There's a Fish in the Percolator: An Afternoon at Snoqualmie Falls, the Real-Life Twin Peaks

The Great Northern Hotel from popular '90s surreal crime drama Twin Peaks sits about an hour outside of Seattle, Washington. If you're in the area, you'll definitely want to make a pilgrimage to this hipster hot spot, especially if you're a Twin Peaks fan. Listen to the show's soundtrack as you drive up, be silent, and get ready for an exceptional site/sight.

You'll recognize the parking lot and exterior of the building immediately as you turn off of the highway. That's where the similarities end, though. The inside of The Great Northern, in reality called Salish Lodge & Spa, looks nothing like the charmingly rustic Horne brothers' hotel.

Walk around the outside of the lodge, following the roar of the iconic Snoqualmie Falls. The falls often create a mysterious cloud of mist around the hotel. We spent an afternoon hiking to the base of the falls and reading about their ties to local Native American tribes, who consider the falls sacred.

The Snoqualmie tribe (a subgroup of the Coast Salish people) tell of the falls in their creation story, and believe its mists carry prayers to the Creator. They traded and built camps near the falls, using them for protection.

In more recent years, the Snoqualmie people have fought Puget Sound Energy company to protect the Snoqualmie Falls area. The people rallied and formed the Snoqualmie Falls Preservation Project, working with the local town and Cascade Land Conservancy to create a nature preserve.

We spent an hour or so hiking to the base of the falls and back up, stopping halfway for a forest photo shoot. Before long, though, our dogs Charlie and Maya spotted (or smelled) something creeping close, and went on high alert. They barked and shook, and we humans scanned the trees for creatures. We didn't see anything, but based on their raised fur and trembles, we high-tailed it to the trailhead. 

photo by Mr. Phil Weber—http://philipweber.com

If you have time post-hike, head back to the Salish Lodge, and explore the indoors. We already had a place to stay for the night, so instead of booking a room, we enjoyed a drink and some snacks at the upstairs restaurant.

The Attic offers casual dining and a rich drink menu full of seasonal specialties, but the best part: We sat at a table overlooking the falls. We watched the sunset change the gray clouds to deep purples and pinks. Then, we headed back on the road to Seattle, grateful for a unique afternoon that connected us with the beautiful nature of the Pacific Northwest and brought to life one of our favorite TV creations of all time.

Oh, Boise! 5 Things You Didn't Know You Didn't Know about Idaho's Capital

On a windy, rainy November night, we rolled into Boise, Idaho. Something about the place, even veiled in darkness, felt right to us right away. It was the biggest city we'd been to past Salt Lake City, but it felt manageable, and the homes—each different from the one next to it—made the moments sitting at stop lights interesting. We had 24 hours to explore before heading on to Seattle, and we wanted to do exactly that, despite the rain.

Boise didn't let us down. Here are a few things we learned about this city of 200,000, located at 43 degrees N, 116 degrees W: 

1). Better donuts than Portland?

I specifically call out Portland because every single person we met in Portland a few weeks later asked us if we'd visited a certain donut shop there. We did stop by that shop, but we weren't as impressed as we were with donut happy hour at Guru Donuts in downtown Boise.

There, we ordered an apple cider donut, covered in cream cheese frosting, caramel drizzle, and sprinkled with pie crust crumbles. I think of that donut every time anyone mentions donuts. To call it a life changer would be dramatic, but I won't be visiting a Dunkin' Donuts again. 

2). Lovely living spaces

Homes where we're from in Chicago all tend to follow a trend—especially as construction workers tear down classic old homes only to replace them with three-unit brick condo clones. We loved that every house in Boise had its own unique vibe and color. Many of these homes had enough land to include a backyard workshop space, which we dream about for Dan's music or my writing studio. 

3). Eating well made easy

Our first stop in Boise was the Boise Co-op, near where we were parking for the night. We stopped to pick up fish, veggies, and a bottle of wine for dinner. Prices were better than the big-box stores, and the shelves were overflowing with organic options. I think we stopped back in two more times in our short 24 hours in Boise, and found lots of local goodies to put together a gift basket for our Thanksgiving hosts in Seattle.

The next afternoon, we ventured out for lunch at the Boise Fry Company, based on a friend's recommendation. This place had juicy burgers, dry ciders, and crispy fries—made from Idaho potatoes, hand-cut and fried to perfection. A line of a dozen dipping sauces, such as garlic aioli and blueberry ketchup, propelled the fries even further into favor, as you can see in Dan's eyes.

4). Beauty in the bar scene

We met our first Trump supporters over whiskey-sodas in Boise, and convinced them that the Donald is in fact my uncle. It all happened within the magical setting of Neurolux Lounge, which felt as welcoming as one of our local, dive-y favorites back in Chicago, (though we've yet to encounter Trump supporters there). Neurolux hosts live shows, but the night we popped in no one was playing. However, we did meet a Metallica cover band, passing through on their way from Spokane to Reno.

5). A National Geographic fave

There's so much outdoor adventuring along the Snake River and other rivers in Boise that National Geographic rates the city as one of the great places in the U.S. to live and play. Boise lays claim to the best mountain biking spots in the country, with Rocky Mountain skiing, peaceful canoeing, and gorgeous hikes nearby, too. We ran out of time to experience all of that, but the promise of adventures unseen left us wanting to come back sooner rather than later.

Crossed Paths: We've taken the plunge...and opened an Etsy shop

Katie's been on Etsy for years as a consumer, but this is the first time we ever considered opening a shop of our own. Neither of us are professional photographers, though I took a few classes in art school, and Katie's done some workshops and takes most of the pictures that accompany her writing. 

We've gotten a lot of wonderful feedback about some of the photos and requests for prints from our journey so far, which propelled us to test the waters with this shop. So we picked a few of our favorites and are making prints of them.

It turns out that opening an Etsy shop is a lot of work, and not something you can knock out in an afternoon. We vetted a few dozen other shops, developed our policies, retouched our photos for printing, and researched the logistics of printing and mailing these things.

We're still working out some kinks but cruise by our shop next time you're on Etsy looking for a crocheted coozie or tie-dyed underwear. Let us know what you think. #putabirdonit

:Dan

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Dispatches from the Road: Great Salt Lake, Utah

After re-fueling for a few weeks back home in Chicago, we drove out to Salt Lake City, where we'd stored our travel trailer for the month of October. "It'll be warm enough there, no problem! Way warmer than Montana," we reasoned.

Not quite. It was 30 degrees when we drove into Utah, and the temperature didn't budge the entire time we were there. So naturally, we bundled up for a day at the beach.

The Great Salt Lake is the largest lake west of the Mississippi River, the remnant of a giant ice age lake called Lake Bonneville. It's too salty to maintain any fish populations. Only brine shrimp and algae survive there, which wolf dog Maya was happy to hunt down. She sprinted and dug and sopped up briny water for an hour straight, drinking her entire day's worth of water within five minutes of being home.

The rest of us thought the Great Salt Lake was pretty, and enjoyed the eerie peace of looking out over the virtually uninhabited waters. At least one of us (hello!) spent the time imagining various dooms day scenarios playing out there.

However, because we do still have an electrical grid and Internet connection, here are a few of our favorite moments from that gray afternoon, Antelope Island in the distance:

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Crossed Paths: Walleye Freak

Let this story be a lesson to you: When you feel an inkling to meet new people—a group at a party, someone standing by you in line, or the nice couple parked next to you at the RV park—introduce yourself. You're going to feel a little bit awkward, but if you have the impulse, do it.

There's even a TED Talk about using a "5-second rule" to get moving. Motivational speaker Mel Robbins encourages people to marry impulses to actions within five seconds of when the idea strikes—before the brain has time to kill the idea due to potential discomfort.

