The Power Of Awe In Nature: Part 1 Of My 2022 Cross Country Trip

 

Whitney Lauritsen is on a cross country trip once again. This time, she’s taking a northerly route that goes up to the Pacific Northwest, Vancouver, The Twin Cities, Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland and onto the East Coast. This episode was recorded before Whitney made the trip. Here, she shares how she manages her finances so she gets the privilege to go on travels like this. She unpacks a little bit of her background that gave her the privilege of being able to travel like not a lot of people could. She also shares some of the tools and hacks that she has used during her many travels and how they help her make the most out of her experiences without breaking the bank. Most importantly, she explains the key things to consider when preparing yourself for travel, financially or otherwise. Tune in for some inspiration that you can use the next time you hop on a car for a long drive!

This episode is sponsored by Athletic Greens and Zencastr.

• Get a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs of AG1 (episode sponsor) at athleticgreens.com/WELLEVATR.
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The Power Of Awe In Nature: Part 1 Of My 2022 Cross Country Trip

I have been very intrigued about ASMR. I could see myself going down that path and doing ASMR videos. I don’t even have a passion for it. I’m keeping my window next to me open. In Massachusetts, we are about to get a big rainstorm. Saying that out loud makes my heart want to burst open. I’m so excited. I have only been at my parents’ house for almost exactly 24 hours as of the time I’m recording this in late August 2022.

It has been interesting because I still am coming down or grounding myself from the cross-country experience that I had, which is going to be the subject of this episode. I was here in 2021. I set up this little remote office for myself. With the window open, there are different sounds. I have been trying to figure out the optimal way to soundproof this room. I might put a quilt over the back of the door because it doesn’t close fully. I’ve got a little rug in here, hoping to play around with the sound. This is the first time I’ve used this microphone in this room.

This little room is essentially a closet. It’s like Harry Potter. For some reason, my mom started tearing off the wallpaper. Her intention was to redo the wallpaper and my sister’s in my childhood bedroom but she never got around to it. It has been over a year. It looks a little shambly to me but that adds character. It shows the age of this place. There’s a random piece of wallpaper missing all over.

There are also remnants from my childhood. When I was growing up, my sister or I put up this little heart shape. It must have been me. It seems like something I would have done. I had this pen that would put out a glow-in-the-dark substance. I don’t even know what it was. It was a pen. You could draw on things, and it would make them glow in the dark. I used to have glow-in-the-dark stars all over our ceiling and bedroom, which is on the other side of this door and wall.

I’m excited to try out some new tools. The storm is getting closer because the sound is getting louder. I’m also fingers crossed, the power doesn’t go out and ruin this recording because I do this through Zencastr, which is currently sponsoring the show again. I am so excited about it. Zencastr did this whole rebranding. It’s perfect timing for me on this trip because one aim I have is to slow down and try to savor at the time away from Los Angeles is to upload all the previous videos I haven’t made to YouTube yet.

A big reason I haven’t done that is that in the past, it used to be so much work. I used to download the files and bring them into the video editing program I use. I spent so much time. Each video took me at least 15 or 20 minutes, which doesn’t sound like a lot but it felt a lot energetically. I believe that with the new changes and the upgrades that Zencastr has made, I don’t have to do quite as much work. It’s all built into the Zencastr website.

 

That would help me get a video sooner so you can see what I’m talking about when I point out visuals. Especially, I’m excited for you to be able to see the guests. Guesting has started to feel different for me with this show. A lot of the things that I’m learning through my well-being coaching training, if you didn’t know about that, I have been in a program for the past month. It goes until November 2022. I am learning new ways of listening, asking questions, and supporting people. I was starting to put that into practice in a new way when I recorded with a guest. That guest episode came out not so long ago. Maybe you can pick up on it. I’m trying to give them more room to talk and guide the conversation.

I’ve seen this evolution of myself as a podcaster. I have seen that as a coach. I feel good. I had a coaching training session. I got to be the client. In my program, along with the other students, we do a lot of practice sessions to work and hone our coaching skills. We will take turns or one of us will be the coach, and one of us will be the client. I was a client and almost felt like it wasn’t the best use of that practice session because I felt so happy. I felt at ease in my life. I felt content, and I am grateful for that. I imagine that most of those feelings have come from the segment of the road trip I’ve completed. Let’s dive into that.

Here’s one last thing before I get into the trip. When I was growing up, I used to love falling asleep to the sound of rain. I remember buying a rainforest CD that I would play with and had the sound of thunder, rain, and the rainforest. Thinking about that brings me so much peace and happiness. To hear that right outside the window in real-time is amazing. Although I wish it were happening while I was falling asleep because that’s the best. I’m trying to encourage my sister to sleep out in my tent with me one night. Maybe I will do it by myself. I’ve barely utilized my tent. I will tell you a little bit about that experience from this trip in a moment.

There’s one more thing that I forgot to mention. In this little room, I feel so proud because I’ve set up a few things this 2022 to make it work even better. One is I have this new light behind the camera. That is amazing. I forget the name of the brand but it’s a lamp I’ve wanted for a long time because it’s great for lighting somebody when they are doing work videos, live streaming or whatever type of recording.

I have a great external webcam from Logitech but if it doesn’t have great lighting, the quality isn’t so good. This is only the second time that I’ve recorded in this room with this lamp set up but it’s the first time I’ve recorded when it was dark outside. I also set up a little office chair. It is from Amazon. I went on there and thought, “If I can find a good office chair that’s inexpensive and small enough to fit in this room, I will get it.”

I’m so grateful that I did. I got this chair, and it is a game-changer for me. It was about $50, which was a little bit more than I wanted to spend. I found some chairs that were $30 but they tack on all these shipping fees. It came out to about $50, which is worth it because every time I’ve come home to see my parents and work in this little room, I’ve sat on this super stiff wooden chair, which was so uncomfortable. I’m glad that I spent the extra time and a little bit of money.

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The trees outside my window are all moving around, and the leaves are coming off. The breeze is coming in here. I wish you could be here next to me. Also, the cars going by there’s a road that gets a good amount of traffic, especially it’s a weeknight. People use this road but my parents’ house too as a back road from the highway. When I was growing up, I used to love the sound of cars driving by during the rain. I feel on cloud nine.

With no further ado, I’m pulling up my photo album, so I can go through it moment by moment this road trip and see if I can cover it all with you because so much happened. As some of the other videos I’ve made about travel have proven, sometimes it takes me a long time but I want to get detailed. I want to bring you along the journey. One thing I would love to do in the future is I would love to edit pictures and make the YouTube videos a little bit more visually interesting but it takes a lot of time to do stuff like that, even with a tool like Zencastr. I don’t know if that will happen until the show becomes another level of success. I can hire somebody to do that.

