Both of us were ambitious enough (or dumb enough) to sign up for a five year graduate degree program and the first time we met was on orientation day in 2017. We were initially little more than classmates. Then a professor assigned a strange writing prompt in class - "Try something new and write about it." Eager to bond with new colleagues, our cohort made a pact to share hobbies with one another in the spirit of the assignment. David, fresh off of his Southern Californian Hooligan (tm) streak, advertised a nondescript hobby: exploring. Amy took him up on the offer. A meandering walk along a train track in Indianapolis ensued. The Exploring Gods smiled upon us that day and proffered an abandoned train parked on the tracks. David began climbing up a train car, set on a goal of sitting atop the train. Amy followed suit apprehensively but stopped halfway up out of a sense of self-preservation. David, sensing her nervousness, offered a hand up. Both triumphantly standing together in an unfamiliar place, we looked at each other and realized: "Oh shit, this is happening."

We eventually climbed down from that train and went to class, but we never stopped exploring. Road trips became our preferred method of reprieve from school and work. We bounced all around the midwest, down to Alabama, out to Denver, through the Smokies, and across the Carolinas. Four years later, we moved together to Provo, Utah for our predoctoral internship and traipsed through the intermountain west for a year, then headed to Charlotte, NC for our postdoc. What's our next adventure?