Too bad I hadn't yet watched that talk when we were parked at the Flat Creek RV Park in Thayne, Wyoming. We would see our neighbors come and go from their trailer throughout the day, but we never crossed to their side of the water hose to introduce ourselves. Being a little lonely and a tad bored in small town Wyoming, we would've loved to share road warrior stories and a dinner with other traveling sprits. But, we hesitated.

We'd been curious about these neighbors from the moment we parked. Their pickup truck and trailer were branded with the words "Walleye Freak" circling a neon green fish. Who were they? Where were they from? Why walleye? Yet, we never followed that initial impulse to walk over, knock on their door, and ask.

Two weeks later, on our last day in Thayne, Dan and I were outside packing when the neighbors walked up.

"Are you guys leaving?" They asked. 

The ensuing 20 minutes of conversation proved that we'd truly missed out by not introducing ourselves sooner. Like us, Michelle and Jimmy were on a cross-country adventure, and Jimmy, an incredibly skilled fisherman, was gaining fame in the fishing world thanks to their travels.

High school sweethearts, the two had graduated in the '80s but broke up when Michelle's dad forced them to shake hands and say their goodbyes. Over the next 30 years, Jimmy moved to Montana while Michelle, hundreds of miles away, worked and built a separate life.

But her work wasn't fulfilling. "I don't want to work a job where I wake up everyday with a sick feeling in my stomach. I don't care how poor I am," Michelle told us.

Thirty years after their forced split, she and Jimmy reconnected over Facebook. They began dreaming a new adventure—together. Jimmy loved fishing for walleye, and had created a logo that he evolved into an apparel company. He wanted to sell hats, shirts, decals, and more centered around the bright green fish. Michelle, unhappy at her job, knew she could help the company grow.

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The two worked out a plan to bring Walleye Freak gear to fishermen and women across the country. They moved into a trailer and followed the walleye east. 

Michelle took over the Walleye Freak Facebook page, and before long, built the community from 89 people to more than 4,000. While they were on the road, she updated regularly about where they were and encouraged local people to fish with Jimmy.

The couple spent weeks in walleye states like New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Word got out, and whenever Michelle posted their location to Facebook, people from states away joined the locals to fish with Jimmy.

In August, Michelle and Jimmy finished the first leg of their journey at the Maumee River walleye run. Then, they sped back west so Jimmy could find a few construction jobs to more quickly build their savings again.

"We were out fishing every day," Jimmy says. "Now we're back here to be closer to family and work more. We're still on this journey. We just have to fill up the tank."

But even after a long day of construction, Jimmy would return to the trailer in Thayne to fish. We saw Michelle some days setting up their chairs by the creek behind our trailers, where they would watch for those flashes of underwater movement until dark. 

As we said goodbye and lamented our lost time together, Michelle and Jimmy offered to take us fishing...if we could just stay one more day. But we had to be up north in Montana, had to get back on the road.

If only we'd introduced ourselves in those first five seconds—lesson learned.

Exploring Jackson Hole from the Snake River Lodge and Spa

We’re driving down I-80, facing down a Wyoming blizzard as I write this. Every few miles, signs pop up warning of potential road closures: “If flashing, use next exit to leave highway.”

This route, now gray-brown under patches of white snow, looked entirely different when we crossed back to Chicago at the end of September. We had left our travel trailer in Salt Lake City and sped home to family obligations—“like a rocket shedding part of itself” our friend Greg intoned when we told him what we’d done.

While we were home, we got lots of questions about the trip, the most common being, “What was your favorite place?”

Dan and I would look at each other and nod, “Definitely the Grand Tetons.”

Up in that northwest corner of Wyoming near Montana, we’d seen and heard the most wildlife of the entire trip—elk, buffalo, black bears, grizzly bears, owls, and bald eagles. We hadn’t expected it at all.

We’d only ever heard of Grand Teton National Park in passing (and in Modest Mouse songs). While we hadn’t given much thought to the national park, multiple people had told us to visit the nearby town of Jackson. “The Austin of Wyoming,” my brother called it.

At the time, back in early September, we’d been planning to drive up to Glacier National Park. We so badly wanted to drive up the Going to the Sun Road (like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining”) and see all of the park’s majestic beauty and wildlife.

Multiple wildfires were raging throughout Glacier, though, and parts of it had shut down. As a consolation, we decided to heed our friends’ advice and check out Jackson Hole. Dan booked us a weekend away from our luxury travel trailer at the truly luxury Snake River Lodge & Spa, which introduced us to the Grand Tetons.

We dropped off our dogs for their own mountain getaway at DogJax and headed into Jackson. Before going to the hotel, located about 20 minutes outside of downtown Jackson in the ski resort area, we took a quick detour to The National Wildlife Museum.

The museum was hosting an exhibit by contemporary Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei—The Zodiac Heads. Outside of the museum stood 12 giant bronze heads of the animals of the Chinese zodiac, each mounted on a bronze pole. With the stark Wyoming mountains as a backdrop, the heads looked especially out of place—and even more stunning.

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It was nice to know we were staying close enough to return to the museum if we wanted, and we made our way to the Snake River Lodge. I’d emailed the hotel manager the day before to let her know why we’d booked with them—a change in plans, but we hoped to make the most of it. We also thought the stay would make a nice escape from trailer life, because although traveling is fun and incredibly freeing, setting up, tearing down, and taking care of a trailer requires a lot of work.

When we got to the hotel, the lobby immediately struck us as classic western—taxidermy mountain lions mounted over log cabin walls, leather chairs circled around a fireplace, and gigantic antler chandeliers hanging at the entrances.

But our room was the best part. The Snake River Lodge had taken into account our situation, and voluntarily upgraded us to an oversized suite, complete with fireplace and balcony overlooking the mountains. Staff had also left a bottle of sparkling wine and plate of fresh fruit for us.

We were in awe, but decided to save the wine for later. The mountains were right there, and we wanted to see them up close. The Snake River Lodge rents bikes by the day, which we would’ve done if it hadn’t been so close to sunset. Instead, the guide at the hotel’s Backcountry Adventure Center suggested we drive a lesser-known and unpaved road through Grand Teton National Park.

“You’ll definitely see wildlife,” he said. “No one drives that way, so there’s always tons.”

He was right. Before anything else, we encountered a black bear, completely undaunted by our car cruising toward him as he crossed the road to a patch of blackberries. A park ranger told us later that bears eat about 8,000 calories a day, but during fall, they’re stocking up for winter and consume as many as 20,000 calories a day.

We skipped the backcountry hiking.

Once it grew too dark to see anything, we headed back to the Snake River Lodge, about 15 minutes from the park’s entrance. That was our favorite part about the hotel—its close proximity to downtown Jackson and the Grand Tetons. We found a hip little restaurant, Teton Thai, a few streets away, and headed there for dinner and cocktails. (BTW, does anyone know why there's such a high percentage of Thai restaurants in Jackson? Not complaining, just curious how this came to be.)

On the walk back to the Snake River Lodge, we realized we had an hour before the hot tub closed. After a month and a half living in a trailer, nothing sounded better than a long soak in a hot tub.

The temperature dropped at night, and we snuggled close in the outdoor hot tub, sheltered by a rocky overhang and waterfall. Then, it was back up to our room for a champagne toast on the balcony, wrapped in blankets, with Modest Mouse playing in the background.

A couple months later, we’re cruising down I-80 on our way to pick up our trailer in Salt Lake City, wishing we had time to detour north. Blame it on the Tetons.

