The Short Story…
A few years back I was working for a builder and I decided that wanted to go into business for myself! I’ve always had a desire to help others and wanted to be my own boss
so becoming a Licensed Home Inspector seemed like a perfect fit!
I get to ese my background and experience to help educate my clients on what might very well be one of the most
impo
rtant financial decisions of their lives!
The Long Story…
I originally grew up in Northern Virginia and I’m pretty sure my mom would confirm that I was a pretty crazy and adventurous child. If there was danger or excitement to be had you can bet I was getting into it. Before the age of ten I’d racked up a respectable number of stitches, much to my mom’s dismay (there’s a point here that we’ll come back to, I promise).
Fast forward a couple years and I graduated college from WVU with a degree in Advertising but not much of an interest in moving to a big city. Instead I decided I would do some adventuring before “settling down” and getting a “big boy job”. I spent my first winter after college bartending and saving up because I’d hoped to thru hike all 2,178.3 (that .3 makes a huge difference) miles of the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine.
I started the AT in spring of 2009 as an out of shape recent college grad and finished on the top of Mt. Katahdin in Maine 155 days (88 were rainy) later as a lean mean hiking machine with calves of steel! (picture below)
I hadn’t “found myself” on the AT but I had found a love for long distance hiking and I spent another winter bartending and set out next spring to Thru-Hike the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada for a whopping 2,663 miles. I finished that 138 days later at the Canada Border (picture below) borderline hypothermic and still even skinnier than when I’d finished the AT a year ago.
While out on the PCT I’d heard about this other really hard trail that only the toughest of hikers try out called the Continental Divide Trail and that only a couple hundred people in the world have done all three. I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to move on until I’d finished all 3,000ish miles of it’s rugged terrain down the middle of the United States so I spent another winter bartending before setting out, this time from Canada to walk south all the way to Mexico. One hundred and twenty eight days later I’d managed to complete the CDT and become one of the few “Triple Crowners” to have finished all three trails.
After 450+ days of backpacking and over 10,000 miles walked I couldn’t imagine settling down into an office yet so I jumped at an opportunity to volunteer with a non-profit based out of Cabo San Lucas after I got back from hiking.
During all of my travels so many people had done so many kind and amazing things for me, taken me in, cooked me dinner, let me stay at their house or given me a ride even though I was a dirty, smelly thru hiker that I really felt a need to give back. I still to this day feel a need to give back and it’s what drives me to do what I do on a daily basis. At the time we called the people showing us random acts of kindness “Trail Angels” and their deeds “Trail Magic”. It really restored my faith in humanity and in a couple situations when I was really rough off on the trail probably saved my life.
To Be Continued…
