Hello friends!

Writing you from our cozy dining room / living room table drinking tea and eating brownies after watching an *incredible* sunset. It’s evenings like these that are the reason we travel full-time — having the great outdoors right outside our door after a long day of work is something I will never take for granted 🌟

The last little bit I’ve been working some long days getting brick and mortar shops restocked and making way on a shop update (coming November 7th)! Throw in a few sick days, seeing friends, and long travel days and I’m in full-blown overdrive. If you know a small business owner, you probably know we are in the thick of holiday season! It may seem early, but holiday prep starts in August 😳

So the next few weeks will be lots of staying in one spot, finishing up the collection, creating content to promote said collection, photographing, editing, prepping the website, creating listings, and scheduling emails 😮‍💨 It’s a lot, but I love every second of it! I’ll be doing a daily series on Instagram starting Monday showing the behind the scenes of inspiration and making each design of the collection, so if you’d like to see be sure to follow @meghanelisabethart on Instagram!

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But I’ve got 3 weeks to catch you up on, so let’s get into it —

Our new #1 campsite

After 9 months on the road, we have a new favorite campsite. Last we left off Bruce (the truck) and the crew (us, the fam) were on our way from Moab toward New Mexico. To split up the drive my partner found a campsite at the midway point + it was a shock when we arrived. The most incredible sunset I have ever seen —

The view was directly out our back door and was absolutely stunning. Unfortunately we were on a timeline to get to New Mexico, so we only had two days here but we took advantage of the sunsets and the views while we could 🌅

Hot Balloon!

The reason for the timeline? The Albuquerque Hot Air Balloon Fiesta!

We met up with a handful of friends in Albuquerque on Saturday, slept in the Cracker Barrel parking lot that night, and woke up at 4am for the sunrise launching. After a 20 minute drive and the slight nightmare that was parking later, we were at the fiesta!

This event was absolutely magical — hundreds of hot air balloons in the air and on the ground continuously rotating into the air. I had never seen a hot air balloon up close, and seeing so many of such different designs was incredible.

(Yes, Krispy Kreme was breakfast)

The biggest surprise to me was the sheer number of animal balloons — frogs, sloths, unicorns, cows, elephants, tigers, bears, dogs, you name it. The pink elephant was my partner’s favorite —

The in-between

A quick drive and nap later we were camped off a forest road outside of Albuquerque with six friends, one of which we picked up in a dog park parking lot the day before (he’s normal + nice, don’t worry mom). We were all heading to a vanlife event two hours west of Albuquerque the following weekend, so this site was purely an in-between spot to get a few days of work in and be located on the way to the event.

To be clear: when I say forest road, I mean there are rangers that patrol the area but really it’s just a dust pit with some bushes. So after two days of wind (and dogs) kicking the dust into our eyes and homes, we opted to leave early.

Some friends of mine from college happened to be in Albuquerque that week, so my partner and I split off for a day to catch up with them and run some errands in town. We ended up going to the cutest coffee shop mixed with farm stand that was under the path of the hot air balloons. So we caught up with friends over breakfast with the most whimsical view —

Vanlife event or wannabe Burning Man?

We moved from one dust pit to another 🫣

This vanlife event felt like it was organized by a bunch of people living in vans that love Burning Man and wanted another event like it in the off-season. The first person who greeted us was wearing a scarf around his head with ski goggles on, events of the weekend included a DJ bus, “words and movement” (yoga?), weed rolling contests, pinch pottery, natural medicine workshops, and more. Safe to say we didn’t participate in most of if, but it was an excuse to get together with a bunch of friends we hadn’t seen in a long time and watch the eclipse!

Our camp here was a circle of 5 vans, 1 truck camper, 1 ambulance, and 2 cars. The ratio of dog:human? 1:1

10 humans and 10 dogs — a high energy group with a lot of very dirty but happy pups. We were definitely the dog park camp and at one point had all the dogs playing fetch in the neighboring field.

Pumpkin carving, solo stove campfires, family dinners, the eclipse, and dogs were what our weekend looked like. A bit of mingling with others occurred, but it honestly wasn’t my kind of people there so we mostly stuck to ourselves!

Our new #4 campsite

After nearly two weeks with a 1:1 dog:human ratio and at least a group of 6 people at any given point, us introverts needed a break. We parted ways with everyone after the vanlife event and made our way back through Albuquerque and up north toward the Chama River.

This spot was a recommendation of a friend of ours that lives in Santa Fe, and she was *spot on* for this campsite. Dispersed camping along the Chama River is absolutely gorgeous, and the fall colors were in full swing while we were there.

We stayed here for a full week, swimming in the river, training the pups, and working! The landscape here directly inspired three designs for my upcoming shop update. It was so incredible being somewhere that sparked such a strong creative response. When creating, it’s often difficult to pinpoint the exact inspiration for a piece. My designs are influenced by emotion — when I’m happy, my creativity flows freely and my designs are the most pure + authentic to my creative voice. In the last few months, my creativity has moved unencumbered and I know the landscapes surrounding me have influenced this. So my work is inspired by our travels, but it’s often indirect; it’s rare when I can point to an exact thing in a landscape and say a design was inspired by it. But this campsite I can confidently say inspired these pieces, and I am so proud of how they turned out:

These beauties and so many more will be available November 7th at 5pm pst 🌟

Santa Fe

After a week at the Chama we headed into Santa Fe for a day. An early start got us to a coffee shop, then we went across the parking lot to the laundromat, my partner got a haircut next door, I went to the grocery store next to the coffee shop, and then to the vintage store next to that (I found the *cutest* wool jacket — an absolute score). Somehow we landed in the perfect parking lot to do all of our errands for the day!

After our parking lot errand run we met up with our Santa Fe friend for lunch and went around the city. Out of all the cities we’ve been to in the last 9 months, Santa Fe is one of our favorites. We really want to come back (without Bruce + dogs) and explore the area more in depth! The art scene is incredible here, and I’d really like to take my time seeing everything this artists’ haven of a city has to offer.

Next letter

We struggle to fill our propane tanks, we’re back in Colorado, and maybe we’ll see some National Parks?! Plus a whole lot of launch prep 🌟

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As always, thanks for reading! 🫶🏼

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