Homeward Bound

I'm writing this post from a hotel room in Omaha, Nebraska. Our husky mix Maya has set up camp in her wolf den under the bed, and our lab/corgi Charlie is curled up next to me, while Dan checks in with work and The Internet. Two days ago, we parked our travel trailer at an indoor storage space in Mormon Territory (Utah), and now we're heading back to Chicago for the next six weeks.

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Leaving the trailer was bittersweet—both a relieving and a sad transition. We're relieved to not have to worry about towing a large metal box uphill at 65 mph, as well as about tearing it down and setting it up again every week. Living in the trailer, we're still unable to completely relax because we never know if something is going to go wrong out of the blue—like the time in Wyoming when we had to change a flat tire in a Walmart parking lot that was clearly ruled by ravens. Or in Colorado when we were parked on such an incline, the trailer suddenly rolled back a foot, snapping off one of the stabilizers. (We've since invested in wheel chocks.)

At the same time, however, that 25-foot trailer has become our home. The opportunity it gives us to see vastly different parts of this huge country is amazing, and we're going to miss the weekly changes in scenery.

But we have a variety of exciting reasons for our return trip to Chicago, including:

• Checkins with freelance clients
• Dan's brother's wedding
• Katie's mom's knee surgery
• Katie's dad's 60th birthday
• Dan's shows with Blane Fonda and The NoiseFM

We're looking forward to seeing our crew back home, and we'll miss the trailer....but to say our last week in it was fantastic would be a lie. Virtually the entire time we were in Montana, it rained. The wind blew so fiercely for five straight days that our tiny wheelhouse shook throughout the day and night. It was unsettling and loud, with constant rain pounding down on the metal roof.

Worse yet, we only had a couple of days clear enough to venture into Yellowstone National Park. We spent hours all over the park during those trips, but still—not what we had anticipated. There were no daily lunch picnics, no extended afternoon hikes. And even though I don't truly agree with it, I took comfort in this quote from John Steinbeck: “We enclose and celebrate the freaks of our nation and our civilization. Yellowstone National Park is no more representative of America than is Disneyland.”

See? Even Steinbeck says it—we hadn't missed a thing. And those rainy days weren't a total wash. We:

• Listened to: Limetown—an incredibly creepy (especially when you're walking the dogs through an abandoned RV park in Montana) mystery podcast
• Watched: Narcos—a new Netflix series chronicling the Pablo Escobar drug wars in Medellín, Colombia
• Wrote: my first story for RVing web magazine diyRV.com
• Held planking competitions (Dan won)

Before we stored the trailer, we researched ways to keep it safe during our time away and compared notes, not wanting to come back to a propane leak, dead battery, or rodent infestation. We had to do things like leave all cabinets open so they could air out, put dryer sheets over any outside vents to deter insects, and shut off all of the breakers.

It was a stressful afternoon making sure we didn't forget anything, but now we're working our way through the 20-hour drive from Utah to Chicago. We're reminiscing along the way, and keeping it all in perspective: We had six perfect-weather weeks to kick off our trip; a few rainy days shouldn't get us down.

Here are a few of our favorite Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana moments from this new life on the road:

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Crossed Paths: 72 Legs

When we arrived at the campground where we were staying in Golden, Colorado, I climbed out of the truck to guide Dan in parallel parking our 25-foot trailer. Even under the easiest circumstances, I am pretty horrible at this. A number of times, I’ve stomped up to the driver’s side window in tears and demanded that Dan get out and look at the situation for himself.

This time, as I flung my hands around in attempts to communicate, I couldn’t help but notice our neighbor—an older man with white hair setting up wire fencing outside of his RV.

They must have dogs, I thought, noting a possible future set up for our own dogs.

But the distraction only grew from there. The man placed an orange cone in the center and threw a blue tarp over the enclosure. Then, he opened the side door of his rig, and a series of miniature poodles raced down the steps like a chute into the fencing.

I counted 10 of them, and in a variety of shades. Dan, meanwhile, basically had parallel parked our trailer on his own. I rushed over to tell him about our neighbors.

The Zoppé Family Circus

I was wrong about the number of dogs. There were seven more inside, waiting for their turn—17 dogs total.

Over the next few days, I learned that the man I’d seen, Rudy Heinen, and his wife Carla Heinen were circus performers and trainers with the Zoppé Family Circus. They’d converted the back of their 30,000-lb. toy hauler RV into living quarters for their team of performing pups.

Carla’s maiden name was Zoppé. For six generations, her family has run the circus, which began in Italy. During World War II, the Italian government confiscated the circus horses for battle, and the circus was bombed.

After the war, the Ringling Bros. Circus in the United States contacted the Zoppés and made an agreement: They’d send the Zoppé Circus an elephant if the Zoppés sent Carla’s father, a talented bareback horse rider, to perform in America.

“So my dad was traded for an elephant, and that’s how we got here,” Carla tells me.

Carla’s dad and mom met in the circus, and started the Zoppé Family Circus in America. Today, Carla and her siblings run the show with a cast of about 20 people. They perform 12 shows a week from June to November. In Oklahoma City, where they perform at the Oklahoma State Fair, they’ll do as many as 30 shows in 10 days.

Each show kicks off with Carla’s brother and brother-in-law performing as Italian-style clowns. They carry out a trunk and unload the myriad hoops, juggling clubs, and other items the performers use. Carla’s mom then reads a story about the family’s history.

Dressed in Russian-style knee-high boots, velvet skirt, and corset, Carla waits in the wings with Rudy and their dancing dogs. During their act, the dogs jump through flowered hoops, flip off of seesaws, and dive from air balloons into Rudy’s waiting arms.

“We train them with lots of love and hotdogs,” Carla says.

A Family of Performers

Carla and Rudy met in the circus in 1994. Rudy was born in Germany, and trained large animals—hippos, elephants, monkeys, lions, tigers, and bears—before switching to dogs. In one of the photos Carla shows me, a blonde Rudy sits with a giant white tiger, surrounded by his fellow performers—among them Siegfried and Roy, perhaps the most famous animal trainers of our time.

Carla is 26 years younger than her husband, and was born in Baltimore, Maryland. “Because we were always on the road, my brother was born in the Bozo Show parking lot in Chicago; my sister was born in Sarasota, Florida.”

At age 3, Carla started performing. “Every child in the circus business, their first trick is standing on their dad’s hand. From the time you can even hardly stand, they’ll show you off.”

Carla’s half-siblings, the famous Flying Wallendas, are also performers, and she passed the lifestyle on to her son. He performs the Globe of Death at the Wisconsin Dells every summer, circling the interior of a giant steel globe on motorcycle.

“It’s a lifestyle you can’t compare to anything else because you have nothing else to compare it to,” Carla says.

The Zoppé Family Circus also includes horseback riders (Carla’s sister), a woman who hangs from her hair, contortionists, acrobats, and a rolla bolla couple.

A Handful of Sawdust

When I met Carla and Rudy, they had just traveled 1,600 miles from shows in Westhampton Beach, New York. It took them nearly four days, with frequent breaks for the dogs.

They pull their 5th wheel trailer with the front of a 1998 semi truck, which has nearly 750,000 miles on it. Carla didn’t sleep the entire drive.

“I never close my eyes. We had an accident a couple years ago that scared me so bad I should’ve gotten therapy for it. In there now, I’m holding onto things, stepping on brakes. My husband says I ride in the truck like I’m riding a bucking horse,” she says. “I’m only 52, but I’m kind of ready to retire. Mostly because of this trailer and how heavy it is, these last two years have been a real hard time for me.”

Her history with the circus keeps her going. “It’s in my blood,” she says. “It’s a scary thing to not have done anything else and make a lifestyle change.”

From Golden, the Zoppé Family Circus was heading 170 miles west to perform at Snowmass, Colorado, a ski resort at 14,000 feet elevation. Carla was stressed—about the trip and about bears on the mountain that might be drawn out by the smell of circus food. But the end was in sight.

