Driving our beast in the East

Moving fast is harder. We're already in New Jersey, with full bellies and a purring kitten, wondering how the hell we've gone something like eight states without writing. Oops. From Detroit, we headed to Cleveland to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Sometimes, you have to be a tourist, right?

We wanted an east coast autumn, and when we sliced across the corner of Pennsylvania and headed into rural New York we got it — flaming red leaves as far a the eye can see. We took a beautiful day hike in the Adirondack mountains and took a long hard look at Lake George, icy blue and surrounded by more Fall foliage than we'd ever imagined and we realized we never really knew what autumn meant.



Then we headed into Burlington, Vermont, all expensive shops full of cute things we can't afford, pet every dog in sight, watched some lively street performers singing Hotel California with happy homesick hearts, and took a free chocolate tasting seminar at Champlain Chocolates. In the evening we drove to Spider Web Farm and met wonderful Will Knight, who spent two hours with us, chatting about his unusual business and his incredible collection of old sailor tattoos.

In Berlin, New Hampshire we stayed with a woman named Lynn, 60 years old and still traveling. Lynn had an enormous US map on her wall and had driven across the country four times. She pointed us in the direction of a Lumberjack festival, where we were quite impressed with the turn out of Lumber-Jills, and less impressed with the beards. As with many of our hosts, we wished we could stay with Lynn and her two sweet dogs longer, but soon we were in Portland, Maine, wandering the art galleries and coffee shops and the Lobstah themed souvenir shops. Our hosts were a house of good-natured boys that let us cook in their kitchen and were bemused by our frequent spells of caffeine induced laughter. The next day, we walked alongside the water and took in the oceanic views before meeting Wesley for a tour of the adorable hand-crafted distillery he works at and stocking up on stickers.

We planned to be in Boston next, but were intimidated by the city traffic so we spent the night in Salem and visited the old cemetery and the Witch Trials Memorial, eerie in the drizzly morning of the first day of October, and then attempted Boston once more, only to be thwarted by the slippery insanity of the city streets that managed to beguile even our GPS, full of angry honking drivers and panicky confusion. Nope, decided, Boston will have to be another trip, one with a more specific destination and no giant van.

In Providence, Rhode Island, we went to a karaoke bar that had $3 nachos and watched someone sing a flabbergasting rendition of With or Without You before meeting our Australian couchsurfing host and her local boyfriend at a Blue Grass show nearby. Sunara had also done some extensive van dwelling, so we had a great time sharing stories and tips over beers and then again over breakfast before we checked out the town. She directed us to a weird little storefront that had some wild puppets, and when we arrived we knocked on the door and were invited in by the owner and artist, who even let us try on some of the costumes and took photos with us! The weirdest suggestions are always our favorite.

Next stop: Hartford, Connecticut, for a dual tour of the Harriet Beecher Stowe house, which made us feel unaccomplished and lazy, and then the Mark Twain house, which made us want a cat. Afterwards, we were hungry, so we headed to a nearby park to cook some pasta, and as we parked, we saw a tiny ginger kitten rubbing against a confused looking Pitbull, whose owner looked equally, or possibly more perturbed. Kelsey hopped out of the van before it'd been parked, and offered to snag the kitten so the Pitbull and its human could continue on their way, and suddenly we had a skinny little furball purring in our van and snacking on canned chicken. Naturally, we named him Captain Huckleberry Finnegan the Second, and decided to see how he felt about being in a moving vehicle — he didn't mind at all! So now we have a van kitten, harness and leash and all.


We know we're crazy, guys, we know. We took our kitten to New York City, where we miraculously found parking with the help of Evan's sister, who lives in Manhattan. New York was overwhelming, so much to do, so little time, and so much expectation. We gorged ourselves on dollar pizza and sesame balls, people watched in Central Park, gawked at buildings and ran into people, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge at night, stared at the skyline and the distant glimmer of the Statue of Liberty, the silvery expanse of water. We made breakfast with Carrie, drank beers in Williamsburg, waited for trains in the hot dirty subway, checked out the High Line, peeked at Times Square before running far away, met up with friends and for drinks at a wonderful weird old biker bar, and still managed to wake up at 7 in the morning on Monday to get out of our parking spot in time.

Kelsey's brother has a friend in New Jersey he told us to come see, with tales of a wonderful sassy mother that we had to meet, and before we knew it, we were being stuffed with delicious ravioli and salads and bread and sausage, and our kitten was being fed tuna and meatballs and romping around the house in awe (his first house ever!) We had a mellow evening playing foozeball with Matt's friends and for the first time ever we both slept in a house because Candace wouldn't hear of us staying in our van. "Shut up," she told us, "What, do you want to pee in the bushes, too?"

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.

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.

