2completespirits

Leaving Moab to continue our National Park Journey...

2015-07-09T14:47:00.001-07:00

The morning of June 11th, we woke up at our BLM camp spot on Yellow Circle Road, which we camped at (I think) 3 times during our stay in and around Moab (15 days). Yellow Circle Road is a few miles outside of Moab, off of Highway 191, and is a great go-to if you're passing through or if you want to be closer to town. We wouldn't use it as a long-term (2 week) spot, we used it kind of like how we use Wal-marts, it's nice and convenient. Here are the coordinates:
GPS: 38.435474, -109.427631

We hit the road around 9-9:30 a.m., heading to the next park...Capitol Reef. The rain danced around us all night with major lightning and thunder storms, it was the first time we had had a rain storm like that, while we slept, since Georgia. I'm so glad Joon doesn't leak!
The rain clouds were still circling around Moab as we drove through town to get on the highway out of town, it looked like hell was about to drop in on Moab!

This was the moment that we were both so happy that we busted ass to get out of the Canyonlands spot, for as we looked up the mountain where we were parked, you couldn't even see the mountain tops! All of the mountains were covered in heavy rain mist or blackish grey/blue clouds, we were glad to be leaving!
We had rain the entire drive to Capitol Reef. It was a nice cool drive, but wet and rainy the whole way.

We drove into the park without even knowing we were actually in the park. This park doesn't have an entrance gate that you pay at, it's just a road that goes through the park...we were wondering if you pay at the Visitor's Center, but since we bought a (N.P annual) pass we weren't too worried about it. I did learn later that you were charged a fee for traveling the park's Scenic Drive beyond the Fruita Campground: $5 for bicyclists/pedestrians & $10 for vehicles, the pass is good for 7 days.

We drove straight through the entire park in about 10 minutes, maybe less, until we hit the small town of Torrey. Surprised that we just drove through the park and didn't even know it, we saw a visitor's information building and decided to stop in to get some maps and all the touristy stuff. We grabbed some great booklets and maps as we talked to the woman running the place, she told us about some roads (Scenic Drive) in the park that were closed due to the rain flooding the roads!
We got back in the van and drove another 10 miles or so down the road to see what the town had to offer in ways of groceries and fuel, then headed back toward the park to find a spot to camp for the night.

We had found a place on www.Freecampsites.net but as we drove to it, found it was right off of the main highway, so that was a no-go for us due to wanting privacy and not worrying about the dogs. We drove a couple more miles and found another road that went back into the rocks a little bit, so decided to take it and found about 8 "campsites" or so it seemed with all of the firepits.

There was absolutely noone else there and was a perfect place for us to stop for the night. I'm not sure what the road name was called but it's easy to find, right off of the main road that leads into the park, from Torrey side. There was no wifi and we didn't check to see if there was any TV since it was going to be dark soon and we were just going to leave in the morning anyway. We pulled out our chairs, had a cocktail and looked over our maps and booklets until it started getting a little dark. It was a beautiful spot!

More about this part of our N.P. journey in the next post
Until then...
PEACE

It had to be done!

2015-07-08T14:23:00.001-07:00

After our "vananigans" (van shenanigans) on that rocky road at Canyonlands BLM, we decided to go to McDonald's to get some much needed wifi access to get some work done and research Capitol Reef a little bit, to try to figure out what we were getting into with that park. Since we didn't have any internet at our camp outside of Canyonlands, we figured we would have the same limits at the other parks, so we did some work, checked emails, played on FB, did some research, etc. before heading out. We also wanted to see if there was a welder in town. After we climbed that rough rocky hill,

Remember this!!

at Canyonlands, we noticed that our motorcycle hitch was sloping down quite a bit and was also making this hideous creaking noise, even on smooth asphalt! It was making us a little nervous for we drive roads like that, probably more than we should, and didn't want to get stuck in the middle of nowhere with a broken motorcycle hitch. We did our research and found one welder in the town of Moab!! (There actually is a 4x4 place in town that also does welding, but they charge almost triple what we paid). We wrote down the address, packed up our computers and drove over to the building. Turns out the welder has another job so he wouldn't be back home until after 5 p.m., since it was about 2:45 I called and left a message saying we would be there at 5 for a weld job and went to go run some errands.
We met him at what was actually his business and his home right around 5 p.m. He checked it out and told us to dismount the trailer and bikes and he'd get started.

We pulled the van into his garage, disconnected the van battery as well as our house batteries, he picked out the metal tubing that he wanted to use and got started right away.

He did a great job placing 2 metal "arms" underneath both sides of the hitch as well as stacking more metal tubing between the "arms" and the hitch, making that baby stable as, you know what! That hitch doesn't move, shake, creak, nothing....it's AWESOME!!! Not bad for $120 buckaroos!!

If you want to watch Ben Wilson welding up our motorcycle hitch, you can watch it right here!

If you are in Moab and in need of an inexpensive but awesome welding job go see Ben Wilson. Here is his information:

Wilson Welding
435-260-2044

www.Wilsonweldingandperformance.com

We are very very happy and so much more confident about being in the middle of nowhere with our hitch now. We've even talked about going back through Moab to get a few more things welded, just because he did such a great job.
Thanks Ben!

PEACE

Canyonlands Overview

2015-07-07T15:16:00.000-07:00

Sitting in a reclining chair, overlooking an amazing view while typing this, no internet connection so will have to be posted at a later date.
We drove out to Canyonlands N.P. a little over a week ago.

We thought we were much further away from the park than we actually were. Canyonlands is divided into 3 districts; The Needles~South, The Maze~West and Island in the Sky~North, but there are only 2 entrances; The Needles and Island in the Sky. When I put Canyonlands into the GPS, four different locations came up, I wasn't sure which one to pick, so I picked the closest one from Moab; 32 miles away which turned out to be Island in the Sky. We were planning on doing much more driving so this was an unexpected surprise. We drove into the park, taking a map at the entrance gate but also stopping in at the Visitor's Center to ask some questions about camping and to buy a sticker for our board. The Visitor's Center has become one of my main favorite stops...the Rangers are super helpful in giving you great information about the park and the surrounding areas. I talked to a ranger for about 20 minutes about camping in the park, primitive camping, points not to miss, etc. The things I learned about this park that stood out to me were; this park is HUGE at 336,000 acres, the road through the park does not go all the way through to the South entrance (The Needles) due to a canyon running through the middle of it, for backcountry/primitive camping they book up about 4 months in advance and requires a permit, and it can take days on most of these 4wd roads to complete 100 miles. After leaving the Visitor's Center, we talked about camping in the campground for a couple of nights, it was only $10 a night and would save us the gas money, coming and going every day, back to wherever we could find BLM camping. We decided to drive through the campground and see if there were any open spots. We were surprised at how small the campground was, due to how big the park is and since it was a Saturday, it was already full...BLM here we come! We stopped back by the Visitor's Center to ask them about BLM camping around the area and I actually got some really good answers. The map that we got from the BLM office was the same map the Ranger gave me, but also accompanied it with a Utah map! Now, we were getting somewhere! He pointed out some places that we just camped at a few nights ago, then some places closer like Gemini Bridges Rd. and Mineral Bottom Rd (About 6-8 miles away from entrance of the park). *Sidenote: We took Gemini Bridges Rd. yesterday on the dirt bike and it is a really rough road with only 6 campsites, it is free but good luck getting up or down that road. It would be a fun 4x4 drive in a Jeep or ATV but I would never bring my Joon van down that road, especially with the trailer on it.* The Ranger had told me where to find Mineral Bottom Rd., which he said was the 1st left out of the park....no it's not. We turned down 2 different roads, that said No Camping, then turned down another road that had a sign that said NO CAMPING in big letters, then in really small print beneath it said, for the next 1/2 mile... gotta read that fine print! We drove down it, calculating how far we were going and found a couple of okay spots but then Jamie wanted to keep on looking further down. I was a bit hesitant due to the looks of the road but I trust him and his handling of the van so, I give in every time. We ended up down this road that turned into mostly rock with some trees and cactus, it was an amazing spot, so we drove down the scary road and are parked here now.

Our view

We have views of the Canyon that is separating us from the park and we're only 4-5 miles from the entrance, not too shabby!

We've been here about a week now and went into the park last night for the first time since arriving here.

It was an interesting drive on the dirt bike due to a few things. First off, it rained here for a good 3 days, due to all of the storms around the U.S., but this wasn't your average rain...we had a frickin' deluge, which we saw last night pretty much washed out the scary road we came in on, now making it really scary!

Doesn't look too bad in the picture!

Jamie is out on the dirt bike right now, as I write this, to see if the sand/mud has packed down hard enough for us to be able to get out. The road that was at a slight angle when we came in, is at an extreme angle now and we just don't want to get stuck sliding down into the muddy ravine. So, he's checking it out and if we have to stay for a few more days, then we will for safety, but the weather is calling for rain for the next 3 days, so we'll have to see! The other interesting thing about that ride last night was, even with what we thought was a couple of hours of sunlight, we pretty much rode into the park, drove about 15 miles and had to turn around due to the sun dropping super quick all of a sudden and it getting pretty darn chilly. We got back to the van and it was dark...so weird! So tonight we plan to go in much earlier than 7 p.m.!

Making up shit on how Canyons are formed

From what I gather, this part of the park doesn't have many big mile hikes but there are a lot of observation and viewing points.

We decided we would go back into the park the following day, we geared up around 5 p.m., got on the bike and headed toward the entrance, all the while seeing gigantic rain clouds and black skies forming. Before we even got to the main road, we both decided it would be best to turn around right now, pack up the van and get out of our spot before another storm hit. I had heard on the radio (since we have no wifi) that it was supposed to rain for 3-4 days, meaning that would keep us at that spot for at least another week, so the road could dry out enough for us to drive on and get out. Since we were ready to leave, we went back to the van and packed everything in record time...45 minutes!

We were a little worried about a few spots in the road, due to the last rain washing out half the road....but we were determined to not hurt the van and at least get on more solid ground for the night.

We did it, while I filmed, Jamie drove. We made it past all of the tough and scary spots and stopped to sleep for the night on the same road but much more solid if it did rain that night....which it did (as well as the next 5 days)!

If you want to see the video of us getting out of that road, click the link here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POFt5cw3erk

The next day we went into the park for the last time and while the storm was building around us while we were there, we only got a few hard sprinkles.

