Backtracking isn’t our favorite thing, but sometimes you’ve got to eat your pride to snag something you missed. In this case: ghost towns. We retraced a stretch of highway between New Denver and Kaslo to take a gravel road that promised Sandon and Cody — both old mining towns with...
With ferries being free out here in BC, we figured — why not cross back over Arrow Lake and poke around the western side? No destination in mind, no bucket-list spot waiting. Just a dirt road leading south that looked more fun than sticking to asphalt. The road pulled us...
After days off the grid, we rolled back into civilization through Kaslo — a picture-perfect tourist town perched on the west shore of Kootenay Lake. Civilization meant three things: groceries, a campground, and hot showers. We grabbed all three with zero guilt before treating ourselves to dinner in town. Big mistake....
One of our “sort-of-planned” goals in Canada was to hit a few more national parks, and Mount Revelstoke just happened to be next up. We pointed Marcel toward the one and only campground at the base of the mountain. It was, of course, fully booked — but after enough nights...
Just north of Cherryville, we made a run at Sugar Lake, hoping to keep our streak of waterfront camps alive. We prowled the western shoreline for a good hour, hunting for that perfect wild spot — the kind you brag about later and pretend you “just stumbled on.” Instead, we...
Crossing the border into Canada was less dramatic than I imagined. A couple of pointed questions from the agent — mostly about whether we planned on sneaking into the maple-syrup utopia forever — and a raised eyebrow at our “yes, we really will go home eventually” story. Once convinced we...
We spent two blissful days tickling Mt. Rainier’s toes — cool mountain air, towering evergreens, and a view so good it felt like Mother Nature herself was showing off. But with a heat wave barreling toward us, we packed up camp and started rumbling down the long, winding gravel road...
It took nearly 20 more miles of bone-rattling, pothole-pocked gravel to even get to the side road we were aiming for. We were deep in it now—way out there—but also way closer to Mt. Rainier than we’d ever been. If I had Luke’s directions right, we’d be within a thousand...
With Marcel riding a couple hundred pounds leaner over the rear axle—thanks to the strategic shedding of the genset—we made yet another dramatic exit from my family’s property. If no one kicks the bucket in the next 48 hours, Kerri and I just might finally break free from the gravitational pull...
By all reasonable logic, you’d think we’d had our fill of the Olympic Peninsula by now. Truth be told, even we figured we’d be out of Washington within days of reclaiming our freedom—finally untethered from schedules, deadlines, and the tyranny of “must be here by this time.” But when faced with...