Let me pull up. I left my place in Los Angeles on August 7th, 2022. This episode will come out in September 2022. A lot of time has passed since I hit the road. I started driving towards the first national park. I went to eleven national parks on this trip and was amazed when I added them all up. I was shocked. If you haven’t heard me talk about this before, part of the way I plan my road trips is throughout the year, I mark down where I want to go on Google Maps. I find a lot of great suggestions through TikTok. I also hear from friends. Anytime I come across any piece of suggestion or recommendation for somewhere that looks interesting, beautiful or exciting, I put it on my Google Maps, including the national parks.

I started plotting out where I wanted to go and made my way across from Los Angeles to Massachusetts. It ended up being a bit of an L shape. I went all the way up the West Coast. I went up a little through Canada, dropped down to the top of the United States, and started coming down at an angle through some of the destinations I’m going to take you through. I stopped at a lot of amazing Tesla superchargers. This is something that I appreciate about having a Tesla. One, it has reduced some of the costs, as far as I know. I don’t know how much it would have cost for me to drive across the country but the way I did it, there are all different routes you can take. Some are much shorter, faster, and cheaper.

For me, I had saved up my money. I talked about this in the previous episode, where I got into all of the budgeting. This 2022, I tried not to let money be much of a concern. I haven’t even totaled up how much I spent on supercharging, food, and all that other stuff. That felt good. That was a big shift for me, the first time in a long time I had done that. I would love to do this whole trip without money being an issue. I would still say that I’m conservative. It’s there in a different way if this makes sense. I have some financial security now doing the work I’m doing but I have also been spending it on all things.

It will be interesting to calculate it all and see if I’m on target for where I want it to be. As I mentioned in the previous travel budgeting episode, I came up with an estimate of how much this entire trip would cost. That includes driving to the East Coast and back to Los Angeles. I don’t know where I’m at with that now. Hopefully, I will be in a good place. I did use credit cards the entire time, not to procrastinate pain but to maximize all the credit card benefits. I have a travel card that gets points that I will use for future trips. I have “regular credit cards” that get cash back rewards. I apply them. It’s giving me extra money to spend on trips like that. That felt good.

 

The superchargers, aside from the money, are neat. They are more expensive near the cities, and in California that they were the most expensive around Los Angeles, perhaps in some of the other major cities. I pass through Sacramento and also California. I passed through Seattle and went to Vancouver, Minneapolis, and Cleveland, Ohio. Those were all the major areas that I drove through. The price would increase based on there but also the experience of each supercharger would change. The first supercharger I went to was in a random place called Trevor. It seemed random to me. They had this interesting farm set up there where they had some sheep or goats outside, and an old saloon thile facade set up, and a little dog park.

It seemed very random to me but it was cool. I took Evie to the little dog park. She loved it. I walked by the goats, said hi to them, and took in those sites. That might have been the most interesting place. I made my way to Sequoia National Park. That’s the first park that I went to on this trip. That was interesting. The sequoias are incredible. I believe you could go in there without pain but don’t quote me on that. Something I noticed on this trip was that a lot of the parks I chose to go to didn’t stop you to pay or check your park pass. I have one that includes unlimited access to all the parks that expire at the end of August 2022. I will probably get a new one from more visitation and all of that.

Sequoia was mostly driving through. For me, because of time and having a dog, I did not do much outside of the car at most of the parks I went to. I planned these trips to give myself about two hours per park. That included driving, stopping, and taking in as much as I could. The reason being is that I wanted to go to so many parks. I didn’t want this trip to be super long. I also have a dog, and dogs aren’t allowed on most of the trails and national parks. That’s the challenge. With the Tesla, another big advantage is that it will keep the air conditioning on for your dog. It has a feature called dog mode. I have used that a number of times.

It does make me a little uncomfortable also because most of the parks do not have cell service. I wasn’t always able to double-check that the air conditioning stayed on, and I was away from the car for 15 to 30 minutes. If something went wrong with my car and stopped working, my dog would be stuck in a hot car. If you have anxiety and are extra careful like I am, going to a national park that way is not ideal.

When I got to Sequoia, I did go to see the biggest tree in the world. I wish I had all these statistics written down in front of me. It’s called General Sherman Tree, I believe. You have to go about 1/4 mile or 1/2 mile. It wasn’t very far but it was down a hill. You park at this lot and go down this cool winding path to the tree and take your pictures. You can look at it and go back up the trail. People were huffing and puffing on the way back up.

I was walking as quickly as possible to that tree because I didn’t want to leave Evie. It was a hot August summer day. It all worked out. It was cool to see the tree, although it was quite crowded at that park. That’s the other interesting thing. This time of year at the national parks, there are a lot of people. It’s hard to take in natural beauty to appreciate nature when there are people everywhere, kids crying, and people talking loudly, taking photos and videos. At that tree, I barely got any good footage or photos of it because it was almost entirely surrounded by people but it was neat to see.

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I wish I had spent a little bit more time savoring it but I saw it quickly, so I could get back to the car to see Evie. There were also cool rocks. There is one that was propped up interesting way right off the road that you could stand underneath. There were trees. I can’t remember if I drove through a tree. That might have been in a different part of the park now that I think about it going through my photos. I did walk through a tree. There was another tree grove beyond the General Sherman Tree. There are a few other special trees. One of them was this little grove with all these cool big trees. One was falling down, and they had carved out the middle of it so you could walk through it.

That was cool. These trees are very impressive, and photos do not do them justice. They almost look like something you would see out of the movie Avatar. I was telling my dad about them. He said they sounded like fake trees we saw in Singapore in the Gardens by the Bay. I have some photos if you haven’t read that episode about my Singapore trip, which I had done in July of 2022. Check that out. Here, we talked about how amazing nature was. Speaking of nature, I loaded up a bunch of audiobooks to listen to on this trip. I use the app called Libby by OverDrive, which allows you to borrow audiobooks for free from your local library. It’s a game changer.

Oftentimes you have to wait several weeks or sometimes months to get books, so what I do on these trips is I plan out at least a month in advance any books that I would like to listen to. You can put them on hold or get in the waitlist queue. It worked out perfectly. I got some great books. One of my favorites is called The Nature Fix. I listened to that, and it is a super in-depth book.

