Waking up to squirrels tossing pine cones on your tent is a comical and slightly annoying experience. James and I had set up our tent on the only flat(ish) area we could find at our beautiful, free campsite up a long dirt road near Ten Sleep, Wyoming. Unfortunately for us, that semi-flat spot was located next to some well placed boulders with deep pockets for hiding rodents, which were not happy we had taken over.
Meanwhile, maybe 50 feet away our new friends (real people, not the squirrels) were lounging on their plush memory foam mattress and cozied up with their down quilt in their converted Honda Element. It was a basic design involving a plywood base with hinges and some velcro, but SUPER cool to see, because lo and behold… we also have a Honda Element. Building out our car with storage and a bed has been something we had always thought about, we just hadn’t committed yet.
Once we were back home in Seattle, the high of traveling eventually wore off and the routine after returning to work set in. We found ourselves getting antsy. Normally that time of year we are deeply involved in preparing for our Burning Man camp where we utilize the long summer days to work on what feels like millions of projects to make sure that our friends and us don’t die in the desert. However, because of the Black Rock City white out storm bonanza of 2015, we decided that a year off from the burn was just what we needed… or so we thought.
As our restless brains trudged along those lengthy days without a creative release we started toying with the idea of building out the Element.
Why the hell are we doing this?
Now, you’re probably reading our blog waiting to hear about our amazing Beatrix, but I’m gonna back up here a bit and let you know about how James and I ended up together. We met in college in a tiny racquetball court that was converted into a bouldering wall. I worked there at the time, and knew all the regulars so when he showed up for the first time, naturally I wanted to introduce myself to the new, tall, dark, and handsome man that walked through the tiny door.
It was 2010 and the climbing boom hadn’t reached our small town yet. There was a modest crew that hung around the mini gym after class, but usually the wall went quiet by 8:00 pm and I would be there by my lonesome until closing at 10:00. Lucky for me though, the cute newcomer James started staying later to ‘climb’, or so he claimed. We immediately bonded over music, the love of the outdoors, and our many travel dreams. Fast forward 7 years and several international trips later and, lo and behold, we are married and living out the many travel dreams that we fantasized about back in that tiny bouldering gym in our tiny town in the middle of nowhere.
Those that have seen us grow in our relationship since then know that we don’t mess around. When James and I set our minds to something we get shit done and usually exceed even our own expectations. Back in 2012 we planned a trip to Thailand which was originally going to be a 2 week long adventure with just the two of us. Of course once the ideas started flowing the trip grew to 68 days and included two other countries and three more friends.
When we decided to finally make moves on building the Element out for convenient camping and climbing trips, our imaginations started to run wild. After about an hour of daydreams and some inspiration from our local Burning Man community, our idea morphed into buying a van, building it out from scratch, and driving as far south as we can go to the most southern tip of South America. Now that we have a plan and a destination, there is no stopping us.
-Stephanie
