Adventures in Domesticity

It's been a little over a month since we've returned from our road trip. Here's what we've been up to:

TRESSA 
Coming back to California was a bit of a whirlwind for me. Once we got to LA, Evan and I began apartment hunting and soon signed a six-month lease for a studio in the downtown/Koreatown-ish area. Our apartment is in a pretty rough part of town, but it’s cute and I’m enjoying the sensation of nesting for the time being, although in some ways being stationary has felt a little challenging. Evan is going to school at CalState LA and in the mean time I continue to do social media work from home and from coffee shops, and have been looking into working with animals and possibly volunteering at a local rescue or shelter. Of course, I also have quite a bit of writing and even more editing to do as I sift through my notes and impressions from the trip and begin to put together the pieces.





                                                                  KELSEY 
Slightly over a month after the culmination of our American exploration I’m sitting in a clean, amenity-ridden, third floor apartment in Portland surrounded by gray rainy skies, the pervasive scent of bacon and onions and donuts, and bustling downtown streets. Instead of wondering which can of cold soup to eat or when I’ll be able to shower, I wonder how low I should set my employment standards and what to expect from the expensive photography marketing course I’ve just enrolled myself in. I’ve been challenging the cozy, comfortable routine of sedentary life by running on drizzly forest trails, acquainting myself with my new city, and dreaming of the next adventure.







US
Now that we’ve had some time to get past the holidays and situate ourselves in our new home bases, we’ve started developing a system for working collaboratively from long distance. We’re using shared Google Docs to collaborate, breaking our journey down into small segments of time and scheduling to-do lists and weekly meetings for ourselves to discuss our goals, edit, elaborate, and continue building our photographic and written narrative. What you may not know is that we have a LOT more material that has not gone into the blog or onto our Facebook, in fact a lot of our favorite things we've saved for the final project.

We will probably not be updating the blog or social media accounts nearly as frequently since the work we are doing is a lot less externally tangible and exciting, but we’ll let you know how it unfolds and will definitely share more when we are nearing a finished product!

Alabama, Arkansas, I do love my Ma and Pa...

After our Florida vacation, we headed to Mobile, Alabama. Our host was this wonderful enthusiastic man named Kenneth, who had been renovating his house and working on becoming sustainable with rain harvesting, composting, chickens and gardening. Kenneth took us downtown, where we had drinks with some of his friends and even met an alumni of Tressa's alma mater (UCSC), who had started a non-profit bike workshop that gave people the opportunity to fix up bikes and buy them by working hours at the shop helping others to do bike repairs. The next day we visited the workshop, where the others' rescue dogs trotted about amongst the industrious people and up-turned bikes. We strolled around downtown Mobile, observed a park full of incredibly fat nearly tame squirrels, and chatted with Kenneth about home over homemade pizza. Our last day in Alabama, we dropped Finn off at the vet to get fixed and then headed to Blakely State Park, which came highly recommended to us by Kenneth's friends, and while poor Finn was under the knife, so to speak, we enjoyed a leisurely hike. We're happy to report he is a much mellower kitten because of it.

From Mobile, we through the bottom of Mississippi to get to New Orleans. On Wednesday we surfed with a wonderful working traveler named Jessica, who inspired us with her successful and nomadic ways and treated us to tacos. Thursday, she was headed to Mexico, to meet her boyfriend who was on a long term bicycle trip, and she was even kind enough to give us access to her house until her Air BnB guest arrived on Friday. On Friday afternoon, we couldn't help but go explore the haunting site of a Six Flags theme park that was abandoned before Katrina and never reopened. On Friday night, we were treated to an uncharacteristically classy experience by our sponsor, Camlow Cellars; you can read more about that night here.

Our last night in New Orleans, we visited Frenchman's Street, which we were told was somewhat less of a shitshow than Bourbon Street. We perused a cute but crowded little artisan alleyway full of handmade jewelry, clothing, art, and even voodoo talisman, complete with preserved chicken feet. A fun little band played on a street corner and we rummaged through old books and chatted with artists.

