A good pair of hiking shoes/trail runners can make a world of difference when you’re out on the trail. Today we’re reviewing one of our most favorite pieces of gear we’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing: The La Sportiva Bushido II’s. They’ve carried us up many mountains and through countless miles on the John Muir Trail!

After being in Jackson and saying goodbye to Chase and Aimee, we ventured farther south to Pinedale, Wyoming with Peter, Shruthi, and Micah. We came here with plans to head into the backcountry for a four-day backpacking trip.

In Yellowstone, we had a few specific areas and creeks that we wanted to fish. Chase and Aimee know this area well and had an itinerary already in place before we arrived. For our second day in the park, we loaded up with a day worth of gear and hiked into the mountains to spend the day on the water.

After being in Butte we finally started to make our way towards Yellowstone National Park. We’d been looking forward to going as a group since we first got together after leaving quarantine. We were excited to finally be getting so close!

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.

Just a day or two after the hike into the Frank Church Wilderness we were ready to head back out on our next adventure! This time we were heading back into the Sawtooths with our sights set on the highest peak in the range!

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.

Three weeks of staying in Jackson meant that we had three weeks of watching the sunrise and sunset over the Tetons. Just about every night we all made our way out to a clearing to watch the sun dip behind the mountains and light up the sky. We came to realize that no two sunsets in Jackson are alike. We were treated to so many unique views that we’re more captivating than the last!

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.

On our way north we didn’t want to rush to the National Monument, so like always, we took the scenic route through a canyon that featured some of the best and most dense petroglyphs sites we’ve seen to date.

After leaving the Capitol Reef area we moved a little further north, once again looking for a place to spend our last few days with Karissa and Linhbergh. On our way to our destination, we stopped at a shallow and cool creek to take a dip and escape the heat, if even for just a few mins.

At the end of Episode 1 we were in Capitol Reef National Park. We then made our way to this special spot outside the park for a few days to sit still and wait for our last party to arrive!

Each week I will be posting a blog post to accompany the video so we can share some behind the scenes photos from each episode and I can write a little more in-depth about our experiences! First up, episode one: Leaving Quarantine.

Last year’s gift guide focused on environmentally friendly gifts, while I will always have that in the back of my mind when giving gifts, this year I wanted to focus mostly on small businesses.

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.

To kick things off I want to share the Q&A that we did over on Instagram. We’ve done this before, but we have a lot of new faces here and I’m sure that you all have some new questions!

Finding the right vehicle for Overlanding, Vanlife, Touring or Road Trips of any kind can be a really daunting task. There’s so much out there making it hard to know where to start! Over time we’ve developed a technique to help bring focus to our search.