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2011 recap

1/5/2012

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Happy Holidays!

While our Christmas updates for the last couple of years have read like a Rick Steve’s travel guide, 2011 is a little bit more about how we came stumbling to a halt that has us a little more stationary than we’ve been for a while.

We were planning on touring the East Coast to continue our trip and add some much needed dots to the east side of our map. However, our online Etsy store was doing so well we decided to stop off in Kansas City to regroup the store and set it up to be a little more travel friendly. Well, one thing led to another and we got a little ‘stuck’ because orders were coming in faster than we felt comfortable trying to fill while traveling. Ryan got transferred to the Wholefoods in Overland Park and Lane got a job managing a thrift store in town.

The 4th of July in Kansas City...

Too many episodes of American Pickers and Auction Hunters fueled by too many days as a thrift store manager found Lane exploring a new hobby…giving new life to old things. We opened an online store where we now sell repurposed or reclaimed vintage clothing and housewares. Curious? You can check that out here

www.klickatat.etsy.com

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We fell in love with Etsy, an online market place much like Ebay except that everything on it must either be vintage or handmade.  Before long we had opened our second Etsy store, selling the feather earrings and headbands we had been making for friends and family. People seemed to love them and it was fun to see that others would actually pay for something we had created. 
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Then one day the feather hair extension craze hit.  We looked at each other and realized we had boxes of those feathers sitting in the basement. We added loose hair feathers to the Etsy site and woke up to 10 orders the next day. Thus began what we now refer to as ‘The Great Feather Rush of 2011’ where at times we were filling 20-30 orders a day. We ate, slept, and breathed feathers…literally 10+ hours a day we were filling orders online, running supplies to our salon customers and on the weekends manning our booth at the farmers’ market. We even landed a couple of national chain stores as customers and it was all we could do to keep up. 

Then just as quickly as it began it seemed to end…so goes a fad I guess. We looked up from our feathered haze and realized winter was going to be on her way to Kansas again soon so we started thinking about the road again. On somewhat of a whim one day we were looking at vacation rentals on Craig’s List and ended up buying a six week vacation rental in Key West, Florida. We packed up the van and set out for the South. 

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After just six weeks in our vacation rental we realized that we were not ready to leave paradise so we signed a year lease on a little conch cottage in Old Town Key West.  


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Please know that we are still very involved in Couch Surfing (www.couchsurfing.org) and would love to repay the favor to those that hosted us if you ever feel like a trip to Key West. We get 10-20 couch requests a week since we live in such a traveled to location now, but we are hosting as much as possible because we want to pay forward the kindness you showed us. 

our home in Key West...

So now we’ve decided that our next venture should be as homeowners and possibly landlords so we’ve been house hunting in Key West. This can be a challenge on a 2x4 mile island and the right one hasn’t come along yet, but we are enjoying the search and we are in no hurry (note to self : do not send a copy of this letter to real-estate agent) as we really love our rental. 

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In Key West we continue to run both of our online stores and sell at some local markets as well. We have a booth at the Mallory Square Sunset Festival…which is basically a street fair where everyone in Key West gets together to watch the sun go down and cheer when it hits the horizon. Ryan ‘McGuivered’ up a little bicycle cart that he rides down to the pier where we set up shop. Our customers are cruise passengers and snow birds, but the other vendors are our unique community of friends.  

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In what has become par for the course, we find ourselves with hobbies and projects that seem to pay the rent more than any serious career path, but for now that’s how we like it. Not being committed to career suites our lifestyle because if we decide to take off for a month and travel we can. And really, how many jobs involve riding your bike to work, eating dinner at one of the little diners along the water, and then setting up shop to watch the sunset?  Every day is a new adventure and we’ve never been happier. I can only hope that’s a small reassurance to our parents who are probably wondering why they paid for all those college classes. 


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I guess our story sort of ends when we took Boomer on what we didn’t realize would be her last run in November. We headed back up North for the holidays to spend some time with family.


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We started having some minor problems and took her to a mechanic in Atlanta. In a hurry to get back for Thanksgiving we didnt have time to wait and rented a Uhaul and towed her back to Kansas where we could store her until we figured out what to do.  


So….It looks like our time on the road is at an end, at least for now.  I imagine one day in the not too distant future the road will call to us again, until then we are pausing to experience life in Key West for a while. 

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We hope that this update finds you enjoying life wherever you are.  If that happens to be some place cold perhaps you’ll plan a trip to come and see us in Paradise. 


Our doors are always open to you !
(literally…it’s that nice…we never have to close them)


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Battle for the Conch Republic

12/1/2011

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So apparently every year Key West gets together to celebrate the Conch Republic’s Independence from the United States. Locals gather on their boats and airplanes to battle the coast guard in a reenactment of our succession in 1982.  They spray each other with giant fire hoses,  shoot cannons of stale bread and drop toilet paper from the skies.  This year we just watched…


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toilet paper is 'bombed' from 

the skies by local pilots...

the aftermath...