Island in the Sky ~ Potash Road

Grand View Point Overlook


The Orange Cliffs

I'm sure this park has much more to offer than what we saw, but I guess we'll just have to come back to see what we missed at a later date.

PEACE

If you are interested in seeing what Potash Road is like, Jamie did the ride on his dirt bike and you can see that video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F439OAwv8fk

Video links for Info on Free Camping in Moab

2015-07-06T13:23:00.003-07:00

Hello there!

I wanted to put some links up to a couple of videos that Jamie has made while we've been in and around Moab.

Some of you may have already seen these, but for those that haven't we hope these videos to be helpful to you if you are in the area.

2015 MOAB FIRST IMPRESSIONS | Where to Camp for FREE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAAGnhh9WXc

Free Camping in Moab (Yellow Circle Rd.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxb8BheOKcs

I will do my best to post more as they are made. Every little bit of help counts!

PEACE

Take 2: The Arches Devil's Garden

2015-07-06T12:59:00.001-07:00

Hopefully you have read the post Take 1: The Arches, for this will be a continuation from that post. The day we did The Arches; Windows & Delicate Arch, we took a bunch of pictures and videos with Jamie's new camera but when we went to retrieve them, saw that somehow everything had been erased. Panic set-in...that was a full day of hiking, scouting, fun & memories...now what? How do we get them back without having to do the hikes again? We were both willing to do the day over, but were also ready to do some new hikes and see new sights. Jamie thought he might be able to recover them, so yesterday morning we woke, packed the van and went to the McDonald's in town for their wifi. We thought it would take about an hour or two, but after sitting and trying for a very long time, we were almost ready to give up. At the end of about 4 1/2 hours Jamie found a program called Jihosoft Photo Recovery that we had to buy at around $40.00. Sounds a bit pricey but now we have the program and can recover anything and, thankfully, were able to recover every single video and every single picture! Hooray!!

Although a bit mentally exhausted, the timing worked out well, for it was now rounding around to about 5 o'clock. It wasn't a very hot day so it was perfect timing for us to go back into the park to do a new hike. We drove into the Arches and headed for the North part of the park where Devil's Garden sits. We were pretty much the only ones at this part of the park now and with the Sun moving around the big fins of rocks, the van and the trails were getting a ton of shade.

This time I was much smarter about what I wore; a loose breathable tank, shorts, closed toes shoes and we both wore our Camelbacks for water...much nicer experience. We started on the trail walking between these gigantic fins on both sides of us, it winds up and down through trees, sand and cactus taking us to an open area with wooden fence posts around it.

This area is the Landscape Arch~ a very cool area and arch that has been blocked off with the fence so people won't get hurt. In 1991 some people had hiked up to the arch and took a break sitting underneath it, they heard what they thought was thunder but was actually the archway rock breaking loose and falling to the ground, three slabs measuring 30, 47 & 70 feet long fell...I think I'm good standing behind the fence!

There were a lot of people on this part of the trail so we took some pics and moved on a little faster than usual. The next part of the trail was about medium, some easy walking to some light climbing until I looked up and saw some people walking down these boulders...and I mean HUGE boulders going towards the heavens!

Can you see the itty bitty people up top?

I started doubting myself and my abilities and scaring myself. As I contemplated what I was going to do, the people now were closer to the bottom and saw that I was having some thoughts. They told me, "Grandpa just turned 70 and if he can do it, you can do it." Then Grandpa came down and said, "You've just gotta make it over those boulders, then you're home free!"

I appreciated the kind words but I felt like, Now I have to push past my fears and do it...ugh! We let anyone behind us go ahead and then started the climb...I climbed on all fours as Jamie walked up the rock behind me. It was scary and some parts were much scarier than others, but I did it and Grandpa was right, once on the top, the trail went back to trees, sand and slick rock.


SUCCESS!

No Fear!

I can't remember how long the trail was to that point but once you get to the top you have a few options; Double O Arch which I think was another 2-3 miles, Navajo Arch & Partition Arch. Since the two arches were in the same direction, that made our decision. It turned out to be a pretty easy hike on flat ground and much more awesome than we had anticipated.

The Navajo Arch was the first of the two and (for me) the most amazing part of the park. We could definitely "see" people living here centuries ago. Everything was so green and lush and with the rock walls, the temperature was much cooler inside...it was like a cave but with a split in the ceiling. quite amazing to see.

As we were leaving we saw a guy by himself walking to the mouth, since he was alone I asked to take some pictures of him and was able to catch his reaction on film. He told us he had come from Germany a couple of years ago and came here last year but somehow missed this arch...the only reason for the hike today was just for this! Cool!!
Next up...Partition Arch, not a very long hike from Navajo, seemed like 50 yards or so but probably just a bit longer.

We sat and took in the view for a few minutes. I took my shoes off for a few brief minutes as well...my feet are not used to being inside socks or shoes so they cramp up easily, gotta let those tootsies breathe! haha

It is quite amazing to be able to see these arches in person as well as sit underneath them. It gives a whole new perspective to these giant features, it's so cool!

From here, we decided it was getting too late and would be dark in no time to do any more hikes to the further away arches so we started back for the van, we had a good 2 miles to go and my knee was pretty much done for the day. With the Sun starting to really retreat behind the massive fins and boulders, the view kept changing with different light hitting different areas and was really neat to see the trail like this.

And I had to climb down "Grandpa's big ass boulder"... that turned out to be way more scary than going up! But I did on all fours, backwards though, if you can imagine that!

We made it back, pretty much as the sun was setting...perfect timing! When we got back to the van the very first thing I did was take off those damn foot prisons (shoes) and found a big pile of sand in there....oh well, back to my flops for now!

It was a beautiful hike on a beautiful evening and I am just so glad we were able to capture new memories and footage. I wonder what tomorrow will bring....?

Have a great day!
PEACE

Arches National Park~ Take One: The Windows & Delicate Arch

2015-06-17T10:55:00.001-07:00

The first National Park we visited was Arches, only about 5 miles from downtown Moab, on the North side of town. We weren't sure what to expect, the only National Park we've visited is Joshua Tree, and (for us) it wasn't very exciting. We passed through the entrance gate to Arches ($10 for 7 days for vehicles, $5 for motorcyclists, bicyclists or walkers) and stopped off at the visitors center to get a little bit more information about the park and the absolute musts'. I talked to a Park Ranger named Mark and he was very helpful in giving me tips about where to start, marking them on the map that was provided at the gate, and what to see if we only had a couple of hours, then went on to give me more pointers for extended periods of time if we were to be in the park for more than just one day. The newspaper, they give you at the gate, also has a TON of great information about the park in it, for example; how long and strenuous (or easy) the hikes are.

We left the visitors center and started driving up the hill to the mysteries that lie beyond the massive red rocks. Wow, what an amazing first impression ....this park is going to be super fun to explore!

Our first main stop was going to be right past Balanced Rock, which is really cool, to The Windows.

Luckily the parking lots have both compact parking as well as RV parking, so we were able to park without any problems due to the trailer. The park does not allow pets on any of the trails so the dogs had to stay behind in the van, but we have a nice set-up for them inside where they are well ventilated and safe, plus it really helped that the temperatures were nice and cool that day along with a breeze.

**Believe me, I'm VERY cautious when it comes to leaving my girls, they are my kids and I make sure they have thee most comfort they possibly can. They go into their room (crate) that has a full water bottle that cannot spill, fans directed on them as well as in a screened side window for ventilation/transferring of fresh air, & a temperature gauge. I open all of our small screened side windows and blacken out all of the big windows, including the front, with reflectix and/or thick upholstery curtains that keep heat/cold out. Joon van is set-up to be able to play the radio without running down the battery, so when I can I will leave the radio on for them so they don't get too lonely, we also do not leave them for long periods of time (due to mommy's separation anxiety). With this method when we come back to the van, they are usually laying on one another, chillin', not even panting, but still excited to see us!**
Alright back to The Windows.....
We parked and set out for our first awesome sight and whoa what a sight! The map says that there are all kinds of "things" that appear in the rocks, some of these include; Parade of Elephants, Aliens, Turrets, Ham, Praying hands, etc. Double Arch at the Windows is one of the easier, shorter hikes, it's about a mile or less (I did it in my flip flops but wished I would have worn closed toe shoes, so I could have climbed a little bit more).

You can see 5 Windows from the parking lot, so if you don't want to or can't walk you can still see the spectacular sight of the Windows (but there's nothing like walking underneath them)!

Jamie is an itty bitty ant!!

We walked around and under the arches, took some great pictures and tried to take it all in. These arches are just amazing, even sitting under them the view looking out is pretty great too, I don't think the pictures do them justice, but I tried!

There are over 2,500 Arches in the park, that have been counted. The Double Arch, that you see in the pictures with the larger opening, has a span of 144 feet (3rd longest in the park) and a height of 112 feet (the highest in the park). It's quite incredible.

After gazing and shooting hundreds of pictures we thought we would drive around to check the park out a bit and grab a bite to eat. There are no restaurants in this park but they do provide two different picnic areas; Balanced Rock & Devil's Garden areas, where you can get out of the sun and enjoy a nice lunch, within these areas you will also find pit toilets and trash/recycling bins. We drove to the picnic area by Balanced Rock and made lunch; Philly cheese-steak fajitas!! I also changed into better shoes since my flippies were a big flop at the windows 👍 tee hee

After lunch we decided we would go see Delicate Arch. Parking was just a bit harder than the Windows, the spots were big enough but you could only pull in forward, our trailer is hard to back-up due to the short wheel base, but Jamie made it work. We rounded up the pups back into their room, grabbed one bottle of water (which we would regret later) and were on our way to Delicate Arch. There are two different approaches to the trail, the first you walk towards Wolfe Ranch, the second is a round-about where you can walk by Petroglyph's, we chose the latter. In hindsight we should have read the information kiosk to know how long the hike was up to Delicate Arch, we would have gone back and gotten more water....next time! We walked to see the Petroglyph's which is just a small detour around to the trail, how cool that these drawings are still here!!

The park has roped off this part of the mountain so people cannot climb up and touch them, oils from our fingers and hands make these babies disappear much faster than usual. We thought we had a short hike ahead of us until we rounded a corner and saw people moving up and down this gigantic mountain, they looked like ants compared to how big this "hill" was! Should have read that kiosk, haha

The red circle are people!!!

