In August of 2019, Simone picked up her life and moved to Cambridge, MA to begin a grad school program. Two weeks before starting school, Simone and Dylan found each other online, just a couple of days after Dylan decided to dive back into dating. Simone was his first date and ended up being his last too. Fast forward seven months, the COVID pandemic happened, and Dylan and Simone had to make a decision: rarely see each other to protect their roommates, or see each other all the time. They chose the latter and Simone moved in with Dylan and his family into their Boston condo, and then after the semester ended, straight up to their Maine cabin. Summer arrived and Simone had a graduate research fellowship on a farm in Maine, 45 minutes away from the family cabin. Dylan visited almost every weekend, and they spent the long summer days traversing the coastline of Maine hiking, camping, cooking, farmers marketing, beaching, and exploring every corner of the midcoast. As summer of 2020 came to an end, Dylan and Simone had yet another tough decision to make as Simone looked towards the second year of her masters' remotely: move back to Boston for remote school and work OR try living somewhere new. Dylan found a 2011 Subaru that they affectionately named Greta, and they started the drive across the country to California, where Simone's parents still reside. She showed him Upstate New York and the glories of summer in the special place she went to undergrad, and he located campsites across the U.S. for them to set up camp nearly all of the 13 nights and curated a playlist to go along with the drive. Dylan took photos of Simone standing on bridges throughout their hiking adventures - honestly, neither are sure of why it started. They settled on Boulder, CO for their final destination and spent a year living out West and made the most of the time just the two of them doing all of their favorite things outside and traveling all over Colorado to explore. In total they visited 12 National Parks and hit 33 states (+ DC) along their drives. Simone finished grad school and landed a remote job, and Dylan got the call back to work in person the summer of 2021, so back across the country they went, stopping along the way to do more camping and see (and meet) old friends! They landed in Somerville for a year until Dylan found a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania. They moved to Philadelphia in the fall of 2022, welcomed a scruffy terrier mix from Mississippi named Louis into their lives. They bought a house together in the spring of 2024 and are now in the process of renovating, furnishing, and landscaping their 100 year old home! 4.5 years in, Dylan tricked Simone into a proposal by suggesting she pose for a photo on Kitchen's Lane bridge on a hike in the Wissahickon, their favorite hiking spot a few minutes from their new home. She stood for the photo, and when she bent down to get Louis' attention he walked over with a ring. And that's all folks!