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TUESDAY EDITION
August 3, 2021
Nez Perce
stage
blessing
ceremony
skoolie
adventures
By ERIC BARKER
Lewiston Morning Tribune
JOSEPH — Quincy
Ellenwood smiled as a
pair of young Nez Perce
men rode their horses
across a hay fi eld in Joseph
Thursday, July 29.
Their pace — slow
and steady — quickened
without warning. Soon the
two men, one shirtless and
the other wearing a beaded
vest, raced across the
grassy slope.
“There they go, look
at them. They get to do
that now,” said Ellen-
wood as he fanned himself
with an eagle wing. “Can
you imagine how a whole
camp was here and boys
and young men and young
ladies would ride their
horses all around. It was
like that all day, every day.”
As he spoke, other
Nimiipuu people sang,
danced and drummed in a
longhouse, celebrating and
blessing the 148-acre prop-
erty the tribe purchased last
December.
“The people are excited
to come back home,” said
Casey Mitchell, a member
of the tribe’s executive
committee. “When we sing
our songs and we dance,
we are letting our ancestors
know we are back and that
our love for this land will
never die.”
Known as Am’sáaxpa,
or “place of the boul-
ders,” the land is a tradi-
tional campsite and one of
the last places occupied by
Chief Joseph and his band
before they left the Wallowa
Valley and their North-
eastern Oregon homeland
under threat of military
force in the spring of 1877.
The Army was forcing
them to live in Idaho and
within the boundaries of a
reservation defi ned by the
1863 Treaty. At just 770,000
acres, it was a fraction
of the territory they were
promised in the Treaty of
1855 and smaller yet than
the tribe’s 17-million-acre
traditional homeland.
Tribal Chairman Samuel
Penney said to this day
Nez Perce people call it the
“Steal Treaty” because few
of the tribe’s bands signed
See, Blessing/Page A5
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
Brittany and Ethan Benge pose for a photo atop their converted Thomas FS-65 school bus on Friday, July 30, 2021. The couple left Wenatchee, Florida, in March 2020
after the beginning of the pandemic and have traveled across the United States for the past 18 months — including an elopement in the mountains of Colorado.
Florida couple and their Nomadic Newlyweds Adventures makes pit stop in La Grande
By ALEX WITTWER
JOIN THE ADVENTURE
The Observer
LA GRANDE — Brittany
and Ethan Benge had a proposal.
The Florida couple were going
to have a wedding then travel the
United States in their converted
Thomas FS-65 school bus. It
was a plan years in the making,
and the pandemic provided the
impetus for the service industry
couple and their cat, Frankie, to
begin their epic honeymoon.
They had no sooner stopped in
La Grande on Friday, July 30, and
parked near the railroad tracks
along Jeff erson Street when they
began planning their next stop.
“We haven’t stayed anywhere
for longer than two weeks,” Brit-
tany Benge said.
The couple began working on
their skoolie — a term used by
the nomad community to describe
school buses renovated into liv-
able homes — long before the
pandemic started.
“We’ve been building the bus
for about two years,” Brittany
said. “We were already planning
on leaving, but we didn’t plan on
starting the trip until after we got
married.”
Those plans were accelerated
and the couple left Wenatchee,
Florida, in March 2020.
“We’ve been going ever since,”
Brittany said.
The 40-foot bus named
“Adobe” is their entire home,
according to Brittany. And
because space is tight, the couple
had to whittle down their belong-
ings at least six times over the
course of their journey.
“Storage is the biggest thing.”
We have to make every space
function. If it doesn’t serve a
function, it doesn’t make it on the
bus,” Brittany said.