I could do a whole episode about it. Maybe I will. I would like to go back and read it because there were so many amazing statistics about how nature benefits our physical and mental health. The author has a whole section about Singapore at the end of the book. It made me grateful that I got to go there. It also talks about natural parks.

I then went to Kings Canyon National Park, which is right next to Sequoia. In fact, they are lumped together. They are called separate names. It’s a little confusing. I don’t know why they are separated. I had to rush through there a bit because I was getting short on time in terms of where else I needed to go. That was a big theme for this trip. In hindsight, I would have planned my trip and given myself at least an extra hour of time every day.

I tend to plan my trips based on when the sun rises and sets. I will jam-pack things in and estimate how much time I want to spend at each place. Almost every single day of this two-and-a-half-week trip, I was an hour behind schedule. That would mean I ended up not doing something that I wanted to do or I would rush through it.

 

That didn’t feel great. I would have slowed down a bit. That probably would have added another day to my trip, which would have been worth it overall. It’s tough with me camping, driving, and planning things around the lighting of the natural sunlight. Planning my trips around that has changed my relationship with time. That was cool. I left Kings Canyon and headed toward the next park. On the way there, I stopped at a place I enjoy. I’m super grateful that there’s a Tesla charger there. It’s called Pea Soup Andersen’s. It is 1 of 2 locations in California. It’s designed to be a Danish restaurant. All of their decors are influenced by the Danish style. I am part Danish. My last name Lauritsen is Danish. I grew up with pea soup.

My dad loves that. This might have been my fourth time visiting this restaurant, and it’s so quaint. It feels a little touristy, but not in the turnoff way. Being able to charge my car, I went in and got some soup. It was so quick. It was in and out of that restaurant in 15 or 20 minutes. I just got a bowl of soup, left, got back in my car, and drove off to the next spot. I also bought some of their canned soup, which is good, to share with my dad and sister. I took my sister there in 2021 when she visited me in Los Angeles. I headed on and had another charge stop from another cool place. Southern and Mid California have some cooler chargers I have been to.

This one was in a spot called Hollister. There are all these cool little shops and restaurants to go to. I have been there before. There were also random peacocks walking around. That was cool. My stop for the evening and my first camping destination on this trip was Pinnacles National Park, which I feel I only scratched the surface of it because, from what I read, it seems like most of the park you can see by walking on the trails. They have caves and all neat spots to go to. To drive through it, there isn’t too much to see. I appreciated it but I didn’t feel like I got to experience that. That was a theme for a number of places that I went to but I did enjoy staying the night there.

I had this tucked-away camp spot where I felt like I was near other campers but nobody could see me because there were bushes all around. It’s interesting. The more I go camping, the more I start to become a little particular about where I spend the night. You can go on campground websites and pick out your spot, depending on availability. I went and read some reviews, looked at some photos, and picked out my site for the night. It was nice. I’m glad I read the reviews because I was warned about the raccoons. People said in the reviews of this campground that the raccoons are aggressive, and you should make sure not to leave food out because they will get into it. Within ten minutes of getting there, I spotted a raccoon right there next to my car.

I was outside and setting up my tent. That raccoon was ready to dig into anything he or she could find. I got out of my tent and yelled at this raccoon. It scurried away, and I didn’t see it again. I was nervous all night long like, “Is it going to break into my tent while I’m sleeping?” Previously, I bought a tent. I might have talked about this after my May 2022 trip. I bought this $80 tent because it’s an SUV tent, meaning it has an attachment that can go around the back of my car. My car is not an SUV. I have a Tesla Model 3, which is a sedan. However, a lot of Tesla Model 3 drivers use this exact tent because you can still open up the trunk of your car and access that. You can sleep in the tent or your car.

I decided to get it because, mainly, I wanted a way to legitimize myself while I’m at these campgrounds or RV parks so that people wouldn’t think it was weird that there was some Tesla randomly parked there. Sometimes I feel like I stand out a lot. Two, I wanted the option to sleep in a tent, put storage in or if somebody travels with me to have like another room virtually.

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On my first big road trip in 2020, my friend Leanne came with me and slept in a tent but it was super tiny. It was separate from my car. Sometimes she felt uncomfortable about that. If we had had this SUV tent, it would have been a game changer. It would have been fun too because I could open up the trunk and say hi to her.

I sleep in my car. I have a neat compact mattress from this company called TESMAT. It has been great. I upgraded it a little this 2022. I got a sleeping pad for it. A foam sleeping pad adds a little extra layer of comfort. I also put my yoga mat underneath it for even more comfort and another way to bring my yoga mat with me on my trips. I put on a blanket. I have this cool one from this brand called Rumpl. It’s a sleeping bag material.

I always bring that blanket with me because it’s great for camping but it also adds another level. I have four layers underneath me but it’s made the car sleeping nice. If you haven’t heard me talk about this before, I use something called Tesla camp mode, which keeps the air circulating at whatever temperature you want. I set it to 68 degrees. No matter what the temperature is outside, I feel very comfortable.

Sometimes I set up the tent as extra storage and a place to hang out. This trip was interesting because I thought I was going to use it more. After I left Pinnacles, I only used it a few more times. I’m getting a little ahead of myself. It’s so funny. I have a video of me scaring off this raccoon. Do you know what the tent is great for? This might be TMI but it’s the reality of camping. I use the tent as my bathroom. I have two different toilets I bring up on my trips. One is this generic fold-up toilet that I got on Amazon. That thing is pretty cool. It’s great for a tent bathroom.

I have a pop-up tent that is commonly used as a port-a-potty, and this is very common for campers. Most campers have some toilet setup unless they are dependent on the campground’s facilities. I’ve found a number of issues with being dependent on that. Number one is that some campgrounds do not have flush toilets. You are going to the bathroom and a pit toilet. Pit toilets can be disgusting if they are not regularly cleaned or they will have port-a-potties set up. In Pinnacle, the bathroom near my campsite was closed. They set up port-a-potties temporarily, and I find them unpleasant. They were something I will only use if I had to. Carrying around in my car, a portable toilet avoids that.

The pop-up tent is small. That’s designed for changing your clothes, going to the bathroom or whatever you want to use it for. It’s great. It pops up in the place. You can take it down, and it folds flat. Since I had my SUV tent set up the next morning in Pinnacles, I set up my toilet there, too. I remember thinking it was so cool to use the bathroom outside. It was 6:00 AM, and I was going to the bathroom in my tent. I love it.

