Join the mailing list at TimMathisWrites.com for ongoing projects. Or follow on Instagram @dirtbagguide I was born country, and raised near Middletown, Ohio - the town that was the subject of J.D. Vance's memoir of poverty and suffering, "Hillbilly Elegy." I didn't think it was as bad as he made it out to be, and I spent my childhood building forts in hay bales, behaving irresponsibly, and filling Quaker Oats containers with snakes that my friends and I caught in the creek. I've traveled a lot since then. On my first trip overseas when I was a teenager, I went to Peru on an Evangelical mission trip with my youth group, and tried to share the Gospel by dressing up like a clown and performing for street children. In my 20's I married my high school sweetheart, Angel, and we moved to New Zealand for two years, where I earned a Masters Degree by writing a thesis about various ways that people try to find sense, beauty and meaning in the messy evolutionary history of the universe. The scenery there made it feel like the right thing to do at the time. After that we moved to the lovely, mossy Pacific Northwest, and it's been our base ever since - first in Seattle, and now in Tacoma (which is a way cheaper place for a dirtbag these days). Along the way I ended up as a psychiatric nurse, so now I do that in exchange for money. Otherwise, Angel and I try to make the most of our lives by traveling and playing outside. We've run El Camino de Santiago in Spain and finished a bunch of trail ultras in the Pacific Northwest. We've hiked the Pacific Crest and Tahoe Rim Trails, along with part of Te Araroa and a bunch of the "Great Walk" system in New Zealand. We've spent about six months drifting around Latin America in buses, and have picked up a bit of Spanish, which helps. Along the way I've done a fair bit of writing. I've written for Trail Runner Magazine, Grit City Magazine, Oru Kayak's blog, Ultrapedestrian.com, and I've been interviewed on The Art of Manliness Podcast.