HER FIRST SOLO VAN LIFE ADVENTURE (and biking 200+ miles)

Real quick, let me just say that this trip would not have been possible without our awesome support crew. It also wouldn't have been possible without our van, which is why we're super excited to be partnering with Omaze again to give away a customized sprinter van. We're gonna have all the details on this later in the video, but if you can't wait anymore, just go to omaze.com karanandnate.

We're Kara and Nate, and we've spent the last four years traveling full time to 100 countries. But 2020 brought us back us where we bought a converted sprinter van to explore our own backyard. If you missed last week's video, Nate is currently undertaking the most physically demanding challenge of his entire life. Our friend Rick talked Nate and his brother Dusty into riding the entire length of the Colorado trail, which stretches 500 miles across the state and has an elevation gain equivalent to climbing Mount Everest three times on a bike. Nate had been on a mountain bike approximately four times before he was tucked into this trip. And his brother flew from practically sea level to attempt this high altitude challenge.

I'm not sure which one of us is more crazy for doing this. Me for having so little mountain biking experience, or Dusty from flying from sea level to go bike at over 10,000ft for two weeks.

I would say you.

Needless to say, the first day wasn't exactly easy.

Colorado Trail's already putting us to the test. It's drawn blood. Dusty's tires are already flat. I mean, it's completely blast.

Thankfully, the boys have a great support crew consisting of myself, Rick's wife Beck, and. And their two awesome kids. My name is Frankie. My name is Evie. While the guys are out testing their physical limits each day, we're moving the vans along with them so that they have a warm bed to sleep in each night and delicious calorie rich dinners to fuel them back up for the next.

Cheers.

In the last episode, the boys completed the first 30 miles of the trail, which means there are still at least 470 grueling miles that lay between their current location and the finish line in Durango.

Morning.

Want some coffee?

Oh, pretty good old stuff.

Morning, Dusty. Brought you a coffee.

All right, here we go. Day two, segment three. 12 miles and 2000 vertical feet. Minus my back. I'm definitely feeling better than I thought I would this morning.

I think Nate stole my chapstick. I guess he needs it more than I do. Always steals my chubstick.

It's about 9 o'.

Clock.

Boys just left and everybody seemed Great. This morning.

Today is gonna be another pretty long day, but we are gonna get to meet them halfway again to have lunch. I've really enjoyed being the support van and taking care of everyone, even though the van is an absolute disaster. If you can't already tell. There's literally a giant dirty cardboard box on our bed. We've been storing Dusty's bike box under the van because we can't really throw it away cuz he needs it to fly the bike home.

I was, I was gonna follow you and then at the last second I was like, I shouldn't do that.

Lucky for me, the girls love to vacu. Thanks for your help, girls. You want to get under the bed too?

Since I'm not the one biking 30 miles today, I'm making myself a smoothie for brunch. I'm kind of acting like that's a bad thing, but actually love smoothies. A little almond milk, a banana, few blueberries, lots of spinach. This little nut and spice mix thing that somebody gave us. Chia seed, nut seed, functional mushrooms, this green soup, superfood moringa tree powder. Honey.

It's not very pretty.

Okay.

Whoops.

Gosh, he's always falling on me. All right, off to our next spot.

This is not good. This is not good. I left the sink full of water and now it's all over the ground. I don't know why I did that, but I'd try to save water. But here we are. This is what happens when I'm in charge of the van and Nate's not here. Needed a good mop anyways.

Oh, this is Beautiful, man. Segment three. Somehow we've done almost 1,000ft of vertical climbing, but it feels like we've been riding downhill 90% of the time.

I think the CT is going to have a way of alternating between this is the greatest thing of my. And I just love it to why the hell are we doing this? This is terrible.

It feels nice to be able to.

Take a full breath.

I spoke a little too soon back there at the creek.

It's been straight uphill since we left. Like 1100ft in the past.

Hour. Two or three miles.

Well, dang.

I have no idea how or when this happened.

Does Rick like cilantro?

Home stretch of segment three.

They're back. Welcome home.

Why are you only wearing one glove?

Don't learn your lesson.

Yes. I was hoping it wasn't going to be peanut butter. This is service. I haven't even gotten off a bike yet.

You deserve it.

