Rusty's Adventures

Hi!  Welcome to Rusty’s Aventures.  After working for 13 years at a major software publisher, I had decided it was time for a life change.  So I resigned my job and bought a 1986 Volkswagen Vanagon Wesftalia, in which my family and I would explore the world.  This is our story.

Ok, well, that’s close to the truth.  I left my job because my wife and I had decided to start our own business, a dream we’d had for years.  But we’d also dreamed of doing more traveling as a family (a lot more), especially roadtrips.  There’s definitely something special about traveling from place to place in your own vehicle with no regard for time.  What better way to kick off our new lives than to go on a long roadtrip in a VW camper?  We wanted to cover as much of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Idaho as we possibly could before getting the boys to school on time in September.  Starting a business could wait!  And that was the beginning of “Rusty’s Adventures.”

My 5- and 6-year old boys nicknamed the VW camper “Rusty” – an appropriate label – and he (Rusty) became part of the family.  My boys ask people walking down our street if they want a tour, and they make me tell them bedtime stories that include Rusty and Thunder (our puppy) as the heroes.

My dad tells me that most men buy a Porsche or some other sports car when they have a mid-life crisis, not a VW camper. Maybe I am having some kind of crisis, and having done the Porsche thing already, needed something else.  But I don’t think I’m at mid life (I hope) or having a crisis.  Everything just feels good, so I’m going with it.

One thing that feels especially good is that I feel like writing again.  I once had a dream – like many other English majors in college – that I’d write the Great American Novel.  But coming out of college, I traveled Central and South America, spent all of my limited savings, and needed a job that actually paid bills.  So I took a job as a financial writer (dull!).  After a few years of that, my creativity and desire to write were completely sapped.  There are only so many ways you can talk about mutual funds.  I haven’t written for myself since.

Until now, that is.  My writing is very rusty, but I’m enjoying it – so much that I indulge myself with bad puns.  But please, feel free to follow along as my wife Paula, my sons Nate (6) and Jake (5), and I explore the Western United States – and wherever else Rusty takes us.  And if you have a “VW bus” story of your own (as we find so many people do), or even your favorite road trip adventure as a child, we’d love to hear it.

Happy travels,

Steve Cook