Falling in Love With Adventure
Experiencing new things is one of the reasons we were drawn to RV life. We wanted to see new landscapes, taste new foods, hear from diverse communities, smell new plants, and feel different climates. Full-time travel promised us a way to get out there and have some hands-on learning about the nature, history, and culture of our country.
Allie had done quite a bit of travel growing up, visiting places like Paris, Switzerland and Tokyo, while also taking many more local family vacations in Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire. I grew up in New England also, and have memories of shorter travel to places like Cape Cod, Boston and Sturbridge. Both of us realized early on in our relationship that, even though we have done different kinds of travel, we were both drawn to adventure. We also realized we had seen little of the USA in comparison to what we knew was out there.
We traveled early on in our relationship together and came to call these smaller trips our microadventures. We would do day trips driving up the coastal route in Maine, stopping for coffee, to walk along the rocky beaches, and to visit farmers markets or have lunch in the small towns scattered along Route One. These were some of our best days together, and soon we were taking overnight trips to New Hampshire, Northern Maine, and Massachusetts. Any chance we could get, we would get in our car and head out.
A view of Jordon Pond and The Bubbles on our first trip to Acadia National Park in 2016.
Before we even celebrated our first anniversary of being together, we decided to plan and go on a cross-country road trip. I was graduating with my bachelors degree and Allie was planning to leave her job and transition to another type of work.
It took next to no time before we decided to go west. We both wanted to get to the pacific ocean, and see as much as possible on the way. This trip is one of the most incredible things we have done, and we recommend to everyone we meet to take off on a grand adventure at least once. We deemed this our macroadventure. We had no idea it was only our first big journey and what we would come to understand and to choose to do.
We stopped along the way the first few days of the trip, but we knew the goal was to gain some ground and get west. Our first big layover was in South Dakota. We had heard about The Badlands and knew it would be a good place to get our National Park pass, check out the other-wordly landscape, and hopefully see some bison. We planned a hike for our very first day in the park. About half of a mile into The Notch Trail we discovered a rope ladder to climb. At the top we both looked around, amazed at the undulating landscape…and then Allie fell on the flat earth and broke both of her legs.
There was no thud or trip or dramatic fall. She must have pivoted just right in her hiking boots that her ankles buckled and snapped, fracturing several bones in both of her legs and ankles. She refused to go home. We spent the next several weeks in an extended-stay hotel in Rapid City, SD. She strictly followed the RICE (rest, ice, compress, elevate) method, crawled in the pool to float and move her body, and sat in the passenger seat of our Jeep while I drove us through The Badlands, Custer State Park, and The Black Hills. Even being unable to move about much, Allie wanted to see what there was to see, and then she wanted to move on.
We made a lot of adjustments on that trip, but we still saw more than we ever thought we would. We drove our way through Yellowstone National Park, The Grand Tetons, over The Sawtooth Mountains and into eastern Oregon.
We loved The Grand Tetons so much we eventually named one of our two shitzu’s after these mountains!
We slowed down in Oregon and visited many places before we made it to the coast, but we were forced to bypass Crater Lake National Park. There was a record amount of snowfall that previous winter, and the roads were still closed into July that summer. I remember crying with disappointment in the shower of a roadside motel when Allie yelled from the bed, “Lets go to the Redwoods instead!” My heart skipped a beat because we had decided earlier in the trip to cut our southern route and bypass California all together for more time in Oregon and Washington.
The Redwoods did not disappoint. By this time, Allie could take short walks and we were still exploring by car. After the Redwoods, we drove up Highway 101 all the way to Olympic National Park where we fell in love with the whole of the Pacific Northwest. I think it may have been there that we decided we would live here someday, but I know it was there that we decided on pursuing RV life.
We met another couple on a hike at Hurricane Ridge who were spending a year traveling in an RV for their honeymoon. We listened to their story, went back to our car and played their podcast episodes throughout the next week of our travels. We each quietly pondered what it would be like to do what they were doing.
Right before we got to Glacier National Park that we turned to each other in a rest area on the side of the highway and said, “Could we do the RV thing?” We had both been thinking about it, but it felt too unknown, too scary, too out there.
We knew nothing about RV’s. We barely knew anything about traveling together (although putting two people in a jeep every day for three-months forces you to get to know yourself and each other). We knew we wanted more of what we were experiencing on this road trip. We knew that there was still so much to see and do. We knew we wanted less stuff and more adventure, less work and more play, less normal and more weird in our lives.
By the time we returned to our Portland, Maine apartment we had watched more than 100 hours of YouTube videos on RVs. We were learning a new language about what a Class A versus a Fifth Wheel was. We were watching people dump their tanks and hitch their rigs. We were making lists and working overtime to save money for purchasing our first home (on wheels) together. We spent the next year deciding on what RV we wanted and where we wanted to travel in it. We learned so much in that time, but can also look back now, over five years later, and see how little we actually understood about RV living.
About this time we started our Instagram. It was important to us that we find a way to digitally keep a record of all of our endeavors in learning to how live and travel in our future RV. It was also essential to us that we get and stay connected to other LGBTQ+ couples and travelers. We decided (over a brownie sundae at a local pub) to brand ourselves as Wander Free and Queer. We created our Instagram account to store our memories and to cultivate connections. The name was chosen intentionally, in order to be visible to our community and allies, but also to encompass what we wanted to do.
Our original "Wander Free and Queer" logo created in collaboration with Tanja B. Artistry
We have never regretted for our decision to sell our things, move into a tiny rolling home, and travel the country. We have seen the sunrise over The Grand Canyon with a light dusting of snow on the red rocks, eaten beignets in downtown New Orleans while listening to someone play live jazz music, hiked behind a waterfall in Oregon and felt the water spray onto our faces. We were engaged right below the Alpine visitor center in Rocky Mountain National Park at sunset, with a herd of Elk bugling feet away and our favorite photographer capturing every splendid second of our proposal. We have stared up at Saguaro cacti in Tucson and learned about how it preservers in an unyielding climate, walked the salt flats of Death Valley while staring up at a visible Milky Way, drank delicious coffee in Longview, WA, and visited Farmer’s Markets all across the country, tasting tomatoes and puffed pastries while meeting local crafters and artisans.
We have built a business based on being out, loud and proud as Queer women, encouraging others to take an adventure, pursue RV living, or just to get outside for a walk in nature. Sometimes, we think about settling down and buying land to build on. We like the predictability of routine, our small mountain community, and the idea of laying roots, but we also say that we will always have a need for adventure. We joke that maybe someday we will have a tiny home with a foundation…and a van parked right outside, ready to hit the road when we are.
***UPDATE: Since this post we have bought a van!
