July 3, 2026
Molly Has Already Started Teaching Me
Notes from our first road trip
This week I dropped the first Miles with Molly letters into the mail.
Real envelopes. Real stamps. A printed letter. A photographic postcard tucked inside.
Watching that stack disappear across the post office counter was a great feeling.
Over the past year I’ve been building a camper van we named Ethel. Then we adopted Molly. And lately I’ve been planning routes, ordering postcards and envelopes, and wondering whether anyone besides me would enjoy the idea of slow correspondence in a world that seems determined to move faster every day.
Then Molly and I finally headed north on our first trip together.
Like most first journeys, it didn’t go entirely according to plan. Temperatures climbed into the high 90s. Last minute changes to reservations were needed. We found cooler mountains in which to camp. Some photographs worked. Some didn’t.
But the biggest surprise wasn’t the trip.
It was Molly.
When we adopted her, I assumed I’d spend months teaching her how to travel.
Instead, it turns out she’s been teaching me.
Molly has no interest in getting somewhere quickly. She doesn’t care how many miles we’ve driven today or whether we’re behind schedule. She believes every interesting smell deserves investigation. Every trail deserves another few minutes. Every dog park is worth a stop.
And somewhere between California and Oregon, I realized I had stopped worrying about when we’d get there.
That’s not a bad lesson for someone who has spent most of his life believing there was always one more thing to accomplish before the day was over.
The first Miles with Molly letter is about that lesson—about slowing down enough to notice the quality of the morning light filtering through trees, the sound of a river before breakfast, and what a seven-month-old puppy can teach a lifelong planner.
If you’re already a Fellow Traveler, your envelope should be finding its way to your mailbox soon. I hope you’ll enjoy opening it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.
And if you’re new here, welcome aboard.
We’ve only just begun.
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Fellow Travelers will also receive a printed two-page letter in a real stamped envelope, along with a photographic postcard featuring an image from our travels — something to pin to a wall, tuck into a favorite book, or mail to a friend. Something tangible in a world that increasingly lives behind screens.
Slow mail. Photographs. Stories from the road.
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