At the close of each Zoppé show, Rudy and Carla shuffle the dogs back into their cages. The clown returns with his trunk on his back to pack up the gear, and Carla’s mom reads a poem about the handful of sawdust that goes into the trunk as well. “You take the good luck from this tent and you bring it to the next town,” Carla says, adding, “It’s one big story, and all of it is true.”

(Want to check out the Zoppé Family Circus in action? See videos on their YouTube channel.)

Elk, Music Videos, and the Power of Letting Go of Routine

As we rounded one of many bends that wind through Grand Teton National Park, we spotted a line of cars pulled over at the side of the road.

"What could it be?" We wondered. On our last pass through the park, we'd seen:

• 1 grizzly bear
• 3 black bears
• 6 elk
• 12 pronghorn antelopes
• 1 osprey

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The sun had gone down moments before we pulled over behind the other cars, and we had trouble figuring out what we were seeing at first. Then we realized: A herd of 30 elk, with a giant bull elk leading the line across the valley. The bull would stop every few feet, and raise its head to emit an eerie call—a high screech overlaid on a deep, echoing reediness. It made Dan and I turn to each other, eyes wide, every time we heard it.

Our lab/beagle Charlie sat in my lap shaking as we watched the line of elk advance. And in the backseat, our husky/terrier Maya whimpered, paced, ate treats, and contemplated jumping out of her window in an excited panic.

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As we watched the scene, I was thankful that we'd opted to take the long way home. Six hours earlier, we'd started our trek through Grand Teton National Park and consciously left the park with our map folded up.

"Let's get lost a little bit," Dan said.

So we did. We took a left turn and ended turning a 40-mile trip into the Tetons into a 150-mile trip to Yellowstone National Park. After seeing a few canyons, waterfalls, and millions of evergreens, the sun began to set. We were hiking around Old Faithful then, and we wanted to get back to our camper. But the lure of the Grand Tetons was strong, and on our way back, instead of taking the highway, we returned the way we'd come, searching the hills, canyons, and valleys for wildlife as we drove.

That's been my favorite part of this trip so far—choosing the unexpected, taking the long way, leaving routine behind. Because in Chicago, we definitely had a routine (albeit, a fun one). And growing up there especially, we'd lost a lot of that craving to discover new things; we assume we've seen it all already.

But on the road, everything is fresh, and we find ourselves saying yes to new experiences and ideas way more often than we say no.

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One night back in Colorado, our friend Brad from Chicago was staying over, and the three of us sat outside talking late into the night. Dan and Brad are in a band together called Ancient Friends, and had just played a set at Illegal Pete's a few nights earlier.

"Hey," I said, "Would you guys want to do a little impromptu music video tomorrow? We could film it with the mountains as a backdrop."

Instead of being hesitant or finding excuses in other plans, Dan and Brad said yes. Brad would be moving to Sweden in a few weeks, they reasoned, and this could be a great homage to their band and the beauty we'd seen in Colorado. The next day while we worked, they brainstormed locations. And with the golden hour on the horizon that evening, we hiked to an overlook on Lookout Mountain in Golden, Colorado.

Just like taking the long way home and seeing the elk, that shoot reaffirmed that there's beauty in saying yes to the urges and ideas that strike you. Make the effort, let go of routine, and live.

Many Happy Thanks

Today marks one month on the road. It's been incredible so far, and we're learning new things all the time.

For example, when Maya slips out the front door into complete darkness, it takes about 10 minutes to track her down under someone else's RV and lure her out with a bag of beef jerky. We've also figured out how to install the jack and change a tire on our Suburban. We're still working on our communication skills for when Dan is backing up the trailer and I'm directing him, but we'll get there; it's great practice in communication.

This trip wouldn't have been anywhere near this level of amazing, though, if not for all of the friends and family who have supported, visited, and cooked for us along the way. We were very lucky to enjoy dinners, drinks, hikes, and shows with buddies in South Dakota and Colorado throughout this first month.

But this next month, we know hardly a soul in the states we plan to visit (Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho). That leaves us plenty of time to reflect on all of the people we treasure, as well as all of the treasures these treasure people have bestowed upon us in our journey (after first celebrating this milestone with a home-cooked Italian dinner).

Here's a public MUCHAS GRACIAS to all of you as we continue onward, always towards the light:

• Parents—for collecting our mail, taking care of our dry cleaning, supplying us with tick removal tools, and being cool with this new lifestyle
   
• Freelance clients—for trusting us to work remotely, despite (sometimes) troublesome wifi connections
   
• Amber and Bryan—for that little black sign you see in many of our pics
   
• Andrea Bell—for turning Charlie and Maya into the sweetest little illustrations, which we put up immediately whenever we park (see more of Andrea's work here)

• Aunt Annie & Uncle Mark—for selling us a solid Suburban at a deep discount, as well as offering a place to stay and delicious food
   
• Martha—for beading the dragonfly that will accompany us wherever we go
   
• Steph and Justin—for the excellent survival kit, including four emergency cans of wine
   
• Gina—for providing Charlie and Maya with RV gear the most seasoned retiree would be jealous of, like light-up LED collars that have saved Maya (or foiled her plans) more than once in the middle of the night
   
• Suzanne—for so many emergency items that we'll hopefully never have to use, but sleep better knowing are there

• Ximena and Bubba—for the cleansing sage
   
• Danny and Cristina—for showing us around Denver/Boulder and hosting a badass barbecue in a badass backyard
   
• Kelli and Dave—for giving us a camera trigger, which will enable us to take long exposure shots of all the stars we see; and Dan's favorite item, the "sweet axe"

• Anna McDermott and Gretchen Wiegand—for a copy of their mystical book, The Circle of Na'mow, and the silver pendant it inspired
   
• Allison, Mark, Mandy, Todd, and Brad—for being brave enough to spend some nights in this tiny wheelhouse before we have everything figured out
   
• Everyone else who has called, texted, shared tips and ideas, and kept up with the blog—for caring and taking interest.

Thank you for reading. We're lucky to have you thoughtful people in our lives. 

Hiking Colorado

Everyday that we woke up in Colorado, I wanted to go hiking. And Dan would diligently remind me—either through words or action—that work comes first. He would get out of bed, start water boiling for our coffee, open his computer, and essentially say: This isn't vacation.

It all makes me wish I were more of a morning person—that I could get up really early, hike, and then start my day. Because Colorado is so beautiful, with a new trail to hike every few hundred yards. 

Being from the flatlands of the Midwest and living in downtown Chicago, I wanted to see all Colorado had to offer, and if I could ever get myself out of bed earlier, maybe I would have.

In a phone call with my sister-in-law Emily about our trip so far, I told her that I wake up “with the sun.”

“You do?” she asked, well versed in my love of sleeping in, naptime, resting my eyes, and laying down for a little bit. “What time does the sun come up there?”

“Oh, I wake up around 8:30,” I told her.

*Laughter.*

It occurred to me then, thinking about Emily and her 16-month-old son, that waking up with the sun probably happens a lot sooner than 8:30 a.m. So I Googled it, and found that waking up with the sun in Denver in August would actually mean waking up more than two hours before 8:30.

Fair enough. I still found a way to work in the hikes. Some mornings, I would start working later. Some afternoons, I would stop working earlier. And some Saturdays were devoted to hiking.

I was going to liken this hiking urge to doing hard drugs, but that seemed cliché and out of my wheelhouse. So I’ll liken it to experiencing a great wine or cheese. Hiking—despite my fear of bees, rattle snakes, and bears—filled a void I didn't know I had.

