Leave the job and Jet Ski behind - go on a real adventure

Before Bryan Waugh can leave it all behind and operate on his own schedule, he must wait a few more days.

For nine years, he has clocked in 10- and 12-hour days. He worked weekends. Waugh is a test engineer at Newport News Shipbuilding, so forgive him for doing the math, but the math says that in nine years he has worked 4,277 hours of overtime, which means he has put in almost two hours extra every day.

Earlier this year, he and his wife, Kristin, sold their house in Suffolk. They sold most of their furniture on Craigslist. They're trying to sell Kristin's car. They gave their dogs to his sister and said she could use the Jet Ski, too.

On Nov. 30, the Waughs will do what millions of Americans talk about doing but never have the guts to pull off.

The Waughs are leaving. Adios. Auf Wiedersehen. Goodbye. The world will be on their schedule then, thank you very much. See you in two years.

They'll go to Colombia, to Ecuador, to St. Petersburg, Russia, to the Middle East and Eastern Europe and Africa. They'll come back to the States for a visit, then it's on to New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, India.

"I'm excited to not be on a time frame," Kristin said.

Because life is on a time frame, and this trip was conceived as six months away from that - away from the schedules, away from the must-dos and the regular maintenance and the long lists of shouldas.

The extended vacation may sound odd, especially for someone like Kristin, who thought she had the perfect life. House on the water. Job she loved. Coach purse. Equipped SUV.

When Bryan originally pitched the trip, she was resentful. Why give it all up? But then she saw Bryan's enthusiasm for traveling and worried that she was holding him back and acting like a terrible wife.

Now, she may be more excited than Bryan, she said. There is too much to explore, too much to experience, too much to be gained. What started as six months away has stretched to two years.

Their friends and family say they're crazy. And then, in the next breath, the same friends and same family say they're jealous.

Because doesn't everyone talk about just getting up and leaving? Doesn't everyone say enough is enough? If I could leave... if I could just get up and go.

And, of course, no one does.

Except Bryan and Kristin are doing it. Eventually, the couple wants to start a family. He's 32; she's 29. They figure they can tour the world now or they can do it when they're in their 50s and 60s. By then, they'll want to stay in fancier hotels, not hostels, so why not now?

For 6-1/2 years, Bryan saw his wife exclusively on weekends and when he wasn't working. By the time she comes home each night from her job as a governess, he's usually asleep. During the trip, he wants to learn more about her.

He will miss a cozy bed and a warm shower. She will miss her family, creature comforts and her friends.

She is a clean freak and nervous about the hostels and nervous about the food.

But Bryan says they've earned this detachment. He's always been good with money. So... toodles.

Life in this country follows a routine: Graduate from high school, go to college, get a job to pay back the college loans, buy a car, purchase a house, meet your significant other.

"Americans live to work," Bryan said. "They don't work to live."

He and his wife aren't following the master plan. They know they can succeed at it - that they can hold jobs, own a house and care for pets. They just want to do it differently.

There's no reason to wait. Tomorrow, Bryan says, he could be at the shipyard and get hit by a forklift.

"I've saved for the future," he said. "But how long will the future be?"

So in nine days, the Waughs will do the last thing on their schedule: they will board a plane in Washington, D.C., bound for Bogota. And when they're ready, one day they'll book the return flight home.

Mike Gruss, (757) 446-2277, mike.gruss@pilotonline.com, PilotOnline.com/gruss