From NOLA we headed to Jackson, Mississippi, where our hosts informed us matter-of-factly that was simply nothing to do. Luckily, they had some pretty great dogs, so we were happy snuggling puppies and working on some crafting projects in their living room. In Jackson, we endured our coldest night yet, reaching a low of 21 degrees. We slept in lots and lots of layers and burrowed deep into our bed lasagne, where Finn joined us. We managed to sleep surprisingly comfortably, although getting out of bed was another story. Our last night in Mississippi was spent at a Mexican restaurant where our hosts' friends were gathered in a party for their neighbor, who was scheduled to begin six months of house arrest the subsequent day — complete with a "Happy House Arrest" cake. Needless to say, things got a little weird.

Although we'd already been to Tennessee, we felt impelled to spend a little time in Memphis, so that was our next stop. We spent our first night with a sweet woman named Rachel, who collaborated with us on a vegetarian version of Memphis BBQ, as well as some green beans, and a seven layer salad, which is apparently a Southern tradition. The next day we met up with Kat and Dustin, a wonderful pair of transplants with a majestically fluffy cat named Koz, that was supposedly the antisocial type but eventually warmed up to Finn. We joined them for some trivia at a nearby Irish pub that night and after running some errands the next day, we decided to check out the infamous Beale Street.

We didn't get far before a rather zesty man approached us about a charity program for homeless people, and although we don't have much money, we did rustle up some fruit snacks we'd been hauling around since Burning Man as well as a few other food items we could spare to part with. We checked out the general store, the Elvis statue, and then went to the Peabody Hotel to watch their famous ducks march on a red carpet from the water fountain into the elevator, which was quite the scene. That evening, Kelsey joined Kat and Dustin for a group run that culminated in free beer and pizza.

Arkansas was next; first we visited the Pinnacle Mountain State park for a short but vigorous uphill hike to a gorgeous vista, where we encountered an absurd amount of ladybugs, one of which made it's way into Tressa's mouth. After our hike, we drove to Fayetteville. Our host, Zach, was a philosophy student and professor, who lived with a philosopher, and took us out for drinks with more philosophers. Fayetteville is quite the bustling, football-happy college town, we found. We had a leisurely Sunday morning, tried unsuccessfully to introduce Finn to the resident cat, Sophia, and then drove to Crystal Bridges — a free museum recommended to us by a lovely woman we met in the parking lot at Pinnacle Mountain. The museum was quite worthwhile and we spent several hours exploring, while outside it began to rain, and the windows were illuminated with sporadic lightning.

We have just entered our 45th state, Oklahoma. Only 10 short days until we will be back in California, and we can hardly believe our journey is coming to a close...

Canoes, Critters, Creeps & Crafts!

From New Jersey, we headed to Philadelphia, where we couchsurfed in this gorgeous house decked out in all kinds of crafty, thrifty fun stuff and full of foliage. We walked several miles to get a feel for Philly on our way to visit the Mutter Museum, which is full of medical oddities, taxidermy and models and weird body parts and deformed fetuses. It was a truly fascinating little shop of horrors, and we wish we were allowed to take photos. That night, we joined our hosts and a few of their friends for some nearly full moon canoeing along the Schuylkill River, the serenity of the water juxtaposed starkly with the industrial scenes springing up alongside us — tall buildings full of bustling trains and bright lights, clanging and banging and flames.

The next day, although drizzly and wet, was spent checking out the Elfreth's alley, the oldest occupied street in America, cute shops in Old City, and the historic district where we saw the Liberty Bell. We also visited the Chemical Heritage Museum which has an interesting exhibit about the development of different space suits. That night we attempted to get into some sort of Friday night shenanigans but ended up at a bar full of people far older than us that eyed us with amusement, and so meandered back towards the house in the mist, where we found a table full of free books and food, and scored a few veggies and a science fiction paperback. The next morning we took Finn for a damp walk in Bartram's Garden before heading to Delaware. 

Our Delaware plans fell to pieces a bit, as we realized that a.) Dogfish Head Brewery is not where we thought it was, and is also closed on Sundays, and b.) our couchsurfing host fell ill and was unable to have us. We found a coffee shop in Newark to do a bit of work in, and then ventured a bit further South for no apparent reason, and ended up spending a day meandering through the Bombay Hook Wildlife Preserve, which was mediocre. We were not sad to leave Delaware.