So segment four of the Colorado Trail is located through a wilderness area which doesn't allow bikes, which means that this will be our first detour of the trip. This is what it looks like. The purple line is the detour. So if we were to do segment four of the trail, we'd be doing about 24 miles and 3,000ft of vertical elevation. But instead, we have a 70 mile detour and 8,000ft of vertical elevation. And it's on the road, so I suspect it'll be decently boring. This could be the least fun part of the trip. Or maybe we'll feel like we're flying.

Well, it's getting pretty dark out. It's only 3:30 in the afternoon. Starting to sprinkle a little bit. Hopefully it doesn't rain on the guys. Or maybe. I hope it does.

Why does this keep happening?

I've got to get blown on my bike. Storm blew in. This is crazy.

Seeing some major lightning now.

Wow. That came out of nowhere. We were literally just sitting down, having a snack, and the next thing we know, the wind picked up like 40 miles an hour and it just started pouring down rain.

The van survived those rough roads. So did I. I have a feeling that the guys are gonna be really tired when they get here, and it might take a while.

So far, this segment's been a little bit like a roller coaster. Slow uphill climbs with your.

Bike down in the lowest gear and then just fly downhill.

Oops.

Nate usually pours the wine too. I'm starting to learn that I'm a little useless without him.

I hope they're having fun.

Yummy. So before I get started on dinner, we're having a little appetizer. Somehow, before this whole trip started, we started talking about Spam. We met this guy who always eats it when he's hiking. And I don't know, we talked about it so much that Beck bought some for the trip. And she said it kind of smells like cat food. It also looks like cat food, unfortunately. But she fried a piece. And I must say, I came out of the van and I smelt it. And I was thinking, wow, something smells really good. And it was the Spam.

You made it.

Day two.

Day two in the books.

Guess what? You're just in time. For what? Spam. Lettuce wrap.

Spam.

I think this is the first time I've ever had Spam, daddy. Kind of tastes like fried bologna.

It does.

Like fried bologna between lettuce with some pesto. I'm a fan.

It's amazing.

Not just for wartime efforts anymore. I mean, in fairness, anything at this point would be pretty amazing.

This sounded like so much more fun when I was biking up a hill. Burning up.

Gosh. Oh, that feels good on the legs.

It's. It's not exactly fun in the moment, but it's amazing how much better that'll make you feel.

I'm making one of my favorite stews of all time, which is perfect because it's a little chilly tonight. It's nice and filling.

We're pushing our bodies pretty hard each day, but as soon as we get back to camp, it's. It's very luxurious. Girls are taking great care us.

Are you telling me?

All right. Day two. I woke up this morning with a sore back, but besides that feeling, surprisingly good. I think up to this point, I've been really impressed with my endurance. Like, I thought being the least experienced mountain biker in the group, I'd be, like, lagging behind by this point. But especially now that we're doing all these road miles, I tend to lose everybody on the downhills. But then as soon as we start going uphill, I feel like I don't have any problem keeping up, so. Man, that was fun. Yeah. I'm just feeling a lot better than I thought I would.

All right, day two. We woke up and had an awesome start to the day. Some wonderful, flowy single track, which was exactly what we needed. I think after yesterday, Dusty was feeling a little worn out. He could have some elevation stuff going on.

He's handling it well. He doesn't complain well.

This is our fourth time meeting up with the van, and it's the first time that I felt halfway decent, had an appetite at all. So I'm definitely riding a little bit of a high.

If anything, he's just kind of quiet. So we're never, like 100. Sure.

With that said, all day, I'm still lagging behind. They'll usually pedal up ahead, and then whenever we're gonna stop and eat a snack, I'll eventually catch up. So they're probably still doubting whether or not I'll make it. And it's a worthwhile doubt because I'm not sure. But we'll see.

I also kind of want to get through these sections because tomorrow is this big road ride. None of us looking forward to it. Kind of just want to get out of the way. We did, like, 17 of the 70 miles today, and then tomorrow we do the rest.

I'm.

I'm dreading it a little because I think it could just be, like, really boring.

I think it's gonna be long, hot.

Boring.

Morning. Feeling quite a bit more sore than I was yesterday.

Is it the cold shammy?

Yeah. Tell me about your cold shammy.

Just waiting for the ibuprofen to kick you.

Why was it still wet?

Because I washed it in the river yesterday.

Because.

How many did you bring?

I mean, it's more than one chamois.

Every man needs more than one shammy. Which way's out?

Love you.

Love you.

All right, the first thing Beck and I need to figure out this morning is where to get water.

For most work.

I've had to work for my water, so we filled up their jugs. The problem is we usually get water by putting a hose pipe into here.