Montana Treasures

We leave Great Falls, shaved and shitted, and make a bee-line to the nearest trailhead on the Continental Divide Trail, which Nick has dreams of thru-hiking. (They are only dreams, as this day would show.) Hwy 200, still part of the L&C Trail, leads us to Flesher Pass where...

Lewis and Clark

We’re going to include, for clarity’s sake, who is writing which portion of the blog, although it should be noted that there are moments in which I (Karyssa) will add some Karyssa-isms in the section N wrote and N will add some Nick-isms/knowledge in the section I wrote. We’ve...

Upper Mississippi Misadventures

Minnesota is the bridge between the eastern and western states, or feels that way, and the Mississippi River is their great divider, and the past week was spent largely tracing the latter back to its source in the northern remotes of the former. Cornfields predominated, but were interspersed with...

The Lakes Great

Canada’s being closed limited our tour, but it was still grand and will continue while we visit Peter and Robyn in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Pete is Nick’s older brother, and we haven’t seen him since our wedding, two years ago. Though, we’re also reticent to swing by during Covid so...

Lakes, Falls, and Racial Disparities

Last we left y’all we saw the Thousand Islands in the St Lawrence River. Heading west, we found a rock slabbed beach off of Lake Ontario. And y’all… listen. These huge ass lakes and rivers are driving me bonkers. Like, I cannot, for the life of me, wrap my...

Adirondack Jacked

Chocurua to Castle Rock (and Lawrentia)It’s Thursday, July 16 and raining currently while we are van-locked at Castle Rock trailhead at a Syracuse University-owned conference center near Blue Mountain Lake, in the middle of New York’s huge Adirondack “Park”. (I want to walk in like I own the place...

A Coastal 4th

That more ships and boats throughout the history of ships and boats call Maine home than any other state, and surely any other nation, was made obvious to us over this holiday weekend, and is attributable to several factors: Maine has a lot of water, and water is best...

Systemic Racism

I was having a fairly heated conversation with someone one night.  It started off as a topic on sexism.  Because sexism seems to be a difficult idea for people to understand (as far as where the disadvantages are and what the big deal is with using derogatory slurs) I...

Vermont to Maine

As of this exact moment, The Van is ensconced in the construction site of a brand new and gleaming white structure intruding itself into the Machias River bellow the Bad Little Falls in Machias, Maine, as if we were just another contractor, but in fact we’re not. We’re alien...

The Whites

06.23.20 – 06.27.20 Bring it on, they did. Those mountains kicked our asses. Daisy and Frida had a blast, but often grew tired too soon for us to finish a hike. We started off on Lafayette Trail. I’d like to say that it made such an impression in my...