The quiet challenge of it gets me every time, and I imagine the people and animals who have traversed these places before me. I look at the giant sky and the towering trees. Sometimes I pretend I'm walking on Mars. It makes me feel very small and insignificant in the best way. We saw so many breathtaking views, smelled so many plants, heard so many birds, and felt…so much difficulty breathing.

To us, these hikes in Golden, Boulder, Colorado Springs, and El Dorado Canyon were gorgeous. But they were also filled with haze from the wildfires in Washington. We could see the area directly around us fine, but the lines of mountains in the distance were covered in smog, creating a layered backdrop of gray tones.

We didn’t notice this was out of the ordinary until people told us so. But in the week since then, a number of wildfires also have erupted in Glacier National Park, which was going to be our next stop.

News stories, Reddit, and a woman we met at the Cowboy Bar last night who told us that Glacier was "between Hell and Earth right now" convinced us that we should go elsewhere. We’re re-routing, spending time in Wyoming near Yellowstone, and thinking of all the people risking their lives to stop the fires.

It's obvious how the fires happen. The air is so dry at this elevation (we're at nearly 7,000 ft. now), that we have to water our plants twice daily. We're also constantly applying lip balm and lotion, and making sure our water bottles are full.

And we're looking forward to the miles upon miles of hikes here in Wyoming, too. We’ll be all up in them—a couple of city kids gone wild.

Our friends Mandy, Mark, and shirtless dude at Red Rocks

At the Continental Divide

Just Like Heaven

A major reason we kicked off our cross-country trek when we did was so we could witness this moment. Last October, two of our very dear friends got engaged, and earlier this month, they made it official at the Evergreen Lake House in Colorado, not far from where the bride, Kelli, grew up.

Dan stood up on the side of the groom, Dave, and played guitar for the couple's first dance—"Just Like Heaven" by the Cure. The entire evening was absolutely beautiful, with dramatic clouds and mountains in the distance and only one uninvited stand-up paddle boarder watching the ceremony from the water.

It meant a lot to Dan and me to see these two decide to get married after dating for more years than most. Their relationship paralleled ours in that way, and it felt so complete to see them say "I do" after surviving many of the same challenges that we had. We never doubted their love for each other, but we know what it feels like when others question you and as a result, you question yourself.

But that wasn't the only wonderful way this wedding brought people together. After two weeks on the road, it was refreshing to see so many familiar faces who had traveled from Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles to be there for Dave and Kelli. We got to hear their latest news and share the travel stories we'd collected so far. 

Some people told us they envied what we're doing—spending the next months working remotely and exploring the country. And if it wasn't me doing the traveling, I would definitely be saying the same thing to whoever was. 

As we talked to these friends, I kept thinking of a John Steinbeck quote I'd just read in Travels with Charley, the book Steinbeck wrote about his own cross-country journey with his dog:

"I saw in their eyes something I was to see over and over in every part of the nation—a burning desire to go, to move, to get under way, anyplace, away from any Here. They spoke quietly of how they wanted to go someday, to move about, free and unanchored, not toward something but away from something. I saw this look and heard this yearning everywhere in every state I visited. Nearly every American hungers to move."

Packing up your stationary life and heading out on the road is an incredible learning experience. If you feel the urge to do it, don't wait! Find a plan and a way that works for you. We invested in our own trailer and convinced our freelance clients to trust us. Steinbeck saved up and drove around for three months with a bed and sink hitched on top of his pick-up truck.

As with planning a wedding, re-imagining your life is not easy. There are times when you'll ask yourself, "What the hell did I get myself into?"

But it's incredibly rewarding—to know how to hitch up a trailer, to call someone your partner for life, to know when and how to gauge tire pressure, to stand up in front of everyone you care about and profess your dedication to your person, to explore new places and meet new people every single day.

As wedding gifts for their guests, Dave and Kelli gave everyone an evergreen seedling to "plant it, nurture it, watch it take root and grow." We're taking our seedlings with us on the road, and eventually, we'll plant them somewhere permanent and watch them grow.

And now for something completely different....Here's Dan and our friend Bridget performing The Cure's "Just Like Heaven" for Kelli and Dave's first dance:

Crossed Paths: The Roving Vet

As dusk falls over Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, Veterinarian Ray Heinrichs lowers the back door of his toy hauler—a type of RV typically used to transport motorcycles and four-wheelers. He looks out over the half dozen horses grazing at the ranch next door.

They’re a familiar sight for Dr. Ray, who has been in practice for 30 years and who has spent a long few days volunteering his vet services to horses all over Pine Ridge Reservation.

Now, more than 12 hours after his day began, he is preparing to spay a 6-month-old labrador mix. In the back of his toy hauler.

Dr. Ray and his wife of 35 years, Deb, had backed in their 35-foot trailer next to ours a few nights earlier in complete darkness. Dan and I ventured out to introduce ourselves and see if they needed any help. We quickly learned that Dr. Ray was a veterinarian from southern Illinois who had converted the rig into a surgical space.

Inside, he showed us a surgical table, tool chest, and dozens of boxes of vet supplies. There’s a scale for weighing animals, and a bath that could fit cats and dogs as large as 50 lbs.

Dr. Ray told us then that he would be performing a spay surgery on a female dog a few days later. I asked if we could photograph it, and he agreed.

The night of the surgery, Deb carries a medium-sized brown dog into the trailer’s side door, and places it on the scale. She guesses its weight before it registers: 36 lbs. Then, she carries it to the back and places it on the surgical table, where Dr. Ray’s assistant keeps it calm and still. She wraps her arms around the pup, and pets it while Dr. Ray gathers the anesthesia he’ll need.

He turns on a desk lamp positioned above the surgical table and begins quizzing the group of veterinary students gathered on the toy hauler’s ramp. The students are also volunteering on the reservation this week. They’ve mostly come from Wisconsin, and are here to watch the procedure, which will begin in mere minutes.

Treating the Horse Spirit

The group of veterinarians and vet students goes by the name Sung Oyate (Lakota for Horse People). They've been volunteering on Pine Ridge (where the people speak Lakota) for a week each year since 2008, and work in conjunction with Pine Ridge-based non-profit Horse Spirit Society, which honors Lakota traditions and values through horse camps for the youth.

Horse Spirit Society connects the Sung Oyate veterinarians with people on Pine Ridge in need of care for their animals. In addition to treating animals, the veterinarians teach people on the reservation how to do things like stitch injuries. This enables the people to take care of minor issues if they can’t afford to pay a veterinarian to come out and check their animals.

Dr. Ray was one of the first veterinarians to volunteer with Sung Oyate, which was founded by his friend and Veterinary Technician Paula Arnold. In 2009, Dr. Ray drove 1,100 miles from his home, and has been coming back every year since.

This is the first year Dr. Ray brought along his trailer. The space is large enough to treat horses, but tonight will be used for a puppy. Dr. Ray purchased the trailer off Craigslist last year, and has been converting it slowly ever since.

“I’ve got a surgery light I haven’t put up there yet, and I’ll probably do gas anesthesia. I’m doing it a little bit at a time. The thing is the expense. You can spend $100 grand to get the equipment before you see your first dog or cat or horse,” Dr. Ray says.

The Puppy Population

The dog he’s spaying and vaccinating tonight comes from Slim Butte, South Dakota. Next to the vet students, a mom holds her young daughter at the edge of the trailer, quietly watching their puppy.

“She’s my granddaughter’s dog,” says the young girl’s grandfather, Marvin Goings. “Basically, it costs too much to go to the vets. This is offered for free.”

Back at home, he says they have too many dogs, including an older female who has had two litters. “The pups are hard to get rid of, so this way, there’s no other dogs running around the house,” Marvin says.

