First, let us say that we have missed you. We have missed hearing from you and sharing our stories with you.
Second, we want to say how thankful we are for you. Not too long ago, we were relatively unknown. We worked away on our van in secret – planning and hoping for the day that we took to the road.
Now, just a handful of months later, thousands of you have joined us on our journey. You follow us on Facebook and Instagram, you read our blogs, and some of you even wear our merchandise. You offer us constant encouragement and friendship. You check in on us and think about us when we have gone quiet for a while. Without you, this dream would not have been nearly as incredible…
Without you, there would be no Unearthing Fernweh.
So thank you. Thank you for everything. Thank you for believing in us. Thank you for buying into our dream. Thank you for being such a great support system.
Of all the places we have been so far and all the things we have seen, the best discovery we have made is you, the community behind us who has helped us build something so incredible.
THANK YOU!
Where on Earth Have We Been?
If you think back to our previous posts, you might remember that we had some van troubles… Well, “troubles” might be putting it mildly… Eileen was quite literally on life support and left us wading through possibilities as she was pieced back together like some sort of FrankenVan.
As we meandered around that campground in sunny California, we knew we had two options:
1. We could stay on course and keep our adventure going.
2. We could take a break.
Both options had their risks. We knew that we had the money to keep going, but not nearly as much as we had hoped. If we kept going, we had enough in savings for about 3 months – but no more. If we kept going, we would drain our savings dry, and then we would have to stop for good.
Option 2 was to stop traveling. Return to Lincoln and find jobs. We knew that we would be able to find a place to stay that would be far cheaper than anywhere else, that we would be able to find jobs immediately, and that we would be able to save money with the hope of getting back on the road by April 2021.
It might seem like a no-brainer, but it wasn’t. By the time we got Eileen to the mechanic in California, we were exhausted and ready to throw in the towel. The stress and uncertainty of everything left us unsure of what we wanted to do.
After a couple nights of sleep and a few visits to the grocery store to stock up on cheap bottles of wine, we thought about everything we had done, the places we had been, the people we had met, the adventures we had, and most importantly, you – the people who had come together to support us and live vicariously through us.
As we sat there, down on our luck and mulling over our options, we knew that giving up was not an option. We realized that this experiment had become something incredible, growing far beyond two best friends traveling – it has turned into a community.
So we decided that as soon as we could, we would drive straight to Lincoln, set up shop, and get to work saving money.
We covered the nearly 2000 mile journey in two days and had jobs lined up as soon as we got back.
Since being back, we both have been working 12+ hour days, 5 days a week, and are also working weekends driving for food delivery services.
We are doing everything in our power to pinch pennies, rebuild savings, and set ourselves up for part two of the journey.
What Does that Mean for the Website?
Given our current time constraints, it is a lot harder to produce quality content. Also, it is harder for the two of us to find time to collaborate so that we can equally contribute to the content we make. As a result, our postings over the next few months will be a little scattered.
That being said, we are still at it and producing content!
Also, we have some exciting projects in the works – the next project should make its debut around the New Year. More information on that as soon as some pieces are finalized and we can talk about it – but trust us when we say it’s big!
What will our content look like while we are not traveling?
-We might not be traveling, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have stories to tell! One of the most difficult parts of blogging from the road was deciding what to write about and what to file away. So much happened that we didn’t have a chance to talk about – and now we can!
-We are going to be making some major updates to the van including things like putting in additional ventilation, installing hardware to help us stay connected, and much more. We will be sure to write about those in case anyone is curious about what it is like to actually plan and build a tiny home on wheels.
-We still have about 12 National Parks to review
-Now that we have a full-sized kitchen, we can expand our boundaries on cooking vegan meals and fully expect to grow our cookbook.
All in all, there is still a multitude of things that will flood our site – we just have to find the time to write them up.
To close, we just want to say it one more time, Thank you! We will be in touch soon!
