In Kirk's world, As a kid traveling wasn’t a thing for my family; Dad was too busy working at the post office and saving vacation for wheat harvest. We had weekend trips to visit family in Texas, with an occasional trip to Six Flags, before our first real vacation in the summer of 1977: Mom, Dad, and I took a 10-day driving trip to New Mexico, Arizona, Las Vegas, and Colorado.

Then, in college, instead of taking spring break ski or beach trips like my friends, I headed to Seymour to work and make money (I managed to sneak in two beach trips to Port Aransas after the spring semester).

After graduating college, however, the travel bug bit and my adventures began: Panama City Beach, FL; New England; Tennessee and North Carolina; the Florida Keys; Hawaii; San Francisco/Yosemite; Savannah; Cozumel; New York; and Montana. I was hooked, and began to dream bigger and work harder so that I could see more of the world.

In Ron’s world, this all began with an ending.

The moment I clicked “delete” on my Facebook and Instagram accounts, I felt that familiar bubble of regret rise up……In an instant, the scrapbook of our digital life—family, friends, memories frozen in pixels—was gone.

What hit hardest, though, was losing my mom all over again.

She and I didn’t have nearly enough time to build a memory palace, but the rooms we did decorate together? They were warm, whimsical, and deeply comforting to my occasionally over-caffeinated, always-chaotic spirit.

Mom had a thirst for adventure and an uncanny way of noticing the world around her—curiosity was her love language. That same spark inspired much of my own wanderlust. In her final years, she and Bill talked about taking a trip to Niagara Falls. When I brought it up, Bill would sigh and say he wanted to take her, but he knew the stress and pain would’ve been too much for her by then.

Still, she dreamed. And she taught me to do the same.

Her strength during her illness—the kind of strength that doesn’t roar, but stubbornly whispers “not yet”—has stayed with me. It reminds me daily to live life boldly and chase what makes my heart beat a little faster.

Kirk and I had already dipped our toes into travel before we said our last goodbye to her. But afterward, we jumped in feet first. Somewhere between grief and gratitude, we realized that now is the time to see the places we’ve always talked about.

To be clear, Kirk and I don’t share the same passions in, well… a lot of things. But one thing we’ve always agreed on? Travel is magic. It’s the one shared language we both speak fluently (even if we argue over the dialect).

And so—this little corner of the internet was born. A place to share our travel tales: the grand, the goofy, the glorious, and yes, the gloriously stupid. Go ahead, take a wild guess who’s usually responsible for that last one…..

So now that the dust’s been blown off the keyboard, let’s get this journey started.