VALERIE & TIM – ZUFALL CREATORS

Because we are asking you to share your adventure stories with the Zufall community, we thought we should tell you a little bit about us. But it’s kind of weird to write about yourself and even weirder to do it in third person – so here is Valerie’s Bio as interpreted by Tim and Tim’s Bio as told by Valerie.

Tim Wohlberg

When I first met Tim, I should have seen the signs…the ones that would warn me that he was hopelessly but lovably childish, filled with an adventurous spirit, and that he’d avoid decision making at all cost (not to mention commitment – don’t get me started). The first time we met, he told me someone would build a statue in his honour one day, the second time he was mountain biking on a pink (slightly bent from a recent crash) bike, the third time we were doing a shot of gin every time someone on Survivor said “rice”, and the fourth time we were going camping to an unknown location.

But to really get a true sense of the dichotomy of Tim, you have to go back to his youth in Saskatoon. In high school, he was both a band geek and a jock. At church he was the alter boy who you could find necking with a girl in the Sunday School basement. And at home, his Mom believed he was an angel but his brother knew (and resented) all the things he got away with. Tim refused to fit into any type of mold – one of a kind to say the least.

His love for travel was put to seed at an early age as he endured countless road trips across western Canada in the back of his parents’ powder blue Ford LTD (this was well before hybrids!). Upon graduating high school he packed up his pick-up, pointed it south and started driving – no clue of his final destination (if only he’d had the dice then!) He didn’t come back for 5 months.

When I met him, he was looking for excitement and in his words “someone who likes to do stuff”. Since then we’ve competed in adventure races, run marathons, canoed and kayaked Canada’s greatest waterways, hiked unexpected peaks, and let the dice take us to countless destinations (including Belize, Guatemala, Mexico, Hawaii and Panama).

Tim works in media as the Technical Producer of Canada’s highest rated news-talk radio show on CKNW. He also teaches radio broadcasting in Vancouver, BC. While he doesn’t feel the stress of the jobs while doing them, Zufalling on weekends and evenings allows him to avoid making plans or over-think things and really let it all go. And because working in live radio requires you be on your toes, he’s great at making the most of every situation Zufall puts us in.

Valerie McTavish

Valerie is a nice lady.  There. Is that enough?  Oh, Valerie says I have to write more. Okay.  She sure knows what she wants when it comes from me but deciding on what pair of shoes to wear with an outfit or what to have for dinner (from her vast vegetarian menu options)...not a chance.  Now, when she asks for my opinion I just say "roll on it!"  I never have to make decisions again!

At work though, Valerie makes a lot of decisions.  She has to plan things down to the second as one of the producers of Citytv's Breakfast Television. So un-planning a dinner, weekend or a wardrobe is a real treat for her.

Growing up just outside Toronto in Markham, Ontario, Valerie and her 2 sisters got packed up almost every summer weekend in their baby blue station wagon and traveled to cottage country and beyond. I guess as a kid everything is unplanned. Parents usually make all the decisions. Her favourite spot in the car was at the back facing the cars following them.  Little did her mom and dad know she would take this opportunity to hold up a "Help me!  I've been kidnapped!" sign she’d doctored from a Kleenex box.  Good thing there were no cell phones back then!

It's funny to think that "Miss Straight A" and captain of the cheerleaders could ever let 'chance' rule an outcome of anything.  The first 3 times we met she was ordering me around and telling me how to do things - from how to ride a bike to how to properly serve gin.  I kept wondering when she was going to let go.  Little did I know, this tightly wound, structured little thing had already backpacked the world solo.  The stories of African safaris, Thai scuba dives, meeting Tibetan monks in India and Aussie/New Zealand adventures made me think differently about her. If it weren't for Valerie I don't know if I would have explored most of Central America.  

I'm not sure that there's anyone more planned, structured and regimented as Valerie, but when she rolls the dice, she turns it all off, her eyes light up and I know I'm in for another adventure with the only one I'd want to share it with.