After spending Thanksgiving in the Keys and the coldest months of winter down in southern California, a couple of weeks ago, we made it to the northwest corner of the Continental U.S. in Washington. As of May 6th, that marks three corners of the country covered on this trip.
Since then, we've traveled through Montana and Idaho (which is shockingly awesome), and then due to a crazy snow storm passing through, we cut south to Utah and Colorado. We've been traveling for nearly 10 months now and have driven over 25,000 miles.
Many days look exactly like you might imagine: picturesque campsites, gorgeous drives, stunning nature, and cute small cities with great local food. Sometimes we get to meet up with old friends, visit national parks, and find off the beaten path gems. Sometimes we shock ourselves with just how much can be done in an RV kitchen (special shout-out to Mat's adventures in bread making). And sometimes we connect with incredible people, like Scar in Idaho, who used to be homeless and now owns and operates a free campsite to give others a place to stay, and our new friends Debbie and Craig that featured us in their blog here.
Then there are the other days: the long days we spend in parking lots to ensure we have cell service for Rachel's work calls. The many unglamorous (and occasionally noisy) nights we spend at Walmart, truck stops, Cracker Barrel, and Cabela's because it's easy and free and often that's enough. The days we just don't want to travel or explore and don't quite know what to do with ourselves because we're tired, cranky, sick, or didn't sleep. The many times we *could* be out watching sunset, making a campfire or taking a hike, but decide to watch Netflix instead. We are in our thirties after all, and this is 2019.
I don't think it will surprise any of you to learn that this trip is full of challenges. There's the little challenges (like when we can't find a place to fill or dump our tanks and can't wash our dishes for just a liiiiiittle too long). There's the big challenges (like when the windshield came loose and nearly blew off on the highway, or when we swapped out our alternator in a Lowe's parking lot). And then there's the deeper challenges (like seeing some of the darker sides of this country, and learning to live interdependently with one another, with virtually no privacy, personal space, or autonomy).
We don't share much about this trip on social media, because bite size updates really just aren't cutting it. We thought we'd blog more, but clearly that hasn't happened. This is a crazy, weird, hard, and beautiful adventure. And ten months in, with so much of this country under our belts, we wanted to take a quick moment to share these thoughts with you, and--of course--some photos as well.
The truth is, this trip is a dream come true, but it's not a fantasy, and that's not always easy to express. Like most of the best things in life, it's complicated and messy, and frankly, we couldn't imagine it any other way.