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Check out the trailer on Red Reel Video Meida’s Vimeo site!

Beneath my practical, “Do what your dad says, get a job and work hard to get ahead” exterior, I’ve always felt the urge to take risks, act on impulse and live freely. You could say there is a sort of discrepancy going on, a battle between my mind and body, between practical and unfettered, that has left me fumbling for direction and wondering, “What is my passion?”

My life’s passion…something I thought I would’ve figured out by now. I mean, isn’t that what college was for? Did I miss something? I admire friends who have direction, who know without doubt what they want to do in life.

When Allie invited me to venture out into the world in 23 feet of aluminum and help produce a documentary about pursuing your passion, I felt like she was asking me to finally give up on my soul’s game of hide-and-seek. I was scared. But if I’ve learned anything from those who I admire, those with purpose and fire in their convictions, it’s that we only begin to see our true potential when we take a leap of faith.

On the road I had time for reflection, to become inspired by incredible people, and to see the bigger picture. I realized that I was living with one focus and one focus only… me. The funny thing is that as soon as I let go of the reins and stopped trying to control every event in my life, I finally began to understand myself. I stopped trying to swim upstream and gained a new sense of awareness for the space around me. I learned that when you let things happen, when you open your mind to inspiration and seize opportunities to experience new ways of living life, your passion suddenly becomes living your life.

I still may not have a clear direction, and there are many of us out there who never will, but life is full of endless possibilities and I, for one, am ravenous for it.

–Greer

Life moves quickly when you’re on the road. Once you get the hang of it, it’s as if a great pair of invisible wings has spread behind your back, lifting the heart, easing your stumbles. It’s exciting. You begin to live on “road-time”…

Read more at http://www.elephantjournal.com/2010/08/23-feet-real-life-on-road-time/

I’ve always fancied myself a landlocked sailor of sorts. I spent my inland childhood pining for the waves of Cape Cod I discovered there on family vacations, delighting in the memories of swimming under waves, the smells of the beach, and the grit of sand in my teeth…

Read more at http://www.wendmag.com/iwend/2010/08/05/sea-legs/

We’ve been a pretty lucky bunch over the past month – meeting exceptional people, taking in beautiful scenery and sharing our passions with an audience of people that has far-exceeded our expectations, both in number and in support.

Two amazing online publications, iWend and elephantjournal.com, have given us the chance to share our story on their sites.

Check it out here, on Wend Magazine’s online publication, iWend, and here on elephantjournal.com.

Pulling into San Francisco, it was hard to know whether the anticipation we felt in our bellies was the good, butterfly sort or the bad, knotted-up and twisty variety. On the one hand, the city was exciting and new and beaming with culture and life for us to explore. And on the other – San Fran was Greer’s last stop with 23 feet. She would board a plane and fly back to Colorado. Allie and I would continue up the coast.

We somehow got the okay to post up for a week in the parking lot of the Sports Basement right on the Marina, and woke up every morning to fog and damp and a postcard shot of the Golden Gate Bridge. We explored the city on our bicycles with only minimal harassment from the city drivers for lolly-gagging through the streets. We visited the wharf and Haight Ashbury and ate in restaurants. We wore pants and thick socks and our heaviest fleeces – in the middle of summer.

We also took the chance to plan for our next big move up the coast toward Oregon to search for the surfers that live for the big waves and freezing water. We had a tip about a woman surfer in Newport that we wanted to check out, and also some vague descriptions of a whole plethora of vagabonds in Eugene.

And on our last day, we woke early and drove Greer to the airport, where she boarded a plane back to sunny Durango. And then there were two. To Oregon…

-Lisa

I had this dream the other night about buying a Volkswagen Westfalia. We’ve seen lots of Westys on this trip and I’ve slowly started to long for one of my own – I’m now in the throes of a most unexpected vehicular crush…

Read more at http://www.elephantjournal.com/2010/07/home-is-where-your-sock-drawer-is/

Despite an unexpected stay-over in a hot Oakhurst parking lot, we made it to Yosemite National Park.

Some friends we had met in King’s Canyon had set up camp in Tuolumne Meadows, and were smiling huge when we pulled up. They pointed to a neighboring site and told us that Ron Kauk was staying the summer there and had invited us over to share beers around the campfire that night. I wasn’t sure who Ron was, but I could gather from our party’s excited reaction that he was someone special.

We put on our woollies and sat and watched the sun set behind the rock. When the mountain cold started to settle in to our bones we headed to Ron’s campsite, where a healthy fire was burning and Ron sat alone looking out over his camp. Ron is a living legend of the climbing world, and has been climbing in Yosemite since the 1970s. He’s been involved in putting up routes all around the park and has been featured in multiple climbing movies.

Of course, I didn’t know any of this that night. In fact, Ron is a man of such great humility and generosity that I was shocked when I learned of all his accomplishments. He shared his story with no trace of ego, and listened to ours with deep respect.

We spent the next few days exploring Tuolumne Meadows and spent a blissful afternoon swimming in Tioga Lake. National Parks are perfect for people watching, and I think I paid just as much attention to the tourists as I did to the scenery.

On our last day in the park we spoke with Katie Lambert, an accomplished climber who has been calling Tuolumne Meadows home for five years. Katie is wise -she says she’s learned a lot from the rock. She told us about her writing, her climbing and the fall she’d just had on El Capitan. She’ll have an article in the next issue of Alpinist about how stitches mend more than our bodies.

It’s going to be a big change when we head to San Francisco – we’ve been livin’ in the woods for a while now.

It’s pretty astonishing how quickly things can go from bad to worse and back again when you’re traveling. You really are vulnerable out there on the black pavement, subject to bad weather, mechanical malfunction and that bizarre asphalt-zombie feeling you get behind your eyes…

Read more at http://www.wendmag.com/iwend/2010/07/27/misfortune-and-the-road-or-the-kindness-of-strangers/