Welcome to our page!

We’re starting a travel blog…Or an adventure log….or a small business doing what we love…or a simple way to document all the adventures we get to have along the way in our camper. Whatever you want to call it, our goal is to share the open road with you and pass along some of our learnings along the way.

Think of it like Travel, Eat, Adventure, Repeat: T.E.A.R. As in, tear it up!

First, a little about us: we are Erik and Teresa Sande, otherwise known as E+T.

[ insert picture of us]

We live full-time in Minneapolis, and as much as we love it, we just have to get out in the winter. So, about a decade ago, we started ‘snow-birding’ in Palm Springs, CA. For many years, we would drive back and forth in our trusty Toyota 4Runner (aka Frankie the 4Runner). Oh, you should know that we name every car we own, and figured our camper should be no different.

                  [insert picture of Frankie] [insert picture of lots of snow in MN and the pool in PS]

We dreamed of buying a camper for several years before pulling the trigger in the fall of 2023. After a LOT of research, we decided on a brand new, 2024 Forest River Surveyor 19RBLE. Meet Buffy the Campfire Slayer! While Frankie was an awesome vehicle for us, the towing capacity really maxed out at 5k lbs. That’s probably ok for short jaunts, but the thought of towing a camper through the mountains and worrying about our weight just stressed us out. We are not ones to push it with safety, so we immediately bought a new vehicle (check out our blog post on the car we use for towing now – link). So, we now tow Buffy with Inny, the Audi.

[Picture of Inny and Buffy]

Yes, we do get a few looks from time to time, but what people often don’t know if that this vehicle has a V6 quattro engine with a towing capacity of 7700 lbs. We’ve installed anti-sway bars and believe me when I tell you she pulls the camper like a dream! Our camper is about 3900 lbs dry, and when we are fully loaded for our cross-country treks, we are about 5500 lbs.

We are also vegetarians, having been meat-free for nearly 25 years. We love to find tasty meat alternatives and are somewhat obsessed with finding good meat substitutes. It’s so much easier being a vegetarian now vs 25 years ago. What an awesome time we live in where you can actually eat ‘eggs’, ‘steak’, ‘Chik’n’, ‘Shrimp’ (we call it frimp = fake shrimp), or ‘ribz’ and it’s pretty darn close. We would never trick anyone into trying something they don’t want to eat, but we’re not gonna lie, it’s fun to have a carnivore exclaim, “That’s delicious! I’d barely know any different!” when we find a good substitute or recipe. When we travel, we seek out vegetarian or veg-friendly options and hope to showcase some winners here.

Lastly, we are huge animal lovers! For a blissful year, we had the fortune of traveling with our pack: Lady, a Rhodesian Ridgeback/Doberman mix rescue; Hank, a Rottweiler/Great Dane mix rescue; and ChuckNorris, a gray tabby cat. ChuckNorris made it to the ripe age of 17 years old, and he had a full year of camping under his little kitty belt before we had to say goodbye to our little ninja. He was probably the best traveler out of all of us, having ridden on planes, trains, automobiles, campers, boats, and subways in his lifetime. Lady and Hank are definitely seniors who are living out their best lives and putting up with all of our camping shenanigans. Our camper is currently outfitted with many necessary conveniences to support two 100 lbs dogs who need a lot of help. We wouldn’t have it any other way, but it definitely adds a layer of planning and complexity to our adventures.

                  [insert picture of CNor] [pic of Lady] [pic of Hank]

On this site, we plan to share reviews of campsites and parks, routes we’ve enjoyed, hikes and outings in various locations, good vegetarian food options, pet travel learnings, fun excursions like breweries and wineries, and disc golf courses. We also just recently took up Stand-Up Paddleboarding (SUP), so we will try to pepper in some good paddling locations, as well. Thanks for following along. Let’s go on this epic E+T Adventure and T.E.A.R. it up together!

[insert pic of SUP] [insert pic of hikes] [insert disc golf photo] [insert photo of brewery]