I was already scaring myself because I do not like walking up steep things nor do I like being high in the air on steep things! But, there I was starting to climb this tall mountain, thinking, "What the hell, Oh my gosh, I'm going to die!" haha It actually wasn't steep at all, just big and tall and (to me) scary, but I was still upright so everything was going to be okay.

Starting the climb

We also thought that Delicate Arch was just right over the hill....nope! By the time we got to the top my face was beet red (out of shape) so much that people were egging us on, giving their support and telling us, "It's okay honey, you're almost there, only about another 20 minutes...but it's worth it." Ummmm, another 20 minutes!!?? As we reached the top, it started to level off, feeling like you were flat on the ground, even though we were a good mile in the sky. The environment is very interesting up there, even though you are standing on this HUGE mountain of slick rock, there are plants, Juniper trees, shrubs, even cactus and flowers...it just goes to show that life can live anywhere!

My knee started getting a little weak on me before we reached the arch, due to an injury long ago, so I sat down for a few minutes. This moment was perfect to take in this part of the hike, it was so quiet and serene, like we were the only ones on the mountain that day.

After resting, we started back on the trail and reached our destination just a few short minutes after. Since we had only seen where the arch was on the map and didn't stop by the kiosk, we didn't know what to expect. We turned that last corner to a vast funnel-like opening to see our treasure, Delicate Arch and YES, it was totally worth the hike!

Not only is the Arch amazing, the view behind it and all around us was out of this world.

I am proud to say that I was brave enough, with the help of Jamie of course, to go take a picture underneath the arch! I'm so glad I did it, even if I did crawl over there, haha Definitely a once in a lifetime for me.

SUCCESS!!

We sat there for a while talking, gazing and helping others capture the moment by swapping pics for pics under the arch. Man, what an experience! I'm glad I braved it with Jamie, although he isn't scared like I am, he is so patient with me and helped me every second of the climb up and down.

On our way back down dark clouds started to roll in, which was very welcome to us due to only bringing that one bottle of water, we got some sprinkles but nothing too bad. The entire hike from start to finish was about 3 miles, taking us 2 hours...and as I read on the map later one of the more strenuous hikes! ha... figures.
Wolfe Ranch was on our way back to the parking lot so we stopped by to check it out. The ranch consists of two weathered log cabins, one much smaller than the other; used for a root cellar, along with a corral. Seeing these cabins from the 1800's definitely gives you a look into the past, it's amazing they are still here and standing!

Happy to be back on solid ground, back at the van with the pups and resting my knee, the rain started...perfect timing! We decided that we had a full packed day and we would have to come back another day to do the parts of the park we didn't get to today. We drove the last bit of the park and around the Devil's Garden Campground.

The campground has 52 sites (all were full), water and flush toilets. Reservations for the campground must be made at least four days in advance; for more information you can visit www.nps.gov/arch or call the information line at #435-719-2299.
I think camping here for a night or two would be out of this world, but this time around we are off to find a spot on BLM for the night and maybe even a couple of days for rest.

Come back for more of Arches National Park and my scardy cat like ways...maybe (if you're lucky) you'll even get to see a short video of me crawling around like a spider! :)
PEACE

Moab, here we come!

2015-06-15T10:27:00.000-07:00

Last Summer, we had plans of going to the Mighty 5 in Utah. If you've never heard of the Mighty 5, it is all 5 National Parks that Utah has to offer: Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon and Zion. For those of you that read this blog you know that last Summer we were called back to Georgia for personal reasons and were not able to fulfill these dreams.
Not this Summer baby. This Summer would be the first Summer since we started full-timing that would be ours, not working but traveling and moving around and actually doing the Mighty 5! woot woot!!!
We were sitting in Sedona waiting for the weather to change, (we had been having quite the crappy Spring/Summer) and our route was already "planned". The plan was to go from Sedona to Flagstaff, Williams, hit the Grand Canyon, sit there for a while, scout it out and enjoy it, then head North towards Utah, do the Mighty 5, then.........Well you know what they say about making plans, (or as Miss Cheri would say), "Plans are set in chocolate pudding."
As we sat there day after day after crappy day, it hit us. Why don't we just go to Utah now? duh. So, after 2 days of laundry & packing we hit the road.

Laundry Bike

First destination: Moab.
Driving to Moab was awesome, we have both never been to Utah. Jamie has driven through it & I've had one layover in Salt Lake but that's definitely not anywhere near spending time there or seeing the beauty that lies within the majestic mountains and red rock. We started by driving North on 89 out of Sedona, going through Tuba City on 160, to 163 passing through Mexican Hat to 191 putting us in route through small view points of Monument Valley then taking us right into downtown Moab. Wowzers!!

Mexican Hat

Monument Valley

Moab is a hopping place. As we enter the downtown area, the first thing we hone in on are all the Jeeps, we've seen more Jeeps in this one area than we've ever seen anywhere else before. There are people everywhere; the City Market which is the biggest grocery store in the area (no big box retail stores here like Walmart or Target), walking down the street, at gas stations, at hotels, at rental places...like I said before, this place is hopping. It's definitely the time of year to be here, (late May) it's not too hot yet...maybe low-mid 80's (in the heat of the Summer it gets as hot as 120*).
To be perfectly honest we didn't do a whole bunch of recon/research before getting to Moab, we figured we would just figure it out on our own once we got here, which we did, but it was kinda tough, not just for camping but also for drinking water. Water turned out to be a toughie in this area, which we were amazed at by how much activity goes on here. We did find a great spot to get cold filtered drinking water, at a Twice the Ice on the North end of town (but 2 days later we were driving by and saw the whole building up in the air on a crane, they were removing it!!)

We did find another Twice the Ice in the center of town that was also twice the price as the one removed, but still had cold filtered drinking water. As for camping, while we were at (North) Twice the Ice, Jamie went into the Inca Inn Hotel next door to ask about dispersed camping. Unexpectedly the guy at the desk gave him a map and written directions to a place just right up the hill that has dirt biking trails among many other activities and only 3 miles from the Arches National Park. We drive up the hill and approach a check-in/pay station (dang), we ask them about dispersed camping and they are very guarded while telling us about Dalton Wells dispersed camping area North of town. We drive back down the hill, putting Dalton Wells in the GPS...no find, no go. We are back on our own. At this time, I get my 'puter out, turn on the wifi hot-spot and I cannot find Dalton Wells. I go to FreeCampsites.net and find a couple of places...I write them down as well as keep them on the front page of the 'puter and we keep driving. On our way, we find a Maverick gas station that has the cheapest gas in town $2.85 (but with a free members card you get .06 cents off). There are two Maverick's in town, the one at the South end of town has a RV/potty dump, plus a hose on the side of the building to fill up solar showers. After reading up a bit on Utah, as we were searching for camp spots, we learned it is a requirement if you are going to camp on BLM, where toilets are not provided, you must have a porta potty. The state of Utah does not allow you to dig holes to bury your terds nor do they want you pooping in nature!
Now, we have full water, full fuel, full fridge & pantry and an empty potty....we start off on our journey to find a free camp spot for the night or maybe even a week. The first road we drove down from downtown Moab is Hwy 128, we drive down about 20-25 miles to the free site that is posted on freecampsites but we find that the area has been closed off due to revegetation or construction.

Highway 128

The only sites available on this land are paid BLM sites that cost $15.00 a night, if you are caught crossing the creek, even one time it is a $250.00 fee. The BLM paid area (Onion Creek) was full of tents and Church vans. We decided to keep on this road and try a few 4wd roads, most of what we found were No Camping, No Tresspassing roads. We did find one road that had no signs at all, although very dicey and rough we drove down about a mile but had to turn around due to rain, bad roads and nowhere to park the van without being on vegetation (which Utah is very adamant about not parking on).

We turned around and wound up back down Hwy 128 toward Moab to 191. We remembered one area, while driving into Moab, which had several Class A's, 5th wheels and trailers that looked like they were camping for the night.

Even though there were about 8 different rigs parked on this piece of property, there were signs everywhere saying No Camping, but in this life we do what we see others doing, so for tonight we pulled into this spot, off of Hwy 191 (Yellow Circle Road) with an amazing view of the La Sal mountain range.


Yellow Circle Road

La Sal Mountains

We are going to sleep here for the night and start fresh again in the morning, hitting up the BLM office for some maps. Here's to an UNeventful nights rest!
PEACE

Overland Expo West

2015-06-07T14:31:00.000-07:00

* Catching up on posts*

We have been camped around the Sedona/Cottonwood area for about a month now and have only gotten about a handful of nice weather days. We have woken up to rain, hail, wind, cloudy skies and Winter-like coolness almost the entire time we've been here and are definitely ready for a change.
Our "plans" were (there's that P word!) to spend a few weeks in Sedona then move up to Flagstaff when the weather got better/warmer, then we would be in the area for the Overland Expo...but warmer weather is definitely NOT happening for us right now in Sedona and since Flagstaff is higher in elevation their rain is turning into feet of snow! Crazy weather, it's almost June!!!

We decided to carpool up to Mormon Lake, near Flagstaff where the Expo is being held, with some friends that we are camping with. We are in a great spot with privacy so our stuff would be safe and all of the dogs would be able to come with us, so really it was a win-win.

We drove up Sunday morning, getting there at about 10:30 a.m. or so. The "gatekeeper" charged us only $15 for all four of us, which was cool because we read that it would cost us $15 per family, so it would have been $30 instead, but not today! We received our wristbands and rolled in instantly seeing a ton of Jeeps, Land Rovers, Adventure bikes, etc.

We found a parking spot and was given a 15 minute scope out session while our friend made everyone burgers.
Burgers were great!

After lunch we all set out on foot to see all of the different rigs people had on display. Since it had been raining and snowing for a good week and a half leading up to the Expo it was muddy muddy muddy, there were even points where the walkways totally disappeared due to the water and mud...making it to some of the porta potties was quite a challenge!

We walked around and talked to a bunch of different builders, owners, drivers, and salesmen/women. Due to it being Sunday, some of the rigs we wanted to peek into were being packed up and people were leaving, so we weren't able to get inside views on most of them...bummer.

We did get to walk into a few of them, well up the stairs (due to the mud, the living areas were roped off). There were some really cool exteriors as well as interiors of these rigs. We fell in love with a couple of them, unfortunately these vehicles/campers are well out of our price range, ranging anywhere from $80,000- $500,000. But they sure are fun to look at!

