At Stonehenge!
Brittany grew up near International Falls, Minnesota on the Canadian Border. The ‘Ice Box of the Nation’ they call it (although Ehren strongly argues that Bemidji is just as cold on average). She graduated from the University of Minnesota Duluth in the spring of 2011 with a B.F.A. in graphic design. In her sophomore year of college she attended a study abroad program at the University of Birmingham in England for the 2007/2008 school year. While there, she met Ehren who was in the same program but in his junior year of school. Together they traveled throughout much of England, and through many other countries as far south as Greece and Italy, as far east as Poland and Romania, all the way west to Portugal and as far north as Sweden and many countries in between. By the spring of 2008, Brittany and Ehren were steadfast travel companions.
Dirt-biking south of Duluth.
Both Brittany and Ehren were back at the University of Minnesota Duluth in the fall of 2008. During the next year, Brittany got her motorcycle endorsement through the Motorcycle Safety Foundation. In preparation, she dirt-biked all over northern Minnesota to help hone her skills, with Ehren as her ‘dirt coach’. A trip around Lake Superior in the summer of 2009 took 8 days, with much of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula being sandy, rocky logging roads—which helped to sharpen some skills while enjoying some great scenery.
Enjoying the views in Glacier National Park on the way to Alaska
During the summer of 2010, Brittany was working for the groundskeeping crew at Glensheen Mansion (a popular Duluth attraction that the university owned and operated) and Ehren had just graduated college and finished his field camp in Park City, Utah. A plan was hatched to meet Ehren in Utah and together ride as far north as possible on this continent on a motorcycle. Over the course of six weeks, Brittany rode from Duluth to Park City, meeting up with Ehren, and then all the way north to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska and back to Duluth in time for the fall semester to begin. The Alaska trip fostered the thought of South America as a real possibility. The moto-travel bug had made its first bite.
At Fern Canyon on a motorcycle trip to the Pacific Coast in 2013.
In 2011, Brittany moved out to Winnemucca, Nevada, after Ehren had found work there as a mine geologist. She furthered her work in groundskeeping by working for a landscaper for a few years; then, after taking a job at the local newspaper while recuperating from a motorcycle accident, worked as a graphic designer up until leaving Nevada in summer 2016. Relocating back to Minnesota helped with trip planning and getting the motorcycles ready for South America.
Backyard corn harvest in Nevada.
When she’s not on her motorcycle or working on her sweet website skills, Brittany enjoys downhill skiing, bicycling, fishing, reading, gardening, writing, learning languages, their two cats (Remy and Tito) and dreaming up future journeys.