Our next destination was Washington, DC. We knew it'd be madness to try and do it all in our brief time there, so we just hit the Natural History Museum, which we absolutely loved, and got lost in the animal and evolution exhibits for quite some time before heading to check out the Jefferson, Washington, MLK, FDR and Lincoln monuments, as well as the World War II memorial. It was dark when we left, heading South to tiny La Plata, Maryland, where we found a Little Caesar's dumpster full of pizza and even scored some decent dumpster salad ingredients.

We were reveling in our victorious dinner loot and getting ready to head to a Walmart to camp out, when our headlights caught the attention of two young guys that came to our window, thinking we'd flashed our lights at them. We assured them we hadn't, and they chatted with us a bit, asking if we were van dwellers, if we were "down on our luck" and offering us help — first asking if we needed a place to stay, if we needed food, even asking if we needed help cleaning out our litter box! But we told them we were quite self sufficient, and headed out. After a fabulous dinner and some outdoor rumpus time with Cap'n Finn, we were settling down to snooze when someone knocked at the front door. Tressa cautiously peered out and was surprised to recognize the face of one of the guys that had approached us at Little Caesar's. We hadn't told them where we'd planned to camp, so their reappearance was a bit strange. Again, he asked if we were hungry or needed anything and when we told him we were fine, he asked us if we wanted to hang out. "C'mon, I'm a nice guy!" he said. It was awkward, to say the least, and it was nearly midnight. As we uncomfortably insisted on not hanging out through the (locked) door, a cop rolled up, and called the guy over. We peered out of the cracks between our curtains as another cop arrived and the four of them talked at length, before all departing. Whether they took the guys with them or they left of their own accord, whether they were in trouble for something in particular or were just being stopped for being lingerers, and how exactly they spotted us at Walmart remains a mystery. However, we slept with one eye open that night.

On Tuesday, we made our way to Hollywood! Hollywood, Maryland, that is, where we met with Tressa's great aunt and uncle, Linda and Jack. Our stay with Jack and Linda was marvelously relaxing and fun. They took us to meet Linda's sister, Mary, who runs a wildlife rehab out of her home, specializing in raccoons, which we got to hang out with for a bit! We also visited some Amish farms, and took Finn to a little nearby beach, enjoyed an incredible dinner of salad and eggplant Parmesan, tried some Maryland beer, and played board games and heckled each other relentlessly. Wednesday, we visited the colonial plantation down the road, although it was dumping rain, and then holed up inside to work and do crafts with Linda. Although we'd planned on leaving in the late afternoon, we had so much fun learning how to quill and making stickers and drinking Chai that we stayed well past dinner. Not only were we spoiled, but Finn was given an enticing squeaky mouse toy that he went absolutely wild for, and even some kitty treats. As we wound our way towards Virginia, we reflected on the comfort of family, even family we may not have seen in a long while,  and how fortunate we've been to encounter so many generous people that have opened their lives to us completely and made us feel so at home.

We're Alive!

Hello friends and family, we apologize for falling off the face of the earth for so long, but van life has been quite hectic!

Last we spoke, we had dipped our toes into Utah for a rodeo — shortly thereafter we plunged into Salt Lake City, where we met up with an old friend of Tressa's for an exhausting but worthwhile uphill hike with an insane elevation gain that ended with a swim in an exhilaratingly icy lake.

We did some CouchSurfing, first with a charming and goofy Pennsylvania native that had an array of fascinating stories and had acquired an incredible lady dog named Kudra while hiking alone in New Mexico, and who we dubbed Pizza Eric after he fed us some of his delicious homemade specialty dish.

Later, we "stayed" with a witty Mormon hipster that failed to warn us that he, in fact, lived with his entire Mormon family, and that we had to pretend to be old friends from his mission in California; one of the least comfortable CouchSurfing experiences to date. We checked out the big intimidating temple, experienced the Utah beer struggle, drove past the Great Salt Lake, but decided it smelled icky and passed by to instead enjoy a gorgeous sunset in the Bonneville Salt Flats.

On our way to Reno before Burning Man, we stopped in a little Nevada town called Elko to rest, but discovered that there were CouchSurfing hosts in town, which is town we came to spend a wildly unexpected and wondrous night with Heidi and some of her cohorts, before getting to relax in an air conditioned apartment with their three kitties, Comet, Steak Knife, and Toulouse, scampered about. We soon met her house and soul mate, Kailie, and instantly become fast friends with the dynamic duo. We ended up spending three days in tiny, unassuming Elko, thrifting and crafting, making tasty meals, lounging and laughing with these incredible humans, ultimately making plans to camp with Heidi at Burning Man before we took off to meet Kelsey's dad, Colin, in Reno.

