Jess McGlothlin Media Blog

The Fire Girl Subaru on an adventure in Montana home country.

It’s been a crazy few weeks.  Scratch that, it’s been a crazy few years.  The past twenty months have seen me move seven times, carrying only what I can fit in my car, and cover more ground than I would have guessed a sane person would do in that timeframe, having no place to call “home.”

I’ve met the most incredible people – from new friends made on the Russian tundra over laughter and vodka and salmon to New York-bred newspapermen struggling to fit in the Wild West, to a newfound rough-and-ready family on the Missouri River.

And while the places I’ve crashed at night have not been the most appealing (there were moments with no heat in -20F weather, drunk people breaking into multiple rooms and a notable low point when my ceiling collapsed, releasing a torrent of vermiculite and mouse droppings) the people – good and bad, and there have been extremes of both – will always be the high points of memories.

I learned Russian vocabulary sitting  on the banks of the Ponoi, sipping tea made from dried sap of local birch trees.

I met the most incredible international couple on a ski mountain in Wyoming and made a friendship that carried me through my stay there.

I shopped Patagonia catalogues with a roommate in Bozeman and discussed in great detail the merits of different shades of lime green ski pants.

I fished with Yvon Chouinard, and sipped hot tea with him while discussing the future of fly fishing (there’s an article on the way about this one!)

I observed a U.S. Army night infiltration course through night vision goggles, and ran an military obstacle course in the midst of a large – and very stoked – group of recruits.

I jammed out in a Toyota Tundra with oft-times unsavory characters while shuttling all kinds of vehicles along the Missouri River, gaining more confidence in my truck-and-trailer backing skills than I wold have thought possible.

And I worked in the coolest fly shop on the planet, complete with a functioning minibar above the office desk.

It’s the little, odd things that really make life memorable and, in the end, worthwhile.

On that note, I am hitting the road again tomorrow morning.  Sometimes, despite all the effort we put into it, things don’t come together as planned.  Seattle has been one such exercise.  Opportunity is calling, and I’m packing my life into that rumbling little Subaru and driving south.  Way south.

I’ll be camping out in Austin through December, and possibly longer depending how things go.  I have some good opportunities down south, and even more that I’m exploring and that will be kept under wraps until the time is right.

I’m tired, and not really ready for another jaunt of living-out-of-a-suitcase-and-not-knowing-where-I’m-going-to-sleep, but sometimes you have to leap at opportunity when it comes along.

And so I’m leaping.  Thanks to all of you, near and far, who I’ve met and who have made the past two years worthwhile.  I feel incredibly blessed to have the opportunities I have had.  Fire Girl was founded on a mission, and while that mission has changed and evolved and maybe not gone in the direction it was intended, it’s blossomed beyond belief in so many other unexpected ways.

I can’t wait to see what the coming few years bring.

So, thanks to everyone who I’ve met and who has gone out of their way to offer support.  You’re part of the story; a much larger part than you think.

And here’s to the future.

Cheers.

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