LillardFlyFishingExped
Will Lillard
After years of creeping around on Expedition Portal, drooling over all the amazing trip reports I finally have some adventures worth sharing about. My names is Will. I am currently traveling around North America in a Sportsmobile with my girlfriend Kim and our dog Jack. From New England south to Alabama, and North to Alaska the last few months have been the time of our lives. Before I get into our North American adventure I think some background info is in order.
Picking up our new sportsmobile from a couple in Santa Cruz
I saw my first Sportsmobile about five years ago. At the time I was working as a fly fishing guide in Crested Butte, Colorado living out of the back of my 01 Tacoma. I knew right then and there that I had to have one, it was only a matter of time. Fast forward a few years to 2012 and I was finishing a Masters degree at NYU while Kim was working as a special education teacher for a kindergarden class in Bayonne NJ. After graduating I used the hours of research I put into my graduate thesis to help fulfill another life goal; starting my own company. With my thesis on the importance of inspiring future generations of fishermen and women fresh in my mind I started a company called Lillard Fly Fishing Expeditions (LFFE) www.lillardflyfishing.com . LFFE is a adventure/environmental education company for teens. Our Mission is to help inspire future generations of fishermen and conservationists. I will save you the lecture on how important recreational fishermen are for conservation (for now).
The important part for this story is that our 12-25 day backpacking and fly fishing trips start as early as mid May and run as late as mid August. That leaves us roughly 9 months of the year in which we can run our company from just about anywhere with cell phone service. With this in mind Kim and I had a choice to make. We could a.) find a place to settle down or b.) take full advantage of this unique opportunity to live out all the adventures we dreamed of while cooped up in NY/NJ.
It didn't take much time to decide. Just a few weeks after our first season of summer trips had come to an end I sold my beloved Tacoma to a friend in Denver and hoped a plane to pick up our 2003 7.3L Sportsmobile from a couple in Santa Cruz, CA. Within 72 hours of being handed the keys I made the 3,000 mile journey back to NJ.
First sunset in the spomo as I drive our new home east.
It was now the end of August, and we had three more months before Kim officially left her teaching job. I took advantage of that time to get some planning out of the way. Kim took this time to outfit and customize our new home on wheels. By early December I had a “plan” in place and Kim had filled every inch of storage space with “essentials”, and even got us a nice new rug that matched our new bed sheets. Let me just clarify a little - By plan I mean we had a loose idea of where we wanted to go sprinkled with a few solid dates, and by essentials I mean... well I will leave our packing list for a later post. With Kim and I now officially full time employees of LFFE we were ready to hit the road.
Kim ready to start the adventure!
That was in early January...as you know it is now mid April. I am no longer dreading my daily train commute from NJ to NYC for work and school, and Kim is finished dealing with the endless bureaucracy that drove her away from a job she once loved. Instead we are sitting on a ferry in South East Alaska looking back on the last 3 1/2 months. In that short time we have been to VT, NH, MA, CT, NY, PA, VA, WV, NC, GA, AL, TN, OK, TX, NM, CO, WY, MT, Alberta, British Columbia, and finally AK. It hasn't all been sunny days and campgrounds with a view but it has all been an adventure. We are growing a little tired of trying to explain to family, friends, and strangers why we would choose to live “in a van down by the river” but we are looking forward to sharing our travels with some like minded adventurers. As you can tell we are a little behind on our posts. Instead of catching up with one extremely long post we plan to break it up into a few separate posts. First we will start with some stories of van life in -20 degree weather, and visits to old friends in New England. We will follow that up with a summery of our exploration of the South East before we get into a trip report of our drive through NM, CO, WY, and MT. Hopefully not to long after these posts are up we will get up some pictures and stories of from our drive through the Canadian Rockies. From there the long ferry ride and two weeks we are spending exploring/chasing steelhead on AK’s Prince of Whales Island should give us plenty of time to get our posts all caught up. Don’t worry I promise future posts will include many more photos and far fewer ramblings.
Our summer work season is fast upon us, but we still have time to squeeze in a drive through WA, OR, and Northern CA before “work” kicks of (during which we get to sleep in tents instead of a van). Any plans for after this summer are to far away for us to set in stone. What I do know is that there has been lots of talk of a White Rim Trail trip with the owner of my old Taco, Kim and I have done some talking and researching about a trip down to Baja to chase some rooster fish, and I wouldn’t mind some time spent exploring the backcountry fishing in the Everglades via kayak. The only thing we are certain about is that we are looking forward to some more awesome adventures.
