Sagara Boondocker

One foot in front of the other. That has been the mantra I have told myself almost every morning for the last six months. During this time I left my job in Boston, a place I have called home since 2012, in order to run my own research laboratory in San Francisco. When this contest started I had absolutely no idea where I would end up living or what I would even be doing professionally. This road leading to darkness was extremely unfamiliar to me as I have known that what I wanted to do since I was 16. In the end, given a long enough runway you realize that things have a way of working out but with unforeseen twists and turns. These boots tell this story. When this pair of boots arrived they were uniform and clean came with an expectation for how they would look. However as the months progressed the differing layers underneath revealed themselves and resulted in surprises I did not expect. But in the end they persevered and together we walked 2 million steps on this unpaved road bridging the Atlantic to the Pacific. One step at a time. Big thank you to Ben for putting this contest together and making this all possible and to Bagus for constructing the most indestructible pair of boots I have ever put my feet in. This contest and this pair will forever serve as a reminder of this journey and the work that it took to get here and I am so happy to have taken it with all of you.