I haven't written a post in a while, but that's because we're back home in Chicago for a break before heading off to Africa, and life here has been pretty normal. 

The regular American grind used to be our daily reality: waking up to the sound of the alarm, getting the coffee machine brewing before our eyes were properly opened, running from an air-conditioned building to an air-conditioned car, then coming home to turn on Wheel of Fortune or some other brain mush show until falling asleep. It's not a terrible existence, in fact, there's something very comforting and lovely about it. It's predictable, controlled, and best of all, here in Chicago, our friends and family are always close by, and weekends are spent visiting one another with good food and laughter.

But after 20 months of riding throughout North and South America on the back of a motorcycle, I got used to the unexpected. I got used to eating whatever we could find at roadside markets, to always be drenched in sweat under my motorcycle jacket, and to be constantly fighting off stomach bugs and rubbing out aching bones.

And though that really sounds awful, I can tell you, it's worth it. When I wake up in the morning to the sound of exotic birds and a distant waterfall, I think to myself, “Where am I? Oh yeah. I'm living out my dreams." And I wouldn't trade it for the world. It's that feeling you get when you open your eyes and wonder what that day will bring, not knowing where you'll go, what you'll see, and who you'll meet. There's nothing like it.

It's a great life, but by the time we got to Buenos Aires, we were ready for a break from the road, and to see our friends and family. But most importantly, the bike was ready for a break too, as it needed some new gaskets, coolant, an oil change, new brakes, tires, wheel bearings... yeah, it was time.

So we took the advice of fellow travelers, and used Dakar Motos to fly our bike back to Chicago from Argentina. It cost us nearly $1800, but having the bike arrive the day after we did was phenomenal. Javier and Sandra helped us out with all the customs paperwork, and told us what we could keep on the bike (our panniers, helmets, boots, empty gas canisters, some camping gear, we even got to keep our sheep skin!). Then with the windshield off and mirrors in, they shrink-wrapped it all up on a palette and sent it away.

When we arrived back home, everything seemed to slip right into place as if we'd never left. Since we have no official residence anymore, we've been staying with family for the past few months, which has been wonderful. But I must admit that I had a tiny bit of culture shock coming back to the States. It wasn't a lot of culture shock, since Chile and Argentina are both very “Western" and modernized (and expensive), not too different from what we're used to. But I found myself ordering food at restaurants in Spanish by accident, or saying, “Disculpe," whenever I bumped into someone.

But the perfect remedy for feeling like an out-of-place nomadic cave woman was going to the Overland Expo West in Flagstaff, Arizona, where we met tons of like-minded travelers and aspiring overlanders. Unfortunately, the bike was still under the knife, so we had to take a car there. But as it started to snow out there, I was secretly thankful to have a vehicle with... can you believe it, windows!

We spent 3 days camping at the Expo, gave our first major presentation in the States, and were part of two round-table events. We met up with old friends (Greg and Jess, who saved us in Guatemala from a bad situation, and now have an awesome charitable dog-collar company, Ruff on the Road), and I even got introduced to some of my adventure motorcycle idols, Ted Simon, Sam Manicom, and Simon and Lisa Thomas.

Having once been absolutely terrified of public speaking, we've given three presentations this summer (about to be four) at a local library, a motorcycle dealership, etc. and I think we're over our fear now. As Tim once said to me the night before we were to present at the Expo, “Who knows? Maybe I'll die in my sleep and won't have to present." Talk about morbid. So we've come a long way, and I foresee us giving lots more presentations as we traverse the globe.

But somehow I'd thought that at least after the Expo, we could rest, sit around and drink tea, and get to watch a bunch of Netflix. But then we decided to get married, and relaxing went out the window.

We planned the event to be in a friend's backyard, and we wanted it to be low-key, intimate, and stress-free. Well, we got the first two. But unless you elope to Las Vegas or a courthouse, I think there always has to be a little stress involved in planning a wedding.

​I bought my dress tailored to my measurements from Amazon, (yes, that's a real thing - take that, hemp milk! I'm still with the modern times!). But of course, something went wrong with the online order, so that was a stress (once things were fixed, the dress turned out perfect, by the way).

And the best part is that I'm married to the man of my dreams. I know everybody says that, but I'm serious. It had always been my dream to be whisked away on the back of a motorcycle and brought to see every beautiful corner of this world. Well, of course it didn't include helmet hair and sweaty boots and riding through hailstorms, but it's still a dream come true. And I couldn't have picked a funnier, smarter, and more loving man to do it with. And most of all, he has a good heart.

Now that the wedding's over, we can set our sights on Africa. We plan on going to South Africa, stopping in Namibia, then riding along the eastern side of the continent up to Egypt. But there's a lot of paperwork (Carnet de Passage), bike repairs, and other preparations that need to get done before we can buy any tickets.