 

I also have this amazing toilet called the Carloo, which is designed to use in your car. I’ve raved about this before but it’s worth mentioning again if you haven’t heard me talk about this. That thing made this trip so wonderful because the past couple of years that I have been doing these road trips, trying to figure out where and how I was going to pee on the road was so frustrating.

The Carloo is set up for you to sit in your car seat. It feels like regular toilet seats. It’s big and wide but it’s shallow. It’s very discreet. I put up some coverings in my car, sit there, pee, and then dispose of it wherever I can. It’s a whole other story. I asked the owner of Carloo about urine disposal. She was telling me that it’s hard to talk about publicly because of all these different opinions, rules or whatever. I will not get into that.

However, one option, and this is what I use with my fold-up toilet, is you can get these biodegradable bags. This special powder that you pour into them when you urinate go number two or whatever needs to come out of your body goes into that bag. You can close it up and throw it in the trash. That’s what I will sometimes do.

I have other ways. You can pour it into toilets, whatever else you decide to do. In camping, I recommend learning about the rules like digging a hole in the sand. Covering up has to be certain. It’s dirt, not just sand. It has to be a certain depth and a certain distance from the water. Learning all of those things is helpful. I’m not going to make this whole episode about how to get rid of human waste. Anyways, that’s the toilet talk. It’s fun. If you can embrace that, camping becomes interesting. With my tent, you can keep it open. It has a netting. I’m sitting there, looking up at the clouds, thinking, “I wish I could always go to the bathroom outside.”

The tent was cool to have a way to organize my stuff in private. It can be closed up so no one can see inside of it. I would store things in there sometimes or change my clothes there. I would reorganize things in there. It also is great for bugs. Bugs became a challenge for me on this trip. It seems like more than they have in the past. I don’t know why. I might’ve been paying extra close attention to them because I thought I was prepared. I had that tent, a citronella candle, and three different types of bug spray. I brought this brand called EarthKind, which I have to say let me down. I don’t know if it was the situations that I was in or what but it didn’t always work.

I liked the formulation of EarthKind. I recommend trying it but it did not prevent bug bites as much as I would like it to. I had a second brand whose name I don’t remember. It was an old natural bug spray. It might have expired if bug sprays expire. I also brought along bug bands, which I brought with me to Costa Rica. I don’t remember those bug bands being much of an issue there but for some reason, they were not cutting it. They are these bands that you can wear around your wrist or ankles. You can strap them to clothing or a backpack. They were not very helpful. I can recommend that you try them. Even the citronella candle, I only used that once on this trip. It didn’t do much.

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I don’t know if the bugs have gotten worse or what but I might need to bring Deep bug spray with me next time because they were intense. I would get horrible reactions to the mosquitoes. I bring that up because the tent is one way I tried to avoid the bugs but setting it up, you are still exposed to them, especially at night. That’s one of the reasons that I try to get to the parks or the campsites I’m going to before sunset because the bugs are generally a little bit more manageable. After Pinnacles, I started making my way further North towards the ocean. I had a couple of places on my Google Maps that I wanted to see. That took me through Santa Cruz, which I realized I had never spent time in before. I thought I had been there but it did not look familiar to me at all.

I used to live in San Francisco. I thought that maybe in one of my drives between LA and San Francisco or wherever I was going. I have been to San Francisco more times than I can count. I thought maybe I had gone through there but it was not what I pictured in my head. I thought it was right on the beach. I had this whole vision of it. The main area I went to, especially for charging my car, was further inland. The car charger was at Whole Foods. I went in there and got some various groceries. I came across these awesome crackers that I became into. They have the word, “Eat,” in them. I don’t remember the link to them. They are one of my favorite finds on this trip.

Somewhere else farther North in Santa Cruz, I found those crackers. I’m going to keep looking for them when I go back to LA or order them online because they are that good. I also got some fresh potatoes. Potatoes were something I was craving a ton on this trip. That’s tricky because I love potatoes. I’ve seen nothing wrong with them but when I eat a high-carb diet, it impacts my body and weighs me down.

I have this ripple effect. Now, I feel my body is bloated or something. It could be in my head. I will acknowledge that but I was craving them. I was practicing my intuitive eating. I ate a lot of potatoes in various forms on this trip. I remember that morning yearning for them and getting some at the Whole Foods hot bar. They hit the spot.

I then went to this little area called Shark Fin Cove that I must have seen on TikTok or something. I didn’t know why I had saved that in my Maps. I’m trying to become better at marking down. One little trick is when you save a location on Google Maps, underneath the save button, there’s a little section where you can put down a note. I wish I had written notes about where or why I learned about these places. Shark Fin Cove was cool. It was hidden away in a tiny little parking lot. You can’t see the cove from the parking lot. I parked there thinking like, “I don’t know how far of a walk this is. I don’t know if this is worth going to.”

I went down this little path and turned a corner, and all of a sudden, this beautiful little cove with a rock formation that looks like a shark fin in the water sticks out. It’s neat. There weren’t a ton of people down there. There were enough people that you could see how it’s a bit of a popular place but it wasn’t crowded. People were down there having picnics and hanging out with their friends. I walked down and put Evie in her backpack.

 

I got this cool dog backpack that was wonderful for things like that. I can’t remember if dogs were allowed there but I will often put Evie in the backpack just to go on a quick walk with her. I did learn something on this trip that’s important, and I want to do a little bit more research on it. It turns out that some of these dog backpacks out there are not great for warm summer days.

It might sound obvious. It did not occur to me until I was in Chicago, visiting a friend on this trip. She told me about how they can be dangerous. I’m now going to be more careful. I always bring a bottle of water with me for Evie. It’s a special dog bottle. I try to be mindful of how she’s feeling and not keep her in there for a long time. Looking back on this trip, I wish I had paid a little bit closer attention.

She was fine. She didn’t have any issues but having heard about the dangers of using some of these dog backpacks in the summertime or direct sunlight raised some concerns. The backpack has mesh on the top and air holes on the sides. I thought it was completely fine but from the direct sunlight, it can almost be like a car effect for your dog. You can put a cat in there.

You could use these backpacks for anything. I shouldn’t even refer to them as a dog backpack. The one that I bought is great. It’s very comfortable. It expands out the back. It’s compact when you use it as a backpack. When you want to put your dog on the ground, you can expand out the backpacks. They have more room to lie down. It’s also designed to be comfortable and sturdy to wear. It has clips that go around your waist. It was great. I was disappointed to hear that there have been some issues with those bags. This issue is more talked about because I did what I thought was a lot of research on it, and then it turns out they aren’t as front-facing or don’t provide warnings before you buy it.

