Friday, June 20, 2025 | Day 1

A photo my mom snapped of the parade of family who came to say goodbye today. We felt very loved.

I wish that I had tracked the number of hours I spent planning this road trip. When it came to making this trip happen, we decided to divide and conquer. I tackled the itinerary. Jonny tackled producing shoots along our route.

Jonny and I have historically been terrible travel planners. We’re good at booking flights, confirming lodging, and getting on airplanes with five carry-ons each (we really don’t like checking luggage, especially when it costs extra or bags contain cameras). We rarely, however, have a set plan for what we will do once we arrive in a location. Visiting Alaska to film whales? Check! What whale tour company are we using? *blank stare.* We always manage to have a good time and see a lot, but we have wasted a lot of time over the years sitting in parking lots or airbnbs figuring out what we should do next.

We’re covering a lot of ground this summer - an estimated 8,000 miles. That’s a lot of time to ask a 5 year old and 2 year old to sit in a van. Every moment counts, in the van and out. When people hear about our trip they get excited about this awesome vacation we’re taking. But this isn’t just a leisure trip, we’re working from the road. With two kids. In a van. The time and effort it’s taken to make this dream happen is immense.

Because we are working, traveling with small children, and want to have slow days to just see what happens or to catch our breaths, we had to get pretty granular with planning. To see a lot, we felt we needed to plan a lot. What are our major stops? When are we scheduling productions? Where will we get groceries? When can we do laundry? What should we do in various cities? Where will we park this huge van when in urban areas? And where will we stop for lunch or to stretch our legs mid-drive?

If things go according to plan, we will return home in 104 days. I have created spreadsheets and have a binder listing our itinerary for each day of this journey. Today’s itinerary included saying goodbye to family, driving 1 hour south to Salem, OR, and staying the night at the home of our friends Joe and Eloise after spending the afternoon and evening photographing their multi-generation family enjoying life together on their gorgeous property.

What did we do today, you ask? Well, we didn’t leave our house…

You might be wondering why we didn’t leave. Jonny ordered a camera lens that was scheduled to arrive yesterday, June 19th, but there was a delivery delay. The delivery time kept being pushed back. First it was meant to arrive today by 10:00 AM, then by 2:00 PM. Eventually a notification said the lens would arrive sometime between 6:00 PM and 10:00 PM tonight. On top of that, Jonny spent much of the day on the phone with Amazon because our account appeared to be hacked and we were repeatedly locked out. Packing the van was a ton of work and stressful in its own way, but these added issues made it seem like the universe was working to keep us from leaving. Eventually we decided to postpone our shoot in Salem until tomorrow, so we could wait for the lens and sleep at home one more night. The kids got to bed at a good time and we spent the evening watching Sirens with our friends Clay and Katia (they are subleasing our home while we are gone). I’m so grateful we will hit the road rested and relaxed rather than stressed out of our minds. Everything seemed to work out in the end, but it was still hard to see our plans go in the trash.

My parents have spent the last 18 months RV-ing across the United States and they aim to visit all 50 states before their trip is complete. When we decided to embark on this road trip their advice was, “Hold plans loosely.” What perfect advice. I anticipated the plans I spent hours making sometimes falling through, but I didn’t imagine it would happen on literally the first day of our trip.

I have no doubt this journey will be memorable. I also do not doubt that things will rarely go as planned. Here’s to planning, letting plans evolve, and choosing to enjoy whatever we stumble upon along the way. I hope I can remember that the in-between moments are equally important as the destinations.