“Once we decided to do that and started making plans, I’m planning a year of my life with him and could see that being forever,” she said.
The two got into a Ford Fusion and commenced a six-month tour that took them to 35 states. For the second six months of their trip, they hiked 1,200 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail.
By then, they had already started to talk about marriage.
For Mr. Chapman, though, the decision to move to Kansas City, in Ms. Becker’s home state of Kansas, was even more profound. She is now a first-year medical student at the University of Kansas medical school and he is an analyst and a data analyst for the Jackson County prosecutor in Kansas City, Mo., as well as a student in the online master’s program in computing and information technology at the University of Pennsylvania.
“This really felt like it was moving to Mars, honestly,” said Mr. Chapman, who grew up just outside of New York. “Doing that with her signaled to me internally a really big commitment, even bigger of a commitment than getting married.”
On Aug. 11, in the Wyandotte County Court House in Kansas City, Kan., the couple wed, too. Judge Jane Sieve Wilson, a district court judge, officiated, with two witnesses present. The couple also had a ceremony at the bride’s family farm, in Lenora, Kan., on Aug. 8, at which seven people joined them, plus a few more on a Zoom video link.
A college professor once advised Mr. Chapman that he should marry someone 50 percent smarter than he is himself, and, with Ms. Becker, he’s also found a partner who marches to a drumbeat that would make the couple’s Yale band proud.
“I want her to be on my team,” he said.