So long, Seattle!

It's hard to convey just how much fun we had in Seattle. We had a lot of fun. In Seattle we were hosted by Kelsey's cousin Kyle, his boyfriend, Ben, and his wonderful apartment mates. Before we even arrived at the apartment, we had a sense that we were going to like Seattle, just walking through Capitol Hill and looking around us at the shops and street art. Although Kyle was working our first evening in town, Ben met up with us and showed us around a bit, split an amazing cupcake with us and took us to gorgeous Gas Works Park where we could see the city skyline as the sun set. This enchanting start to our stay was slightly mitigated by the fact that Seattle also gave us our first parking ticket, and the fact that it took us about two hours to find a place we could actually park without acquiring anymore tickets. Ouch.


Evan drove up to see us from Chico, which put some shed some light on how little distance we've really covered, although we both feel as though we've been living in a van for much longer than we have been. We visited Pike Place Market, which was wonderful and overwhelming, watched fishmongers tossing huge fish at their customers, enjoyed a piroshki, listened to a soulful troupe of singers outside the original Starbucks (which we did not enter - that line was ridonk...), and were vaguely grossed out by the famous gum alley.

One night, Ben took us to visit Kyle at Japonessa, the incredible sushi restaurant where he works, and he sent us a billion tasty things as we sipped on fancy mixed drinks and waited for the rolls we ordered. It was possibly one of the yummiest meals of our lives. We highly recommend the spicy tomato tofu.

On Kyle's night off, we made two big lasagnas for him, Ben, their roommates, Breck and Jay, and their friend Andrew. He mixed us cosmos and we played Cards Against Humanity while we waited for it to bake, and then we downed some beer and some wine, hit the bars and even went to our very first drag show. Those ladies kicked ass, we had so much fun, and everyone else was having so much fun, the energy was contagious. After the show, the stage became a dance floor, flanked by booty shaking cowboys and we got our groove on in a serious way.

Due to the strenuous amounts of fun we had the night before, we missed most of the Fremont Solstice Parade, which apparently features thousands of naked, body painted cyclists, but we bussed into town in time to catch a few naked stragglers and check out the festival, and we made our way to the Fremont bridge to scope out the famous Fremont troll.

On our way out of town, we stopped at Snoqualmie Falls and checked out the Salish Lodge, where a lot of the filming for the hotel in Twin Peaks was filmed. We found it a little strange that there was no mention of the show anywhere, but soon after found Twede's Cafe, "Home of Twin Peaks cherry pie, and a damn fine cup of coffee," and almost lost it. This was us at our most touristy, and we had no choice but to get pie and coffee. It was a pretty strange shift to go from gorgeous, progressive Seattle, to this weird down, where the waitress seemed offended by our presence and didn't mention that there was no such thing as a "small" order of onion rings and instead grumpily brought us a huge, expensive plate of rings that we begrudgingly demolished. There was really no good place to stay in North Bend, so we headed East towards our next destination, Spokane, and crashed in another Walmart lot.

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.

Check out our space!

Yesterday we took a second before take off to film a little video tour of our renovated van space. Things got a little weird but that's to be expected, right? Check it out here:



Our Trevolta campaign has officially ended, and we wanted to thank Camlow Cellars, Aaron & Cheri Fessenden, Farra Ferrere, and Sandi Bowen for our last donations! A few people have mentioned still wanting to donate although the Trevolta funding expired, so maybe we'll look into setting up a Paypal donation button and just keep track of the rewards ourselves, but that's a project for another day.

Writing to you all from Ashland, Oregon and considering checking out Crater Lake today and possibly staying there or heading up to Eugene before hitting Portland.

Smooches!

Tressa & Kelsey

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

Lessons in Las Vegas

On Memorial Weekend, Evan and I took our beastly baby on a mini road trip to Las Vegas for Punk Rock Bowling. Before we took off, Evan scoped the van out for last minute tinkering and ended up replacing our serpentine belt, which was apparently rather cracked. I had no idea what that even was, but the name sounds dope and it's apparently on the upper end of necessary. Perks of having mechanically inclined people around — one less thing to deal with before we take off on the real deal.

In addition to raging for several days in a row, hanging out with some great humans, and experiencing a water slide that goes through a shark aquarium, the trip was a good chance to get a hands on idea of what van life was going to be like and how we could make it more enjoyable. While our friends were sleeping in gloriously air conditioned hotel rooms, chain smoking indoors and making use of a complimentary mini fridge that was brought up to store someone's imaginary insulin, Evan and I camped out in the van in a parking lot that only cost us $5/night. I was a little worried that someone would realize we were actually staying in the van and would kick us out, but no one ever said anything.