I want to make sure I bring that up. After Shark Fin Cove, I drove up to an area called Moss Beach, which I remember seeing on social media because the particular spot of Moss Beach that I went to has a forest next to it. You can walk through this short little trail to overlook the ocean. The contrast of these gray trees that look very mysterious reminds me of what I saw when I made my way up to Washington on this trip.

All of a sudden, you pass through the trees to overlook the cliff side of the ocean. It was neat. It was not quite as beautiful as I thought. That’s another big thing I had from this trip. Shark Fin Cove was one of the exceptions. I thought it was more impressive in person than I remember seeing photos and videos of it. In Moss beach, I thought that the photos make it look a little bit more majestic than it is. It’s cool. I don’t know if I would necessarily go out of my way to go there. If it’s nearby where else you are going, check it out.

 

For me, I added it as a destination, got there, and thought it was great. They allow dogs on some of the trails and others. I brought Evie in her backpack. That’s usually the rule because people don’t always clean up after their dogs or want it to be more peaceful. When Evie was in the backpack, she was super quiet. She doesn’t leave a mess. She doesn’t interact with other dogs or people. It’s a way for me to go to some areas without leaving her in the car. I don’t know for sure if that’s breaking the rules. That’s doing something to assuming that dogs on a leash on the ground are not allowed.

I also don’t want to encourage you to do things like this without double-checking for yourself. I’m not recommending you bring your dog or animals to areas where they are not allowed. That was something that I shifted this 2022 versus 2021 when I went to national parks. I went to Glacier National Park in 2021, for example. I brought Evie on long trails in the backpack.

It was great from a safety standpoint for her because it was cold and under a lot of tree cover. That wasn’t an issue. In hindsight, after doing a little bit more reading and research about national parks, they don’t want dogs around at all because if they bark, they can scare away wildlife or attract wildlife to you, which could be dangerous to you and other people in the area. Their smell can do the same thing.

I always thought dogs weren’t allowed on the trail because they might be in danger if they were walking or because people won’t clean up after them. I’m sure that’s part of the concern. I didn’t realize that their smell or sound could potentially cause an issue with wildlife. If that attracted wildlife to you, you could be attacked by a bear or something like that. I’m becoming more cautious about it and not recommending that other people do that.

To my point earlier, it kept me from going on a lot of trails at these parks. After Moss Beach, I started making my way away from the coast. I went to Sacramento, where I saw my dear friend, Toni, who runs the brand Plant-Based on a Budget. It was so wonderful. We had a short amount of time together. It was 90 minutes or so.

She brought her dog. We walked around the park. I charged my car. She brought me some homemade food. I like this delicious tofu dish. She also gave me this delicious sugar-free jam. I forget what the brand is called. It was another one of those products I had on my trip that I enjoyed. It’s chia seeds and berries. That’s virtually it, no added sugar. I’m drooling, thinking about it. It was incredibly satisfying. It was nice to get that as a little travel gift from Toni. I then headed up to Lassen Volcanic National Park. What’s funny is that when I think about this park, nothing immediately comes to mind. I’m glad I’m looking through the photos of it because it doesn’t seem like it left a lasting impression on me.

 

When I look through the pictures that I took, I remember how incredibly beautiful it was. It’s an old volcano. The last time it erupted was the early 1900s. I got there at sunset, and it was one of the most beautiful sunsets I saw in my entire trip, and you are driving up to the peak. I don’t think you go to the very top but you go pretty high up on this volcano and start to weave down a little bit. That’s where I camped. There are a few different campgrounds that you could go to. These photos are stunning. They are like orange, pink, purple-ly gray, bluish clouds, and these beautiful little lakes all over.

That campground ground was pretty nice. It had great star gazing. I try to take night photos at every campground I go to. I have a little Canon camera that I’ve mostly used for video footage but it has a star mode on it to make it easy to take pictures of the night sky. I enjoyed doing that at this park. The downside to this park was that all the spots were super close together. It was very different from Pinnacles, where I had more privacy. You couldn’t see your neighbors. Here, you could see almost everybody at the campsite.

In some ways, that is soothing for me, traveling by myself or with Evie. I’m the only human. I like being close to other people and seeing them because it makes me feel like there’s less of a chance of someone coming over to my car in the middle of the night. If something ever went wrong, it would be very easy to get the attention of another camper. Some people don’t like that because they want to feel they are on their own. Maybe they are concerned about the noise. Camping in my car blocks out a lot of the sound. I will also bring a little sound machine with me. I’m not bothered by the sounds of other people if I can get in the car, and they are not being super loud.

I didn’t set up my tent that night but I did create a fire. There’s something so special about setting up a campfire. Most campgrounds have little space for a fire pit. In the campsite, you can often buy wood from the campground, although it can be expensive or somewhere very close by. Something I’ve learned is that you don’t want to bring wood in from outside the area you are camping in and create campfires because you could bring in invasive bug species. I collected some off the side of the road, which I’m not 100% sure is allowed. It’s not within the national park.

Right outside the national park, I’ve had friends say that’s okay. I was driving there and saw a bunch of deadwood on the side. I stopped and collected it. If I’m wrong about that, A) I apologize, and B) Please let me know. I need to research it a little bit more. Some of these rules like where you dispose of human waste are confusing. It’s not always super straightforward.

I suppose the human waste thing is, generally, dig a hole, cover it, and make sure it’s 200 feet away from water. There are still times when you are like, “What do I do with urine?” That has been an interesting thing about learning how to camp. It’s the same thing with the campfires if I’m not cutting down a live tree and taking too much from the ground cover.

 

In 2021, when I was in Glacier National Park, the camp host corrected me because I was picking up little twigs for my fire starter. He said, “You are not allowed to do that in the campgrounds because if everybody did that, there would be no cover for the floor of the ground. The plants could suffer because they need the little twigs and stuff as part of the cycle of nature.” I don’t do that on campgrounds anymore but I thought it would be okay if you collected it outside the park. Fingers crossed, that was okay to do. It was very nice to have a little campfire. I’ve brought along all the little tools so you can make your own fire starter using lint from the dryer and candle wax.

This 2022, I had some of that leftover from previous trips. I also bought some pre-made versions of that. I found some of the candle wax like coconut wax or soy wax, doesn’t work quite as well as some other types of wax you can buy. I don’t like to burn unnatural candles. Making them myself is not always ideal. I will collect scraps of paper along my trip and save those for creating fires.

