Sunrise Owls

Our “Honeymoon Expansion Pack,” as Chris has dubbed it, is coming to a close! We kicked things off with a music festival outside of Charlottesville, Virginia, and have been weaving our way home through Asheville, the Smoky Mountains, Memphis, and now Oklahoma City.

Traveling over the road — though our experience has been nothing like Kerouac’s — is a big shift from Southeast Asia: more luggage, (much) higher prices, and cooler weather alongside the most beautiful fall colors we’ve ever seen, with the same flexibility of last-minute bookings. Chris hasn’t let me drive once 😆 while I was pretty sick for the first few days of our trip, it’s been his choice ever since 🤷🏻‍♀️

Valley of the Seven Stars

This funky weekend, our first true EDM festival together, brought together 15,000 folks to enjoy sets across five stages with first-class fireworks and laser flair. We loved the opportunity to finally test our car tent and put our propane stove to work. The stages were pretty spread out so we walked at least 30k steps per day over this weekend.

It was also a great opportunity to spend time with my niece, Kylie, as well as some of our Texas pals at their ‘renegade’ set up. These guys also host their own annual music event down in Central Texas, Hidden Oak camping festival, which sadly we won’t be able to make this year. 😓

We 💚 WNC

Western North Carolina was everything we dreamed of and more. Asheville is crunchy and weird and we loved just about every side of town. The food is sooo phenomenal and the people are friendly. We spent a morning meandering the River Arts District, which has rebuilt impressively over the last year, and the evening downtown in a historic inn. The city is still recovering from the hurricane a year ago but there’s great spirits all around.

Great Smoky Mtns National Park

Our two nights in the Smokies rang true to their name — using only a flint and downed wood from the park, Chris started fires both nights, which was the ultimate treat as campers coming from longstanding fire ban territory. Driving through Gatlinburg to get into the park, we realized exactly why more folks visit Great Smoky Mountains National Park each year than Yosemite, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon combined…Gatlinburg hosts a never-ending strip of pancake houses, fudge shops, moonshine tastings, and flashy family-friendly attractions along the main road (and that’s only near the north entrance.) It took us 3.5 hours just to make it into the park, hit the Visitors Center, and find parking near our trailhead 😵‍💫 still worth it though!

Special gratitude to WNC cities & counties for using their tax dollars to staff the park during the government shutdown and provide us with excellent services.

Don’t Sleep on Memphis!

We were racing the rain on our short walk to B. B. King Blues Club on Beale Street and after hitting an extra hour of traffic, felt lucky just to snag the last spot at the bar. But when the man sitting across from us got up to mingle with the band in the break between sets, we could feel something special…he must be a prominent musician or something. 🤨 Low and behold we were in the presence of B.B. King’s drummer for over 35 years, who even hopped on stage to play a few songs with the evening’s singer, his protege Marcus Scott, who has a phenomenal voice and radiates joy on stage. Marcus even has a tiny desk concert on YouTube you should definitely check out. Truly one of the best nights of our whole trip!

The food did not disappoint (well, okay, maybe one lunch, not pictured.)

We spent the majority of our full day in town at the National Civil Rights Museum, located at the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It is hard not to draw parallels to current police cruelty and targeting of a population based on the color of their skin. We left inspired about the power of nonviolent action and speaking up for what you know is right.

“If not us, then who? If not now, then when?”

-John Lewis, Freedom Rider and lifelong activist

Note that our experience in Memphis was shaped by the federal govt’s excessive presence in the city. We saw National Guard members walking back and forth along Beale Street all evening. The tourist district was much quieter than usual.

Homeward Bound

Headed for OKC after a tasty lunch in Little Rock, we’ll be back in Colorado soon and looking for a new address to call home. After two and a half months seeing the world together, we are definitely ready to sleep in the same bed for more than two nights and cozy up with our cat again. 😴

Thanks for following along on our adventures! They’ll look different as we start our next chapter of life but we plan to use this platform from time to time to stay in touch.

With love,

Chris & Lexi