Lower 48 States Road Trip 2023: Washington and Idaho

“How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!” -Psalm 133:1

Last year, my husband and I went on an epic road trip to all the lower 48 U.S. states in about three months! We left on July 29th and came home on November 5th. The trip lasted for a total of 99 full days and 100 calendar days. It was a crazy long time to be gone away from home! The trip was the adventure of a lifetime, but it actually felt like we crammed five lifetimes of vacations into one. It’s hard to fully explain what this trip meant for us. It was both wonderful and challenging all at the same time. I’m sure you are wondering why in the world we went on this trip in the first place. I believe it all started with a dream from God.

In March of 2019, my husband and I were driving home from a weekend trip to Bethel Church in Redding, CA. The weather was beautiful and we were in the area of Mount Shasta when we began to dream together about plans for our future. We said to each other, “Wouldn’t it be amazing to go on a road trip across the U.S. to all the lower 48 states?” We agreed that would be incredible, so we started to discuss what we would do, where we would go and how we could make it happen. We also wanted to see what God was doing in each state, knowing full well that he is always moving in every place. A seed was planted in our hearts that day and God watered it every time we talked about the road trip over the years to come.

With the pandemic and election in 2020, life became unpredictable. In light of all the uncertainty and with a desire to make our road trip a reality, we bought a Dodge camper van. We took it camping multiple times and drove it all the way to southeastern Alabama and back in the fall of 2021 to get used to living life in the van. We wanted to go on our big road trip in 2022, but the timing just wasn’t right, so we waited. When 2023 rolled around, we knew it was now or never. With all the changing circumstances of life, we knew we had to clear our calendar for the year and make it happen. We planned the first month of our trip, cleaned and packed in two weeks and hit the road at the end of July. It was a whirlwind. We didn’t have all the details figured out, but we trusted that God would lead us and connect us with the people we needed to see. We also decided to put some decals with a QR code on the van to advertise my husband’s outreach ministry called United Hive. This helped us keep our minds on the mission to build God’s kingdom everywhere we went and always be on the lookout for what God was doing.

In each of the 48 states, God had work for us to do. In the states where we did not know anyone, we had more opportunities to bless strangers. In states where our friends and family live, we spent more time encouraging them. It was easy to see God’s fingerprints on every day of the trip. It was such a blessing to have the opportunity to go on a trip like this that most people only dream of doing. However, just because it was a dream come true doesn’t mean that it was easy (far from it). We were exhausted from nearly constant driving because, in order to stay on track to getting home on time, we couldn’t be in any one place for more than a few days (some states we only passed through and some we stayed in for multiple days). Even though it was a vacation, we still had to live normal life on the road. My husband owns a business and had to work part-time (mostly on phone calls) while driving most days. As you can imagine, this was very difficult to manage. Things were very up and down from day-to-day with his work, so this caused him a lot of stress. All of this was happening while we navigated unfamiliar roads, cities and towns. We couldn’t eat fast food for every meal, so we had to go grocery shopping and make meals in the van. We had to clean the van occasionally and do laundry at campground facilities or at people’s houses. We accomplished all of this while living in a really small space, which brings me to the greatest challenge we faced… our own relationship.

Trips that involve a lot of logistics can be stressful, especially for us. Then when you add all of the work and daily living stress in a small space, you can be sure there were fireworks. We have a large house, so when we have a disagreement we usually just go to separate rooms to cool down for a while, then we reconvene later to work through what went wrong. This has worked really well for us over the years, but on the road trip, there was not really anywhere else to go but outside the van. If we got into an argument while we were driving, we just had to keep going and ignore each other. The frequent conflict made the trip really hard at times. It seemed like we got along only 50 percent of the time during the first month. The second month was much better and we got along for about 70 percent of the time, but the last month was 50/50 again. It was a real trust test for our marriage. We figured out that our vacation time limit away from home is one month. At the one month mark, we both agreed that we were ready to come home. Then we rallied a little longer and hit a wall at six weeks. This was only halfway through the trip and we felt done, but we knew we couldn’t give up. We had to finish what we started and we’re so glad we persevered through all the challenges. I am happy to say that we passed the test and have more happy memories than sad ones to reflect on.

We learned so much from this trip that it’s impossible to share all of the insights and information that we gained along the way, but I will share the most important aspects. What blew me away more than anything was the love and unity between Americans all across our country. Though the media would have you believe that Americans are divided, this was not our experience. From one state, city and town to another, Americans were very welcoming and treated us and others with love and respect. People were kind and helpful. I haven’t seen this much love and unity in our country since I was a child. Overall, Americans are awake and are on the same page about the condition of our country… or at least Christians are. There are so many believers in America. I would say the majority of people we encountered are at least open to Jesus. As a result, there is a love being poured out for one another and a tangible unity sweeping this nation that is so refreshing. The media is full of lies. Do not buy into the rhetoric that seeks to divide us. We are more unified than ever!

One thing we wanted to do on this trip besides share the love of Jesus everywhere we went was to get a prophetic word from God for each state. With each new state we entered, I began to pray and ask the Lord what he has to say. Then I would listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit. I wrote down what I heard him say to my spirit and I remained open throughout the whole trip to insights from him. I also recorded my own observations of various places. I have been looking forward to sharing these words and insights with you all ever since we got home last year. I plan to share about a few states each week between now and election week in November. I will also be sharing some pictures from the trip. My hope is that you will test these words with the Holy Spirit, and pray about them. Let’s see God’s heart desires for each state fulfilled and believe that Americans will demonstrate the love and unity of God to the world. We will continue to stand together in love and unity so Jesus gets his full reward in the United States of America. Praise God!

Each week, I will share pictures, prophetic words and observations from each state in the order in which we first entered those states on the road trip. Check out the first two states below and enjoy!

Washington: “is the apple of my eye.” I received this scripture, “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings” (Psalm 17:8). Of course, we started from this state because we live here. We also have family up in the Seattle area, so we visited with them as our first stop. After our family time, my husband got to encourage a biker at a Love’s Travel Stop in Moses Lake who was on his way to the motorcycle rally in Sturgis, SD. He told him about United Hive and shared that Jesus is still doing miracles today. It was a great conversation!

Idaho: “is Holy Ground.” The song “Holy Ground” by Jeremy Riddle came to mind and I sang this song out loud as we drove through northern Idaho. I also heard, “Idaho is Open for Business.” We connected with a friend who we hadn’t seen in years who lives in the Coeur d’Alene area. There were a lot of laughs and we had a deep conversation about faith. We encouraged him to go all in with Jesus! We also stopped in the cute old western town of Wallace. I recommend it!