A short list of what we saw:

(I'm sure I'm missing several others)
Unimog, PHX-FG with Fuso Chassis, XP Camper, Sports Mobile; with and without pop tops/pop-ups, Bengal Tiger 4x4, The Global Expedition vehicles: Patagonia, Turtle & Perky Mog, Maggiolina Grand Tour Pop up tents, Rev'it #95 adventure bike, BMW adventure bikes, Jeeps, Land Rovers, and of course a ton of self-made rigs. Most of the bigger campers are custom built for your needs and desires which I think is pretty cool, especially with the money you're spending on these suckers!

There was a driving course that was open that we thought would be cool to see the bigger rigs on, to see what they could do but we learned that the course was for Land Rover testing and Jeeps. We did a small tour of the course in our friends' van, that turned out to be interestingly amusing and funny... to us!

In talking to the owners and/or makers of the campers, a lot of them spend time in other countries than the U.S., I'm guessing that's why we never see them on the roads or camped anywhere. I know a couple of people who would like to see what rigs like these can do at some of the places we camp!! I'm sure they'd be just perfect. It was fun to be able to see these rigs closer, but for us, for now, Joon van Spirit does her job and gets us where we want to be at a much lower cost of...well everything, from tires to maintenance to fuel.

Here's to dreamin' dreams!

PEACE

Traveling...no wifi right now

2015-05-29T12:05:00.000-07:00

Hello hello hello!

Just wanted to post real quick and let everyone know we haven't fallen off the planet or anything, we've been traveling and the places we are moving around do not have any (or barely have) signal and our wifi hot spot is out of data for another week.

Right now, as I'm typing we are sitting outside of a McDonald's trying to get their wifi but going back and forth between McD's and Burger King. Very weak signal strength but maybe just enough to get this post out!

We did find warmer weather! I think we've had about 5-6 different Winters so far this year and we were sick of it so we decided to go somewhere new and fresh and warm...and boy did we get warm! haha

I will fill in more details when I have a great connection and can load up pics to tell the story but for now please know we are safe, getting a ton of exercise and putting new fresh things into our eyeballs!

PEACE

Babes with Bikes!!

2015-04-19T16:32:00.002-07:00

I received a request for information on our motorcycles, so here is the 411.
We bought the dirt bike, a 2003 Honda XR 400, from a friend of ours in the Bay area in 2013. The bike was a "loner" bike so when our friend would go riding, his friends could come with him if they didn't own a bike.

When the bike came into our possession, it did not have a street legal kit so Jamie put one on it. The street legal kit would make it legal to ride on main roads as well as the ORV/OHV areas. The state you live in, or where you register the bike, depends on what a street legal kit includes. The kit that Jamie put on the XR included; Hi-lo beam, rearview mirror, front and back turn signals, a tail light with a brake light, a horn, and a license plate light. Jamie also wanted a bigger gas tank, so we bought one off of Ebay for $29.00, it holds 4 gallons now instead of the standard 2.2 gallons.

The bike had no passenger pegs for me to be able to ride so we ordered some pegs called rescue pegs. Instead of the pegs being attached to the back for the passenger, they attach right onto the driver pegs, as an extension. This riding position was pretty comfortable for me due to my long legs, but it didn't last very long.

Last year while we were camped in Lake Havasu, we were pulled over at the light going to the laundromat. We knew we had nothing to worry about but this cop was dying to give us a ticket for something...anything! With every question he asked us, (which was about 10) we had answers and for everything he checked; the headlight, the horn, the turn signals, the license plate light, our licenses, our insurance, our plates...EVERYTHING came back clean and clear. The one thing he wouldn't let go of were those rescue pegs, so he got us with a "fix-it ticket", we would have to get the "right" pegs welded onto the bike within the next five days, then bring the bike back to the station to get it inspected and signed off or we would face a fine.

After we finished our laundry, we went to 2 different dirt bike shops to see if they had the pegs we needed...nope, they actually didn't have any parts for Honda's...weird! We drove back to camp, hopped online, ordered the pegs, which had to be next day delivery (which cost a fortune)! The next day we picked up our pegs at the post office and went to find the welder one of the shops told us about, we finally found the shop and had them weld on my new pegs...$50 for the weld!! I had just sold my guitar so it was kind of a push for the weld but, it still sucked!

After the weld, we drove back to the police station to have them inspect the bike and pegs. We found it pretty comical when the same cop, that gave us the ticket, came out to inspect the bike! We had a good laugh and rolled out after we were signed off. The pegs are nice, they fold back toward the bike when not in use but they are pretty high up, so now I feel like my knees are by my ears when we ride! Are you picturing that image!? haha

Now the bike is 100 % legal on any road we take it on!

Next, we have my scooter, "The Life Saver".
My scooter is a 2000 Honda Elite.

Since the Life Saver is an 80cc, it is considered a motorcycle so I had to get a motorcycle license to be able to ride it. I had never been on a bike as driver before, so I took a two day class with Safe Ride that cost $145, they went over basic safety and first time riding instruction, with a driving and written test at the end...and yes, I passed both of them with flying colors!

The top speed is about 45 mph with the both of us on it, with one person it may get up to 47-48 mph, if you're going downhill! It is able to go on most roads but cannot go on Interstates, which right now, is fine with me....I'm still getting used to 40 mph! Even though it's not really made for the dirt and gravel roads that we camp on, it's done a great job getting through the rough roads. Since the scooter has a low center of gravity we can fill a 7 gallon water jug and place it in the flat foot area to bring back to camp, without ever moving the van! It's also great for grocery shopping.
I really don't think there's much more to my Lil' scoot, other than we love our Lil' Life Saver!

Now, onto how we tow the bikes...
We have a motorcycle hitch that holds up to 600 lbs. connected to the van with a double hitch, so we can tow the bikes along with our trailer.

Jamie made the motorcycle hitch a little bigger/wider by attaching a piece of pressure treated plywood in the gap between the bumper of the van and the metal of the hitch.

As you can see in the pictures, the hitch has a chock to hold the front tire of the dirt bike. The hitch has a ramp which we use to get the dirt bike up and down, once the dirt bike is on the hitch Jamie moves the back tire over to the plywood area and straps it down enough to be able to maneuver the scooter onto the hitch.

Once the dirt bike is on, it's all about muscle...well, for me. The scooter sits on the ramp part of the hitch when in tow, so we have to take the ramp and screw it back down to the hitch, then he will "wheelie" the scooter onto the back tire and place the front tire on the hitch, we change places and I take the handlebars, he goes to the back and as I roll it forward he picks up the back and it rolls up to the front where we can strap it down. Definitely a two person job!

Over the past few months, we have noticed a bit of sagging so last month we took the hitch off of the van and reenforced it with a threaded steel rod. Now it sets perfectly straight and doesn't sag!

I hope that sheds a bit more light on how we tow the bikes along with our trailer. For those of you that don't know our van, we have a 1995 Chevy Astro van that is AWD, so that definitely helps. If you'd like to see more about our rig and what we've done to it over the past few years, you can go to the archives and there is a post called, We got a new van! posted on February 5, 2014, that describes everything in great detail.
If I missed anything you were wondering about, please comment below and let me know, I'll be happy to answer any questions you have.
Thank you for stopping by today, we hope to see you down the road!
Peaceful travels my friends.

PEACE

Learning is Fun!! Series: Food for Thought

2015-04-04T13:15:00.002-07:00

I've decided to get back to my Learning is Fun!! Series. I have received some questions about how we do certain things, as well as how some things are set up that people are curious about. I think we are so used to the way that we do everything that I forget that others would like to know about these things too, so Learning is Fun!!, is back!!
Today our Learning is Fun!! post will be about food! oooo aaahhh
I often get asked from other vandwellers as well as friends & family (not in the life)....
What do you eat? Do you actually cook or just eat easy-to-grab snacks? Do you have a fridge or cooler? What do you cook on? Do you ever eat? (People think I don't eat, but I LOVE food!!! Among many other questions.
The answer is actually pretty simple, but I guess it's harder for some people to wrap their heads around living within such a small space, so it doesn't make sense that we would have all of the items necessary to make whatever we want, whenever we want.
So let's get our learn on!

WHAT DO WE COOK ON/WITH:
We have two different cooking systems we use.
We have a Coleman grill that also has a burner, we usually use this outside due to how big it is and how cumbersome & messy it can be...although we have used it to grill hamburgers inside on a rainy/windy day (way back when)! When we set up our "kitchen" outside, which is mostly all of the time, except for Winter, we put this grill on a table with a (standard size) 20 lb. propane tank hooked up to a hose, which I usually try to keep in the shade or put a white towel around to keep out of the sun. It has two different piezo lighters, one for the burner one for the grill. I love it when we are able to set up our "kitchen" area because, to me, it makes cooking much easier. I can stand up, move around, I have more places for cutting, prepping and setting up...it just makes for a nicer experience for the cook.

Click Image to get this grill!

We also have a Coleman portable propane camp stove, that uses the small green propane tanks. We were gifted this at an RTR, which I didn't think we even needed at the time, and now am so thankful for having it. It's a blessing for cooking inside! We use this mostly inside when we don't have the outside kitchen set-up, it's perfect for the rainy, windy days and barely takes up any room. We set ours on a flat space on the floor of the van and can make just about anything we can make outside with the grill...it may take a little imagination but that's okay, it's like a brain game!

Click Image to Get One!

Oh, I almost forgot, when we first started out we used a small butane backpacking burner with small pots that fit inside each other. It is very handy and very small, but we always had to be very cautious due to how small the burner was and the handle likes to pop out of the pots, but good for hiking, picnics or other day trips.

Click Image to Purchase

For cookware, we carry a 10 inch non-stick pan with high sides and a lid, this is our go-to pan, we use this pan for everything. We still use the little backpacking pots, they are good for rice and veggies and have a small stock pot with lid, good for low country boils and spaghetti.
We carry our silverware, yes I said silverware, in a fold-able pouch that has inserts for each utensil, it rolls up and closes with Velcro...it's very handy! And for our other utensils, I have a small zip bag, about the size of a notebook that I have put a few things, we may need but don't use every day, such as an extra can opener, an apple cutter, whisk, tongs, steak knives, rubber spatula, plastic ware for gatherings, hard plastic straws, a knife sharpener, etc.

