EXPEDITION OLA

Have you ever wondered why our mission is called Expedition Ola?🐾

In 2023 we went on the trip of a lifetime. A surf trip down the pacific coast of Mexico and Central America, every surfers dream🏄🏼‍♀️✨ About one month into our trip, we pulled in to a small fishing village just south of Acapulco as the sun was setting to find a place to camp for the night. We walked the beach and enjoyed the sunset with our senior dog Timmy and a cute street dog joined us as well. She followed us everywhere that evening, down the beach, to the restaurant for dinner and then to our van once it was time to go to bed. I began thinking of names for her even though Nick warned me not to because he said I would get attached. I didn’t listen, I named her Ola, which means wave in Spanish, fitting since we were chasing waves.

We were only staying in this town for one night and although I wanted to cuddle with Ola, we had to prioritize the health of our dog Timmy not knowing if Ola had any fleas, ticks, or other diseases. We hopped into bed and Ola curled up beneath our van. An hour later we were woken up by a dog fight and when we got out of the van, 4 male dogs were attacking Ola. We fended off the dogs and decided to let Ola sleep in our van for the night where she would be safe and get a good nights rest. She didn’t even try to jump on the bed, she was just so thankful to be somewhere quiet and safe, she curled up on the petals at the foot of the driver seat and slept hard. It was probably her first night ever where she was safe from all that threatens her in the streets, and her first night in peace and quiet.

The next morning, our plan was to hit the road and continue heading south. Ola wouldn’t get out of our van. She would duck and hide below our bed and you could see in her eyes, she was begging for us not to put her back out on the street. We kind of joked about taking her but neither of us serious, it felt too crazy. We already had a dog, we were living in a tiny Astro van, we couldn’t just take this random dog… (caption continued in comments)