Life

I slipped my feet into my running shoes and tied them with a double knot. Skutull knew what that meant—either he was going to be left home to guard the house or he was about to do something fun. He looked up at me with pitiful eyes and a wagging tail, hoping he could will the latter into fruition. To his relief, I opened the front door and signaled him out into the Oregon forest where we were greeted by a cloud of fir spores blowing from the trees. The scents of pine and melon danced up my nose...

Chapter 4 of Nomad Life

We were cruising down the most northern stretch of California 101 before entering Oregon. Our day began encumbered by light fog and rain, but it burnt off by lunch time, giving us clear views of the shores below. The cliffs alongside us dropped into the ocean and rocky crags jutted from the sea in the distance...