Tim is an electrical engineer by trade, and a Colorado boy at heart. Born and raised in Estes Park, he took full advantage of having Rocky Mountain National Park in his back yard. Tim loves to be outside and takes every opportunity he can to run, bike, ski, snowboard, hike, fly fish, rock climb, camp, kite board, and play ultimate frisbee and disc golf. While attending the University of Colorado, Tim took a semester abroad in Australia, where he fell in love with surfing. Tim is very happy to call Boulder, Colorado home, but is excited to spend more time in the ocean.

Emily was born in Connecticut and raised in northern California. She is both a science nerd and a passionate outdoor enthusiast. Pursuing her curiosity about life on other planets, Emily obtained a master’s degree in biology and a PhD in geology and is proud to be able to call herself an astrobiologist. Before hitting the road Emily was a postdoc at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory where she helped develop an instrument that will fly to Mars in the 2020 mission. Emily tries to balance her time in the lab and office with rock climbing, hiking, yoga, biking, snowboarding, sailing, and playing ultimate frisbee and disc golf, and she’s learning to both fly fish and surf.

Hobie was born in Oregon to a Catahoula father and a pitbull mother, but usually gets mistaken for a black lab. Emily adopted him when he was only 7 weeks old – a fat, adorable, clumsy little puppy. Two decades later he’s much more trim and agile, but still a puppy at heart. Hobie is smart and attentive and needs lots of exercise. He loves Chimera and would be happy driving around the entire world if he got to be with his mamma, had plenty of places to explore and run, and a soft bed.

Our Plan

We are both strongly infected with the travel bug and have dreamed for a long time of taking off on an epic adventure. Recently we realized that if we’re ever going to make this dream a reality then we have to seize the day and make it happen. We don’t yet have kids or careers that tie us down, there are other complications to taking off for a year, but that’s just how life goes, and if we don’t go now there’s the danger that suddenly twenty years will have slipped by and we will still be waiting for the right moment. There is no better time than right now.

Our plan is to drive south. That’s it. We know that we want to start by heading down the Baja peninsula, taking our time to surf and ease into life on the road. From there we’ll take a ferry into mainland Mexico and keep heading south, roughly along the Pan American Highway. We hope to drive all the way to Tierra Del Fuego, the southernmost tip of Argentina, but if we don’t make it the whole way down then that’s fine too. One of the main purposes of this trip is to get away from the daily stresses of life in the U.S. and have the freedom to go where and when we please. We have a few destinations on a list (and are always open to suggestions!), such as some of the amazing climbing and fly-fishing spots in Patagonia, but for the most part we are purposefully not planning our route. We will be bringing climbing gear and surfboards and let those activities dictate our direction when we’re not sure which way to turn. We’re budgeting and planning for a year on the road, but even that is somewhat flexible. We seek freedom and adventure and will go where the road takes us.