It is time to unveil the innards of our summer home on wheels. Reminder: this van is BORROWED and we have to return it to Superfeet in late July after our NZ speaking tour (sniff sniff). But I digress. We have traveled more than 2,000 miles in Superfeet’s converted Sprinter van for since picking it…
Currently living/working in: The Superfeet Supervan!!! We are 1/3 of the way through our summer speaking tour around the US (2000+ miles) in our borrowed Sprinter van. The van is awesome and I can’t wait to share interior pictures! Current mood: This road trip/speaking tour is totally our jam, so I would say happy everyday! Currently excited…
First of all, can I just tell you how much I big puffy heart the Pacific Northwest? Our time in Washington & Oregon has been full of presenting and playing and almost immediately, I said to Justin, “we need to move back to the PNW one of these days.” From the moss-covered hemlock and douglas…
Mt. St. Helens in southern Washington erupted on May 18, 1980. Thirty-seven years and one day later, we climbed that darn volcano! For your history lesson of the day, I will share our newfound knowledge that it all started with a 5.1 magnitude earthquake, which disrupted the volcano with the biggest landslide in recorded history.…
I am so backlogged on blog posts about our epic adventures and tour fun. Bear with me! If all goes accordingly, you may be bombarded with posts this week. We are currently in the Pacific Northwest, making our way south from Washington. We are now rolling in the Superfeet converted Sprinter van (SuperVan). It is…
We are going to squeeze in microadventures throughout our summer speaking tour and it started last weekend when we explored Saguaro National Park in Arizona. In all our years living in Phoenix, we never ventured down to Tucson to explore Saguaro NP for some reason. We drove north to the Grand Canyon a million times, but south?…
We’ve done 6 presentations–2 in New Mexico and 4 in Arizona–thus completing the Southwest leg of our road trip. All the events were at smaller stores, but it’s always nice to ease in with a more manageable crowd. Incredibly enthusiastic listeners nonetheless, and it is awesome to be standing up in front of people again…
Currently living/working in: We just wrapped up our 5-week spring teaching session at Fenton! It went so, so fast, but was so, so busy and tiring. We had kindergartners, 1st graders and 3rd graders this go around. Nonstop from Monday late morning until Friday at 1pm. Chock full of: campfires, tree identification, Leave No Trace,…
Well folks, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, but we have a summer of adventure ahead of us. We are going to once again drink in the inspiration of the road and get the country under our fingertips … We are going on yet another speaking tour about Te Araroa around the United States…
We took our new-to-us Roadtrek on its first 4,000-mile test trip from Colorado to the East Coast (specifically Virginia and New Jersey) and back to Colorado. You know, just a little spin around America. We had a few purposes, mainly to visit our family, friends and Virginia storage unit. But we also wanted to see…
Exciting news folks!!!!!! We said goodbye to Big Bird (our beloved yellow Subaru Baja) last week and welcomed a 1995 Chevy G30 Roadtrek Popular 210 into our family! Ever since we have been spoiled by a decked out Sprinter van thanks to our Backpacker job in 2013, we have been sold on the idea of living…
We were so happy with the outcome of New Zealand’s Te Araroa Speaking Tour! We are so grateful to all our friends and family that came out to support us. We are also so appreciative of our sponsors for the support/giveaways. Thank you Hi-Tec, GSI Outdoors, Gregory, Superfeet, Big Agnes, Sawyer, Princeton Tec and Therm-a-rest. During…
Our Te Araroa speaking tour took us through the Midwest, somehow magically without any winter weather. All 4 stops–Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Louis & Kansas City–were awesome. We both love, love, love standing up in front of people and educating them about our passions and adventures. But I think the thing I enjoy even more is…
In this past week, we went from the serene quiet of the island to the organized chaos of life on the road. We are officially on our Te Araroa Speaking Tour, making 8 stops at REI stores across the country between now and Jan. 13. We started in East Hanover, NJ, with an audience of…
Earlier this week, we left Colorado and landed on the East Coast, specifically in Virginia. I am long overdue for a post on our current and future plans, but unless you want some nonsensical words strung together, you get a smattering of pictures from the rest of our time in Colorado. J’s youngest sister has…
We’ve been on the road since Feb. 24, but we will be completing the final leg today to settle in Oregon for the next 7 months! Before we do, I figured I’d squeeze in a last-minute March edition of “Currently.” I enjoyed sharing “Currently” last month and maybe I will make it a regular part…
We left Danville, VA, March 14 and are still in the Midwest. Those head winds, tail winds and side winds are really strong with the kayaks on top, forcing us to go slowly … and we are certainly not finding spring here. Okay, the truth is, we were purposely taking our time across the US.…
Voting is still open through the end of March for the Montana contest … come on people, don’t you want to see us get to Montana??? We are nowhere close to winning and need your votes!! http://mtcontest.backpacker.com/hopefuls/patrice-justin Well, we have finished our East Coast stint. J & I had decided before heading to these parts…
What’s that they say about certainty in life? There are two things you can count on: death and taxes. The days surrounding J’s grandma’s funeral were a whirlwind of chaos. It was especially hard for J & I to have so much stuff packed into a 3-day period after having so little going on for…
This weekend was our last one at the cabin in the mountains of CO before we make our 3,000-mile detour to the East Coast to our house (AKA, very expensive storage unit) in VA and then head up to Oregon to start our new jobs and life. We knew saying goodbye to the cabin would…