A few trinkets remain. On an
end table near the bed was a copy
of “Zen and the Art of Motor-
cycle Maintenance” by Robert
Pirsig. Household items stayed
in pairs — his and hers. Two loo-
You can follow along with Brittany and
Ethan Benge’s adventure at their blog,
www.nomadicnewlywedsadventure.
com/ or through Instagram under the
name @nomadicnewlywedsadventure
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
Ethan and Brittany Benge pause for a photo inside the living area of their
“skoolie” on Friday, July 30, 2021. Married in September 2020, the newlyweds are
on an extended honeymoon in their renovated school bus.
fahs — pink and black — hung
from a hook in the shower. Two
coff ee cups. Two chairs for the
pop-up desk that serves as the
dining table, writing desk and
workbench for the couple’s online
business, Social Benge.
Ethan Benge, a former U.S.
Army soldier, had taught himself
graphic design while working in
restaurants in Florida, building
up a portfolio and skillset to help
businesses with marketing, design
and search engine optimization.
Like millions of Americans, he
became a remote worker nearly
overnight when COVID-19 forced
shutdowns across the country.
“Once he got used to it, he
said, ‘I think I can actually make
a career out of this,’” Brittany
said. “And I’m so glad he actu-
ally did.’”
It’s by no means an easy life,
Ethan said of their nomadic
adventure. The couple not only
has to contend with cramped
spaces and limited resources,
such as fi nding power and fresh
water, but they also have to fi nd a
way to continue to make money.
INDEX
Classified ...............B4
Comics ....................B7
Crossword .............B4
Dear Abby .............B8
Home ......................B1
WEATHER
Horoscope .............B5
Letters ....................A4
Local........................A2
Lottery ....................A2
Obituaries ..............A3
THURSDAY
Opinion ..................A4
Records ..................A3
Sports .....................A7
State ........................A8
Sudoku ...................B7
“A lot of people will think that
we’re on vacation 24/7 or that
we don’t have jobs,” Ethan said.
“We’re working 40 to 60 hours a
week, easy. We would not be able
to travel like we do unless we had
these jobs.”
Bus life isn’t without its merits,
however. At times, the view from
their offi ce is spectacular.
Just weeks before, the couple
had fi red away emails for Ethan’s
social media management com-
pany while staring out across the
Bonneville Salt Flats in North-
western Utah.
With 24 windows, the view
was panoramic.
Turning the bus into a
traveling home
Before they could begin their
long-term cross-country trip, the
couple had to fi rst build out their
home. They bought a decom-
missioned school bus for around
$9,000. Over the course of two
years, they invested a total of
$25,000 into the project.
“We saw a converted bus and
Full forecast on the back of B section
Tonight
Wednesday
64 LOW
95/61
Partly cloudy
Very warm
OXARC BUILDING NEW FACILITY IN LA GRANDE
said, ‘I bet we could do that,’”
Brittany said. “‘We had barely
ever picked up a hammer when
we bought the bus. We were lit-
erally YouTube graduates. We
watched everything on YouTube
on how to gut the bus.’”
The inside includes a fully
operational — albeit confi ned —
shower and bathroom. Most win-
dows feature a plant or a box-fan.
The air-conditioner had broken a
month prior, according to Ethan
Benge.
Every fi xture was crafted by
hand. The only outside assis-
tance they had came early in the
build when they found someone
to remove the rows of seats for
free. The rest, the couple stated,
was their handiwork.
Wood paneling and painted
shiplap walls for the shower —
blue, matching the exterior of the
bus. A couch adorned with pil-
lows and blankets, one embroi-
dered with the words “home is
where you park it.” A fl at-screen
TV held down by black fl at cords
and hooked up to a Fallout 4 dec-
orated Xbox — in his free time,
Ethan is a gamer.
The bus is powered by solar
panels, allowing the travelers
to remain almost completely
self-suffi cient, save for the times
when they need to replenish the
100-gallon water tank and dis-
pose of waste.
The back room holds their bed,
lit dimly at dusk by string lights
— though, in the summer nights
and on clear days, the couple
sometimes prefers to spend their
evenings on the roof staring at the
stars.
See, Skoolie/Page A5
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