The Home Base Chapter

As most of you know, I’ve been bouncing around from here to there doing this or that for the last 2.5 years. My wife and I, along with our two young boys, have lived 2.5 months straight in a tent, braved our chances at becoming Coloradoans, and lived in a 35-foot fifth-wheel trailer for 1.5 years. Professionally, I spent this time unemployed, working security at the Winter X-Games, being a park ranger at the City of Rocks, selling ad-space for a prestigious rock climbing magazine, starting up a new climbing festival, and most recently been working in the marketing department for one of the largest and coolest wholesale distributors of camping and climbing gear.

That chapter of life has since passed—minus that part about working for Liberty Mountain—but the memories and enlightenment that it provided will still live on. It felt amazing to have any setting we desired be my backyard. The unconventional lifestyle was definitely a dream come true. It wasn’t the easiest lifestyle to live, nor did it come stress free. Living where we wanted, when we wanted provided many battles that tested our commitment to adventure…battles that were well worth fighting.

Living that way, as a young family of four, made me feel unique and different. It gave me a fun story to tell leaving many people slack-jawed. Echoing what a cheesy Mountain Dew commercial once said, “I don’t seek out to be different. I seek out to be me and some people find that to be different.”

After trading in the tent and mini-van for the diesel truck and trailer, we have now traded in the trailer and truck for a house. A HOUSE. How conventional can you get? It’s only been 14 days and I’m already feeling normal and less unique. I don’t regret buying a house. I’m actually really excited to have a house that I can customize to fit our personalities, even a home base that our friends can use as a hostel. We’ve positioned ourselves in the middle of everything…everything within the western states.

So what next? What does the Home Base Chapter have in store for the Eaton Family? What do we have up our sleeves to feed our adventurous appetites? Are we going to finally give into life and make our house, work, and kids our scapegoats for never doing what we aspire to do? NO!! NEVER!!

We are going to use our house, work, and kids as reasons to get out and live our dreams. With Jennilyn’s plans to run her first 100-mile trail race and my plans to fast-pack all 200 miles of the John Muir Trail while also breaking the 5.13 barrier, I think we are off to a good start for this year.

“To life, to life, l'chaim!”