2024 - New Year, New You?
It'll be a New Us, anyway
What’s up, y’all!
It’s been a couple of months since we last spoke. With a new year approaching, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to discuss what the future holds for us, both personally and professionally. So, we purposefully took a step back from this newsletter to gain some perspective on where we’re headed.
2023 was a great year for us. Though we didn’t make it to Costa Rica, we went to a lot of other great places!
gnob quit his job in January, and we headed out on the road. Our trip driving the 1989 4Runner from Oregon to Louisiana and back again ended up lasting for weeks.
This trip was a litmus test to see if we could camp out of the truck indefinitely, because we had an idea that we might enjoy traveling full time for a while. The United States is vast and beautiful, and it was intriguing to consider going to see all of it.
Though we did discover that we had the most epic camping setup ever, we also decided that we weren’t interested in full-time vagrancy. Our favorite part of the whole thing was setting up a camp. We loved spending time outdoors, especially when we could stay for a while and really explore the region. But living out of the 4Runner meant that if we wanted to drive somewhere else, we’d have to pack up our entire camp and take it with us each time.
We got the packing down to a science, of course, and it didn’t take us very long, but we decided in the end, it wasn’t worth it. If our favorite part of the whole thing was simply being outdoors, we could do that in Costa Rica just as easily, and it would be both cheaper and warmer. Plus, we wouldn’t have to pack up our house when we wanted to explore. We dropped our notions of Snale Racing becoming a travel channel and focused on getting to Costa Rica.
And that’s what we did for the rest of 2023. gnob got the Fairlady finished and sold, and he got Danny Bonaduce (the 1985 4Runner project) running, though we’re still gathering the parts to finish off the interior. It’s harder and harder to find parts for a 1985 vehicle these days, if ya didn’t know.
Once that truck is done, our house will go on the market, and then we’re going to hang out in Louisiana while we search for the perfect property to buy in Costa Rica.
I’ve enjoyed sharing our updates every week with you for the last year, and I hope you’ll stick around to see what’s next for this newsletter.
Thanks for reading Snale Trails, and we wish you all the best for 2024!