Well it’s been a little while since my last post so I thought it was about time to give an update on what’s been happening in the world of Gavin Travels. Here’s a quick summary of what I’ve been up to the past several months and what’s to come!

On December 9, 2016, I departed Europe flying from Oslo, Norway to JFK in New York City. I had devised a top secret mission to surprise my parents in Indiana and my friends in Austin, so my whereabouts were kept under tight wraps. While I was in New York, I spent about a week eating bagels and hanging out in Manhattan visiting my friends there before I hopped on an 18 hour bus ride transporting me from Manhattan to Chicago for an unbelievable $17. Thanks MegaBus!

From there I hopped on the South Shore Line train to Indiana and had a friend pick me up from the train station. I scheduled to Skype with my parents at 4pm, so I had my friend drop me off then. My original plan was to Skype them with the house in the background, but because I was unable to get internet I couldn’t fire up Skype like I wanted to. Instead, I just rang the doorbell and needless to say, my parents were caught a little off guard anyway!

After visiting friends at home and enjoying Christmas with my folks, I flew down to Austin where only 2 of my friends were privy to my arrival. First I surprised my really good, long time friends Katie and Lisa. Having woken them up at about 12:30am, I think it took them about an hour to comprehend what was happening.

Then, a few months prior to my arrival in the States, I had messaged one of my climbing friend’s wife informing her I’d be arriving in Austin at the end of December and began planning my surprise party. We scheduled it for New Years Day and similar to surprising my parents, I arranged to Skype the group. This time, though I had the idea to add some confusion by covering the camera on the first call to pretend like my computer wasn’t working then give them a call back. I would then sneak into the house before calling them back then run and jump in the room when they answered. The surprise went perfectly and the look on everyone’s face was unforgettable.

Hannah’s reaction was the best and for about 45 minutes after, all she could do was giggle and play with my beard. And for months afterwards, she would ask, “Hey Gavin! Um… could you show me that video of… um… that one time you… um… surprised us?” Nothing like a 3 year old turning your heart into a gooey mess!

Then towards the end of January, I headed out to Los Angeles for a couple weeks to visit my friends there, several of which joined on the Norway trip last April. It was really great seeing them again and catching up on how life has been post-Norway! And as luck would have it, several of them have been getting more into rock climbing so I got the opportunity to check out some climbing in Malibu Creek State Park and Joshua Tree National Park!

From there it was back to Indiana to pick up my car and drive it back to Austin and attempt to sell it. Well, I had several delays with that trying to figure out fixing the fender and door’s clear coat, a falling headliner, a soon to be failing PCV valve, and general laziness. In the end, I ended up just biting the bullet and took it to CarMax a few hours before my flight out of Austin, beginning the next leg of my adventure! I got a bit less for it than I would have liked, but I am now carless, which is a huge stress relief!

Before that CarMax business, while I was in Austin I made several trips. I joined on a couple visits to Arkansas to rock climb, a trip down to Mexico to climb, went to Euphoria Festival in Austin, camped for a couple nights at Big Bend National Park, made a trip to Enchanted Rock just west of Austin, and flew out to Florida to visit some longtime friends I haven’t seen in 7 or 8 years. So even though I was on a bit of a travel break, I made the most out of it sneaking in several fun adventures!

Now… what’s next!? Well, I’m posting from here in Puerto Rico! I’ll be here for a couple weeks, not sure how long just yet, but then the general idea is to catch a ferry over to the Dominican Republic. After spending a couple weeks there, I’ll hop on a plane headed for Cuba! I’d like to spend about a month there before I to hop on a another plane in Havana headed to somewhere in Colombia. At that point I will make the long trek through South America to Cape Horn, all by land! At least that’s the idea. Who knows what will actually happen!