The Need to Travel

This is the place I love to go when I need a clear space.

This is my dads camper! He called it my camper for a while because I used it more than anyone else. Senior year of high school this is where I would go and ditch 4th-6th hour because they were all electives. (sorry mom & dad)

Over this past year I haven’t made it out here as much mainly because of my work schedule or school. My dad has mentioned recently about finding me a small camper my jeep could tow! I’d be able write so much and photograph everything. That sounds like the dream.

When I realized I wanted to try and take these next steps to figuring out how to make my dream life a reality this is where I ran away to. I wanted to really think about it. I thought how this may or may not benefit me in the future, and if it doesn’t, at least I have it. I want to share my adventures. I have had the best times traveling the past few years getting to new places in my state and driving to new ones.

I thought before I go back and share some of my favorite trips in separate blog posts, I would give a short recap of 2019/2020 and continue to introduce myself through this post.

I also wanted to share my little happy place at the camper! Having somewhere so close to home that allows you to escape is so freeing.

I took a year off school, because... well you can only go so many semesters of crying before you need a break. I do pretty decent in school (besides any math class) but it kills me mentally. I’m happy to say I only have two classes left and I have my Associates in Business.

During that year off (2019) I did the most traveling I had ever done before, and started traveling alone for the first time. I drove ten hours alone to New Jersey from Michigan for Jeep Invasion, and just had a great time jamming out to music, enjoying my thoughts, being excited about the trip. It was the same thing on the way home, but I got the sit and be thankful for the experiences. I also flew alone for the first time! That was a super cool feeling.

2020 was cool because even though I didn’t travel as much as I planned, me and my best friend took our first out of state vacation together. It felt like we were two kids sneaking out of class .... being ten hours away from our parents, we could really go do whatever we wanted.

I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that it’s 2021, I can‘t believe how fast last year went.

Compared to 2019, I was on social media WAY less throughout the year on Instagram and Youtube in 2020. It was good for me, but I do want to be better about that in 2021. I love making Youtube videos and looking back on trips and being able to remember them so well. This will basically be my reminder post of all the trips that I want to go into more detail about and share extra pictures.

Lets go all the way back to January 2020 to recap the year so we’re up to date for any 2021 trips!

The year was starting off strong. Me and a bunch of my favorite jeep ladies planned a trip up to exit 222, St.Helen Michigan! The small city, only a little over two hours away from my hometown, is filled with beautiful ORV trails perfect for fall and winter wheeling. Originally we had planned to just drive up for the day, but with a ginormous snow storm headed our way we ended up getting a hotel in West Branch and drove up the night before. We met up with our friends coming from Ohio and had dinner and as we were leaving the snow was starting. We probably got over 10 inches of snow that night. The next day we had eight jeeps out there on the trails! The snow was picture perfect, huge flakes all day, an actual winter wonderland.

A few of us went to Bundy Hill in April and it was such a fun day! We had great weather and were out there all day. I got to see three of my favorite ladies, Kiele, Michaela, and Syd, and It was also me and my boyfriends first time really going and doing something together because everything was closed because of covid, I like to say we went off-roading for our first date! ❤️ Looking at these pictures makes me so happy.

In June we made our first trip of the year up to my friend Kirsten's cabin! It’s in a small city called Waters. Kiele was able to come with us this trip! It was a gorgeous weekend filled with lots of alcohol, many snacks, boat rides, jeep rides, and lots of relaxing.

This trip was much needed for me because I had gained weight due to the pandemic and the gyms being closed. I felt gross and mentally not good at all. This trip helped me get a clear head space and get motivated again.

(I say that but you will look below and find a OVERFLOWING cart of food)

You can’t eat good on vacation I think that should be a law.

The first week of July I began driving to Ohio to go to their gyms. I would go and workout for 2/3 hours each time, I just needed the motivation back. I also got to see Ericka when I went down there! I swear this was the hottest day of the year. I drove down there doorless and was a lobster by the time I got back home.

Shoutout to Ericka for the shorts also because I drove down in pants and could have died of a heatstroke!!

At the end of July we took our yearly family vacation to Mackinac Island. This year was definitely the most LIT trip we have ever had.

Me and Mel were two wild children on the loose all day every day. Another trip full of intoxication (especially because no cars on the island), We rode bikes to watch the sunset every day, saw our co-worker Asha (SO EXCITING), and pet lots of ponies.

When we got on the ferry to head back to the mainland to drive home, we had other plans for the day. We continued north to go to Kitch-iti-kipi, and then went to pictured rocks.(kinda)

We didn’t end up seeing the rocks because the hike to get to the shore would have got us home extremely late, but the drive was gorgeous and Kitch-iti-kipi was just like the photos. A perfectly clear body of water that you can see everything in it.

A month later me and Mel were headed to Pigeon Forge Tennessee for Jeep Invasion! I wrote a whole blog post about this trip with lots of photos so I won’t go into crazy detail here.

Tennessee was gorgeous, I had only drove through it once before to go to Florida in 2016 and thought it was pretty then. I wasn’t even IN the mountains. We didn’t even go to the actual event for Jeep Invasion. We spent every day out in the mountains exploring somewhere new!

After the event ended on Sunday we headed to Nashville to spend two nights before driving home on Tuesday! Our hotel and room was unreal, it looked like a mini suite, with the most beautiful bathroom and a giant window looking out to the city. I go more into detail on what we did in Nashville on the ”Back to the Mountains” post, so make sure to go check that out for more details and pictures!

Every year, a group of us go up to Kirsten's cabin in Waters usually 2-3 times a year depending on who can get it off work. In October we headed back up for our last up north trip before her family closed it for the season. This trip was going to be different this time though... all 5 people that went were all bringing their dogs!

This was Ryleigh‘s first overnight vacation and she did so well. We were able to introduce them all to each other at Kirsten’s house before we left and they all liked one another! I told Kirsten I want her to come every time we go now. She loved adventuring, going on late night walks, looking at the lake, she sat in the jeep while we went in and ate breakfast one day and just took a nap. I could tie her to the jeep also while we were hanging out outside and she would just sit and watch what everyone was doing. She is such a little guard dog!

I was so proud of her, she’s just never been in a situation like that I wasn’t sure how she was going to do. The last night she didn’t want to go to sleep in our room so we slept on the couch so she could make sure she didn’t miss anything.

This was really the last exciting thing I have done which is slightly tragic, but this fall I spent lots of time trail riding my horse in local metro-parks and hitting local muddy trails to get the jeep dirty every once in a while. We have our yearly Mackinac trip already planned in the same hotel as last year. It was adorable and a perfect setup for us so I can’t wait to share that... but that isn’t until summer so I better be doing something before that!

Thank you so much for checking this post out! I’ve had these first few posts typed up for a while and was knocking myself down for wanting to try something. Writing, traveling, and photography have always been three things I love and to be able to bring them all together is very exciting to me. :)

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