On our trip up to Alaska, our only route only thanks to Covid border closures, was to travel by water. We were happy to find that the Alaska Marine Highway System would allow us to stow our vehicle, bring Ares, and save us a lot of driving to boot. There are several helpful blog and YouTube posts out there, as well as the Ferry’s webpage which we used when deciding on the specifics of our booking…

By the time we finished our drive across the country, we were tired… dog tired. Our trip across the USA was amazing, but even the most beautiful spots in the country start to feel a little stale when you see a new one everyday. Looking back at the photos we took, we’re reminded of how many amazing places we were able to stop at, but in the moment everything had begun to blur together into one long interstate.

If you read taco truck when you saw the title of this blog post, you might want to get your eyes checked, but you also wouldn’t be totally wrong. Before spring of 2021, Stephan and I both drove vehicles that were manufactured close to the years that we were born. We loved our cars, and […]

Life in the farmhouse was wonderful. The pace of life felt different away from the city. We took long walks down the dirt roads at sunset, spent hours at the nearby beach, and sometimes just sat around enjoying the golden light that filtered through the tall windows at sunset. In September, at the height of Covid, we held our wedding in the house’s grassy backyard under the 100 year old live oaks. Friends showed up to help us decorate, and celebrate. When many of them asked us how we found our venue, and we felt like we still had to pinch ourselves when we told them it wasn’t a venue, but our home. We should have been perfectly content where we were, but sometimes the heart needs more then just beauty and a settled way of life; it longs for adventure, and I was getting restless.

Goodwill became our new best friend in March of 2021. It seemed like we were taking a load there every other day as we tried to pare our belongings from what had fit in a two story house, to what could fit in a four door truck. My parents very kindly let us store some boxes in their basement, which meant we could keep some things that we wanted for our future home, but wouldn’t be useful in Alaska. We sorted, boxed, and threw away, ruthlessly. Our new to us Toyota Tacoma and it’s camper shell were stacked to the brim by the time we were ready to go, but all of our essentials fit.

When I think about the beginning of us, budding dreams, and where the idea for Uproot and Adventure came from, I think of a 1900’s Virginia farmhouse. It was a quirky place to say the least, no central air conditioning in an area that easily reached above 100° F in July, currently occupied by a large mouse family, and with a locked attic that we did not yet know about. But that quirkiness seemed par for the course because the way we came to be renting that sweet house was a little unusual too.