Planes are fine and dandy, but there’s nothing spontaneous about them. These days you buy a last-minute plane ticket and TSA is gonna make sure you get an extra-special stamp and a whole lotta extra hassle.
But road trips? As long as you’ve got a car, you’re golden. Just fill up the tank and drive. That’s what’s magical about them – they’re limitless. And that’s also what’s so American about them. Yeah, eventually you’ll reach another ocean and have a stop. But in the meantime, you got a whole lotta road and a whole lotta potential adventures in front of ya.
To celebrate the USA Kit, we packed our bags and hit the road. For once, we didn’t need to hunt down goods for the kit – Hen had scored the pencils in Hungary and the note cards in Puerto Rico. And the scissors? Been sittin’ on them for months. So rad, they were an obvious choice for the mystery item. So the professional travelers traveled just for fun. Headed east over the mountains to small-town U.S.A.
We landed in the Methow Valley, a narrow strip of gorgeous nestled in the north Cascade mountains. Stayed at the awesome Chewuch Inn (with AH-MAZ-ING breakfast – but more on that in this month’s Travel Short). Sunshine? Check. Rad farmer’s market? Check. What we didn’t expect? To be surrounded by literal hunting. From the antlers in antique shops to big game notebooks to zillions of deer. Seriously – SO MANY DEER. Driving out through the mountains late at night, the hotel called to make sure we were still on the way. “Watch out for the deer,” the woman said. Um, yeah. Do you KNOW how many eyes we saw staring out at us from the darkness? Deers clearly runnin’ this shit. And it didn’t stop in town. We almost walked into a doe on our way to tacos. Turned the corner, BAM. Deer IN YO FACE. Fortunately it seemed the unvicious variety.
Another surprise? Scoring a TON of goods on the trip. Stumbled upon a shop in a small town that must have once been home to an avid office-supply collector. We ended up snagging a whole bag filled up with awesome pens and pencils (and oh yes, they’ll be up in our Individual Items section soon). Guess even when we’re not on the official hunt, we can’t stop the game from finding us.
oxxo,
Laura
We believe in getting to know people and places through commerce and design. Someone else's daily diet of lo-fi goods is simple to her yet sacred to us, and vice versa. Let's marvel at each other's mundane, because that shit is dope.