A seed was unexpectedly planted about nine months ago, while my husband LC and I were living in Tennessee.
We had lived in Cody for a while last year and greatly loved it here.
We loved the rugged mountains, all the public lands, the proximity to Yellowstone National Park, the abundance of wild life, the peace and the quiet and the ability to just step outside our front door and walk only a couple of minutes to reach BLM land.
We loved being able to hike, to mountain bike, to kayak, all only minutes from the house.
After being here for only six months we had to travel back to Tennessee when the tenants that were renting our house back there decided that they no longer needed to pay their rent.
Both of us thought that we would just simply move back into our home and pick up our Tennessee lives again, but that was not the case.
We missed Wyoming and so 10 months later here we were. Back in Wyoming. Back in Cody and even back in the same house that we had been renting when we were here last!
It felt good to be home.
So back to that seed.
Somewhere I got the bright idea to open up an outdoor gear consignment shop.
I have no idea where the idea came from. It just seemed to come out of nowhere, but once I had the idea it seemed to stick.
Professionally I had worked for 25 years with YMCA's and city government parks and recreation departments.
Personally I had been physically active my entire life.
Judo. Karate. Road running. Strength training. Swimming. Trail running.
And then adventure racing (an off-road, team multi-sport) which for years kept me very busy in training.
Trail running, road biking, mountain biking, canoeing, kayaking, rappelling and ascending, navigation. Adventure racing had it all and I was hooked!
After I began and then became more and more focused on adventure racing, I became less focused on professional development. Working became simply a means to pay the bills and feed my rapidly growing AR-addiction.
The sport required a LOT of gear for a LOT of different sports.
It wasn't cheap but I loved it.
So I had a professional background in budgeting, marketing, organizing special events, and customer service, and I had boat loads of personal experience buying, using (and abusing) outdoor gear.
But I had no retail experience at all.
No experience working in retail unless you count a brief stint working at a McDonalds restaurant when I was much younger.
Oh! And that 4 hours I worked at a Pizza Hut way-back-when.
The idea came to me one day while walking with my husband LC and my sweet dog Jamie, and as we walked along country roads we absently threw potential names out for this theoretical outdoor gear store. And that's when we came up with Outdoor Adventures Revived.
OAR for short.
I toyed with the idea of opening the store in Tennessee, but when we moved back to Cody I decided that I would definitely give it a shot - to heck with uncertain economies and lack of retail experience and lack of money.
Yes. Lack of money. How on earth were we going to be able to afford to open a store?
I was done with adventure racing. Too many injuries and sooner or later I had to realize that I was getting a bit old to keep beating up my body for days at a time out in the woods. I was still active but I also had a whole lot of gear and clothing that I no longer needed.
I had been picking up additional gear as I came across it in my travels, and had continued to pick up gear and clothing once we arrived back in Cody.
It had gotten to the point where I had boxes of stuff hidden and stashed in every barn and out building outside the house, and in every cupboard and closet inside the house.
I felt certain that I had enough gear to at least get the store started until consignment items started coming in.
The next question was..........where?
It didn't take a lot of digging to realize that commercial rental properties in Cody were EXPENSIVE.
The more I dug around town the more dejected I felt.
There was no way we could afford to do this.
And then one day not too long ago we stopped at a garage on Big Horn Avenue.
The person we spoke to owned the entire strip of four units and LC off-handedly asked if any of his units were for rent. One of them was - would we like to see it?
We walked into the unit (which was actually a garage bay) and.........well, it was a huge, disorganized mess that was haphazardly being used by friends as they restored old vehicles.
As I walked in I saw a large office space to my left, a short hallway, a decent sized restroom to my left and then a long, dusty, musty garage bay that was crammed with vehicles, work benches, tools and old furniture.
LC and I looked at each other doubtfully and I shook my head.
We asked how much he wanted for rent.
The owner suggested giving us the front half of the bay initially (which included the huge office space, the restroom and half of the bay). That way he could keep a couple of his vehicles in the back half and we could start the store small.
If it went well we could expand later.
Still doubtful, I asked the owner again how much he wanted for rent. He quoted a number and we instantly said "Deal".
As LC and the owner talked, I wandered around the space trying to overlook the mess and the chaos, trying to imagine how on earth I was going to turn half a garage bay into a store.
As I walked around the chaos outside I tried to imagine how I was going to turn that chaos into a suitable and welcoming retail exterior.
It would take a lot of work.
But I could see it in my head. This was going to be my outdoor store.
Yes............this could work.................