We stayed with Colin at the Circus Circus in Reno, dragging him along with us to do some last minute Burning Man shopping, and catching up before heading to one of the most classically American pastimes: a baseball game! The $1 hot dogs enhanced the whole experience. The next day we took a day trip to historic Virginia City, where we strolled past old saloons and visited the Fourth Ward Schoolhouse and met an endearing and well-traveled older lady that shared her vast knowledge with us passionately.

Evan came to Reno to meet us before the Burn, and Colin left the next day, so the three of us caravanned to Sparks, where we stayed with an inviting polyamorous couple that opens their home each year to the multitude of Burners stopping through the area. We met a whole gaggle of interesting folks also getting together last minute goggles and bike lights, and shared a meal of Twin Palms veggies that Evan brought out to us.

To write in detail about our three collective burns would require so much more than we can put here. If you've been to Burning Man, you know that the experience is a multi-layered explosion of self-exploration, fun, fire, and friendship almost too big and varied to put into words. Already this year was crazy, because we once we got into line, we were struck by a lightning storm, complete with a downpour of rain and hail that caused the gates to close and prevented vehicles from moving for something like 12 hours. However within slightly over 24 hours, we made it inside, set up camp, and had a magical week filled with donut holes, puns, wind and dust and magic, coincidence and gifts, bloody marys, and heckling, and we all emerged exhausted and satisfied and dirty, and all caught colds immediately after our return to the default world.

Our trip took an unusual twist after Burning Man, when we decided to return to our Sparks CouchSurfing hosts to take hot showers and do some laundry, as well as share a barbeque dinner and some stories with our hosts and some other dusty souls. Afterwards, in another unusual turn of events, we backtracked again and returned to our new feline-loving friends in Elko, where we both agreed we felt strangely at home, making use of their kitchen casually, giving Kailie a ride to work and bugging Heidi for scones at the coffee shop where she works. We had such a wonderful time with our Elko tribe, we felt as if we could stay forever, but, of course, adventure called, so we embarked on yet another travel déjà vu and returned to Pizza Eric and Kudra, who we added to our two-car caravan.

The four (well, five if you count our four-legged friend) of us headed to drizzly Uinta hot springs for some glorious egg-fart scented lounging, and then to Goblin Valley, where we camped. In the morning, Eric, who happens to be a bonafide outdoorsman, took us canyoneering for the first time — essentially hiking, scrambling, and occasionally sloshing, wading and stemming (propping ourselves with our legs and our buns and shuffling over wet crevices) through Ding and Dang canyons, passing Kudra over the steeper drops, much to her dismay. It was quite the adventure.

The next day Eric left, taking Kudra and our cold with him, and we headed to awe-inspiring Arches National Park, where we did a bit of exploring and watched a dramatic sunset and a nearly-full moonrise.

We left Utah yesterday, headed for Colorado to see the Four Corners Monument. We simultaneously celebrated three months of travel and Evan's last day sharing our journey with us by treating ourselves to margaritas, incredible Mexican food, and a shabby motel room. Today, we said our goodbyes, and as Evan turned and headed west for California, we are continuing east to visit a good friend in Boulder, Colorado.

From Rainy Hikes to the Rodeo Nights

Our two month van-aversary has officially come and gone! Before our adventures in Wisconsin with Cheryl, we spent a little time in Minnesota. We found a job via Craigslist gigs, working for Magic Bounce, an inflatable ride company that needed people to work a small township fair. At first the job was fun and easy — we started out working a little inflatable slide and quickly realized we were not actually supposed to enforce any rules in particular. Under 48 inches? Eh, go ahead. Only one ticket, but no one's in line? Ride five, six, ten times! No one cared about much of anything.