WHAT DO WE EAT?
Oh boy!
We have tried everything under the sun, it seems, when it comes to eating in and out of the van. We have tried the cheapest way, the healthiest way, a cheap and healthy way, the naughty way, the fat way, the all-around way, the organic way....you name it we've done it...I think.
The thing for us is, we don't want to spend a bunch of money (we're on a budget) but we don't want to get fat from buying so much processed food because that's what is cheap(er/est). We try to get what we want while still trying to be somewhat healthy and enjoy what we are eating as well.

MORNINGS
For a long, long while every morning for brekkie we would cut up potatoes and onions with seasonings sprinkled on-top like; garlic powder, pepper, chipotle, cajun, steak seasoning, etc. whatever we have to give it a little pep. We would sprinkle some cheese on-top and BAM we've got breakfast! But, that got old...we had to start switching some things up...spice it up a little. That's when we found Chorizo...whoa momma! That's some good stuff! We still have this menu item for brekkie but not every single morning, probably better that way anyhow! The great thing about potatoes and onions are, they are cheap and you can get a lot for very little.

Now for brekkie's we go between cereals like; Grape Nuts, Frosted Mini Wheats, Kellog's Fruit & Yogurt, & Fiber One, to spiced up potatoes & onions and egg concoctions that we make up. I also found a pretty healthy and super yummy breakfast item I have included at the bottom of this post. I will cook up some kind of meat that we have, ground beef, Italian sausage, chicken, chorizo, or link sausages then mix in onions, peppers, tomatoes, avocado, cheese, etc. then pour the egg mixture over that. I will mix Jamie up the whole egg and for myself I can only eat the whites, so I make two different pans full and serve them separately. We try to eat a bigger breakfast to keep us full longer, so we're not having 3 or more huge meals throughout the day. We also like to drink coffee, we don't make coffee every day but it is a nice comfort that we like to have. When we started the lifestyle in 2012, we didn't have solar panels so we decided to go with instant coffee, just add hot water. We drank it for a little bit but didn't like it very much so we stopped drinking coffee altogether. After we got our solar panels, we decided we missed our morning cafe' so we splurged and bought a "counter-top" coffee maker & grinder and went back to the way we like it! There are just some things that keep the quality of life and, for us, this was one of them!

DAYS

During the day we might snack on things like greek yogurt, cheez-its, fruit; bananas, apples, oranges, bowls of cereal, chips'n'dips; salsa or spinach artichoke dip...YUM! Anything that's around at the time, we are always changing our snacks so one week we might have yogurt with granola sprinkled on-top and the next week we might have queso dip and tortilla chips. I find keeping lunch meat on hand is always a good thing because you can take some meat, spinach, plain yogurt, an avocado, wrap it up in a tortilla and BAM, there's your snack (pictured below)! I also like having canned meats on hand; chicken, roast beef, or tuna, with these you can either eat them straight out of the can or you can mix in some seasonings, cheese or whatever you like and always wrap them in a tortilla. Granola bars or energy bars are good, but we discovered the ones with chocolate in them always melted.

NIGHTS

Our nightly meals vary just as much as anything else. For about the first year, we would buy boxes and boxes of Hamburger Helper, they keep well, they're cheap ($1.50 a box) and you can eat them any time during the day. We then started buying more noodles to mix in with the helpers to make them go a little further. We realized these are not the healthiest option so we tried to steer away from them for a little while, not eating them for every dinner! "Back in the day" (2012) we only had a pantry and a cooler. A cooler is a nice thing to have but it was a learning experience every day...I'll get into the cooler in a bit, with a cooler we could keep fresh meat on hand but would have to eat it pretty quick so the ice water wouldn't spread the meat juice over everything else! Yummy!!! That's where I go back to the canned meats! Our dinners these days can be anything from pork chops, steaks, Velveeta, hamburgers, fresh or canned veggies mixed in, my awesome crispy chicken salad (pictured below), burritos, made-up meals consisting of meat, noodles and sauce (our own hamburger helper), hamburgers with mashed potatoes, spaghetti with Italian sausage or bowls of cereal! Pretty much anything you can eat at a restaurant or in your home, whether it be stationary or on wheels, we can eat in our van.

BEVERAGES
We like a variety of liquids on hand. We carry a ton of fresh drinking water, usually at least 21-23 gallons, with water we can drink it naturally or add a water enhancer that comes in a dozen different flavors, we get Mio but Powerade, Kool-aid and a few other companies have started making them. There are a few different Mio's that we like to buy; vitamins for energy, caffeinated, or just a regular flavor enhancer. They are nice to have to spice up your water and the bottles are tiny, so you can stick them in a backpack for a hike or bike ride. We also carry bags of tea like iced tea and other flavored teas, hot chocolate, and iced coffee. And, I already talked about our coffee situation. We also really like having nice cold sodas on hand, there's nothing like a nice cold soda on a hot day with chips and dip and good music!!! On occasion we might get a box of wine, yes...a box of wine...not too shabby of a taste, it goes much further, it's less expensive, NO glass and it fits perfectly in the fridge or a few beers. Say it with me... quality of life!

KEEPING IT FRESH
About that cooler.... we started out with a 5 day cooler. It was great, it fit perfectly in the spot we made for a fridge but couldn't afford at the time and it said on the label it was a 5 day cooler! Well, we put it to the test for sure! We started out using regular crushed ice you buy at any grocery store, it was around $2.75 -$3.50 for an 8-10 lb. bag of ice, we would have to buy 2 or 3 of them to make sure we had enough for all of the food we were going to put in it. The 5 day cooler, ended up being more of a 3 day cooler, with everything and I do mean everything (even sealed bags) soaked with ice water...the cheese, the meat, the lettuce, the creamer, whatever it was, if it was in there it had water inside of it. We got turned onto blocked ice...we thought we had a chance! Our 5 day cooler turned into about a 6 day cooler but the blocks of ice were so big, you could barely put anything in the cooler that needed to be in there! And we still ended up with the same problem of watered down everything. After we put solar on the van, we saw a plug-in cooler/fridge at Walmart and decided to give it a try...we gave our 5 day cooler to a homeless guy in the parking lot! We went back to our camp 55 miles away from town and set up the fridge...it didn't work, after 2 days we went back to town and got our money back for it and bought a much bigger 7 day cooler! From there on, we only bought block ice and I really tried to keep the water out of all of our food....it just didn't happen that way. Finally one day we had an ah-ha moment after a friend gave us a "cooler shelf", a little box that hangs on the top of the inside of the cooler to put meats and cheeses and whatever in it so it doesn't get into the ice!!!!! That was a game changer for our food, we stopped throwing money away from food going bad, getting water in it...it was awesome! 6 months of working later (due to a broken tooth), we had enough money to buy an actual fridge and get rid of the cooler altogether. We bought a Dometic CF-35, the gross capacity on it is 33 qt., it can be used as a 12 volt or a 110 and has a Danfoss compressor. We can change the temperature on it so it can be used as a refrigerator or a freezer but, for now, we use it as a fridge only. We no longer have to buy ice (we can now use the ice money to buy more food), no longer have to buy just enough food to last through the ice, worry about water getting into our food or any of that old nonsense. Although the Dometic was an expensive item, it was definitely the right thing, for us. It has been so nice to not worry about when the ice is going to melt or if the food is getting ruined, the only thing we "worry" about now is keeping it full of yummy things! One more time... quality of life!

KEEPING IT IN THE CLOSET
For those of you that have not seen the inside of Joon, we do have a pantry. It is a bi-level little closet for our food. Inside we keep canned items of veggies, meats, soups, chili, etc., dressings (if they are stored in a low, cool place they don't have to be refrigerated, eggs as well) all of our seasonings, noodles...pretty much anything that doesn't have to be refrigerated goes in the pantry. The pantry has a lock on the outside of it, so the dogs don't sneak into it at night....just kidding...the lock comes in handy on the crazy roads we travel on, we go up hills, we go down hills, we turn corners and when we turn a corner everything stays where it belongs because of that lock...it's a sanity saver!

I think I touched on pretty much everything. From time to time we may go out and get a $5 Lil' Caesars pizza or a hamburger from Burger King but we're usually out in the wild eating just as good if not better than what those places can cook up. All you need is a little bit of imagination. For example, before we got the fridge it was hard to keep milk in the cooler it would mostly always go to waste, so we would buy dry milk (just add water) and make just enough to put in a Gatorade bottle, put the bottle in the cooler to cool it down...the milk never went to waste and I'd always have a little bit on hand to cook with! Voila, imagination!!!
There are times when I miss having an oven because I love to bake, but I have come up with and have found creative ways to make some fun things using the pan or the grill and aluminum foil! Aluminum foil can be a campers best friend. Cut up some apples or peaches, add a little bit of butter and cinnamon, pocket it up in aluminum foil, place on grill for about 6-8 minutes or until golden brown and you've got yourself a nice sweet dessert! I know a few people that carry solar ovens so they can bake all of their goodies but we just don't have the room for a solar oven, while totally awesome, it's just too big for our rig.
I hope I'm not leaving anything out, I know everyone has their own little ways to do the necessary things or the things they love, these are all (I think) of ours. If you have any creatively awesome ideas for cooking, baking, eating, cooling or "keeping" in a rig that could be helpful to us or anyone else, please do leave a comment. We love to see how other people do things and if it can help others as well, then bring it!!
Thanks for tuning in for this series of Learning is Fun!!
See you next time!

PEACE

***Don't forget this healthy breakfast idea***

Whole Wheat English Muffin

Low-fat cheese

Turkey bacon

Tomato slices

Cook the Turkey bacon until done

Cut English muffin in half

Place Tomato slices on muffin, top with cheese, top with Turkey bacon

Cook in Pan with lid for 5 minutes or until cheese is melted

Enjoy!

Some things were left out...

2015-03-27T19:42:00.002-07:00

So here we are (at blogspot)....again! Funny how things come full circle after a few years!

Welcome back my dedicated readers and hopefully some new ones too, it's nice to see you again. I hope this site is easier for you to use, to load and subscribe to. I will be working on the site for a few weeks to make it "mine" as much as I can, so if you see anything missing or not loading correctly, either on your phones or computers, please let me know.

Thank you!

As I'm sitting here writing this I'm going through my head on all of the things I can write about, that I haven't been writing about and there's just so much, too much but a few things are worth mentioning and writing about so here are a few things y'all have missed out on....

