Traveling Back in Time

Rewind with us through a long overdue recap of December, January, February, & March

While this blog serves many purposes including a creative outlet for us and an opportunity to share details about our travel lifestyle with family and friends, it has also been an online capsule for Tyler and I to be able to store, relive, and remember all of our memories and thoughts along this journey. I hope to be able to print out all of our blogs one day and include them in a scrapbook (with all of the pictures and mementos I have been saving along the way) dedicated to this season of our life! In order to document as many of our memories as possible we must flip a few chapters back to December 2023.

DECEMBER 2023

On our trip back home to Kansas after finishing my contract in Monterey in December, we took the scenic route home allowing us to drive through Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, and Canyonlands National Parks. We had been to Zion before, but the other parks were new to us. We absolutely loved Canyonlands National Park, which is surprisingly the least visited out of the four. These few extra days of travel were so much fun for us - hiking and exploring nature together really brings both of us so much joy. National Parks have a way of making you feel so small and it’s so grounding. The sights these National Parks boast is just unreal. I will never get over it!

Our 6 weeks at home for the holidays were just what we needed to reset, refresh, and refill our cups. We loved spending time with our families at Christmas and ringing in the New Year with close friends. As always, the holidays were busy but we were so happy to be home with the people we love.

JANUARY 2024

We were able to sneak in a quick trip to Winter Park, Colorado at the beginning of January with Tyler’s parents which is another place that brings us so much happiness. At a cute coffee shop in Winter Park, Tyler and I had our little family meeting and discussed, planned, and set goals for 2024. This meeting was really special for us as we have a lot of big things planned for ourselves this year. 6 weeks flew by and before we knew it, late January was here and we were packing our car in Marysville, getting ready to head back to Monterey for another contract at the facility I had been at prior to our holiday break.

Once we were back on the road, Tyler and I felt a set of feelings that has been frequent to us since May 2022. It is hard to put into words but let me try. The feeling of extreme excitement, freedom, anticipation, and that “I’ve got all that I need right here in this RAV4 that’s packed to the brim” feeling. You know, those feelings they make movies about! While we miss home, we also absolutely love the adventure of traveling and there’s something extra special about being on the open road, with all of our things packed in the car, Lucy in the back, and Tyler driving us halfway across the country. On our trip back to California, we stopped in Moab, visited the Grand Canyon, explored Sedona, Arizona, and finally made it back to Pacific Grove. Our lovely landlord graciously let us stay at her home again for this contract.

FEBRUARY 2024

Shortly after we arrived back in Pacific Grove, there was apparently some *major* golf event happening the first week of February. Tyler’s parents came to visit us and attend said major golf event with Tyler. Although it was stormy throughout most of the weekend, Tyler and his parents were absolute troopers in the rain (could not be me) and enjoyed the event and saw some famous golfers, allegedly. All jokes aside, we enjoyed having a piece of home greet us so soon after being back in Pacific Grove and it was really cool for Tyler and his parents to experience the Pebble Beach Pro-Am at the iconic Pebble Beach Golf Course!

Our next trip was back to Lake Tahoe at the end of February. We first went to Lake Tahoe in the summer of 2023 and fell in love with it. Tyler’s parents were there for work and we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to spend time with them and to see Lake Tahoe in the winter. If you have never been to Lake Tahoe we highly recommend visiting! It is truly so stunning and has so many fun activities to offer during all of the seasons. We had perfectly sunny weather during the trip and especially enjoyed riding the Gondola at Heavenly Ski Resort to take in the views of the lake. We loved being back in Lake Tahoe so much and hope to visit again one day.

MARCH 2024

March has been a busy month as we have been trying to check more items off of our California bucket list. A hobby we have really enjoyed the past few months has been long bike rides with Lucy. We brought our bikes out to California with us this time around and we are so happy we did. Some highlights of this month have included a day trip to explore Big Sur, a bike trip to Pacifica, Half Moon Bay, and Santa Cruz, a walking tour of the Fairytale Cottages in Carmel, a day trip to San Francisco, and a weekend trip to San Diego.

Our favorite trip of the month was going back to San Francisco for the day. We love this city so much and will simply tune out any negativity towards San Fran! But seriously, this city gets so much negative press which is really unfortunate because that has not been our experience any of the times we have visited. SF is full of culture, beauty, and charm. We had the best food, strolled the city streets admiring the Victorian houses, went to Alamo Square, visited the Palace of Fine Arts, made two visits to the Golden Gate Bridge, rode the ferris wheel, hopped on the street cars, and visited Sales Force Park. We left the city already looking forward to the next time we could come back!

We spent the last weekend of March in San Diego for a long weekend away. We had one day of perfect SoCal sunshine and enjoyed hiking at Torrey Pines and Sunset Cliffs. These areas are so beautiful with the seaside cliffs right along the ocean. A highlight of our trip was an amazing ocean front view for dinner at Ocean Beach. The next day was mostly rainy but that did not stop us from exploring Balboa Park, Liberty Market, and ending our trip with a fabulous pasta dinner in Little Italy. While the rain put a small damper on our plans, we were both so grateful for one day of sun. The sunshine in Southern California truly hits different!

As of today, I only have 15 days left of my contract here in Monterey! This contract has seriously flown by. In the spirit of transparency, I am definitely looking forward to a short break after this contract before we start our next one. While I am so grateful for my job, I am also a little burnt out and ready for something new! Two things can be true. I thank God for the opportunity we have had to live in Pacific Grove for 6 months and for the next job He has already worked out perfectly for us! We look forward to our last two full weekends here and plan to soak up every single minute of it :) In true Wandering Wright fashion, we have one last trip squeezed in before we leave Pacific Grove to celebrate something VERY exciting! We can’t wait to share with you all in our next post!

With love,

The Wandering Wrights