But the second day we were stationed at the biggest ride in the area, a four story water slide and that's when things got a little...slippery. Our 12 hour shift included next to zero instruction, lot's of criticism for our grumbling old man boss, who was incapable of actually answering questions, lot's and lot's of mud — essentially standing in a mud pit for hours on end while trying to wrangle children and clean kiddy pools that were supposed to serve to clean kids' dirty feet before they got on the ride, it included horrible parents actively encouraging their kids to ignore our instruction, forcing their too-small kids to climb up the ride, even when they'd failed to do so three times previous and ended up in tears, incredibly rude children and ultimately a soggy, filthy, disgusting sense of loathing for all humanity and especially for everything related to inflatable water slides. We both concluded that we preferred a rice-only diet and perpetual constipation to this kind of horeshit employment. Thanks but no thanks, Magic Bounce. Instead of working our third shift, we went to Minnesota and stayed with some wonderful humans at a cooperative in Minneapolis, took some hard-earned showers and enjoyed a musical potluck.

After our adventures in Wisconsin, chronicled in our guest blog by Tressa's mom, we turned back West and re-entered Minnesota. This time we headed to Duluth, a cute little town where we stayed with a wonderful grandmotherly goddess named Gene in a magical colorful house full of treasures and treats. Gene talked to us about her huge family and her many adventures, she fed us, gave us wonderful thrift shop suggestions, and sent us on our way with beautiful stones and even a hearty plant to replace some of our more miserable succulents.

We continued West from Minnesota and met up with Evan (Tressa's boy) and his father, who were on a big fast-paced road trip around the country together. We joined forces for a little trip to Yellowstone, where we were rained on relentlessly, but still enjoyed the vast and beautiful national park with its incredible plains, and its colorful and smelly mud pots, hot springs, and geysers. We spotted elk, moose, more bison, and lot's of other small critters. It was fun joining up with another traveling duo, sharing meals and sharing stories, even in the rain.

After we parted ways, the two of them continued into the Pacific timezone and we two meandered into the Grand Tetons where we took a gorgeous and rainy lake-side hike and spent some time with a goofy looking moose before heading back into Idaho.

We broke our record for not showering, 5 days for Tressa and 6 for Kelsey, but were lucky enough to find another great host in tiny Twin Falls, Idaho. Tasha had a super creative space, filled with handmade art and thrifted knick knacks, and we were able to make some new friends, both human and animal. We also got a chance to meet with one of Kelsey's mom's childhood friends in Twin Falls, and did some more Burning Man thrifting. Kelsey even got a  bike, which is now haphazardly bungeed and bike locked to our roof!

Kelsey's cousin Riann lives in Idaho, so we scooped her up on our way into Logan, Utah, where we got our first taste of the rodeo, a rowdy experience made all the stranger by the fact that Utah is so vehemently anti-alcohol that you can't even get beer at the fair. However, junk food was in hot demand.

Now, we're spending a relaxing day in Logan, working on all our various projects before we do some more CouchSurfing. We both feel quite strange creeping our way back towards the West Coast, knowing we will eventually be less than four hours from home, but that our journey is only a third over and we will not be re-entering California for a long while yet.

Vanlife: Rest Stop Breakfast Video

Recently we noticed that Kelsey's YouTube channel was getting a slow stream of subscribers, and our van-tour video reached nearly 3,000 views with a handful of comments requesting more videos, so we decided to put together a little video showing some of our peculiar breakfast-cooking routine. We actually tried to make breakfast at a park near the Walmart we'd camped at the previous night, but right as we set up, someone showed up with a lawn mower and any hopes of being heard on camera were lost. We actually had to cross the border from Michigan back into Wisconsin to get to the rest stop (which was also a Wisconsin DMV!) where we ended up filming, in spite of the ruckus of the cars and trucks passing along the freeway. More mishaps ensued, some more hilarious than others, and this is what we ended up with:



We've checked out a few other van life video channels and noticed that a lot of people are more polished and spend more energy showing you how you should travel or giving you handy tips, but this video is definitely more just a snapshot of our messy imperfect lives — we didn't really know what we were going to end up with, but what we did get is just us being our strange selves.

Omaha to Iowa: More Weird Times in the Midwest

As with many places, we arrive in Omaha, Nebraska without much expectation. It’s hard to thoroughly research every town that matters in every state in the country. Instead, we float from place to place, ask around and see what catches our interest. What really ends up thrilling us about Omaha is that there’s a Trader Joe’s. We haven’t been to a TJ’s since we were in Washington and it’s actually incredible how happy we are to be back that health-conscious poor kid haven, grabbing at our favorite crackers, curry sauce, salad greens… We fill up our hand basket until it’s uncomfortable to carry and take turns lugging it around, trying to be frugal but unable to contain our ravenous excitement. The cashier gives us a new set of stickers and recommends we check out the Market District.