As most of you know we were in NE Georgia for about 8 months, for many things. Jamie got a Summer job doing manual labor on a farm, which farm in this instance really means maintaining the grounds of a lot of land that a semi-billionaire owns with trees, grass, ponds, horses, donkeys, stables, among much much more as well as 3 separate living quarters throughout the property, it was a beautiful piece of property but it actually cost us more to live there and work, than we were expecting and it was a "have to" situation, so we're happy it's over!

Instead of leaving straight from Georgia and heading West, we had planned on making a fun little detour to Florida to see our daughter Brittney and spend time with some other family.

On our way out of Georgia, we stopped by the Georgia Guide Stones. I think I'm going to have to do a post just for the Guide Stones, they are really neat and IMO I do not think they are evil!

We spent the first night in Florida, which was Halloween, with my mom...that was a hoot and SO good to see her!

We spent the entire month of November with our lil Hoot in Central Florida, spending some awesome quality family time together and...planning her wedding!!!! It was awesome to be able to help her plan, make our own decorations, make sure everything added up and my mom and I were also able to go dress shopping with her. She got the most amazing dress and the alterations happened right on time, it fit her perfectly! She and hubby got married at the very end of November, daddy got to walk her down the aisle and she was absolutely stunning!!

As we were there until the end of November, we were able to spend Thanksgiving together as a family, (mom and sister included) and put up moms' Christmas tree, which took about 10 minutes!

It was so great to spend time together.

The East Coast and the West Coast are pretty far away from one another and while there are always airplanes and long, long road trips to be able to see each other, there's nothing like smashing it all into one month! haha

It all had to come to an end at some point and while Brittney and new hubby were enjoying their time together somewhere reclusive, we packed up the last of what we hadn't the night before and began our road trip back to where we belong... West!

Our time to start our lives again was upon us and we were excited as well as having to learn all over again. We had to get the basics back like: living in the van again, cooking, packing or puzzle piecing, learning to take the smell of the toity, finding all of our stuff because we put it somewhere "safe", what we need and what we want, not being able to stand up straight, putting the bed up, putting the bed down, showering and all the other fun stuff that comes with the life. All of that comes and goes. We re-upped on the basics and are living like Georgia never happened...it's there and it will stay there!

I think that's enough for this post. It's been fun reminiscing, even though it happened just a few months ago, it seems like years...but I hope it gets shorter in between visits with our lil hoot and my mom.

See you soon

PEACE

F is for Fun with Friends in February!!

2015-03-01T09:39:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks, we have been enjoying our “Winter weather” way too much! Some days, well….most days, we say to each other that we feel like we are living on an entirely different planet than the rest of the U.S. We have been quite lucky to have only had one full week of winter weather, which to us is the temperature dropping to the low 30’s at night and staying in the low 50’s during the day...brrrrr. I guess that’s why we spend most of our winters in the Southwest! We just can’t beat laying out in our bathing suits while catching some rays. A couple of weeks ago we had to put up our awning because it was just too hot from the sun shining on the rocks all day and radiating up to the van. Whoa is us, right!?

We have also been enjoying camping with our friends, which we usually only do around RTR time, but this year a few close friends came to visit and it’s been a lot of fun having different folks around.

We watched the Superbowl in style with tons of food, beverage & a surprise of sparklers at the end of the game!

We’ve been hiking up and down the mountains around us. The boys, er...men, go for long bike rides, we do morning workouts together,

we have fun brekkies together as a group,

have had 2 very successful movie nights

and even “The Tiki Bar guy” brought the tiki bar up to our hill!

I think we’ve had more excitement in the past month than some people have all year and it’s only the beginning of March!

PEACE

An Idea Comes to Life...Thank you for your Support!!

2015-02-05T09:19:00.000-07:00

An idea, a friend of ours had, has actually come to fruition. I had actually thought of this last year but didn't think I was "good enough" so never went ahead with it, nor even thought much more about it.

This week....that has changed.

We were tossing the idea around again and my (amazing) hubby says to me, "Okay just toss the idea that you're not good enough to the side and just go with it, if nothing happens, then we're not out anything (really)."

So, I did it.

I bet you're wondering what this is all about...?

I started my own Etsy shop!!!

For me, this is a MAJOR thing. To put myself (and my ego) on display, has always been very hard because I've never thought I was creative and I do not like rejection or the thought that someone may not like what I've spent a lot of time on...gasp!

BUT, I have done it. I did it. Something hard, something creative, something someone may not like....or may love!

I am proud of myself and I guess that's all that really matters.

Plus, I've already had two sales!! TWO!

I have made an Etsy button at the top if you'd like to check it out, just click the link there or you can click the link here:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/DesertWrapper

I also have a clickable button on the right side of this post that says, My Etsy

I am super stoked about this and would love for you and anyone else (tell your friends) to stop by, look around and maybe even make a purchase!

I will be adding new things all the time, so please place it in your favorites and come back often to check on new items. EVERYTHING is a one of a kind and handmade with love & imagination.

In this life everything helps, so I truly thank you and I appreciate all of your support.

PEACE

'Tis Many Tramps Among Us

2015-01-30T08:04:00.000-07:00

Hello 2015!

We have had quite a good start to the new year, and we are hoping you have too!

I can't believe that January is almost over, although it seems to have lasted quite a while. Sometimes I can't believe how many memories just one month brings...and to think we get 12 of them, how cool is that!

Over the past two weeks, we have met some really great people, as well as getting to see some old friends whom we've made new memories with. This time of year always brings a sense of "home" as we gather in the desert, around camp fires, telling stories, having coffee & brekkie together, building things materially as well as emotionally, and all the while, hearing music & laughter echo through the washes. It's an amazing time for us dwellers and those that are just starting out or just have the itch.

For our little corner, most of the afternoons of the first week were spent working on our dirt bike, well...more like working on getting the motor OUT of the dirt bike! The bike stopped running and with a ton of research and forum talk, it was decided that we needed to have work done on the piston and head. So our "RTR Army of Men" got the motor out and shipping boxes built for send off. Everyone was so helpful and I think the boys even had a little bit of fun doing it! Boys and their toys!!

Throughout the gathering, there were morning "classes" on various things such as; solar, tune-ups for your vehicle, boondocking, stealth camping, Vision & Dental services in Mexico, gadgets, cooking & work-camping. The afternoons & evenings included everything from jam sessions, hula-hooping, wire wrapping, "family" dinners, walks, drinks and firepits. For some, there was much more and for others, much less but all in all we are quite the festive bunch!!

I have to agree with Bob that this was the best RTR yet. We networked much more this year, and like I said at the beginning, met an array of amazing people. At this time, we are all starting to move on in different directions; some going home, some going to work-camp, some going to Mexico, many to their Winter destinations. We may all be going to different places but we all hold the memory of good food, awesome company, a great gathering and friendships that will last a lifetime.

Thank you for being part of it for us and we hope to see you next year, down the road or anywhere else in between.

PEACE

Moving into 2015

2014-12-21T08:54:00.000-07:00

Hey ya'll....

Just wanted everyone to know we're still kicking and doing good. We'll be coming back at ya in 2015 better than ever...or at least I'm gonna try...I really am!

I hope all of you have the happiest of all holidays and are able to spend them with friends and family or at the bar, if that's how you roll....we're all unique here!

Sending love, peace and happiness to all of you and yours this season.

See you next year

PEACE

The Days Dwindle Down

2014-10-19T02:53:00.000-07:00

The weather is changing. We are wearing more jeans, boots and jackets. The leaves are turning beautiful colors and falling off the trees. It's definitely the season of change and change is exactly what we need!

Our time is coming to a close here in North Georgia, we've got about 2 weeks left and we'll be back on the road, living our lives again.

In the past month, we have gone through our stuff that sat in a moldy 'grave' for the past two years, sold some of it, thrifted the stuff that didn't sell and threw away the rest.

These next two weeks are all about buttoning up; putting furniture back (due to renting a fully furnished place), making sure everything fits where we are expecting it to and preparing ourselves for a life back on the road.

This time around we are doing things a little differently and we are both pretty excited about the change. While talking to each other, a few months back about what our plans were for getting back on the road, we both were getting major heartburn over the stuff inside of the van aka our living space. I think for two peeps & two pups we do pretty well with a small area but we are always shuffling tons of stuff around at different parts of the day to make for more room. The things we don't have on the inside of the van usually sit up in the cargo basket on-top, making it very of difficult to get to and it's actually just a really big pain in the butt! When we park, we would put everything from the "living room" into the driver seat and down in the pedal area, making it about a half hour of puzzle building with the toilet paper going here and these books going there, etc. It became a very big and daunting process and needed some rethinking. We would, of course, love to have a bigger rig to stand up in and be able to move around more easily, but right now the van is what we have, so we tossed around ideas to make the van more liveable for all of us. We finally came to a decision of getting a trailer, nothing huge or big, but enough to take the stuff off the top and out of the living space of the van. We talked about it for a few days before going through with it and we are both totally stoked about it. When we received it, Jamie built it out and then added some things to make it more suitable for our travel needs; putting pressure treated plywood down and some I-hooks for straps. It's a beaut!!

The measurements are 40 in. x 48 in. and it can carry about 1,200 lbs. We also bought a double hitch since we have the bikes too.

It's going to be interesting to see everything put together. We now have the van, the trailer, two bicycles, one dirt bike, one scooter and a partridge in a pear tree! haha

We bought a cute lil' scooter, an 80cc Honda Elite, for me. I will be taking a two day motorcycle class so I can get a motorcycle endorsement on my license... That in itself should be interesting since I've only 'driven' a bicycle!! I may have to get a little basket on the back so Chili Moon can ride in style! haha

We will be making a small detour, to Florida, to spend some time with family & friends before heading back West, but we are totally ready to get back to the life we live so well on the road.

Great things are happening and before we know it, this whole stix 'n' bricks in North Georgia thing will just be a blur...

[caption id="attachment_5647" align="aligncenter" width="551"] ...[/caption]

Crazy the things life throws at ya!

PEACE

Rent...schment!

2014-09-02T07:44:00.000-07:00

I just had to log on today to let everyone know....

we paid our last months rent today!

We will still be here for another two months, but rent is done being paid and now it's time to save, save, save!!!

We are very excited to be ending this leg of our journey very soon and starting a new one.

This time around we will have NOTHING in storage, it will ALL be with us....something we should have done two years ago, but you live and you learn. At least we were able to go through everything and really see what we need, what we don't, what we've missed, what wasn't missed at all (haha) and now we have a ton of stuff to sell, to stack up more gas/food savings.

