Dedication

This Blog is dedicated to Sam Hodgson (Dad) & Bob Young

I feel it is only fitting to dedicate this blog to 2 incredible men who have had such an influence on our lives.

So I will start by just giving a little history of how their passion for travel and adventure influenced us.

Sam was such a big part of our last adventure from helping us with the logistics, to spending many evenings and weekends at the hanger configuring our van - so that getting to our gear was easy and organized in a seasonal fashion.  He encouraged us to travel while we were young, healthy  and physically able to enjoy our bucket list. 

It was very important to Sam that we embark on our 2^nd adventure.   So here we are getting ready to pull out and begin our 2^nd adventure-- after postponing our departure date --2 years following his death. 

So what some of you might not know about Sam is that he kept a daily journal in his beautiful handwriting. He was a man of few words, so his journals are more like little snapshots of his day --like who he visited with that day, how many fish he caught, if he beat my mom at crib, if she cheated and lastly what the weather was doing – his journals are precious keepsakes for me.   I encourage everyone to sit down and handwrite a letter to the ones you love or someone who has influenced your life.  

One of Sam’s last wishes was that I try to write a book as it was always a dream he had for himself to document his life story, so I am going to attempt to work on his memoirs while we are travelling.

I have been kept awake many nights trying to figure out how we can honor him during our travels – wishing we could share with him all the places he didn’t get to see – or hear about from our excited phone calls home, so I have decided a way I could do that is to write him letters and leave them in special places along the way  – documenting how he helped us get there by the life lessons he instilled in us.

Thank you Dad for teaching us to believe in our dreams..….

 

Bob Young

Was a dear friend of ours – He passed away last year at the age of 80.

We spent 2 weeks every Spring with Bob& his lovely wife Joan on the Outer Banks of North Carolina since the late 90’s – Some people are in your life for a short period of time, but leave a huge impact.

The first time we met Bob he was picking our dining tent out of a tree in the dark with a headlamp on in a storm that had winds gusting upwards of 100km an hour in our flooded out camp site – we knew from the moment we met Bob he would become a big part of our life!  What we didn’t know was the rest of us one by one would move into more comfortable living quarters by purchasing small trailers or big cargo vans while Bob and Joan continued to tough out the Hatteras storms in their small tent.

Bob was full of adventure and he told the best stories around the campfire.  He was also an outstanding photographer and was so patient to always get just the right surfing shot of Jerry and Bill-- his surrogate sons.

Bob could seriously still rip it up windsurfing right up until the last Spring we spent with him in 2012 – Bob was such a pleasure to watch on the water and always came in with the biggest smile.   We always knew where to find Joan – sitting on the picnic table watching Bob with her binoculars.       

Bob was the glue that held our Hatteras Gang together so much so that we find it difficult to even think of going there without him – the emptiness of his camp site is too much for any of us to bare.

Thank you Bob for the sunsets, campfires, story sharing, discovering lightening rocks together & nestling in the dunes with us to watch the full moon rise and for all the great memories. 

Until we meet again our friend --we will always watch the sunset for the green flash and think of you.