But maybe our next post will be from across the sea! So stay tuned...

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Two years on the road are now in the books (and soon to be in physical books). From Chicago to Ushuaia, and back up to Iguazu Falls, the questions are now: what worked and what did not?

As I write this sitting on my dorm bunkbed in Buenos Aires, I'm coming to the gut-stabbing realization that this is the end. Well, at least it's the end of South America for us.

Because in a few days we fly ourselves and our bike back home to Chicago for a few months' rest before we then head on to Africa. But as I reflect on all that we've seen and done not just in the past two years of travel, but also in the past two weeks here in Argentina, I know that at least we ended our Great Americas Journey with a bang. Or a splash I guess I should say.

Traveling is not always easy. It's not like the eternal vacation we all had in our minds when planning things out, and sometimes it can beat us down.

After having a slew of bike issues in the flat and windy far reaches of Patagonia, we were just about ready to give up and go home. Tim and I weren't exactly enjoying ourselves anymore, because if you could see our faces from inside our helmets as we strained against the relentless wind, you would've noticed that we were grimacing and probably swearing with every bad word we could think of.

Intense winds are awful, but our motorcycle falling apart brought us to a whole new level of frustration. The worst was the day after I wrote my last blog, March 3rd. We'd just spent $1,000 on bike repairs, got new tires, a new chain, an oil change, and we were thrilled to be back on the road again... until we got to Puerto Natales, Chile, and noticed oil dripping out of every spot on the engine that it could find. It was a disaster, and we felt defeated.

We've made it to the end of the world: the most southern point that you can get to by road on the planet, which is quite an accomplishment, but it has not been without its obstacles. We've had one bike problem after the next, so much so that we are now stuck in Punta Arenas, Chile until we can get the proper parts flown in to this section of the world.

More than a month ago in northern Chile, the engine started overheating on crisp and cold days. So we took it in to the KTM workshop in Santiago where they fixed the water pump, changed out the coolant, and we figured our bike issues were behind us.

Riding along Chile's Austral Highway wasn't just my dream, it's been a dream of the Chilean people to connect the remote villages of western Patagonia since the 1950's. Completed in 2003, the highway is now called Route 7, or the Carretera Austral (meaning the southern highway), and it passes through mountains of snow, lakes of fresh glacial water, and it goes from temperate rainforests to desert bluffs in 770 miles (1,240 km) of weaving and winding paved bliss.

​Of course, we had to go.

We were in northern Argentina, spending our days poolside in the shade of peach trees and vineyards, when we realized that it had to come to an end. Because if we were ever going to get to Patagonia's glaciers before the roads became impassable with snow, we would need to exchange this warm-weather grape-eating lifestyle for one of down jackets and wooly hats. And it had to be soon, before we'd miss our window of opportunity to get to the Antarctic regions of South America while it's still summer there.

After four months of roughing it in Peru and Bolivia, Tim and I arrived at the Chilean customs office dirty, tired, beaten down by the cold wind, and on our last drop of gas and food. But once crossing into Chile, we coasted down 6,000 feet in elevation on perfect pavement (no need for gas!), and we could feel the sun warming our Bolivian-chilled bones as we entered Chile's Atacama desert. In less than an hour, we found ourselves awe-struck in the town of San Pedro de Atacama, as foreigners walked around in shorts and sun dresses, and the place was as modern and expensive as anything we'd seen since the States.

Nearby Calama was just like home (though not in the best way) with its own Walmart, fast food chains, and strip malls. There were pharmacies with cash registers, and gas stations that took credit cards and even had handicapped parking spots labeled on the asphalt. Of course, all this luxury came at a high price, as the cheapest room we could find in San Pedro was $30 a night (the same as paying for camping), instead of the normal $10. We were in culture shock plus sticker shock.

With the bike not starting from our ride through Bolivia's salt flats, we were in a bit of a predicament. Our dear and wonderful friends who'd stayed by our sides throughout it all, Brendon and Kira Hak, were on the verge of overextending their visa in Bolivia, and needed to go. Unlike us, their bike was fully functional, and their plan was to take a difficult, but gorgeous route south and out of Bolivia: the Lagunas Route.

But as Tim and I found ourselves immobile in the town of Uyuni, we knew that if we didn't get our bike running before they had to leave, we would not want to do such a challenging road by ourselves with a questionable motorcycle. Our plans and dreams of riding the Lagunas Route were now falling apart.

So the pressure was on for Tim to fix the bike, and he needed to do it by 11:00 AM the next day, which was checkout time for the Haks and the latest possible moment before they had to leave.