The inside of the van is coated with a thick layer of mud. It creeps alongside the makeshift kitchen space, entrenches itself into the worn ground, and sinks deeply into the weathered upholstery. The chalky substance isn’t simply from the rutted dust highway we’re at the moment bumping down; it has been accumulating over a 12 months and a half. It’s mud from 11 totally different international locations—from sandy Baja seashores and sea-bound delivery containers to bridge the Darien Hole, to the wind-battered roadside camps of Patagonia. Jess McGlothlin With every highway bump, mud puffs as much as coat the van’s driver, Zach Lazzari, and his co-pilot, Shale. The 11-year-old canine serves as touring companion, nighttime guard, curious conversationalist, and handy icebreaker: She’s an impossibly fluffy purple mutt whom Lazzari discovered a decade in the past in a Montana animal shelter. There, in a constructing filled with canine needing properties, Shale was the one one who ignored ...