The Market District has old-fashioned brick streets and big vintage looking murals, small shops that remind us of Sebastopol and restaurants that make us wish we were real adults that could afford to travel around, eating in highly recommended restaurants and tasting local craft beers. It rains on us for a while, still warm, and then the sun breaks through again.

We find a Couchsurfing host in Des Moines, Iowa, and decide to cut Omaha short since it’s a little hard to get to know without much guidance. Sanjay is from India but is getting his Masters at the University of Iowa and doing an internship in Des Moines. He talks to us about being from a city of 20 million people and then moving to the Midwest, how at first all the silence scared him, and although he has very little in the way of recommendations for things to do in town, he says he likes it here, it’s a more peaceful life. The next morning we come up to the apartment early before he leaves for his internship, and cook in his kitchen in silence while his housemate snores on the living room floor, which appears to be a routine. We head to Grays Lake, at their recommendation, and as soon as we park climb into the back and fall back asleep.

Des Moines is cool and breezy, which is a relief. After our nap we walk into town and find an incredible little coffee shop called Ritual Cafe, with this wonderful warm red interior and an entirely vegetarian menu. As we sit and work, a woman starts carrying in and stacking boxes of produce and suddenly we realize she’s setting up her CSA pick up. Although we are eating neither the food on the café menu nor the local produce being sold, simply being in the presence of the CSA bustle fills us with happiness, the environment is familiar and reminds us of home.

After working in the café we explore Des Moines a bit and enjoy the fascinating sculpture garden, complete with this insane rainbow prism sculpture that you can walk inside of. We are retroactively surprised that Sanjay had so little to say about this sweet little city. We spend the rest of the evening by the lake and then continue east, towards Iowa City, where we camp in yet another Walmart.

We park the van at a fairly central park where we cook breakfast and shoo away gnats and flies that no one else seems quite as phased by, and then Kelsey “jogsplores” while Tressa lodges herself in an overpriced café to work. In the evening, we head to a bar called The Yacht Club where a jam session is underway and where they have a cheap PBR special. We sip beer and watch a strange collection of musicians work their way through free-style hip hop, blues, and some jazz until we hear a loud clang and inadvertently make the acquaintance of a self proclaimed alcoholic that’s missing most of his front teeth and had just dropped a large glass bottle of hard alcohol on the ground. He immediately took a liking to us, especially Kelsey. He tells her repeatedly that she’s, “A beautiful ass girl,” but that he wishes she’d take off her glasses. Much to his amusement, she threatens to break her glasses and stab him with the shards, and he feigns terror. We leave shortly thereafter, somewhat tired anyway.

But once outside, loud music and flashing lights catch our eye in a building just behind the bar we were in. We follow the commotion and suddenly find ourselves in a drag bar in Iowa, of all places. What are the odds? It’s interesting because the performers are definitely not quite on the Seattle ladies’ level, but it’s still a lot of fun and we befriend a group of seemingly straight guys, all in shorts and sandals. They all teach at the college, although they aren’t much older than us, and it’s actually one guy’s birthday. Although we still aren’t sure why they chose to celebrate at the gay bar, it’s the first and possibly only time we’ll ever witness a presumably straight bro-type in a camo hat and camo mandals get caught in a gay biracial grind sandwich and be okay with it — a glorious sight to behold.

When the bar closes, we make our way back to the van, parked conveniently near a the College Green, where we are able to have a picnic breakfast in the morning before meandering through downtown Iowa City and checking out the sidewalk sales and boutiques. We continue to be surprised by these little towns. The Midwest ain’t so bad.

Couchsurfing & Camping in the Midwest

The demolition derby in Casper, Wyoming smells like dirt and exhaust and fried food. Tressa is wearing an absurd red cowboy hat she got from a thrift store for four dollars and an old man calls her cowgirl, so we know we’re not blending in. It’s hot and loud and thrilling for a while. We see mothers bouncing three-month-old babies at intermission, while the announcer says not to go nowhere, corrects his own grammar, and then does it again. The little boy behind us is cheering for his mom, driving a red white and blue striped beater that gets shoved out of arena.

