Sunday Around the World

 Gbye SDakota and heyooo to Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Ohio.  Whew. We are really flying through states at this point and Michael and I have definitely decided we should have made this trip at least a few days more so we could hang in these beautiful spots more.  But hey, there’s always the next one.  Maybe we just buy a camper... We arrived late at night at our Hipcamp in the middle of Iowa, the cicadas were throwing a party and I was all about it. I absolutely love hearing the sounds that are so foreign to CA. We woke up to see the beautiful farm we stayed on for the night.  Noah had a great chat with the cows, “hey cows, I’m Noah Sunday Seiler!”  So polite that boy.  We lucked on this spot, right on a pond, 16 acres of farm land, cows and chickens all to ourselves.  I like my coffee with a side of corn field.  Our next destination was something so meaningful.  About 10 years ago I had one of my favorite jobs working for Birthright Israel at the Jewish Federation in LA.  Teddy was

 We left our only double night campsite in the Black Hills and shoved back onto the road, but that one day of not driving for 6+ hours was real real nice.  I highly recommend getting yourself into those hills! Back at it and we had a 2hr drive to the Badlands.  2hrs seems like a walk in a park and that park was made of mint chocolate chip and bags of Cheetos.  just a treat is what I’m trying to get at.  I think I need Cheetos... I have not seen scenery like this since Israel and my jaw was on the floor as we hiked through the harsh desert that is the Badlands.  Michael and I just kept picturing the people who at one time, years and years ago, tried to make this terrain a thing for their communities.  Stop trying to make Badlands happen, it’s not going to happen!  (Thanks Ms. Weiners)   The sun was blasting, the ground chipped away with the dryness and there was nothing around for as far as we could see.  No Four Seasons popping up here anytime soon.  We took a short but power hike up i

We said gbye to Yellowstone and took a deep breathe as we faced a 9 hr drive to our next camping spot in the Black Hills.     It’s all fun and games until its 3pm and you are pretty wiped from all day hiking and geiser facials, no time to relax, get your butt in that drivers seat and go! By the way, Michael is a killah cook and has been whipping together treats for us, like these salmon grilled cheeses. Ooooeee! We did 4 hours straight through, our plan was to make it to another national Forrest and take an evening hike.    Timing didn’t work out as planned, so instead it was a 5 minute stretch and switch of drivers, thank you, Michael.    I got Noah ready for bed and hoped he would sleep through as we drove the rest of the way in the dark.    He did great, until we stopped for gas an hour outside of our campsite and proceeded to have a full blown meltdown.    It’s not all made for Instagram!!    We rolled into camp at around 1am.    Michael is a champ. We woke up at Sheriden Lake in S

  I am absolutely no expert when it comes to #vanlife, although it has become my default Halloween costume for the past 2 years.     Good friends like to tell me its not actually dressing up when I just wear my regular clothing and add a flower crown and hold the #vanlife book.     But, I digress..   We are half way with this adventure and there are a few hacks along the way that have made our lives easier.    If one of them could possibly help to make your next cross country road trip better, then let an angel get it’s wings and we all win.    I would love to know how many of you just did a spit take and screamed “HA!” at the idea of cramming into an RV and traveling across the US with a kid.    But, for those of you who get leeettle butterflies at the thought, read on! Food  We have been eating really well because we also have a full stove to play with, so we do mixed veg with sausage or chicken cutlets we made and freezer from home.    Lunches I keep easy so I can make wraps as we g

I am very proud of the logistics we have done for this trip, we are packing in as much as we can in 10 days so we can get to friends and family in the east.  But ooooeee if there was a place I would have padded our time it would have been here, Yellowstone.  It’s just so big and there is SO much to see, so we knew we had to get a jump in the am.   Each day is a new learning for us, and today was all about hitting it before we make coffee (which is my favorite part of the day).  We had arrived at Headwaters Lodge and Campsite in the dark, and now we weren’t even going to step out into our site, it was time to spend as much time out in these geisers as we could!  The park has a million little places to pull off, we knew we couldn’t go wrong. But, we also knew we couldn’t go all this way and skip the mutha of geisers: Ol’ Faithful.  But, instead of joining the crowds, there were a fair amount of people in the main tourist spot, we used our AllTrails app and found a great off road hike.  I