Feeling content with everything we’d accomplished in Idaho, we decided to relocate to Montana. Not moments after crossing into the state, over the radio Peter told us that he thought their van Blitz was having some problems.

When we came to Idaho we had already done a lot of research on overnight backpacking trips. We knew that this area is choke-full of them, however, this one as not on our radar.

At the tail end of the previous episode, we celebrated Owen’s birthday with a fancy dinner out on the town. Leading up to his birthday, Owen explicitly said he didn’t want me to get him anything for his birthday. But with every passing day, he was borrowing Chase and Aimee’s spare rod more and I knew that his very own fly rod was the perfect gift.

The episode starts out with us arriving in the Jackson, WY area for a few days of camping before heading closer to town and Teton National Park. This is one of our favorite camp spots for the wonderful views and easy access to fishing.

After leaving Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado we headed up north into Wyoming for the first of many times this summer. When we first got there we had no idea how much we’d end up doing in the state, but more on that later.

Much like our blog, we’ve been quiet over on our YouTube channel. Since leaving quarantine back in early June we’ve been documenting our travels to capture what it’s been like to travel amidst a global pandemic and more recently we’ve been working hard to put it together into a series we’ve named A Summer Adrift.

This past week Owen and I sat down to look for a picture and remembered that we had yet to share our favorite images from 2017. We know, we know...we're about five months late getting this posted, but better late then never right?

This summer we were headed to the west coast from Glacier National Park in Montana. Looking ahead at our path of travel we noticed that the weather was forecasted to be HOT and still.

We have been toying with the idea of starting up a YouTube channel for a while now, so we thought it was high time that we make it happen. Our first video is live! It covers our build out of Stanley with a full walk through. Give it a watch, and follow the channel if you are into that sort of thing! Enjoy!

Van for sale. I never thought I would have to say those words. We are so incredibly sad to part with our handsome van, Stanley.

We started our May in Sedona, AZ. Our original plan was to be there just for a weekend, but we ended up staying a little longer to try and get more exploring out of our time there. Our campsite happened to be very close to the ancient cliff dwellings and pictographs of Palatki Heritage Site. 

At the beginning of March, we left Joshua Tree to head to Los Angeles. There we caught up with our dear friends Mel and Zenobia. We managed to find a fun hike that took us up to the “Wisdom Tree” and the Hollywood sign!

A few Weeks back we met up with Aidan Klimenko to film a short story about us and our life on the road. This is the results. Enjoy!

At the beginning of the month we were in the bay area and over the course of the month we trended north and ended up in Seattle. We made loads of new friends and got to catch up with some old ones as well. 

There is not a more violating feeling than having your car broken into. To know that someone entered a space that you feel safe in, with no discretion for the things that are important to you will never feel good.

We were in downtown Miami and only away from Stanley 2 hours. He was parked in a public lot, sandwiched between two major roads, in broad daylight. As we walked up to the van I said, "I know I would have never parked in a spot with so much glass on the ground." I hardly made it through that sentence before I reached the passenger vent window to see glass all over the ground.

1. Watch you head...there is something to hit your head on everywhere
2. We could be 100% better at food planning. Going to the grocery store everyday is THE WORST
3. We need cooler weather then we thought we did. No AC has left us sweaty very sweaty

Planning
When planning our system we started with determining how much power we would need for three days without ANY sort of charge. No shore power, no solar, no alternator. This required lots of super fun research and math. Yay math! Ah(Amp Hours) is the unit that a deep cycle battery's capacity is measured in. To come up with the amount of Ah we needed for those three days without charge we took the items we use everyday and figured out their draw in Ah. This is where the math comes in.

Living in a van/traveling full time, though it’s becoming more common, is still a 180 degree turn from the way we are conditioned to live. As we prepare to leave, we understandably get a lot of questions about this. The most frequently asked are:  where are we going to first? There is no good answer to this question, but in all honesty, probably Target...because we always forget something!