Some things we learned:

1. We definitely need to fix our gas gauge. Unexpectedly running out of gas in some hot, ugly town in Southern California is no fun. After some research, it looks like we may need a whole new fuel pump, which is gonna set us back $150 or so.

2. Never be in traffic ever. The van does great (a little over 20mpg, it seems) when we can cruise at a nice speed on the freeway, but any traffic at all will literally swallow all our gas in under an hour. Perks of being a roving turtle unit - if traffic gets bad we can basically stop wherever we want and find something to do until it clears up.

3. We need a sunlight cover and hopefully some sort of fan.  Even when we rolled down all our windows and put a floor mat over the sky light we'd wake up by 9am drenched in sweat. Granted, Las Vegas is hot as hell, and hopefully our trajectory will avoid that kind of heat (except at Burning Man), but damn.

4. Having a pee funnel (yup, we splurged) doesn't actually reduce the awkwardness of public urination that much — if anything it feels extra weird to be a woman in a dress peeing standing up, and a little like you might pee all over yourself. We have some elaborate pee-disposal ideas in the works.

5. We should probably get a folding table of some sort. Trying to set up your camp stove to make dinner on the ground in some random parking lot is amusing once, but also rather impractical.

Anyway, we have just a tiny bit over a week until our fundraiser ends and we (hopefully!) depart. Of course, we're more than willing to take your money any ol' time, but if you've been meaning to contribute (and get some sweet snail mail as we travel!) the time is now!

Huge, huge thank yous to John Archibald, Emily Clayton, Allen Conner, João Igor of Coolfarm, Louis & Karen McKenzie of Twin Palms Ranch, Ceiba, the Hoegermans, the Murphy family AND the Murphey family, Jim & Jan MacInnis, Joe Dryden! So many amazing humans!

Aaaaaand, last but not least, CONGRATS to my baby girl and co-adventurer, the luminous, the fabulous, my favorite, Kelsey Murphey, for graduating from Sac State with her photography degree!

Hasta pronto!

Tressa

To-Do Lists & Tinkering

As time goes on, our to-do list keeps on growing, but so does our excitement! Today, Tressa and her pops spent some time poking around in the van to make a more comprehensive list of what needs to get done to make our vehicle a cozy and safe home. We're planning on resurfacing the counter top and bed, changing the bracing on the bed to make storing things underneath it more accessible, building some new shelves, looking for a new front door panel, getting a tool box set up, making a new curtain... We'll have to get a mattress, camp stove, propane, a sturdy cooler, water tank, storage containers, solar chargers... The list goes on!

These iPhone photos are definitely not Kelsey-approved but give you an idea of the interior.

Most of the preparations will get started in earnest in late May when Kelsey comes back to Sonoma County from school, but we have also been spending some time thinking about the questions we're exploring on our journey, doing a little pre-writing and thinking about what how to approach documenting what we discuss with people along the way.

We're thinking it'd be fun to test the waters at home before we head out, so let us know if you'd be open to showing us what home means to you and being our guinea pig in late May or early June!

Finally, thanks SO MUCH to everyone who has contributed to our travel fund! Huge thank yous to Ted Judah, Ralitza Benzzo, Dan Boyle, Jaw Blake, Gary Lek and Robyn Hunter! Please continue to help support us by sharing our project or donating to our Trevolta trip — we'll be sending our backers some fun incentives and you're always welcome to get creative and think up your own.


Hugs!

Tressa & Kelsey

A running start!

Wow, we've only just begun and we're already overwhelmed with how amazing our friends and family are! Huge shout outs to our very first sponsors: Galen Forrest, Quinn Ung, and Cheryl & Jo Fessenden of Barber Insurance (aka Tressa's family/employers!)

In other news, our video is finished, here it is:




Thanks again to everyone that has contributed and to everyone that has shared our fundraiser or blog; if you haven't yet, you can check out the fundraiser here, and please continue to urge your networks to support us!

Lots of love,

Kelsey & Tressa

Taking the plunge.

Not too long ago, we decided to fast track our trip and moved our estimated departure date from August to June, and since then, the hunt for an inhabitable vehicle has become a lot more real. For two girls with no mechanical knowledge to speak of, buying a van you're planning on living in and putting thousands of miles on over the course of six months is a daunting task. We were equipped with fathers and boyfriends to assist in the hunt, but ultimately, the decision was ours.

When Tressa stumbled up on a cute '91 Chevy van already equipped with a bed platform and a few other modifications that would make living easier, we decided she was the one.

Introducing, our beautiful beasty:

We're super excited to have launched our Trevolta crowd funding campaign, so be sure to check that out, throw us a few bucks and help to spread the word. We have video in the works that will go along with the campaign, so stay tuned for us being awkward on camera!

Until next time,

Tressa & Kelsey