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.

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

From Portland to Puget Sound

In Portland, we stay with Emily, Derek, and their three kids; this charming, laughing family that surprises us with their goofiness in their adorable house, where we wedge our van so far up the narrow driveway we dread trying to back it out. Portland is drizzly and wet and colorful, we fall in love with the houses, we drink endless coffee, explore Powell's bookstore and snack at the food carts. Our time in Portland, like much of our journey thus far, is meandering and slow. We walk up and down the streets, linger over our coffees and chat with the Clayton family about street art and the ways Portland has changed over the years.


We spend our last night on Alberta Street with a high school friend who takes us to a number of bars, including one filled with cat themed art — the night culminates in a few drunken interviews that we're pretty excited about. All in all, we enjoy Portland, the coffee and the cutesy food trucks and handmade zines, but something about the bustling adorableness is also slightly exhausting, so we're excited to take off for the Olympic National Forest.

The drive to Washington is short and beautiful, lush green hillsides dotted with wildflowers, snowy mountains looming in the distance. We stop in Olympia to get groceries, now that we've picked up our cooler from the REI in Portland, and spend some time organizing the van. Olympia is refreshingly small and drivable, and although we don't see much of it, we get good vibes. We camp out in a Walmart parking lot and visit the farmer's market in the morning to snag some veggies to take camping. The market is bustling with musicians and portraits artists, greens, fruit and honey, homemade soaps and lotions, succulents and knitted goods. We feel at home sniffing at the soaps, sipping coffee, petting a few dogs and finally purchasing some chard and broccoli.

We pass some elk on our way up the peninsula and pull into tiny Forks as the sun is sinking lower in the sky. What we aren't aware of is the fact that the Twilight series is set in Forks, so there is a crazy amount of vampire-fiction related tourist stuff. We spend the night in a rest stop/van pool parking lot and in the morning try and talk to the woman in the visitor center about hot springs but all she wants to talk about is Twilight.

We spend Monday attempting to hike to a viewpoint of Mt. Olympus but underestimate the 6mi uphill hike. We hike for something like three hours, stopping to photograph indignant laser chipmunks, delicate flowers, and waterfalls before stopping for snacks and heading back down to our campsite — the first place we've actually paid to sleep in so far.



The next day we walk to another waterfall on our way out, then take a long winding drive that's not entirely paved to get up to the Hurricane Ridge viewpoint of Mt. Olympus we didn't quite make it to on the previous day. It's a breathtaking panoramic view of snow caps, complete with fluffy munching deer. Afterwards, we drive to Port Angeles and overstay our welcome at an adorable cafe, finally making some progress on planning the next steps of our journey, contacting some folks in East Washington, Idaho, and Montana. We sleep in another Walmart parking lot and in the morning make our way to the Bainbridge Ferry to cross the Puget Sound to Seattle, where we are currently and somewhat belatedly writing this update!

Caffeine, Craters & Connections

In Ashland we stop at a coffee shop that feels like the Barlow — all bright wood, clean lines, burnished metal and latte foam leaves. In Medford we find a Trader Joe's, a mecca of familiar and affordable snacks; we climb onto the van rooftop in the parking lot, eating our eggplant wraps and salad and smiling at a few passersby.

A man named Ken pumps our gas and grins at us through the window. "Now you've met your first Oregon weirdo," he says.

On a whim, we drive East to Crater Lake, winding into the trees until patches of snow appear. It's getting late, so we pull off at a campground, following the gravel road until it curves past a landslide and we turn around awkwardly and park in a little wooded turn out that looks camped-in We brush mosquitoes off our arms and try to drink frothy champagne that's warm and car-shaken. Instead we spill it on the floor and give up on pretending it tastes celebratory.




Crater Lake stretches wide and blue, the bluest blue. Older couples chat about their luxury campers, children hurl snowballs at their parents, and I pet every dog in sight. Kelsey and I pick wildflowers and huff up hill to stare at the expansive green-blue view. I sprinkle a handful of my grandpa's ashes into the wind, thinking of him as we pass a cluster of big bikes in the parking lot.

In Eugene we meet Arnita, a friend of a friend who remembers me from long ago. We meet her two dogs, her cockatiel, her enormous tortoises, brothers who have started fighting after 16 years of peace. We talk to her about her travels, about the 22 National Parks she's visit with her daughter, an acrobat and violinist that's spent time living in Norway and Germany and joined a circus in England for a while. We eat CSA vegetables and talk to her about photography, about her incredible book collection, about Sonoma County over beers and ice cream.

After saying our goodbyes, Kelsey and I explore Eugene on foot — thrifting forgotten kitchenware, thumbing through old postcards, tasting local beer and chatting with delightfully strange people. We acquire free stickers, free coasters, and a few stories, and head North to Portland.

Pieces of home.

It's interesting being on the very cusp of this grand adventure, holding in our minds the questions of home through all our preparations, and being in some ways aware of the things that seem important to have in our mobile dwelling during the the duration of the journey. Do these things signal to us what the ingredients for a new home are for us? Not the obvious things — clothing, food, toiletries — but the little things we could have left but didn't. A small succulent plant, bright new handmade curtains, a few novels, a dream book, a ball of yarn and a pair of circular needles, face paint, a polar bear hat, scented candles...

In spite of our desire to be minimal and functional, to pare down to the bare necessities, we held onto these things, found places for them in our tiny living space. In some ways these comforts seem necessary. They are markers of identity, particulars that make us feel human and individual, and they will make our rusty '91 Chevy feel like home.

Pet Portraits & Progress

Yesterday we met up with Tressa's aunt Sis, who donated to our trip and chose the custom reward option in order to get some portraits of her cat, Lunita AKA Little One. Since we were going to spending some time hanging out with her and Lunita at her home, we thought we'd use the opportunity to talk to her about home to give us some practice asking questions and having the conversations we're setting out to have. We've been thinking about some questions to ask people, but we also don't want our conversations to feel like interviews, so that's going to take some work to get the hang of. Luckily Lunita is goofy and adorable and Sis was gracious about answering our awkwardly phrased questions candidly and openly.

 We are forever grateful to Evan, who has been spending most of his life under our van looking over every last detail we definitely would have missed. We've made a ton of progress but still have to bleed the brake system, fix our cigarette lighter, change the oil, flush the radiator, try and find and install a door panel, finish building our bed frame, finish resurfacing our counter top, fix two of our cabinets, get our cooler, an extra gas jug, a water jug, make a sunroof cover and sew some cute curtains as a finishing touch. All that in four days!



Huge thank yous to Anne & Craig Campbell, Wendy Shelton and Sishawna Fessenden for donating! Thank you to Abbey Carpet of SF for the carpet remnant, thank you to Twin Palms Ranch for letting us park our van while we work on it and to Tressa's dad for lending us a billion tools, and thank you to our boys for all their help!


Four days until takeoff!

Kelsey & Tressa