Hot Springs, South Dakota is like traveling back in time, all faded red brick facades in one little strip. We drive to the Cascade Falls natural pool and swim for a while, hoping the chilly water will wash some of the sticky Midwestern heat off our skin. We are officially in the Midwest. We see bumper stickers like, “Don’t blame me, I voted for the American” and big billboards proclaiming, “Life is a gift, not a choice.” We park in what we think will be a quiet neighborhood to sleep, and are perplexed by the voices carrying up and down the street, footsteps at 1am on a Sunday in a town less than four square miles in total. We wake up between roadblocks in a construction zone and while Kelsey jogs Tressa discovers that the two coffee shops in town have both been shut down.

The Wind Cave National Park is obviously renowned for it’s cave, but tours are expensive so we opt out and amuse ourselves photographing bison, meandering through the hot, windy hills and trying to get close to prairie dogs. We have a couchsurfing host in Rapid City that warns us that parking for Mt. Rushmore is absurdly expensive, so we cruise past the monument, which is strange and small in the face of the awe-inspiring black hills, all that immense rock, jutting out in round, bulbous formations. We pull to the side of the road and take a few photos.

Every now and then you meet a person and you wish they were a character you had invented, that their life was a story you’d written. Our host in Rapid City is like that, this tattooed twenty something with a beer in hand, two kids, and a quiet tow-headed friend that lives in a tent when he’s not sleeping on the couch. He shows us the wine he’s making, the kombucha he’s brewing, the greenhouse he’s building and the aquaponics system he envisions for it. He shows us the squirrel he is training squirrel to eat from his hand, and takes us to Cabela’s in his beat up hotwired Ford with a chair nailed to the floor as a backseat, a much more legit rape van than even our bulky Chevy. At Capela’s we lay on cots, try on absurd camo outfits, photograph the stuffed bears and buffalo, and Skyler shops for his new home — a hefty 16x14 tent with a chimney. All he needs now, he says, is somewhere to put his couchsurfers.

We don’t know what to expect when we head to The Badlands National Park, and it blows our minds. It’s insanely gorgeous, chalky red striped rock formations where big horned sheep take leisurely naps and then rolling prairie hillsides full of more bison and more prairie dogs and unfortunately, biting flies and mosquitoes for days. But their primitive campground is free. We camp there for two days, hike around, enjoy an incredible sunset over the rocks and some beautiful clear starry skies. On the second night, we nearly run into an ENORMOUS bison that’s lurking in the ditch, contemplating crossing the dirt road we’re driving down in the pitch black. Later, we read that the bison is actually considered more dangerous than a grizzly bear. Terrifying.

We find a couchsurfing host in Sioux Falls, one of the easternmost cities in South Dakota, and actually the biggest city in the state. We arrive loopy and full of weird energy and are excited to find that our hosts are a group of fabulously entertaining goofy men. They try and teach us to play a drinking game that we fail at miserably, and we all go to the bar and have a wonderful night involving PBR, Phil Collins karaoke, and riding in the trunk of someone’s car. In the morning, we indulge in pizza and Lord of the Rings before rousing ourselves to head to a little lake for some lazy fun in the sun. Now we’re headed South to check out Omaha, Nebraska before spending some time in Iowa. 

Wondering & Wandering: One Month on the Road

One month has passed and here we are, mosquito bitten in our tin can beneath the expansive South Dakota sky, all those stars glimmering nakedly for miles; here we are still so full of awe and so full of questions, constantly wondering if we are doing this right and if we are seeing the right things and if we have learned anything at all.

On good days we feel so alive, we feel American, all fat and grassy and bitter, all humming and hot and dry, all red, all white, all blue, all of the strangeness of her coursing through our veins. On bad days we are tiny, cringing, awkward foreigners, carrying our own fears along long stretches of highway, isolated and incapable of understanding anything more than the scope of our introversion, the impossibility of what we've set out to do, what we've proclaimed our mission.

But there is something amazing about every weird day. Even as I fall behind, scrambling helplessly beneath of weight of all the anecdotes that seem so pivotal, of all the characters pouring in and out of my memory like so many cars along the Interstate, crisscrossing imaginary divides, I am listening to coyotes howl in the Badlands of South Dakota, and tomorrow I will wake up beside a prairie dog town and get bitten by flies while I drink coffee with one of the best people I've ever met. We have to keep reminding ourselves to ask questions, but also that answers aren't really the point.