He adds that one Easter, the family held an Easter egg hunt, and he used the event as an opportunity to free up some space around his home. “Those plastic eggs, I put a grand prize in there: ‘See Grandpa.’ I got rid of puppies that way,” he says with a laugh. “The parents didn’t like it, but the kids loved it.”

The closest vet is about 20 miles from Marvin’s home, and he expresses gratitude for Dr. Ray’s Mobile Clinic.

“The people out here are so appreciative, and I see that they don’t have a lot, but they have family. If we can help with their horses and dogs, then great,” Dr. Ray says.

Inspiration in Chaos

Dr. Ray advertises the clinic with a sign on the side of the pickup truck he uses to haul his trailer. He explains that his work with Union County Animal Control in Illinois, as well as learning about disaster situations like Hurricane Katrina, inspired the trailer conversion.

“I had two or three days free a week, so I had to do something. I could convert my house or my garage, and I thought, ‘Well, we could do that, or I could just get an RV and convert that.’ I can plug it in, and I can take it to a disaster. Basically, if FEMA gives me a little bit of gas and some propane, I could sit somewhere for a week,” he says. “We learned a lot after Katrina. It was a mess. When we plan for disasters, we also need to include plans for all the animals that are affected by such disasters."

On Pine Ridge, the energy is light and exciting as Dr. Ray begins the surgery. Some of the vet students have met Dr. Ray in years before this, but none has seen a surgery in the back of an RV before. They talk about the procedure and crack jokes just a few feet away from Dr. Ray as he administers anesthesia to the pup.

He waits while she drifts off. Then, he cuts into her side, and begins removing her ovaries and uterus—pink organs just slightly bigger than kidney beans.

The entire procedure lasts about 30 minutes, and the dog twitches slightly as it begins to wake up. Dr. Ray will spend the next hour in the trailer with her while everyone else walks over to a cabin 50 ft. away. There, they enjoy a barbecue dinner together with some of the people from Horse Spirit Society.

Over a a late dinner later, Dr. Ray says of his volunteer work, “I get a lot out of it. It’s nice to give back. Deb and I worked our rear ends off, and it’s been interesting.”

Dr. Ray is undoubtedly unique in his approach to animal care, and I feel lucky that he was our first neighbor on this journey. I'm not sure that anyone in the country is using their RV in quite the same way. While some veterinarians do make mobile house calls, I haven't met any others who have dedicated their lives to making vet care more accessible in emergency situations or otherwise. 

A Small Piece of Home on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

We drove 879 miles over four days to get from our home in Chicago to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, which sits between the Badlands and Black Hills in South Dakota.

I've been traveling to Pine Ridge for nearly three years now, reporting on its people and issues for The Huffington Post and working on a book of stories about a woman here named Delores Takes War Bonnett.

Dan hasn't been to Pine Ridge in a couple years, and the dogs had never been. I couldn't wait to experience the place with all of them and set up our little wheel house. We could be stationary for the next week, and I could write in a place where I typically spend my time rushing around meeting people and researching.

Our drive took much longer than we expected (nearly double the 14 hours estimated), and it was taxing to set up and tear down our trailer four days in a row while simultaneously compiling a list of our trailer's "quirks."

Those quirks include:

• Sink water that feeds into the black tank instead of the gray tank
• A slide that the manufacturer neglected to bolt in on one side
• A refrigerator that seems only to work when plugged into electricity, not on propane (as it should when we're driving)

None of these issues is dangerous, but each has added a thin layer of stress to our journey.

Then, as we were driving, I saw route 44 transition to BIA 2. This meant we were on Pine Ridge. And for me, the issues with our trailer shot to the background. It felt like a homecoming—to have come so far only to land in a place that I know so well, to see people who have become like family.

In the five days that we've been here, Dan has found a good flow for his work, and I've happened upon three stories I plan to write for various publications (more on that soon).

As expected, however, being here sets emotions on edge and is a lot for us to process in general. Pine Ridge is an absolutely beautiful, powerful place—but challenging too. Very little about life on the reservation is easy, and we miss the physical presence of friends we've had to say goodbye to earlier than ever expected.

So instead of writing the specifics about our days here so far, I'll let our photos do the talking. I hope they'll show you at least some of what I love  about this place and the people who live here.

Charlie and Maya spot horses for the first time, right outside our trailer.

The sun lowers over Pejuta Haka

Sunflower season is upon us

Cruisin' around Kyle

Chicago friends as our first guests in the trailer

Fishing at the Kyle Dam

Badlands, late afternoon

Sisters playing at the park

Dan's morning view

Our last full day on the reservation, before heading west.

Dispatches from the Road: Days 1 + 2

I feel like I'm living in a parallel universe. When we pull into rest areas now, we follow signs for "Trucks & Trailers"...not "Autos." Looking out my dining room window, I see grass, picnic tables, and lines of RVs...not thin walkways between walls of brick. And my favorite: This morning, my alarm clock was dozens of tiny acorns raining from the oak tree overhead and crashing into our roof...not my cell phone.

How did we get here? Is this real life?

Similar thoughts must be passing through our dogs' minds, because we see it in their faces. Maya startled awake from a nap today, and we watched her eyes fill with panic as she took in the room around her. Finally, she locked in on us, and we witnessed recognition click for her. She then came right over and laid down at our feet. Dan gave her a piece of steak, and she farted her thanks.

Transitioning our lives from the city to the open road has been relatively easy—and amazing (once we finished all the prep work). Earlier today, we watched a biplane swing low over the highway and then cruise above seemingly endless fields of corn stalks. I felt like we were living the beginning a 1950s sci-fi movie.

The dogs have taken well to life on the road, too, and they don't even have a concept of decades, 1950s or otherwise. 

I can't believe how much we've learned in these first two days of travel. Here's a brief list, and then it's bedtime: 

• Hauling a 25-foot trailer isn't as hard as you'd think. Sometimes it's so easy, you even forget it's there (until a semi reminds you). Backing it up, however, is a different story.
• In Chicago, we considered it an inconvenience to live more than a mile from a grocery store that sold organic avocados. Driving 45 miles just to buy something other than Doritos and Little Debbies puts that in perspective.
• Driving three days in a row for four hours at a time may be overload. But it's exceptional practice for setting up and tearing down a camp site.
• If you see a bald eagle perched on a mailbox, it probably is not real. (An example of what Dan calls my "Wonder Moments.")
• Campgrounds during the week are a sleepy scene. We're night owls, and thus constantly second-guessing anything we do after sundown for fear of being "those guys."
• When your keychain has keys for one front door, three storage compartments, and a car, as well as a knife, flashlight, and multi-tool, it spends almost as much time being lost (because it can't fit in your pocket) as it does being found.
• Spotify's "Discover Weekly" playlist is surprisingly "pretty dope."
• If you hear a low, curling growl from under your trailer, it's best to forgo letting the dogs out for one last night pee.
• Even if the grill that came with your trailer doesn't work and the refrigerator isn't getting as cold as the FDA may require for most meat and dairy products, you can still cook up a romantic dinner.
• Shower every day. As Dan says, "If you can smell yourself, it's too late." Dan will be showering first thing tomorrow morning.

The Never-Ending List of Things to Do Before You Change Your Life Completely

I've spent the past three hours packing. I don't actually mind packing, but there's no end in sight. And the apartment smells like a permanent marker convention thanks to all the boxes I've marked with labels like 3 SKULLS, LAKOTA DRUM, and FRAGILE FRAGILE FRAGILE.

