Weeks 104-105: Our two year van-iversary!
Lassen National Forest and Lassen Volcanic National Park, California to Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument to start my artist residency.
May 20-June 1, 2026
Hello, hello, and welcome back! I’m so glad you’re here! This post is pretty special because May 29th marked TWO YEARS since we sold our house in Austin, Texas to travel full time, first in a converted Ford cargo van, and now in an AEONrv we’ve named Henry.
How is that even possible? It still feels like a dream come true. I love writing about our travels here on the blog — both so that I can document our journey and so that I can share it with all of you. It means so much to have you along for the ride as we celebrate our two year van-iversary!
These past two weeks have been pretty amazing — first wild camping in Lassen National Forest, and then at camping in adjacent Lassen Volcanic National Park, both near point A:
This was our first time in the area and we loved it so much we’re already plotting a return trip.
Before I get to the recap, I wanted to share some art news…
Artist Residency at Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, Oregon
I started my artist residency at Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument (CSNM) on June 1st and I’m so honored and excited to be here! I’ll share more about the residency in the next post, but until then I wanted to let you know about my public outreach program.
I’ll be joining CSNM rangers to present a Hike and Learn all about documenting rare and invasive plants on the monument in two sessions.
Session 1: Friday, June 12
In the first session, specialists from BLM will introduce Project MARIPOSA and teach you how to use iNaturalist to document rare native plants and invasive species across the monument. Your contributions will be reviewed by scientists and included in an official database used to protect rare plants and manage invasive species — so cool! After the ranger presentation I’ll be giving a watercolor demo and share the art I’ve created so far.
Session 2: Saturday, June 13
On Saturday we’ll hike out on the monument, making several stops to botanize rare and invasive plants. At one of the stops I’ll have supplies available so you can try your hand at sketching and painting. You’ll take home a mini nature journal and a new appreciation for the monument.
Sign up for the learning session here and the hike session here. Please help spread the word to friends and family in the area. I’d love to see you out on the monument!
Now back to the weekly update.
Lassen National Forest
We were lucky enough to find a campsite in Lassen National Forest near Bailey Creek — it was so peaceful, and the sound of the water sang us to sleep at night.
There are so many cool plants here in the forest — which was awesome for a couple of botany nerds like us! We really put iNaturalist to work.
First up, striped coralroot orchids (Corallorhiza striata):
We found so many of them on our morning walks — sometimes a single orchid, and sometimes a colony of 6 or more. It was so neat to see their stalks grow a little taller each day.
Then there were the sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana) cones scattered all around. If you’ve never heard of them, sugar pines produce 12-14” cones — and some are even bigger!
I sent my Dad this photo and he told me that my Aunt Freda (my Grandma’s sister) had some in her flower beds in Arizona. I wonder where she collected them from? If we still had a house I’d bring one home for sure!
We also had a Wild Kingdom moment when we watched an ant pull a crab spider into a hole in this incense-cedar tree! The spider backed in the hole so the spider’s legs were sticking out for a bit until they disappeared!
It was kinda frightening how fast it all happened! I actually had a bad dream about it. I’m glad ants aren’t big enough to carry us away!
One morning I was up on the bed working on the computer while Jason was out for a nature walk. I thought I heard a weird sound by the stairs — I called out “hey J, is that you?” several times — but didn’t get an answer.
Heart thumping, I climbed down off the bed and looked out — only to find a squirrel in the bathroom, scrabbling at the screen door to get out of the van!
He must have pushed his way in and then couldn’t get back out. I opened the screen door for him, but he ran up into the cab and started running back and forth across the dash instead of going out.
I closed the habitat door so he couldn’t get back in to the cabin, then ran out and opened the passenger door. He still wouldn’t leave, so I opened up the driver’s side door too — and that’s when he zoomed out the passenger door like his tail was on fire! I never saw a squirrel move so fast.
Poor lil guy!
Hike to Brokeoff Meadows
Memorial Day we just HAD to go for a hike. Jason downloaded the local area maps to the Gaia app, and we set off from our camp in Lassen National Forest with no particular destination in mind. (The best kinda ramble!)
We were hoping to catch a view of Lassen Peak, so when we stopped to look at the map we decided to head up an unnamed Forest Service road since it looked like there was an opening in the forest canopy from the satellite images — plus I spied some brilliant, eye-popping red flowers and we had to check them out:
Wow! They’re called snow flower or snow plant (Sarcodes sanguinea), and I just had to include this blurb about them from the Forest Service website:
Snow plant is an herbaceous perennial wildflower with a limited geographic distribution in California, Nevada, and Oregon. Snow plant with its scarlet red coloration and early spring flowering is a beautiful wildflower. Snow plant is the only mycotrophic wildflower in the heath (Ericaceae) [family] that is not a ghostly white color or various shades of reddish to purplish brown.