So here we go....prep & purge time.

Woot woot!!

PEACE

It's that time again! Time to Celebrate!!

2014-07-26T03:41:00.000-07:00

Been "home" a week already. Now the celebration starts here.

July is our month; to celebrate, have fun, really let loose, get jiggy with it, love each other, laugh together to relive moments and make new ones...it's a great month for us!

Birthdays galore & a couple of Anniversaries.

We start out with our "1st date anniversary" on the 4th, this year we celebrate 9 years! The dogs birthdays are on the 7th (easier to celebrate on one day for them!) Jamies' birthday is on the 11th, our wedding anniversary on the 14th, my birthday is the 25th and lil hoot is the 28th!

Lots of celebrations! I call it Christmas in July (especially my birthday)!

Take a walk through some old memories and new moments with us...

Happy 5th birthday to our Naner Nut

Happy 5th, 6th or 7th Birthday to Chili Moon...??

And a Happy Birthday to yours truly!

With our numbers in alignment with this year of 7, we believe we are already off to a great start of OUR new year.

We wish we could be with our lil hoot as she starts to celebrate her 22nd year on this Earth, but we know she knows we love her and are always with her in spirit. Hoooooot!

Here's to a great year not just to us but to all of you. Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary, Happy....whatever!

Make it great and memorable. Here's to many more years of having an awesome life together and on this Earth.

Much love to all of you, from us to you!

PEACE

Back to Where we Started from

2014-07-22T09:53:00.000-07:00

Shortest trip ever...or what!?

Yep, we're home from our excursion to Florida to see 'the kids'....ahhhh what a trip, always good to see our lil Hoot and JP!

Wouldn't ya know that as soon as we exited the boat yesterday, the sky opened up one hella storm. It rained most of the night into the next morning, stopped for a little bit then as soon as we left their house, boom...starts raining again. Not the time for rain....we're on our way to drive up the coast, see the ocean, feel the sunshine...

You can see in the picture above, the humungoid line to get out of New Smyrna Beach due to the storm. It started coming down so hard that we pulled into a Burger King to take a break and it just wouldn't let up, so we sat for a little while longer and decided to just get in and drive anyway....rain, drizzle or storm.

We mushed on to good ole Flagler Avenue, even though the lightning and thunder were very close together and just about right over head, people were still coming from and going out to surf. Ahhh, Florida storms...best time to surf!

We had on and off rains from New Smyrna to Daytona...expected. All I wanted was to be able to get out, walk the boardwalk along beach side and maybe buy a cool shirt or something....even if that meant no sunshine, at all. We arrived in Daytona, looked for parking (it's all meter or prepaid parking now), found one of the last spots in this lot, pretty close to the beginning of the boardwalk and were set for 4 hours for $1.25 per hour or $10 for the day.

We walked the World's Most Famous Beach Boardwalk, for me this boardwalk is a very very good part of all my growing up years, adolescent through early 20's... this was my "backyard" pretty much, so it's always fun to walk down memory lane. I like to see what's new, what they've taken down, what they've fixed up, etc.

I noticed the Sky Way is gone; pretty much a "ski lift ride" that went out to the end of the boardwalk, around the restaurant and back to where you started. This was always such a cool experience as a kid, due to "flying" over the ocean like a bird! I know that the hurricanes have been taking down the boardwalk little by little for years and I think the Sky Way had just about had it, so they finally took it all down. (sad face)

They have also added a couple of rides to the amusement park, fun for the kids...when it's not raining, lightning or thundering, they close that all down at the tiniest inkling of rain!

We were happy that it stopped raining enough for us to be able to walk around for a quick minute. We both love love love the Ocean so it was important, to us, to at least walk, hand in hand, alongside it while we were here...we don't get the Ocean where we're staying right now (just a creek)!

We did our loop back to the van and on the way to Flagler we go. For those of you who haven't been on the East Coast of Florida, it's pretty much a beach side drive up the entire coast. We started at New Smyrna, went up to Daytona, then onto Ormond and Flagler Beaches and then St. Augustine.

Our next stop was The Waffle Cone (used to be The Sweet Shoppe) in Flagler!

We arrived at The Waffle Cone and were so excited to get our chocolate shakes, we even told the girl scooping for us...I think she thought we had a couple nuts/screws loose! haha Anyway ya slice it, they ARE the best place in Flagler for shakes, cones, what-have-ya- in the ice cream department. As soon as we got our shakes it had started raining again, so we ducked under an umbrella outside to get our "suck" on before darting back to the van.

We puddle jump the entire time back to the van and....vamonos, we're on our way North once again!

Next destination?

Our all-time favorite...St. Augustine!!!

We got a great parking spot at 'the fort' or Castillo de San Marcos and walked "our walk": down to St. George's street, down to the Lightner Museum or Flagler College, back down on Main street, to the Fort then......food!

[caption id="attachment_5589" align="aligncenter" width="446"] Flagler College[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5590" align="aligncenter" width="417"] Lightner Museum[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5591" align="aligncenter" width="424"] Oldest Wood School House in USA[/caption]

We found a sweet little spot to eat dinner and have a beer, even looking right out onto Joon Van, called No Name Bar & Grill. It was perfect. Cheap beer & food prices, good food, a view of The Fort (& Joon), live music and a beautiful night to spend with my babaa'! What more can you ask for?

[caption id="attachment_5593" align="aligncenter" width="421"] Our view[/caption]

After filling up our bellies and being fully entertained, we made our way back to Joon van where we grabbed the pups for a sunset walk and some reenactment photos.

[caption id="attachment_5597" align="aligncenter" width="358"] Nanaaaaaaa![/caption]

Our trip home was just one big long drive, but we're very blessed that we were able to spend good quality time with Brittney & JP, see the Ocean, drive up the coast and even have the pups set foot in St. Auggie grass!

It was a very short but sweet trip. Just one more thing to get our mouths salivating for the next road trip....

pant...pant...pant

'til next time

[caption id="attachment_5592" align="aligncenter" width="401"] Happy Anniversary to Us![/caption]

PEACE

Boats. Beers. Babes. Bucks. Bazinga!

2014-07-19T22:28:00.000-07:00

Last night as we lay howling with the dogs, we were trying to decide what to do with our one full day together, on this short weekend trek to Florida.

We tossed around ideas of going to the beach, the shooting range, the dog beach or park, walking around downtown or just hanging out around the hoots' nest. Then the spark of a marvelous idea came to JP and BAM! 20 minutes later we had reservations on the Victory Casino Cruise ($10 per person to board boat)!! What a great idea, indeed!

We had the morning to get ready at our own pace, have a great breakfast filled with sausage, eggs, coffee and toast and be on our way by 9:30 a.m. The drive to get to port is about an hour and a half, the boat leaves at 11:00, so we had plenty of time to get there...as well as plenty of time for "sillies"!!

The place to board the boat is called Cape Canaveral and is also the place where all of the major cruise lines leave out of Florida, it was pretty cool seeing those humungous boats!!

Once we parked, we pretty much walked in, checked in, then off to the boat & potties we went!

The boat is 6 floors of fun: 1 floor with a restaurant, 3 floors of gaming, 1 floor is gaming with a night club and the very top is a rooftop bar with live music, called The Dolphin Bar. We walked in hit the potty, then went to the very top deck to set sail. It was pretty warm...imagine sitting in the sun of sunny Florida, with tight skinny jeans on and make-up! haha Before I knew it I was sweating and sitting in the shade and we hadn't even taken off yet!

Once we set off into the sea for the day, we all headed inside for some game time and much needed A/C! JP started with Roulette and was getting lucky on every number, Jamie started with Black Jack and Brittney and I headed to the penny slots! We played this game, that game, moved around for a little while and then met back up with the boys for lunch.

We had a great lunch on the bottom floor, right at sea level...you can pretty much feel every movement down there (good thing none of us are the seasick type!) We watched a hot dog eating contest while waiting for lunch, not the greatest of ideas but that's what was on the tube. Lunch was pretty good, Jamie & I split quesadillas and a french dip type sammie, then headed back out to game it up!

After lunch Brittney & I decided to head back to the 1 cent slots and moved around machines until the Betty Boop game, Brittney wanted to play all day, finally opened up. We popped over there and played for quite a while...Betty Boop was good to Miss B, but we moved on to an even better set of machines! We sat down at these two machines that were just regular old timey slot machines, they were 2 cents a play and within 10 pulls I went from $20 to $108! I'm NOT a gambler so I played a couple more pulls then cashed out at $84.36! I was a happy camper due to getting back the money that I played, some of what Brittney played and walking out in the black! Needless to say, I didn't play anymore for the day!

We headed upstairs to the "night club" where there were games, air conditioning and less smoke. Since I wasn't playing, I was people watching and saw there was one solo lady dancing on the dance floor, she seemed to be having a grand ole time and I told Brittney, "I'm going to have to get in on that! Watch my purse...." The lady, Yvette, and I danced and had the whole place clapping along, as well as a whole bunch of hootin' & hollerin'! It was great fun, we even exchanged information...what a great gal!

The day was coming down to a dwindle on the gaming for us gals, so we just kept going up floors until we hit The Dolphin Bar. We enjoyed a nice drink together making sure everyone on deck was okay & having fun, especially this guy....

I walked over with a glass of ice water and woke him up, asked him if he was okay...he slurred, "I'm good, just getting some sun." haha Okay dude, have fun with that! Can't say I didn't try.

We sat up there for about 45 minutes before the boys joined us for the trip back to shore and what a trip back to shore it was!!

I can honestly say that I think we were the ships' best entertainment of the year, shit probably the entire existence of the cruise line! You get me, a day of beers, my family & live music together and well, everyone is in for a treat! Brittney & I started dancing around our table for a few songs, with even a gal giving me a dollar bill! (Holla)

[caption id="attachment_5565" align="aligncenter" width="363"] ...[/caption]

Then, as if I didn't feel American enough on this 4th of July/Birthday/Anniversary/Family time trip, they started playing the Electric Slide......ohhhh yeah baby! I got up there, started dancing and no one wanted to do it with me...Brittney didn't even know how to do it! I said, "I'll teach you, I'll teach everyone! C'mon everybody!" So we start dancing and I grab a couple of people, some people get up on their own and before you knew it, we had a deck full of dancers doing the Electric Slide! Yesssssssss!!!!