We can't cross PACK off the travel checklist yet, but in the time since I wrote about our to-do lists, we've made serious progress. So I'm going to take this opportunity to rest and give you a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what we've accomplished so far:

We bought our travel trailer! And I was so overwhelmed, I cried. The tears didn't stem from regret, but from having spent three hours in a hot office reviewing all of the horrible things that could ever possibly happen to us and our trailer while on the road. The salesman called this a discussion of the "extended warranty options." Once we decided exactly how much we'd be willing to pay if our air conditioning broke down, we blew out all four tires, and everything in our brand new trailer fell apart on top of us, we signed a stack of papers five inches thick. One of these papers included an itemized list of every cost to which we'd agreed. Seeing it all spelled out also contributed to my tears. We'd just made the biggest purchase of our lives so far, and we have no guarantee that we're going to like it. 

We found our truck! Our trailer weighs 4,300 lbs., and two people typically add 750-1,000 lbs. (plus Fat Charlie) to that. We needed to find a car that could handle hauling that much weight. Dan had scoured the Internet for options—Ford F150s, diesel Jeeps, Volkswagen Touaregs. And then my aunt and uncle invited us over to look at the Chevy Suburban they'd loved dearly and used to tow their boat. It was exactly what we needed, and we know we can trust the owners we're buying it from. I could cry again out of gratitude for family looking out for us as we embark on this new adventure.

We booked a storage space—and movers! The portion of our home that we haven't sold or donated is going into storage. But finding the right unit took a little time. We ruled out the city because of cost, and started looking at options in the suburbs. Outdoor units were the cheapest (about $75/month), and we almost booked one of those. "But what if it floods?" Dan asked. We also started running through belongings that extreme heat or cold could warp: our record collection, TV, Dan's guitars.... We called five or six different companies before settling on a climate controlled, 10x10 unit near the Wisconsin border. Unfortunately, we neglected to book movers for our large items (bed, bookcases, dining table, etc.) until just today—a week and a half before we have to be out of our apartment. With most movers' schedules already filled for the end of the month, we had limited choices. Note to future self: Learn from this.

We reserved our first campground and mapped the first leg of our route! In the initial days of our trek, we plan to limit our driving to about three hours a day, giving ourselves time to adjust to hauling 25 feet of trailer behind us. Having the route and a campsite eased my mind the second we nailed them down. I imagine us pulling into our spot, hooking up our water and electric, and settling into night one of this journey with a glass of wine in our hands and Charlie and Maya at our feet. 

We forwarded our mail! My parents will be handling it for us, and again—we're very grateful. USPS offers a mail forwarding service, which involves packaging your mail each week and then forwarding it to wherever you are. But it costs $18/week, and most of the mail we get is junk. My dad immediately countered the USPS service with a great (and free) system for alerting us of any important mail that comes along: He'll scan it to us. He even has a back-up scanner on standby. So...we get you, Kramer.

We've stockpiled road warrior necessities! Jambox, hand-held vacuum, aluminum dinner wear, grilling tools, and all the dog poop bags and hand sanitizer you could dream of. Amazon is probably giving Dan 5-star reviews right now for all the ordering he's done in the past month.

* * * *

Our lists still have a lot left on them, but every day we're scribbling a line of black through another to-do. Finding a safe deposit box has been (surprisingly) one of the biggest challenges. Our bank's locations either don't offer the safe deposit boxes or have long waiting lists. We also still have to:

• sort through our clothes 
• figure out what we're doing with Dan's motorcycle
• buy our grocery staples
• finish packing

With two weeks to go until our projected launch date, things are looking up. We're so thankful to the friends who have donated moving boxes to our cause, shared RV tips, asked about our plans, and motivated us. Raise your hand if you want a postcard!

Lab Experiments: Preparing to Travel with Dogs

Dan suggested I write a post introducing the dogs. "Excellent!" I thought—and promptly spent the next two hours sitting in view of both a messy kitchen and half-packed living room...looking through photos of Maya and Charlie (pictured above, respectively).

My pre-trip checklist is 30 percent done, but it's hard to pull myself away from these two.

We met them at PAWS Chicago four years ago and tested the waters by fostering them for a few weeks. Within hours, we fell in love. Then, on my birthday, Dan gifted me the adoption papers. (He still asks if I'd rather have the cash instead.) Charlie and Maya were ours.

Quickly we learned that Maya—a husky/terrier mix—was her own woman. She can run five miles without warning or training, catches any piece of food thrown in her general direction, and cannot be deterred once she picks up a scent.

Charlie, meanwhile, prefers belly rubs and nap times. A black lab/basset hound/corgi/dachshund/"?" mix, Charlie will flop down at your feet like a deformed little pig or lay on the couch for hours of snuggles, provided he can make his way up there. Because he's so calm, I went through therapy dog training with him at Sit Stay Read, a literacy organization that brings dogs into Chicago Public Schools to motivate kids as they learn to read.

It's powerful to see the kids' reading skills improve even after a few weeks of reading to Charlie, who tends to drift off during story time and then snap to attention at the mention of "treats." He and I have missed these sessions as I've had to spend more time prepping for our trip.

Charlie and Maya are by no means perfectly behaved dogs, though. Since that day we welcomed them into our home in 2011, they have:

• jumped on every single person who has ever entered our home
• ransacked the kitchen and bathroom garbage cans monthly
• clawed the bottom half of a bedroom door to shreds (Maya)
• eaten an entire chocolate bar called "Maya Gold" (Maya)
• paralyzed a rat (Maya)
• proudly carried home multiple dead birds (Maya)
• contracted 6 urinary tract infections (Maya)
• had parts of a leaf stuck in the depths of her left ear (Maya)
• ingested an entire bottle of vitamin d (probably Maya, but Charlie got to enjoy that ER experience, too)
• nearly assassinated a cat of whose house they were a guest (Charlie)
• peed on Dan's motorcycle (Charlie)

Some of these are normal dog things. Some of them are smart dog things. But they're all things that make me worry about leaving them alone, even for a few minutes, in our travel trailer. 

Charlie and Maya love car rides, letting their ears flap in the breeze and riding their noses over passing wind currents. And Dan's brother gave us a no-spill dog water bowl for the bumpy roads. So I'm not worried about that part of our travels.  

Rather, we're trying to think of ways to keep the dogs safe and busy (and our RV out of harm's way) when Dan and I run to the grocery store.

We already have a good track record with a couple of dog toys. Maya lives for a hot date night with an Everlasting Treat. Additionally, she and Charlie each have a bone that we load up with peanut butter before we leave for longer periods of time. 

But we're going to need more than distractions. Dan's mom swears by pheromone sprays as a calming agent for anxious dogs, and our friend Nicolette, a dog behavior specialist, recommends pheromone collars for a more constant calm.

We're also going to invest in Plexiglass and Velcro to cover the screens on the windows and door. "It's the screens, not the walls, they will terrorize. Our dog tore the heck out of ours and ripped screens out of windows. Plexiglass is awesome," another friend told us.

But Charlie and Maya won't always be locked inside. After four years living in a garden apartment, we're planning plenty of hikes and picnics so these furry rebels can experience the world. We've stocked up on their flea and tick medication, which they haven't had to use in the city. As a wedding gift, our friend Gina hooked us up with Night Ize light-up collars and a travel food/water bottle.

And in case of emergency, we printed their medical records to have on hand wherever we are...but they may need updating tomorrow. Maya is headed to the vet for what we suspect is another UTI—or as we call it, a "U-T-Mai."

Any tips for on-the-road vet care or dog necessities? We're all ears.

Sold!

So...that's a big check off the to-do list.

RV = purchased. Meet our Rockwood Mini-Lite 2505S.

Technically, it's a camper (not an RV) because we'll be towing it with a separate vehicle, not driving it. But "camper" doesn't sound right to me. This is where we'll be living, not camping. It's our home on wheels—the first home Dan and I have bought together.