Snow plant’s distribution is local. It is uncommon in its habitat. When a fortunate hiker does come across the brilliant red scarlet plants, she will generally be greeted by several individual snow plants occurring as a small colony.
So cool!! And we did feel fortunate indeed!
We ended up seeing so many cool plants on the hike, including warrior’s plume:
And acres of manzanita:
We didn’t catch a glimpse of Lassen Peak, but we did see Brokeoff Mountain:
Brokeoff Mountain is over in Lassen Volcanic National Park, but when we looked at trail conditions on the park website it doesn’t look like we’ll be hiking it anytime soon! In fact, on the park website it says that “snow is likely to be found in places along the trail until mid-August, and there is usually too much snow for hiking before mid-July.” Whoa!
We also got to see the South Fork of Bailey Creek right across from the meadow:
We made it back to camp around 7 pm — for 7.5 miles on the day. What a great hike!
Christmas in May!
On May 26th a late spring snowstorm turned our camp in the forest into a winter wonderland!
It was so beautiful and peaceful (Note: Jason disagrees — he’s been done with snow for months now, ha!)
Here are just a few favorite photos:
It smelled amazing, too!
Lassen Volcanic National Park
The next day we drove a whopping 15 minutes to Lassen Volcanic National Park. It started raining on the drive — and it turned to SNOW at higher elevations!
I was laughing!
Jason was NOT. He was a good sport though and let me take some pictures of him for scale. Just look at the size of this snowbank:
We read that Lassen can get 30-40 feet of snow per year — that’s a lot of snow! The main park road had just opened a few days before we got there, so we considered ourselves lucky that we got to go at all.
It’s a Celebration
May 29th we celebrated our 2 year van-iversary! I was thinking of putting some deep thoughts here but the post is long enough already, so let me just say that if you’re thinking of traveling full time you should totally do it. Take small steps — you don’t have to go whole enchilada. Go for two weeks and see how you like it. Are you going to sell your house like we did? Clean out that junk drawer! Donate some old clothing you haven’t worn in a year. Tiny steps.
It rained most of the day so we celebrated by being cozy in the van. Appropriate, right?
When the rain finally stopped we went for a walk right from the campground around Manzanita Lake — it was so pretty.
Clouds and fog kept moving in and out so the view was ever changing:
Someone asked me recently what I love most about vanlife, and I have to say it’s the freedom to explore. It’s like backpacking, but the van carries the pack! As for what I miss most about homelife, I’d say it’s being able to get packages. Getting packages on the road is harder than you’d think!
Now back to the update.
Highlights from Lassen Volcanic National Park
We’re gonna have to go back to Lassen someday, because it was cold/rainy/snowy the whole time we were there — except for the very last day. We made the most of it and hiked our legs off and drove the main park road again.
This time we had some views!
We even got to see the other side of Brokeoff Mountain:
We hiked out to Cold Boiling Lake and then on to Crumbaugh Lake. It was pretty neat to see, plus there were wildflowers, too!
Before heading back to camp we had to hike Manzanita Lake one more time — and this time we got to see the view! Yayayayayay!
I thought it was cute how each peak had its own little cloud hat!
I was so happy we got to see the view at last.
On to Oregon
Sunday, May 31 we left camp and headed to Medford, Oregon to pick up packages, stock up on groceries (Trader Joe’s yeah!), and do laundry. We spent the night at a rest stop with 50 plus other vehicles and the highway noise kept us awake, even with earplugs.
After a sleepless night we got up around 4 am and decided to head on down the road to Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Once we got there we ate breakfast and then took a nap. It was a good thing Jason set an alarm so that we were awake to meet Ranger John!
After orientation we took another nap, then explored the campground, and I even did a sketch out on the dock:
Tune in next time for more about my residency — I can’t wait to share more about this special place at the crossroads of the Cascade, Klamath, and Siskiyou mountain ranges. It’s just so beautiful here!
Until then, thanks for joining us on this journey! — Lisa, Jason, and Henry-the-Van
Gorgeous photos and sketches. I have a question about the Pocket Art Toolkit. I think it looks really practical, but what size sketchbook is ideal to fit in it? It says on their website that a Moleskine sketchbook is included but it doesn't say what size.
Beautiful! Congratulations on your 2 years!