Leah - the token girl bum wondering what she has gotten herself into....

To be honest, I'm not sure I can even claim part of the "bum" title since I will be at home working most of the winter, but I guess that just means I have a bigger challenge than the guys do to get into as much trouble as I can in a much shorter amount of time.

One of my favorites, Canyonlands NP

As the title hopefully implies, my name is Leah and I am the token girl heading out on part of this crazy adventure with my boyfriend Bryan and our good friend Blake. While the two real bums will quite literally be bumming and exploring around SE Asia for about 4 months, I am stuck with the terrible situation of liking my job (and having the home that it pays for!) so I am relegated to a mere 2 weeks in Thailand at the beginning of December before heading back to the snow. I do have a sneaking feeling though that this might cause at least a momentarily relapse into the bumhood of my youth....

The roof of the Old Faithful Inn

Originally from Portland, Oregon, a school friend turned me onto the idea of working in Yellowstone National Park for a summer during college and it was a downward spiral from there (well, downward in terms of actually finishing school and doing what my parents probably wanted, but the sky was the limit for me!). Since that first fateful summer, I have lived in and around Yellowstone as well as Steamboat Springs, Colorado, spent winter seasons snowed in at Old Faithful where you cross country ski to work, ridden buses and trains from one side of North America to the other and back, flown off to Mexico on a whim in the middle of the night, seen 38 of 50 states and held most hotel and restaurant jobs you think of. Now, the adventures are spreading to my first foreign continent halfway around the world. As excited as I am (29 days and counting!), part of me already knows that it will never be enough to quell the curious travel bug in me and that the adventures are probably just beginning......

Enjoy the ride!

Leah