But it feels strange to call it a "first home" too. That term carries a lot of expectations. What if we don't like RV life? What if it's too cramped? What if the dogs hate being left alone in it and rip through the walls in an anxiety-fueled explosion of fur and saliva?

You can see we have some apprehensions—but so far no regrets, no buyer's remorse. We're at a precipice. The whole RV lifestyle is completely new to us. We aren't fully sure what we're getting into, and the unknown has us feeling on edge but also energized.

Perhaps that's because only one of us has ever spent a night in a camper before, and that was 8-year-old me thanks to my neighbors growing up. They bought a pop-up camper and let the whole street of kids have a sleepover in it one Saturday night in their driveway. That was a fun fling (thank you, Billy and Susie), but this...this is a bigger adventure.

Vetting Our Options (aka Hello, Internet)

Dan and I have been building up to this moment for the past year. Our RV search started online, and ranged from Craigslist to Pinterest, Ebay to sites I'd never heard of.

We'd made a list of our wants:

• Two work spaces
• Ready for solar hook ups
• At least one slide to maximize space
• Outdoor shower for the dogs
• Outdoor kitchen for us
• Less than 27 ft. long
• Under 6,000 lbs.
• Separate area to contain the dogs if needed

Airstreams ranked as our dream mobiles. Historic and romantic, they're a blank canvas of design possibilities. But new(ish) ones were too expensive for us; we weren't ready to drop that kind of cash without having tried the mobile lifestyle first. Old(ish) ones either needed repairs or were customized with materials we didn't feel knowledgeable enough to handle as first-timers. That, and they didn't come with warranties.

Other highly stylized trailers caught our eye, too, (like the Jackaroo Caravan, the Jayco Caravan, or the Concept Caravan) but they were only available in Australia. Apparently, RV living is huge there, and as a result, the continent has produced some gorgeous caravans.

With our dreams modified, we altered our search from the endless possibilities of the Internet to the finite possibilities of in-person RV dealerships. We started vetting RVs in December at General RV in Huntley, Illinois. Most of our fellow shoppers were retirees looking to downsize and hit the road. We nodded hellos to these future neighbors as we squeezed past them into and out of the RVs on display.

Next, we drove north to Camping World in Wauconda, Illinois. 

Decision Time

Set in the middle of cornfields and mere miles from an unexpected buffalo farm, Camping World Wauconda has more than 400 RVs. Over two days of touring and chatting, we learned that the Rockwood Mini-Lite series would best meet our financial and weight requirements. We also learned that saleswoman Linda travels by RV in winter and often sings June Carter and Reba tunes on stage at trailer parks in Florida.

Seven months after our search began, Linda had cast her line and reeled us in. We met her on Sunday afternoon. She loaded us into a golf cart and chauffeured us from one camper to the next, singing as we rolled through the humid July air.

We took our time in each camper, sitting at their tables and on their couches so we could feel and imagine what it would be like to live in them. By Sunday afternoon, we'd decided on two options we really liked: One was used with an open and spacious layout. The other was brand new, had a Murphy bed and a curtained off bunk/work room in the back. They were priced in the same range.

We asked each other that night which we preferred, and we both agreed: the camper with the working area. It gave us separate space to take conference calls for work, for Dan to play guitar, or for me to write whenever we felt we needed that extra solitude. It also had more sleeping space in case friends or family come to visit.

By the next evening, we were engaged in ruthless negotiations, using Dan's phone to pull up comparable campers for sale in Wisconsin and Michigan for thousands of dollars cheaper. Linda would nod in acknowledgment and then rush off to clear a new proposed rate with her manager.

We signed a deal just before 7 p.m. July 6th. Then, Linda had us fill out the SOLD sign to hang in the front window of our first home. Now the Camping World world would know who exactly this shiny, new Rockwood Mini-(de)Lite was for.

Creating a Travel Checklist or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Get Shit Done

Dan and I decided on our departure date in mid-June. We would leave August 3rd, in about six weeks. But we hadn't yet taken many steps to make our leave possible.

We had researched for months, looking into necessary supplies, types of RVs, how to handle dogs in tiny spaces, as well as pros and cons of working from the road. But we hadn't bought our RV trailer, traded in our car for a tow vehicle, or figured out how to reliably stream Law & Order: SVU. So when we set the date and started talking about it, the conversation became overwhelming pretty quickly.

Over a couple of hours (and a couple glasses of whiskey) that night in June, we analyzed all we still had to do. We discussed tow vehicle options: Ford F150, Volkswagen Touareg, Toyota Sequoia...all of the stuff we needed to buy: portable speakers, beans and granola bars, dog poo bags (in bulk)...and all that we had to do: pack, find a storage space, figure out insurance....

Clearly, we couldn't accomplish everything in a day or two.

So the next night over dinner (and a couple glasses of whiskey), we made an exhaustive list of every single thing possibly required of us before our departure date. Then, I divided the list up into three: mine, his, and ours. 

I actually make myself a to-do list every day before starting work, because it works. Putting my goals for the day into writing keeps me focused.

The same has worked for us and our travel checklist. Now that we have these bright pink, tangible to-do lists, we don't have to waste mental space worrying about forgetting something important. Instead, we can focus on getting shit done, working through our individual lists at our individual paces.

The lists hang on our fridge, so we're constantly reminded of what's left to accomplish. We can also see where the other one is in the process and check in regularly on our joint (ir)responsibilities.

Twenty-eight days to go and exactly as many items to check off our lists. May the force be with us.

Why We're Trading Chicago for RV Life on the Road

We were in southern Thailand, abandoned at a flooded train station, when we decided how we wanted to spend our honeymoon.

Dan had asked me to marry him two months earlier, down the street from our home in Chicago. Then, we'd boarded a flight for a family vacation to China before he and I continued on our own to Thailand. We hadn't yet started planning our wedding then; as travelers, we jumped straight to the honeymoon.

Thailand was amazing, and we talked over spicy panang noodles about returning there for our honeymoon. Australia, too. But we were 8,000 miles from home and had been for a month at that point. We missed our dogs more than anything, and didn't want to think about spending so much time away from them again.

Then Dan suggested the RV. What if, post-nuptials, we got rid of our apartment, packed our stuff into storage, and traveled across America for a few months? With the dogs.

We wouldn't have to be away from them that way, and it would give us a chance to explore the country after living in Chicago for the past eight years. Plus, as freelancers (I write; Dan plays guitar and designs), we could continue our work from anywhere.

Well, duh. Who could say no to that? 

Over the next few months of research and planning, we realized that this wouldn't be so much a honeymoon as a lifestyle change. After all of the packing, planning, trading in our car, and buying an RV trailer, we couldn't just hit the road only to call it quits on that adventure after a few weeks (unless of course we hate it—in which case we will absolutely come back after a few weeks). 

But if all goes as I've imagined during my drives home from work or while cleaning up the kitchen, this "honeymoon" is an investment in a different way of living. It means driving for a few hours one day, and then spending the next week working from the base of a mountain in the middle of Nevada. It means visiting with friends and family from coast to coast. It means seeing our dogs experience all kinds of nature—and probably panicking every night that we all have ticks. 

We're itching to buy our first permanent home after so many years of renting, and we've found a few that were extremely tempting. But we know if we don't try out RV living first, we'll regret it.

Maybe we'll buy a house a year from now. Maybe we'll get full-time jobs then, too.

And maybe we'll do another trip to Thailand. Remember that flooded train station? We made it out of there at 2 a.m.—10 hours after we arrived. In the process, we made new friends and re-arranged our travel from train to flight. The whole experience was a mix of fear and frustration, laughter and luck. It was freeing and inspiring, and I hope we get a lot more of that on this next journey. 

(engagement photo by Stephanie Bassos)