This 2022, I started using an electric lighter, which didn’t work super well. I have a regular lighter and matches as backups but I try to use the electric lighter as much as possible because it’s reusable. You charge it. It’s fascinating and technology. There are two sides to the lighter. When you turn it on, a little electric spark goes between the two poles on it. It wasn’t ideal.

It’s great if you are lighting a candle, which is how they are advertised but lighting a campfire was a little trickier. I would stick a little piece of paper between the little points, light it, and drop it into the firewood. I’ve learned all these new techniques to start fires and started to get good at them. That’s so satisfying. I feel like I’ve learned some good survival techniques.

I also bring along a little mini pop-up tent for Evie. I’ve had that for at least a year now. That all set up for her with her food and bed. When I’m setting up my car for the night or having a campfire, she’s all safe in her own little spot. It’s not safe enough to leave her there, which is a big no-no at campgrounds. You should never leave your dog unintended.

For all the reasons I mentioned with trails, they could wander off, it could get lost, and a wild animal could come. In a lot of these parks, you are in the middle of the woods. Even though there are a ton of people around, it’s still possible for wild animals to show up. That sometimes puts me on edge. I’m always very cautious about where Evie is. The next day, I drove out of the park. I didn’t spend a ton of time there. My biggest impression of the park was driving there at sunset. I did walk down. There’s a little lake next to the park. It was called Summit Lake Campground. There’s a tiny little lake there that was pretty to look at the next day.

 

I did see a snake there but it was dead. It was right by my campground. I’m not afraid of snakes. I don’t want to encounter one by foot necessarily. Earlier this 2022, when I went on my Utah and Colorado trip, I saw a huge yellow snake crossing the road. I got close to running it over but it was so big. I thought it was a big stick across the road. When I got closer to it, I was like, “It is a huge snake.” I was glad that I was in my car for that. I was fascinated by it, not afraid. Speaking of which, I saw all animals along the roadways. I saw deer crossing. When I was in Sequoia, I saw a marmot run across the road. That was exciting. It’s fun to see all this.

I came across a picture of those crackers. They are called Every Body Eat Cheese-Less Thins. They are so good. They are allergy friendly, have no gluten, no corn, are all plant-based, and have super simple ingredients. I bought them twice. I would get them again. After that, I went back to the coast in California and drove through Redwood National Park. I realized I had already been there.

In 2010, Robert Cheeke and I drove through there. If you don’t know Robert Cheeke, he is a vegan bodybuilder. He does a lot in the fitness world now. He’s an amazing guy. We went on a book tour for his very first book. We were dating back then and drove to the Redwoods. It was nice to go past some of these areas again. I remember from that trip we went the opposite direction from Oregon and drove down to Los Angeles.

To go from Los Angeles North, it was neat to see the ocean, what that looks like on that side of the road, stop to see the trees, and reflect on who I am now years later. We then headed towards Crater Lake National Park. That park I was excited to see. I had anticipated so much. It’s in a virtual reality fitness program that I use. I have an Oculus Meta Quest. I use this app called Supernatural, which is a wonderful fitness app. One of the fitness classes is set at Crater Lake. I couldn’t wait to see it in person. It was cool. I camped there too. It was a chill campground, which I don’t remember what that experience was like.

It was interesting because I got there and didn’t have a lot of charges left on my car, which can be an issue at national parks. I wish that the parks were a little bit more supportive of electric cars because, a lot of times, their superchargers are too far spaced out. In general, Tesla spaces out the superchargers that you can easily get from one to another. People always ask me this like, “How long does it take to charge? How much does it cost?”

Generally, the longest I will stay at a supercharger is 50 minutes. On average, I would say 15 to 20 minutes, which goes by incredibly fast. I look forward to the longer charges because that’s when I will get work done on the road and eat food sometimes. I plan my whole day around these superchargers and what I need to accomplish. Twenty minutes go by so fast that I can barely work. That was a juggling act, this whole trip.

 

The other issue is that the campgrounds are sometimes a little too far away from the chargers. If you are camping in your car like I am, overnight, you are draining the battery. There’s a feature on the Tesla called camp mode, which, as I mentioned, keeps the car at the perfect temperature. It keeps your electronics on so you can charge things. I love that but it sucks up about 20% of the battery. I have to do math the entire trip, trying to figure out how to get from one point to another while camping. I bring this up because the only time I think on this trip was at Crater Lake. I got there. I knew that they had a charger inside the park but I also knew that the charger was not functioning properly.

I show up around 8:00 PM, which is right before the sun starts to go down. There were already people there charging their cars. There were two cars parked at the charging station. That was the only one in the entire park. That’s not a huge issue because I could wait for them to be done but you never know how long someone is going to need to charge. I pulled up there and had my fingers crossed that they would leave soon.

They did, but when I went up to charge my car, I found 1 of the 2 chargers was broken. That charger charged faster than the second one. That wouldn’t have been a huge issue if that was in the campground but it was right outside the campground, meaning I had to sit there and wait for my car to finish charging.

I suppose I could have taken out my tenth, set up my tent, and slept in my tent while charging my car but that was not ideal. Other people want to charge. As soon as I plugged in my car, another person showed up to charge their car too. It’s because there was only one charger working, I felt horrible because they too needed to charge. It was about 8:30 or 9:00 PM at this point. They are waiting for me. It was this whole debacle.

If you are not somebody that would enjoy or could easily handle that type of stress, having an electric car can be a challenge for a trip like this. Long story short, I charged my car until 11:00 at night. I sat there, did some work, walked Evie around, ate some food, and got ready for bed. I set up my car, got everything ready, and had to wait it out. I had to do that in 2021 in Glacier National Park at the time.

This might still be the case there. It’s hard to go there with an electric car because the Tesla charger is super far away. That year, I had to charge my car twice in the park to get to the next charger. I had to wait around for hours as my car charged. It doesn’t bother me because I could take a nap. I have worked to do. I could watch something on my devices. I always download movies and TV shows onto my iPads. I can watch things without cell service. I liked that. On this trip, I watched The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It made me feel warm and cozy. I lay in my car, eat snacks, and watch my show at night. I looked forward to that.

 

I was able to work a lot. Especially at a spot where my car was charging, I had enough cell signal. I tether my computer to my phone, so I can use the internet from my phone and be able to get work done. People often ask me like, “How do you work on these trips?” I plan out my whole work schedule around this car charging time. Long story short, that charging meant, so that I didn’t get to my campsite until a little after 11:00 PM. I parked my car, got into the back, fell asleep, woke up the next morning, and was off. I drove from that campsite over to the scenic parts of the park, which is centered around Crater Lake.

