A Trio of Organizations Shine Brightly
Record the Journey
Record the Journey Founder and CEO, Rachael Ridenour, hails from a small farm in Iowa, but joined the U.S. Army at 18 “to see the world.” Her first assignment was in South Korea where she drove a ’64 JM151A1
Jeep. At 21, she was stationed back in the U.S. and purchased her first vehicle, a ’93 Jeep Wrangler. “My love of vehicle-based adventure started that day,” she states.
As she got older, she switched marques and got a Toyota 4Runner. “At some point between my multiple deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, I put everything in storage and lived the van life inside the 4Runner, way before van life was cool,” Ridenour exclaims. She was on her own journey “back to self.” Hence, the 501(c)(3) non-profit Record the Journey came to be.
One of the challenges veterans face is reconciling who they were before the war with who they are after the war. “After a few false starts, I discovered getting into the wilderness with a camera helped me find the stillness I was looking for. When you look through the lens of a camera you have to be completely present or you miss the moment.” Record the Journey is bringing this to other military veterans and their families through outdoor photography adventures and adaptive overlanding.