What the Hell Is the Odyssey?

It started with Alaska.

For years, getting the van to Alaska sat on the bucket list. Once we finally had the Sprinter, the question changed from “could we?” to “when?” Alaska answered that for us: summer.

Summer 2027.

Then life started drawing the rest of the map.

Our son Spencer and Ria are getting married in California in November 2026, so the van has to go west first. Once we’re in California heading into winter, north is the wrong direction. So we’ll turn south.

And if we’re already going south, why not keep going?

Southern California becomes Arizona. Arizona becomes New Mexico and Texas. Eventually Florida. Eventually Key West.

At some point we looked at Key West on one end of the map and Deadhorse, Alaska on the other and realized we had accidentally created something much bigger than a trip to Alaska.

A transcontinental diagonal.

So we’ll work our way back through the Cincinnati area, point the van north in the spring, and begin the journey that started this whole thing: Canada, the Rockies, Alaska and—if the road, weather, van and common sense cooperate—the Dalton Highway toward Deadhorse.

Then we have to get home.

South through Canada. Back toward the Pacific Northwest. Olympic again, if all goes well. And eventually back to Northern California, roughly a year after the wedding that pulled us west in the first place.

A giant, wildly inefficient, misshapen circle around a continent.

We needed a name. We knew one thing: we weren’t calling it another expedition.

“Odyssey” came out of a brainstorm and immediately stuck.

About 52 weeks. Roughly 50,000 miles. Key West to Deadhorse. One very small house.

The Transcontinental Odyssey.

Go Small. Go Now.

We didn’t start here.

First there was a Prius V and a road trip that made us look a little crazy.

Then came the minivan.

The Great Western Loop was our first genuinely branded adventure and our first attempt at something that felt enormous: 42 nights on the road. Somewhere along the way, 42 stopped feeling enormous. We found a rhythm. Once you know you can live that way for 42 nights, you start wondering what is so special about 42.

So we went again.

Pchex wasn’t built around a number of days. We were going to get to Florida when we got to Florida and let the calendar take care of itself. By the end of those trips, we had spent roughly 120 nights living out of a minivan—through cold, heat, mosquitoes and all the other indignities that come with making a Chrysler Town & Country your house.

That experience gave us permission to take the next leap.

The Sprinter didn’t invent this way of traveling for us. It expanded it.

And suddenly Alaska didn’t feel theoretical anymore.

Go small. Go now.

Why now?

There is a reason “Go Small. Go Now.” means more to us than a travel slogan.

Cassie has fought cancer. More than once.

We’ve been fortunate to have stretches when cancer isn’t deciding what comes next. When we have our health, our freedom and the opportunity to go, we want to use them.

We also know there is a window for adventures like this. Someday the dirt road may become pavement. Someday the distance may get shorter. Someday Alaska may feel too far away.

Today it doesn’t.

So we’re going.

The plan, such as it is

The first part of the Odyssey is strangely familiar.

California and the wedding. Then south toward places we already love and places we missed. Maybe another look at Death Valley and Saguaro. More time in New Mexico. Texas. Florida. Friends from our marina years. Family. Then back through the Cincinnati area.

We jokingly call all of that “positioning the van for launch.”

Apparently our definition of positioning can include driving from one side of the country to the other.

But sometime around May, everything changes.

That is the heartbeat of the Odyssey.

We’ll leave the familiar behind and start driving north. The Dakotas. Maybe Voyageurs. Banff. Jasper. Canada. Alaska.

By then we’ll be farther from the people and places we know—in a vehicle—than we have ever been. Everything we need to keep moving will be traveling with us.

The van stops being merely a camper.

It becomes home.

Deadhorse is an ambition, not a contract. If the Dalton Highway, weather or circumstances say Arctic Circle, then Arctic Circle it is. If they tell us to turn around sooner, we turn around sooner.

The objective is Alaska.

Whatever happens getting there—and getting home—is the Odyssey.

What are we looking for?

It depends on where you catch us.

At the beginning, we’re looking forward to a wedding.

In the Southwest, we’ll revisit places we love and finally reach some of the places weather or time pushed off earlier trips.

Across Texas and Florida, the journey becomes much more about people—old marina friends, family and places that have been part of our lives for years.

Then the map gets big.

Banff. Jasper. Alaska. National parks we have never seen. Roads we have never driven. Wildlife. Dirt. Weather. Places we don’t know exist yet.

We aren’t looking for trouble. But we’re going far enough that eventually something probably won’t go according to plan.

A tire. A windshield. A road. Weather. The van. Maybe someone else on the road who needs a hand.

We’re not wishing for any of it.

But part of this Odyssey is finding out how we respond when it happens.

An invitation

PourHouse Life is partly a memoir and partly an invitation.

We don’t think we’re special. If we can find a way to do this, maybe there’s some version of your own adventure that you can find a way to do too.

For people who know us, the invitation can be literal: find an airport somewhere around this ridiculous circle, come find us, and climb aboard for a few days.

For everyone else, come along from here.

Cheer for us. Laugh at us. Steal an idea. Find a campground. Discover a park. Learn from one of our mistakes.

And maybe years from now this site becomes something else entirely: a treasure map.

For Spencer. For family. For people who haven’t even been born yet.

A record of where we went, what we found, what went wrong, what made us laugh, and what the world looked like when we had the chance to go see it.

Welcome to the Odyssey.