With the change in the tide, comes the change in life.

It has been less than a week into my new journey. The journey in which I will cross into at least 46 states. I will be on the road for the next 5 months giving presentations with my friend Rebecca. Our presentations are to inspire women to get out doors a little more and teach them how to have fun doing it. While it was sad to have to say goodbye to our friends and family we knew we had some big fans and supporters of us!

Me & Becca Getting ready to hit the road. May 6

Saying my "See you later" to my biggest fan! I sure love him!

We packed up our vehicle (Chevy Captiva) AKA “Captain Hook”. The only male who will be traveling with us on tour. We hit the road from Conway, NH on Tuesday May 6th roughly around 10:00am. Our first stop was Blue Ash, OH. We decided to take the scenic route through NY and boy am I glad we did. NY was a beautiful but long drive. Just about the time the sun was getting ready to set we decided to pull over at a truck stop or visitor center and make some dinner.

Vermont Welcomes me.

New York Welcomes me.

We are now living out of this car with lots and lots of gear in it, not to mention our own personal belongings. We decided to eat some of our Mountain House meals and test out the Jetboil. This was quite entertaining and ended being quite the meal. We both enjoyed sitting in the parking lot making dinner out of the back of our car. With great laughs, we decided to pack up and hit the road again.

Truck stop dining.

We continued our drive and had seen a sign that said “Niagara Falls 16 Miles from Buffalo”. SCORE! We detoured that 16 Miles from Buffalo to check out the falls. We arrived there at about 10:00pm that night. The falls were light up and absolutely stunning. After about an hour of walking around “oohing and ahhing” we hit the road again. It was getting late and we both were getting pretty tired so we found a Walmart Parking lot that aloud camping. So we pulled over to rest up. With 4 hours of sleep we both rolled over turned the car on and hit the road for the next 6 hours.

Late night stop at Niagara Falls

First night sleeping in our car.

With every state we entered we made a pact that we would stop no matter how tired we were and get a photo with the welcome sign. That we did. We finally hit PA, with the sun rising behind us. It was beautiful. For a short time we drove through PA and before we knew it we were officially in OH. My first new state. Here we stopped freshened up, and kept moving to get to our hotel.

Once we arrived at the hotel it was sunny and beautiful. We quickly unpacked our stuff from the car and took showers and met up with Sheri and Randy for lunch. Becca and I made 2 pacts before leaving for this trip. The first one I mentioned above, and the second one being to find a local restaurant and enjoying a refreshing local beer while in town for our presentations.

Pennsylvania Welcomes me.

For the rest of the day we spent most of it gathering up our gear for our first presentation. Our first event ended up being quite the success and we are sure proud of ourselves. I think I was more nervous practicing in my own hotel room than I was standing in front of a bunch of women I don’t know. The group had lots of questions and thanked us for being there and also won some really sick prizes.

Ohio Welcomes me.

Sleep that night never felt so good. We had been preparing ourselves for that night for months and it finally was over. One down 52 more stops to go. We packed up our room that evening and hit the hay shortly after that planning to wake up and head down to Kentucky the next morning. Originally we had an event scheduled in KY, but it got cancelled so we had 4 days to enjoy ourselves before our second stop. We showed up at Mammoth Cave National Park, checked into the visitor center and then our campsite. 

Our "Home Sweet Home" Keron 4 GT Hilleberg Tent

We set up camp with our Keron 4 person tent. This gave us the extra space we needed for our gear. Then we popped up our Mesh Box over our picnic table to keep all the bugs out while we were cooking or hanging out. Life suddenly felt amazing. We were legit camping and living out of our car. No hotel, no shower, just us and the good ole’ outdoors. Our first night in consisted of major thunderstorms all night long with heavy down pours, and some serious lightning. To be honest, we were quite excited about that because we could test out the durability to these tents we've got.

Waking up the next morning to more thunder and rain, I was dry, the tent was still dry in the vestibules, not much condensation.. I'd say these tents are pretty awesome considering there is no rain fly or foot print required! I was just happy we didn't float away with the amount of rain we got!

Working from "Home"

Saturday morning came and as it still poured buckets onto us we decided to start some work in the tent and then possibly find a local Library where we could continue working until all storms had passed. We arrived at the library around 11 and worked until about 2:00pm. We arrived back to camp where we convinced ourselves to take a hike around the short trails they had to offer. Boy am I glad we did. They were some of the most beautiful trails I have ever been on.

On Sunday, we headed to the visitor center for our first tour of these underground natural caves. This one was called the Domes and Dripstones. This tour consisted of lots of stalactites and stalagmite formations. It was absolutely amazing and so beautiful.

This tour was roughly 3/4 of a mile and about an hour and a half long. We arrived back after this tour and decided to eat our lunch at the visitor center and then hop on the 2:15 Violet City Tour. This tour was 3 miles and 3 hours long. With lots of history and only lit by lantern the same way they used to do it after torches, it was unbelievable! We were shown artifacts that were left behind since the early 1800's, and man other unique things. If you are in Kentucky, Mammoth Caves NP is one for the books. It is worth every penny. Not to mention our tours were only $12 and $15. Not bad at all. 

This was the end of this journey now we are headed to St. Louis, MO for our next presentation on Tuesday May, 13. Keep reading to follow our adventure!

Hike Safe & Keep on Trekking