We are really excited about sharing our adventures with you all, and we would look forward to any feedback, trip suggestions, driveways to park in, or plans to cross paths etc... As for now I think that more than sets the stage. Maybe we will see you on the Road, Trail, or River, and we hope our stories come in handy when it comes time to plan your next adventure.
Picking up our new sportsmobile from a couple in Santa Cruz
I saw my first Sportsmobile about five years ago. At the time I was working as a fly fishing guide in Crested Butte, Colorado living out of the back of my 01 Tacoma. I knew right then and there that I had to have one, it was only a matter of time. Fast forward a few years to 2012 and I was finishing a Masters degree at NYU while Kim was working as a special education teacher for a kindergarden class in Bayonne NJ. After graduating I used the hours of research I put into my graduate thesis to help fulfill another life goal; starting my own company. With my thesis on the importance of inspiring future generations of fishermen and women fresh in my mind I started a company called Lillard Fly Fishing Expeditions (LFFE) www.lillardflyfishing.com . LFFE is a adventure/environmental education company for teens. Our Mission is to help inspire future generations of fishermen and conservationists. I will save you the lecture on how important recreational fishermen are for conservation (for now).
The important part for this story is that our 12-25 day backpacking and fly fishing trips start as early as mid May and run as late as mid August. That leaves us roughly 9 months of the year in which we can run our company from just about anywhere with cell phone service. With this in mind Kim and I had a choice to make. We could a.) find a place to settle down or b.) take full advantage of this unique opportunity to live out all the adventures we dreamed of while cooped up in NY/NJ.
It didn't take much time to decide. Just a few weeks after our first season of summer trips had come to an end I sold my beloved Tacoma to a friend in Denver and hoped a plane to pick up our 2003 7.3L Sportsmobile from a couple in Santa Cruz, CA. Within 72 hours of being handed the keys I made the 3,000 mile journey back to NJ.
First sunset in the spomo as I drive our new home east.
It was now the end of August, and we had three more months before Kim officially left her teaching job. I took advantage of that time to get some planning out of the way. Kim took this time to outfit and customize our new home on wheels. By early December I had a “plan” in place and Kim had filled every inch of storage space with “essentials”, and even got us a nice new rug that matched our new bed sheets. Let me just clarify a little - By plan I mean we had a loose idea of where we wanted to go sprinkled with a few solid dates, and by essentials I mean... well I will leave our packing list for a later post. With Kim and I now officially full time employees of LFFE we were ready to hit the road.
Kim ready to start the adventure!
That was in early January...as you know it is now mid April. I am no longer dreading my daily train commute from NJ to NYC for work and school, and Kim is finished dealing with the endless bureaucracy that drove her away from a job she once loved. Instead we are sitting on a ferry in South East Alaska looking back on the last 3 1/2 months. In that short time we have been to VT, NH, MA, CT, NY, PA, VA, WV, NC, GA, AL, TN, OK, TX, NM, CO, WY, MT, Alberta, British Columbia, and finally AK. It hasn't all been sunny days and campgrounds with a view but it has all been an adventure. We are growing a little tired of trying to explain to family, friends, and strangers why we would choose to live “in a van down by the river” but we are looking forward to sharing our travels with some like minded adventurers. As you can tell we are a little behind on our posts. Instead of catching up with one extremely long post we plan to break it up into a few separate posts. First we will start with some stories of van life in -20 degree weather, and visits to old friends in New England. We will follow that up with a summery of our exploration of the South East before we get into a trip report of our drive through NM, CO, WY, and MT. Hopefully not to long after these posts are up we will get up some pictures and stories of from our drive through the Canadian Rockies. From there the long ferry ride and two weeks we are spending exploring/chasing steelhead on AK’s Prince of Whales Island should give us plenty of time to get our posts all caught up. Don’t worry I promise future posts will include many more photos and far fewer ramblings.
Our summer work season is fast upon us, but we still have time to squeeze in a drive through WA, OR, and Northern CA before “work” kicks of (during which we get to sleep in tents instead of a van). Any plans for after this summer are to far away for us to set in stone. What I do know is that there has been lots of talk of a White Rim Trail trip with the owner of my old Taco, Kim and I have done some talking and researching about a trip down to Baja to chase some rooster fish, and I wouldn’t mind some time spent exploring the backcountry fishing in the Everglades via kayak. The only thing we are certain about is that we are looking forward to some more awesome adventures.
We are really excited about sharing our adventures with you all, and we would look forward to any feedback, trip suggestions, driveways to park in, or plans to cross paths etc... As for now I think that more than sets the stage. Maybe we will see you on the Road, Trail, or River, and we hope our stories come in handy when it comes time to plan your next adventure.
. Enjoy your travels and I look forward to the coming installments.
