Crafty Farm Sister’s Southern Road Trip

I love a good road trip. I’ll happily hop into the car and drive for hours with no particular destination in mind. Always with my camera. Always with good music. When my kids are grown and gone I may not be home much at all — you’ll just find me driving around taking photographs.

Last year I restored a 1957 Kenskill Travel Trailer (that I named Eleanor) back to her original glory — and then some. My sister and I drove her from Wyoming to Connecticut in May, and in June I drive back to Wyoming with India, Maia and my dog, Bullet. They were both amazing trips.

My sister and I spent the night in the Badlands National Park in my vintage travel trailer, Eleanor.

India & Maia on arriving back in Jackson, WY

India and Maia when we arrived in Jackson, Wyoming.

Even with all of the travel I did this summer, I ended up not feeling like I’d had much of a vacation. My sister and I had planned on going back to the John C. Campbell School of Folk Art in North Carolina, but when we compared calendars there wasn’t a class that interested us both at a good time for both of us. I suggested a road trip; a photography-taking, weird-spot-hunting, foodie-finding road trip. She happily agreed.

We decided it made the most sense to start in Austin, rent a minivan one-way, and drive back. We’ll need the minivan to pack all the cool things we’re going to find in. Hell, we might even need a roof rack to tie stuff down! It’s a lot of driving, but we travel really well together, have similar tastes, and love an adventure. I’m so excited I can barely contain myself.

Below you can see the tentative route we’ve worked out so far.

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I’ll just show you a few planned stops along the way.

In Austin we have quite a few places to go, but one is the Cathedral of Junk. Enormous towers of junk that has become yard art. It’s invisible from the street and apparently something to behold. I’ll be there, camera in hand.

The Cathedral of Junk in Austin, Texas

Heading out of Austin on our way up to Fredericksburg, Texas, we’ll stop at the Hamilton Pool Preserve. A natural pool that was created when the dome of an underground river collapsed thousands of years ago. It looks so beautiful.

We’re heading to Fredericksburg not only because it’s a beautiful drive that my sister should see, but to go shopping at Red. Just a cool, funky store where, since we’ll have a rental car I’m hoping I’ll find something fabulous to bring home.

In Mississippi you can bet you’ll find us spending a night at The Shack Up Inn. I am SO excited to see this place.

And this whole trip really started because of this antiques store in a Atlanta neighborhood we stumbled across in May, Highland Row Antiques. They had so many awesome things for sale, but with no car and carry-on suitcases, the only things I was able to leave with were a vintage cowboy shirt for Evan and a finely woven wicker goat that now lives in the goat house. We plan on making that right this time around, hence the minivan.

And just outside Atlanta is a Serenbe, a 900-acre sustainable community that is a national model for the future of balanced development in the U.S. I have known of this community for a few years now, and am very excited to finally be able to go and see it first-hand. There are lots of options for us to spend the night in there, from a lovely hotel to different rental units available around the town. Heck, I may just sleep in the barn it’s so pretty.

So that’s the trip in a nutshell. It’s less than two months away!