Johnny Appleseed of diarrhea.

Who is this mysterious camper? Have these public bathrooms not been cleaned since the 70s? What did you eat to get that kind of projection? These are my questions when I walk into a national campground to find the bowl, floor, and wall completely covered in shit I'm less angry, more impressed. Cheers to you buddy. I will just continue to shit in the woods.

Cave bacon

And it begins

"I'M GONNA GO OFF-ROAD HIKING!!!"
Beth

Ely

We caught up on each others' lives during the 3-hr drive by interrupting and yelling over each other and giggling. Nevada is really pretty; looking forward to seeing more of it in daylight. We bought groceries at a Mexican market and had a surprisingly tasty meal at our hotel restaurant casino. Beth lost a dollar gambling at the airport while we waited for Kelly. That was boring so no more of that. Snow on the ground and more expected tomorrow may interfere with navigation, but it's not like we have to be anywhere.

On that note, I set an alarm on my phone to remind us to return to Ely on the 30th so we know when to go home. The desert can do strange things to you. Kelly was also put in charge of knowing what day it is. The rest of us don't want to know, we just want to know that someone knows.

Beth is shown here practicing good headlamp ettiquette: when someone addresses you while you are wearing a headlamp, kindly do not turn and look at them.

New Adventure Time

A new adventure is long overdue! We picked up new travel partners and are meeting in Vegas, but Vegas sucks, or so I've heard, so we're driving north in search of old mining ghost town ruins for a week. I'm (Eva/Erin) coming from Seattle, Kelly/Di from DC and Julian/Ada and Lucy/Beth from Chicago. Julian drove through some years ago and saw some cool old ruins, and that's all I know about how this started. Originally we planned for summer, but everyone knows the best time to drive hours into mountainous desert with friends that have sketchy definitions of limits is Christmas Day. I'm particularly excited about the blistering cold because I'm a delicate PNW flower that gets freezer burn after 15 min exposure. Though I am marginally disappointed I couldn't convince everyone to camp.

SO. Driving to Ely tonight, where we will maybe actually plan the rest of the trip.
Ghosts! Towns! Rocks and minerals! Snow! Desert! Creepy motels! Beth and Ada! Snakes! Cacti! Swimming! I packed my swimsuit. And headlamp.

Also, thanks, Moms and families, for letting us go on adventure!

See you guys soon!!
<3, Eva

And it ended exactly as it had begun

So Erin headed back to Seattle today. Real life will not be as fun as an open road and a car full of crap. Well, first off we'll have to get jobs. I think we're both better at doing other things and it'd be great if someone just decided we were worthy of being funded and decided that they want to (financially) support our lifestyle. If you know of such a person please, by all means, send our info along. We spent most of our time since Thursday in my apartment crafting. I'm fairly sure we'll meet again whenever roller derby brings me to the pacific north west, and so I remain hopeful that more good times and good crafts will come out of that.

My dining room table My Diorama Erin's assemblage

Cheesy conclusion:

I've had a blast, I've learned a good deal about the eastern part of North America, and I'm in a better place than I was two months ago. So, all in all, this trip did exactly what it was suppose to: give me a better perspective on things in general.

Signing out,
Kelly

Snow for the first time since Canada

First, I'd like you to look to the right of this page for a moment, you might notice that we've added a new feature. Please help us in this very important, however, unurgent decision.... feel free to select as many or as few as you choose.


We arrived in Chicago at about 9:30pm this evening. long pause. sigh. it's really hard to believe we were snorkeling 3 days ago. Today we traveled from Kansas City to St Louis to Chicago. Yes Ada, we went to the super awesome City Museum If you are ever within a few hours of St Louis you owe it to yourself to head over and climb on some amazing art.

We threw two hours of change in the parking meter, strapped on our knee pads and resolved ourselves to not make good time from MO to IL. There is such a blast to be had scrambling through tubes 4 stories off the ground and caves so small you resemble a child being born when you emerge on the other side. The amazing part was how totally charged with positive creative energy this place was. So, with my desire to learn how to weld solidified we spent the last few hours of our car trip making a list of things we want to do before Erin gets on the plain. I can't believe it's just about all over and I think we're both already mentally planning other trips similar to this one. They don't call it travel-lust for nothin'.

Final conclusion still to come.