Watery waves of heat rising off the blacktop, wheels purring as they rush over asphalt. The ever-changing picture show rolling by outside: the motley greens of a forest, the pastel brushstrokes of a desert, the sharp lines of a mountain, the open blue sky over a canyon. The windows rolled down, the radio turned up, and all the world before you, accessible from the endless miles of connecting roadways that weave and curve and loop their way across the land.
The road has always called to me. After graduating college, I decided to answer it. I packed up, built a tiny home into the back of a cargo van, and took off. Every step of the way was an adventure, from buying the van to saying goodbye to it.
You can read about it all here, starting with buying the van and converting it into a tiny home, a process which took 2 years. I took two major trips in the van: the first through Canada and around Alaska, and the second in a loop around the United States. Ultimately, Danica and I visited 25 American states and 4 Canadian states together, including national parks, capital cities, historic sites, and more.
Unfortunately, I realized that as great an experience traveling with Danica was, van life wasn’t really for me. In 2020 I decided to sell Danica and use the money to embark on new adventures, which you can read about on Pushpins and Passports.
With the surplus of people and deficit of safety measures, in addition to the sprawling area which made finding an overnight parking spot difficult, I decided to toss my four-day plan out the window and just try to do as much of Yellowstone as I could in as short a time as I could.
Read MoreI’m absolutely excited. Practically vibrating with joy and determination and general bubblegummy-ness. I’m also terrified.
Read MoreI’m not writing this post to complain. I realized that this — everything being a total mess — is part of the whole experience.
I’m not failing at it, I’m doing it.
Read MoreEverything that I’ve been thinking about just to keep myself going for the last year and a half. The life I’ve been dreaming about is eight hours away.
Read MoreThe last week before I left was just as insane, because all of that was still going on, but I also had a lot of goodbyes to get through.
Read MoreFor about 60 seconds I felt like I was going to pass out with horror, but the solution is pretty obvious and not that big of a deal, even if it wasn’t going to turn out super pretty.
Read MoreI don’t think I’d ever so much as touched a saw of any kind, I had no idea that 2x4 really meant 1.5 inches by 3.5 inches, and the descriptions of some of these screws sounded like gibberish to me (how can a screw be both a Phillip’s and flat? Why is it a #8 but it’s 2 inches long?).
Read More…And all I could think was: “The VanGods have spoken.”
Read MoreWe tugged, and yanked, and pulled, and wiggled, and pled. It was completely anchored down, not moving an inch, and I realized I’d made a massive mistake.
Read MoreI can’t help but think about what I would do differently if I were to do another build. There is one big thing that I wouldn’t do the same way over again if you dared me to.
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