Recently, I’ve been told that I’m “quite the traveler.”

This year, I’ve been to 12 states, 2 countries, and I’ve looked across the border at a 3rd country. But I haven’t been on an airplane. It seems crazy sometimes.

The first long road trip I took this year was from Seattle down to San Luis Obispo, California on a vacation in late April. Because Josh and I took a car instead of flying directly somewhere, we stopped in Portland, saw the redwoods, stayed a couple of nights in San Francisco, drove the beautiful highway 1 down to San Luis, and on the way back to Seattle stopped by the gold country (Sutter Creek, Jackson, Volcano). Seeing so much of the beautiful west coast states on that trip made me hungry for more. So when we decided to move from Seattle back to Austin we of course drove (road trip number two).

When we decided to visit family up in Michigan over Thanksgiving, we discussed whether to drive or fly. We looked at plane ticket prices, thought about how much time we would have to spend getting to airports, waiting for planes, and all over the Thanksgiving holiday when everyone else was out there doing the same thing. And so we decided to drive.

The above photos are some shots I took while we were traveling in the car on the Michigan trip. Scenes I would have never gotten to see if we had flown.

Because really? Vacuum Cleaner Museum? Yes, please.