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Cheapoair

12/1/2010

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December has arrived. Christmas cards will be going out soon. Lane and I are working saving up money and planning for the next leg of the adventure. Till then, we were asked to drop a blog on cheapoair, check it out.. Blog Post

Cheap Tickets
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Yellowstone

9/8/2010

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Our Bus almost lost its breaks coming down the 10% grade leading into the Grand Teton National Park, were we stayed for about a week, meeting up with some good friends that drove out from LA. We drove into Yellowstone and did the loop a full day.

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Van BC and the great boarder crossing

8/30/2010

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Crossing the Border... I am not entirely sure what we were thinking,
something along the lines of, "lets pop up into Canada for a week" we
spent a total of six hours in the border patrol lines and offices, two
on the way up and four coming back. The short of it; pepper spray,
readily available at counters in the US, is baned in Canada, and
crossing the border with feathers concerns the American Department of
Fish and Wildlife. In Vancouver we walked down, and up, the 542 wooden
steps leading to Wreck Beach, and spent an awesome night watching
Point Break in a park, gorilla drive-in style.

Then there was the exchange of USD$ to CAD$ Spent the last half hour
arguing with the manager of a Washington BofA about the exchange rate
of Canadian Dollars to U.S. There no exchange fee for customers, I was
told. Here is a recap...we exchanged $598.44 US for $580.00 CAD at
1.0236800$ per CAD a week later back in the states We exchanged
$390.00CAD for $357.59UUS at 0.916900$ per CAD when I said that's
quite a fee, they replied "there is no fee, that is the rate."
Argument ensued. They kept saying that that is just the exchange rate
and that they don't charge a fee. I stated if there is no fee the rate
should be the same, they said it changes every day. I said I
understand that the dollar to CAD changes based on the international
currency exchange rate. But if you advertise no fee, then the currency
should be exchanged at whatever the exchange rate is, the bank manager
said again, "that is what we do." she then pulled up the BofA exchange
computer screen and showed me, the rates had changed since my first
exchange. The US$ to CAD$ was now at 1.0257900$ she seemed happy that
the computer had proven her point, so I made mine. "So if I was to
exchange $600 right now?" I asked, as if I didn't understand. She
punched in the numbers and hit enter, "you would get $584.92" OK then
if I exchanged that back to US at your exchange rate, see typed that
in, a little annoyed but thinking it would solve the issue, and hit
enter, "you would get, $536.31" she paused a little confused. I smiled
and said, "the missing $63.69? not a fee, the international exchange
rate must have changed by 10c/ a dollar in the last 5 seconds?" the
rest of the conversation was about computers and ignorance, and
although I didn't get my fee back, I felt as though I had won.

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Heading up the 101...

8/28/2010

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101 up the coast of Oregon to Washington. We wound our way up to Crater Lake... formed by a collapsing volcano up in the mountains of Oregon, it is the deepest lake in the United States. It was simply stunning. The drive up the coast was beautiful, we drove through Astoria (where Goonies was filmed) and Port Angeles (that's vampire country for those into Twilight.)  

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DevourEugene.com

8/28/2010

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We met some really cool folks who've come up with a creative way to use their VW buses to serve delicious sandwiches and soups to the folks in Eugene, OR.  Check out their site (and their menu) here... http://www.devoureugene.com

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The Meadow House

7/20/2010

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We were able to spend three very relaxing days at the Meadow House located just outside of Ashland on the California/Oregon border. The house sits alone in a valley where meadows flow and disappear into hills covered in trees. The flags of a Buddhist temple are the only break in a wall of green lining the hills around the house. Deer, elk elk and a few snakes kept us company.
 
See more pictures of the meadowhouse and Ashland here.
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Good Beer and Noble Coffee

7/16/2010

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In Ashland, OR we met some fun beer enthusiasts and brewers, Larry and Ginger.  I was able to tour the Standing Stone Brewery with Larry (who is a brewer there) and sample their drafts. Lane was invited to an event, "Women Enjoying Beer" that Ginger led and got to know some good beer and parring techniques.  -Ryan

Larry and Ginger also introduced us to their friend, Caleb, who is one of the owners of  Noble Coffee Roasting in Ashland. He gave us a 'cupping' tour of all of the coffees they roast while helping us to understand all of the little varieties and subtleties that can come out of different bean origins and roasting techniques. We also had some very valuable lessons about how to buy 'fair trade' coffee in a way that is acutally fair to the farmer...all very valuable lessons for our future buisness. 
The staff is extremely knowledgeable and friendly at Noble, if your ever in the area check them out. -Lane

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Out on the Farm

7/10/2010

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We were able to spend three days in the beautiful Eureka/Humboldt area. Our home was a goat barn at the family farm of David and Sylvia, a retired police chief and legal aid who raise and sell goats. Eisley tested her abilities as a goat herder, and Ryan helped out with feeding time. In the evenings we would all enjoy a huge home cooked meal and great conversation...we never left the table in under 2 hours.  We also explored Eureka and Acadia, disk golfing in the park and coffee shop hoping around the historic downtown areas.          -Lane

See more pictures of our goat herding days here.
 
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