Eastward through the Wild West.

Spokane is the first place thus far where we find a host via Couchsurfing — a young married couple that invites us into their home and shares a tasty BBQ dinner with us. We play bocce ball with them and chat over strawberry rhubarb cobbler. It’s interesting to talk to Joe and Sarah about home because the two of them are actually from the same town in Wyoming and have some differing experiences with their hometown and with making Spokane a home, plus they’re about to sell their house and embark on an adventure together teaching English in France for a year. The next day after a delicious breakfast and coffee routine with our wonderful hosts, we each explore Spokane in our own ways and find it to be quite a friendly place.

Next, we head to the Idaho Panhandle, to go see Kelsey’s stepmom’s aunt Donna (whew, what a title!) Donna lives down a rural gravel driveway with one of her daughters, who has her grandchildren, two adorable little girls about 5 and 10 years of age, visiting. By dinnertime, there’s a full house, 9 of us sitting down to eat together. It’s definitely a different lifestyle, but everyone is incredibly kind and hospitable. After dinner, we watch a sheep get sheared and show the girls our van. They speculate on various ways to stowaway and travel with us.

The next day we head to Coeur D’Alene and spend some time sitting in a grassy park, working on a little crafts projects together before visiting a farmers market and getting some tasty snap peas for the road.

It’s getting dark as we cross the Montana border and cruise through more and more rural stretches of highway, glimpsing snatches of water and mountainous shapes in the darkness. The next day is gloomy and rainy. We drive to Whitefish, a cute little town near Glacier National Park. We have a bit of the rainy day blues, so we spend some time sitting in a cute café, sipping mochas and working on plans, before driving to the park.

Due to what we’ll call an “accidental scenic detour,” we arrive at Glacier a bit later than intended, so we get a camping site and spend some time cleaning and organizing the van before having a cozy dinner and conking out. In the morning, the gloom is beginning to burn off a bit, so we take a hike along McDonald Creek, which is awfully big and fast moving for a creek. The scenery is beautiful, the water is this icy blue green, rushing past and dark craggy mountains loom up ahead, shrouded in theatrical mist. We get drizzled on a bit, but don’t mind much in our raincoats. We even come across this gorgeous and nonchalant buck, zigzagging his way lazily across the trail and nibbling at the lush moss. He paws at it with one hoof and looks at us warily for a moment before bending to his knees to resume his vigorous snacking.

After this hike we still feel like we’ve got a little energy left, so we decide to hit one more little mile loop nearby, but after walking a half a mile or so, it begins POURING, and I mean POURING. Our legs are soaked through and we’re worried about the contents of our backpacks, so we decide to turn back and promptly get lost-ish and end up wandering around in the rain for longer than we’d like.

Our next stop is Missoula, a town that’s come highly recommended to us and where Weyaka, a family friend and basically Tressa's fairy Godmother, lives. The weather is still weird and gloomy, so we’re glad to have a cozy place where we feel incredibly at home to hang out and pet three quirky kitties.  In Missoula we visit a farmers market, spend some time shopping with Weyaka, her man, and his daughter at an adorable boutique, do our usual wandering, coffee shop and jogging routine, check out the space where Weyaka is setting up her own fabulous bohemian boutique and chat with her about what’s it’s like to be a Californian creative living in Montana for love. We feel like our batteries have been recharged when we leave Missoula on Monday, headed for Billings.

Billings is the biggest “city” in Montana, but it’s hazy, small and kind of meth-y We see a band called Geographer play at a cool little venue that has some alternative looking people in it and really enjoy the music. It’s fun to go out and try and pretend we’re real youths and not just old ladies in disguise. In the morning, we have breakfast at McCormick’s Café, “where locals eat” and walk around a bit. It’s kind of a weird place, and we wonder if there’s a better part of town we should be in. We make the mistake of trying to get Mexican food in Montana, the first place where someone responds to Tressa's request for a vegetarian burrito by saying, “What?” They concede to give her a burrito with everything but the meat and somehow she ends up eating "an $8 bean and cheese burrito that tastes like bitter, bitter disappointment."

Anyway, instead of heading to North Dakota, we’ve decided to dip down into Wyoming first before heading further East. Wish us luck seeing some dope wildlife.

Tressa & Kelsey