About Us

Hello! Welcome to Exploring Rural! We’re so excited you’re here! Here’s a bit about who we are:

Alyssa

I grew up in Highland, Utah, when it was still full of fields and a few mink farms. One of my favorite things as a kid was waking up to the train whistle as it drove through town. I graduated from American Fork High School, then dabbled with a wide variety of majors at Brigham Young University and BYU-Idaho before finally focusing on family history research. I love learning the history of towns – the people who lived there, where they came from, why they settled there, etc. Zach likes to think that he introduced me to a life of road trips and exploring, but I’ve always enjoyed going on adventures – especially in the car, with other people, and extra especially when we get to sing while we drive! 

Zach

I was born and raised in Lander, Wyoming. My dad grew up in rural southern Utah, and my mom was from rural Missouri. In high school, I spent many weekends in my 1947 jeep exploring small 4×4 trails in Fremont County, Wyoming. I served an LDS mission in south-central Chile and spent lots of my time in small towns. I studied history at BYU Idaho in Rexburg, Idaho, and spent many weekends driving all over southeast Idaho.   After college, I spent four years teaching 7-12 grades in one of the smallest K-12 schools in Montana. I worked in the town of Willow Creek, and fell in love with many of Montana’s small towns. 

During my four years in Montana, I put more than 150,000 miles on my old Pontiac, and my even older Toyota Pickup  exploring everywhere I could. I took weekend trips to Southern Alberta, Eastern Idaho, North Dakota, and of course, almost every nook and cranny of Montana. I left Willow Creek to pursue a Master’s Degree in History at Utah State University, where I wrote my thesis on the towns that sprang up in Wyoming to support the booming uranium industry. While working on my Master’s Degree in History, I met and married Alyssa.  

Combining and Continuing our Story

We met in 2014 and got married after 3 months of dating. After Zach finished his graduate coursework we spent one year in northern Montana before relocating to Utah, and eventually Riverton, Wyoming.

In all of our moves, the chaos of having two little boys less than a year and a half apart, and the hectic nature of life in general, the noble tradition of long roadtrips through some of America’s most beautiful, isolated spaces continues. In the last two years, we’ve roadtripped with our two boys from our home, across rural Nebraska and Missouri to the Kansas City area, and then down to Little Rock Arkansas, and back. A short time later, I volunteered us to fly out to New Hampshire and drive a commercial bucket truck that my work bought back across the country to Riverton. That’s all mixed in with Saturday trips out to Diversion Dam or Lysite, or Sunday drives across Beaver Rim. In short, Exploring Rural is a big part of who we are! 

Why Exploring Rural?

In almost any town, village, or settlement we pass, we almost always have questions. “Why is this place called Boogertown?” “Who do you think lived in that cool house?” “Why did people decide to move here?”  “Wow, this place is amazing! Why does nobody live here!?” As it turns out, it’s often pretty hard to find out the answers to those questions. And being historians, as we are, we thought it would be fun to research these and other questions we come across in our travels, and share them with you. We hope you enjoy!  

**send us questions about places you’ve visited or driven past, and we’ll see if we can help you find answers!