An interesting fact is that it is the deepest lake in the United States and one of the deepest in the entire world, maybe the second deepest. I could be wrong about that. I know for a fact that it is the deepest in the US. It’s cool. There’s this little island in there, and it’s neat to look at. The photos barely do justice. You can see the whole lake is a crater. To imagine how deep it is, is amazing. I wish I had a little bit more time there. Some friends of mine were telling me how they’ve gone swimming in there and diving. We can take a little boat ride. That would have been fun but I did not plan for that.

After Crater Lake, I started making my way up further in Oregon. By the way, Crater Lake is in Oregon. I was so excited because I went to Bend, Oregon, for the first time. I used to have a friend that lived there. I heard all these stories about how beautiful Bend is, and it truly is. It was even better than I could have imagined. I stopped and saw a friend there for a few hours. That was so wonderful.

I was deeply nourished by these experiences with friends. I found myself feeling more relaxed about COVID. I’ve talked a lot about how I’ve had trouble during COVID. I felt weighed down with my COVID concerns but they started to melt away on this trip. Not that I don’t think that it’s serious or take it seriously but seeing people one-on-one which I know are mindful of it like Toni in Sacramento. She’s careful about it.

This friend in Oregon barely sees anyone. She lives in this relatively small town-ish. Bend is a small town. It felt like a small town to me. I felt this freedom and relaxation seeing people like that and had a delightful time. After I visited her, I got to go to some cool places. One of them I was so grateful that I saw on social media. It’s called Sisters Coffee. It is this wonderful cafe in this small town called Sisters. It’s a little on the touristy side but in a cool way. It’s all these cool shops in this beautiful part of Oregon, and it was absolutely delicious coffee. I bought some coffee beans from them and brought them back for my dad. We enjoyed them in Massachusetts. That was fun.

The decor of Sisters was so nice. I walked in there and was like, “I know this is going to be great coffee,” and it was. They made me a phenomenal latte. I wish I could have hung out there longer. That was another place I wish I had an extra twenty minutes or so. I’m glad I didn’t hang out too long because my next stop was one of my favorites from the whole trip.

 

That is in this area called Tamolitch Park, AKA the Blue Pool. It is about a 2-mile-long hike. It was very dog-friendly. I was so grateful for that. Evie didn’t want to walk too far. This is another reason they have the dog backpack. It’s not always that dogs aren’t allowed on trails. It’s that Evie is old now. I put her in that backpack, so she could relax, and I could enjoy a trail. She sat in there. I hiked, and it took me about 45 minutes to 1 hour to get to the Blue Pool.

It’s literally blue like the name says. It’s this little body of the lake. It’s like a pool of water. It’s interesting because, on the way to the pool, you are walking along a creek or river. It’s like rushing water going past you. Almost the entire trail, you are walking right alongside the water. It’s so peaceful. There are people there, a decent amount of other hikers but there is enough space in between them and me to take in nature and feel some solitude. The water is so gorgeous. I was trying to describe the color to somebody.

If you want to imagine it, think of clear glass with water in it. You took some blue food coloring and dropped in a few drops. It’s got that blue tint but you can still see through the glass. That’s what this Blue Pool looks like. You can see the rocks below it. It’s got a slight tint of green. It might have been the reflection of the trees but the water is this beautiful, pure blue that is so pretty and worth it.

I’m not a big hiker, I’ve realized. The fact that I can’t go on a lot of trails in these parks while traveling with a dog is not a big deal to me because I don’t enjoy long walks like that, especially if they involve going uphill. I’ve always struggled. Maybe it’s a form of asthma. I get out of breath, no matter how in shape I am. I struggle on trails. I don’t enjoy them for the most part.

This trail, 1/3 of it, maybe 1/2 of the trail length, was slightly uphill but it wasn’t hard. If it was on all trails, I would guess I would get an easy mark. I’m guessing. I don’t use all trails. On a website, you can go on to see how hard a trail is. In length, I found myself at times being like, “When am I going to get there?” I’m using my Apple Watch seeing how much further I have to go. When I got to the pool, it was so worth it. The pleasant trail, trees, and the way the sun came through the leaves were wonderful.

I felt the same way when I went to Glacier National Park in 2021 and went on those trails. They were so hard. It was worth it when I got to the destination but the journey there was unpleasant for me. That’s something that I’m still trying to figure out about myself like, “Can I learn to like hiking?” where I am always going to feel slightly uncomfortable during the experience. I would recommend this trail. There were little kids there. It wasn’t too hard. What was interesting is I could not figure out how to get to the actual water. When you arrive at the pool, on the first part of the trail next to it, you are overlooking the water. It’s down probably 20 or 30 feet if I had to estimate.

 

There’s somehow a way to get around the pool and this little beachy type area. I saw people down there. I had no idea how they got down there. I kept looking for it. The path became very ambiguous. Somehow other people found their way there. I tried to follow other people, and they were going in different directions. It was confusing and an interesting moment. I have two choices. I can go and figure this out and wait until somebody shows me the way or I can look at it from up above on the ledge and appreciate it.

That’s what I ended up doing. I’m sure there’s a nice perspective when you get closer to the water but I didn’t have to do that. It didn’t feel crucial to me. I skipped it, took it in, and walked back. I felt grateful for that opportunity to gain some clarity. I felt that a number of times on this trip, especially given the schedule and the fast pace of things. There were times I had to compromise and decide to do things or skip things. Sometimes that’s a helpful exercise. I took a lot of great photos. I’m going through them and thinking, “Wow.”

I’m so glad I was able to capture it. That was one of those places I was glad to have the Carloo. At the beginning of the trail, they had a pit toilet, and it was so disgusting. I opened up the door of the bathroom to use it, and I was like, “There is no way I’m sitting on that toilet.” It’s gross. I felt grateful. I went back to my car, used my Carloo, and went on my way. Sometimes you have those moments where you know why you own a piece of equipment. I’m going to wrap this episode up soon and make it a part two because there’s so much more to tell you. I’m only a few days into the trip at this point.

That night, I stayed at Mount Hood. It was cool. It’s a national forest, not a national park. It was beautiful. I ended up going to see a lot of mountains on this trip. Mount Hood still was one of the more beautiful places I went to. When I say still, meaning I wasn’t expecting it. It was just a stop because I knew I would get there about sunset. It was on my list of places to visit but I didn’t expect to find it as magnificent as it was. That was also one of my favorite campgrounds. It was set up in a neat way. It was called Government Camp. There were a ton of an almost overwhelming amount of campgrounds at Mount Hood.

That’s interesting. National forests tend to have a lot more camping options than national parks, depending on where you go. In most national parks, you would get to choose from a couple, maybe ten parks, unless they are a big park. Most of them feel like they have a few major destinations. At Mount Hood, there were 30 campgrounds there, maybe more, I had a hard time deciding but I chose the one that had one of the better views of the mountain. I pulled in right after sunset. It was about twilight. It was so neat the way that they were set up. It was tons of privacy and was right off the road, and yet it felt like it was in the middle of a forest. It was so cool.

Unfortunately, that night, a little critter crawled into my car because the next day, my car started to have a dead animal smell. I have never experienced this in all my road trips. I don’t even know in my lifetime if I’ve ever had this happen. Unfortunately, it smelled like something got in there. I was nervous about it because I thought, “This is going to impact my car. Is my car going to have this horrible smell for a long time? Do I have to take it to a mechanic?” The smell lingered for a few days and went away.

I don’t know what happened. I checked. I looked under my wheel wells. I opened up the hood of my car and looked in the air unit. I tried looking all over. This is calming for this to happen. It’s like a little mouse or something, and it made me sad. It was disturbing. I imagine that it happened there because it was so foresty and chilly. Sadly, something crawled into my car to get warm and didn’t make it out. I hope that wasn’t TMI and disturbing but that’s the reality of some of these experiences.

What a good place to stop. I will give you an actual high, which is that campground. There are some of these places where you feel like are spots to sleep and places to suffice. That campground felt nourishing. I felt like I was forest bathing as The Nature Fix gets into a lot. That’s an amazing thing to do for yourself. I’m in a national forest. It literally is a forest.

These campgrounds give you that deep sense of nature. If you use a campground, you have to hike into it, that’s a whole other experience I’ve never had. I was able to pull my car into this little campsite. It was alongside a little river surrounded by dense trees as a picnic table. I didn’t set up my tent. I don’t think I had a fire that night but I stepped out of my car when I got there and felt so relaxed. The next morning, I got up and drove down this dirt road that was not designed for a car like mine. It was one of the few times on this trip that I thought, “I don’t think I should be going down this.”

A truck would be a much better vehicle but the map did not indicate how many potholes this dirt road had. I had to go 5 miles per hour. It ended up being worth it about because it took me to this cool lake that overlooked Mount Hood. I was there at 7:00 in the morning, drinking my coffee. I took Evie for a little walk. There was a fog around the water, and people were out there fishing. Not that I love to see that but there’s still something peaceful about people being up early in the morning to do something like that. I remember standing there in awe. In the book, The Nature Fix, the author talks about the power of awe and how rejuvenating that is for us. I felt that that morning.

I have a lot more to share about my travels. Mount Hood is still in Oregon because it was not too far outside Portland. I crossed the border into Washington shortly after that, so to be continued. I have at least one more episode in which I will share more details of this trip. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. As usual, I wish I could get some real-time feedback to see if there is more that you want me to elaborate on. Do you have questions? Are there things that are boring to you that you want to read less of? I welcome all of that feedback at any time.

Some of the best ways to share that are through email, social media, or my private Beyond Measure community. These links to this all can be found at Wellevatr.com. You can get my email address. You can find links to social media. Instagram, I mostly use it these days for direct messages. I haven’t checked the Wellevatr account in a while because I’ve taken a break from posting on there but I’m hoping to ramp back up, get back in the flow of posting on Instagram, and also start up the TikTok account. It’s already there but I will restart it up. We will see what I can get accomplished during my trip.

Anyways, I love the direct message features of social media. If that is convenient for you, you can reach out that way. If you want a more connected real-time conversation with me, the only one you can have with me these days is through Beyond Measure. That is a private community that you can join to not only connect with me but to meet a community of other like-minded people who are there to connect in a nonjudgmental way and learn from each other, support each other’s self-growth, and talk about anything that lights them up and inspires them to go through the hard times together.

That’s a huge source of joy for me. If you feel inspired, you can join that. We would love to connect with you in whatever method you would like. The next episode will likely be part two for this one unless I space it out. Regardless of when you read this, I still welcome your feedback. I still welcome your questions. I’m always happy to send you private answers too. That’s always a lot of fun. That’s it for now. Stay tuned for part two. That will come out sometime soon.

I have another guest episode for you. If everything goes as planned, the guest episode will be great timing as a follow-up to this because the person that I’m supposed to release as the next episode, if everything goes to schedule, is another camper, vegan, and an interesting person that I cannot wait to talk to you and share more with you, especially if you’ve never heard of this person before. You are going to love them. That’s it for now. Thanks for reading. To be continued. I hope you are doing well. I got a little awkward at the end. That happens sometimes. I feel all hot too because this room has become sweltering. That’s one downside that I have not figured out yet.

I have this little mini fan. I got this fan for my Costa Rica and Singapore trips. It’s so cool. It’s USB powered. It’s got a good little battery. I forget how long it lasts. You can hold it but you can also prop it up. It’s hard to use. I’m very curious how loud this is but you can prop it up like this on any surface. I have been putting it on my window sill here. I digress. It’s a way for me to procrastinate and say goodbye to you. I got to show you all the features. It has three features. The fan has multiple ways to use it. It also has a USB port so that you can charge a USB device. It’s great for your phone, and it operates as a flashlight.

I didn’t think I would use a flashlight much because my phone has the flashlight feature on it. I prefer using this because it feels like a flashlight. The only issue is that it looks like an adult toy. My sister said that to me. She was like, “What is that thing?” If you look closely, it’s designed to look like a little bear, which is cute. There are other brands you can get. This is a generic brand. It has been great that I’ve had it. It’s awesome for times like this, where this room I could set up a full-size fan in here. It’s such a tiny space. Having a little fan like this is useful and very powerful despite its mini size. Enough for now. To be continued. Thanks for reading.

 

Important Links

• Logitech
• Amazon – Office Chair
• Previous episode – Travel Tips: How To Budget, Save, and Spend Mindfully
• Episode – Traveling With An Invisible Disability
• Zencastr
• Libby
• The Nature Fix
• TESMAT
• Rumpl
• Plant-Based on a Budget
• Amazon – Portable Toilet for Car Travel
• Carloo
• EarthKind
• Bug bands
• backpack – Dog Carrier Backpack
• Sugar-free jam
• Every Body Eat Cheese-Less Thins
• Supernatural
• Sisters Coffee
• Beyond Measure
• Instagram – Whitney Lauritsen
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