[caption id="attachment_5572" align="aligncenter" width="371"] now back...[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5573" align="aligncenter" width="324"] now turn...[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5571" align="aligncenter" width="311"] Thank you for dancing![/caption]

Everyone had a great time on the ship, us and the people watching us! (You're welcome people for giving you a story worth telling about your trip! haha)

I think we were all pooped on the way home, but we made it in the pouring rain back to the house and 4 very excited dogs. Just glad it didn't rain on the ship and cancel our roof-top dance party!

Hope your weekend is as much fun as this and if not....make it that fun!

PEACE

Off to Florida we go...

2014-07-19T03:12:00.000-07:00

We took off for the weekend to go visit our lil' hoot (our daughter, Brittney). Her & her boyfriend just bought a house in Central Florida as well as bringing home the newest addition to their family... a gorgeous Doberman Pinscher named Dash.

We just had to make a trek to go visit them and enjoy all of these firsts with them, plus it was nice to get on the road again, even if it was just for a short weekend trip.

We wanted to leave the house no later than 7 on Friday morning and ended up leaving the gas station at 6:35 a.m., so we were happy about that. It's about a 9-9.5 hour drive, and we were sure driving through Atlanta on the 4th of July would probably put us in some traffic. The great part? We were wrong about the traffic AND Atlanta and never hit either one! woo hoo...Nothing worse than driving through a major city on a holiday!

The drive, for the most part, was nice & easy. During the last two hours of our drive, we endured some pretty heavy rains accompanied by BIG thunder & lightning storms. We finally arrived at a restaurant-bar I used to work at, at around 5:15 p.m., to meet our lil' Owlings for dinner & drinks. It was so great seeing them!

At Jax, we had some wings, beer, hugs and great conversation. Daddy got to meet B's boyfriend for the first time and they hit it off, talking up a storm about technology, sports and technology!! (Did I say technology?) Brittney & I talked about our usual stuff, giggling and loving just being together again!

After dinner we headed to their new house. It's in a quiet, cute neighborhood centrally located to their town and Orlando...not too shabby!

We went out back to play with the dogs, all 4 of them, Savannah & Chili and their two Roscoe (Dachshund) and the newest baby of the family Dash (Dobie). The initial playtime was interesting because Dash is full of spunk and tons of energy and Chili is so small and kept getting stepped on, Savannah has to play referee and Roscoe just wants to play with everyone! It was funny to watch and their backyard is HUGE so it made it a little more enjoyable to run around, throw balls and just be goofy! They were all running around like crazy dogs so the only actual picture I could get was of Roscoe, he is thee sweetest boy ever!

We settled in for the night a couple of hours later, after deciding that tomorrow we will go on a Casino Cruise. JP & Brittney had done it once before and said it was a full day of fun...so heck, why not!

It's good to be with our girl again and we are so proud of how her family is growing as she becomes more of a young woman. We just love JP, the dogs, the house, everything that they have worked hard for, they seem very very happy and I think, as parents, that's all we really want for our babies!

Off to the snoozer ...

PEACE

Joon van Spirit to Creek Chalet

2014-06-20T02:30:00.000-07:00

Let's see, where do I begin?

Being back in Georgia has been a whirlwind of...well, everything! We found a place to live, while we're here for the Summer and maybe into Winter (fingers crossed we won't have to endure a Winter here).

[caption id="attachment_5501" align="aligncenter" width="569"] Summer Cottage[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5502" align="aligncenter" width="579"] Inside[/caption]

When we first arrived our friends were welcoming with more than open arms, offering us the upstairs part of their house to stay in while we got settled. We accepted the offer but it only lasted for about 15 minutes the first night we went to sleep. They have many cats, which I'm allergic to, and the cats use the upstairs as their play/sleeping lair...as soon as I laid down I couldn't breathe, was itching & scratching and my eyes started swelling up. I was going to try to get through it (didn't want to be a bad house guest the first night) and at that point Tiger, their biggest and most awesome cat, jumped from the floor onto my chest, I jumped up and said, "I'll be in the van!" Jamie followed! haha Hey, I tried!

They have a lot of land so we tucked in behind one of their barns and slept in the van for the remainder of our stay, a few weeks, even getting to finally 'endure' a huge thunder and lightning storm in the van! They were so funny, always asking if we were okay out there, the wife/mom Karen, was soooo worried about us. I kept trying to explain that we like it in the van, this has been our home for 2 years and we're absolutely perfect out there! Plus, it was almost like we were still out "in the wild" due to the land around them and all the animals they have; 6 dogs, several cats, 5 birds, 2 Roosters, 12 Hens/Chickens, 3 horses and 2 donkeys! Our girls were right at home with friends to chase and play with, I started calling their house the Park! haha

[caption id="attachment_5506" align="aligncenter" width="580"] Their front "yard"[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5507" align="aligncenter" width="580"] Handsome Major[/caption]

Playing with dogs - Video Dailymotion.

Being back in a house full-time has been a HUGE change and there's a lot to get used to again. The things I'm diggin' the most right now is hot running water for dishes and showers, although I still can't (or don't want to) shower every single day. My skin and hair just can't take it, the water here is soft and for the first few weeks I couldn't get my shower routine right! haha Sounds a little weird, but with the water (in this house) being soft it makes you feel like you haven't cleaned anything after the shower is over, feeling like you need another shower, almost like you just showered in oil. So, I started experimenting with every other day, barely any conditioner, no conditioner, this shampoo or that shampoo. I think I finally have it down!

Let's see, what other things are different....we can stand up and stretch in the morning, instead of having to wait to get out of the van to do it. We have a place for everything, the silverware is ALWAYS in the drawer! This was one of our obstacles in the van..."Where's the silverware...grrrrr", haha A flushing toilet that doesn't stink up the whole house has been nice and not having to find a place to dump the toilet is also nice. We have "unlimited" internet, which is totally fun because we can watch all the Youtube videos & Netflix we want as well as Pandora or IHeartradio and I can finally download all my pictures and videos to the sites I use for back-up. I think once we get back "into the wild" that will, again, be the biggest thing we'll have to get used to...only 20g of data instead of 250, haha Oh well, a little give and take I guess, can't be data whores forever! And we have an oven and stove, no more teetering our cooker on the floor of the van! Cooking is not a strong suit of mine and every time I attempted to cook inside the van our meal ended up on the floor...yuck and no fun to clean up!

I guess there are a lot of differences from sticks 'n' bricks to the van life. There are a ton of things we do miss about living in the van and a ton of things we will miss about living in a house. For instance, right now we have 4 bird feeders hanging; 2 Hummingbird feeders and 2 seed feeders with 2 Impatiens flower plants hanging and with all the windows we have, it feels like we are living inside of a botanical garden. The birds are always flitting about, playing and fighting over the food and always always singing...I LOVE that and it's so fun to watch them.

[caption id="attachment_5509" align="aligncenter" width="580"] My Sanctuary[/caption]

We even have a Cardinal, we named Louie, that sits on the side mirror of the van all day looking at his reflection. You can hear him at all times of the day flying into the side of the van!!?? I don't know what he thinks he's going to accomplish by doing that but he does it every single day! When I hung the feeders he wouldn't come to them, it took him about a full month to notice they were up. Once he found the feeders, he would feed then he'd fly into the window pane! I guess he really likes his reflection! He's a very 'special' bird, haha So we rigged up a space for him to look at himself all day, without hurting himself!

[caption id="attachment_5511" align="aligncenter" width="580"] Louie's Mirror[/caption]

This way he can sit on the feeder and see himself, as well as fly to the shelf, eat and reflect...literally! Even though I clean the mirror every couple of days, you can see where he pecks at it.

[caption id="attachment_5510" align="aligncenter" width="580"] Silly Louie![/caption]

He is a very silly bird and keeps us amused while sitting at the computer. So far, the birds that visit the most often are; Of course the Cardinal (that's Louie), Tufted Titmouse (yes it's a bird and yes I said Tit! When I see them I say, "Hello my lil titties!) White-breasted Nuthatch, Carolina Chickadees and I believe our Hummers are either Calliope or Rufous Hummingbirds, they're harder to specify because they're so freakin' fast!

We will enjoy the time that is spent here, in this cute little cottage with our own private creek and all 'our' birds but we do talk about "the road" almost every single day. It is something that is within us, in our blood, in our spirit. The road, the wild, the life makes us feel alive and free and like we have a life worth living. Hopefully my medical stuff won't keep us here any longer than needed and we can get on with it sooner rather than later but we will just have to see which way the wind will blow us when that time comes.

I wish you all a peaceful, fulfilling weekend with maybe a little bit of travel and adventure!

[caption id="attachment_5516" align="aligncenter" width="400"] PEACE[/caption]

Georgia on our Minds

2014-06-01T02:32:00.000-07:00

Hello, hello, hello everybody!!

Well, as you could imagine a lot has happened since the last time I posted...right when I think I'm going to get all over this blog, it seems our whole lives change.

And change is probably the most common thing happening these days!

We have moved from our lovely spot in Sedona, AZ to an even lovelier spot in the Northeast Georgia Mountains. It took us 4 full days of driving to get here. Most of the drive was the same, lots of open barren land with big rock formations on the sides of the road, then we'd drive through a major city with the scenery changing back into vast openness. The majority of our trip was on I-40 so we drove through some cities and even states we had both never been through before.

[caption id="attachment_5488" align="aligncenter" width="480"] New Mexico[/caption]

My favorite part of the trip was right at Amarillo, Texas where we saw a bunch of people (off to the side of the interstate) walking through a big field of nothing, except for some things sticking up out of the ground. We turned around and went back to see what was going on and discovered Cadillac Ranch. How cool is this!?

[caption id="attachment_5464" align="aligncenter" width="540"] Art from 1947[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5461" align="aligncenter" width="540"] Leaving our mark[/caption]

We drove on through Texas into Oklahoma and it wasn't until we woke up in Shawnee, where we stopped the night before, that we noticed a huge difference in our scenery...green green green everywhere. Trees, shrubs, grass...everything around us was green, lush, so beautiful and so very different than what we've been used to seeing over the last two years! The more miles we drove across Oklahoma, Arkansas & Tennessee, the greener it became and that's where all of the rivers and creeks came in as well.

[caption id="attachment_5468" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Arkansas[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5470" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Georgia Roads[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5469" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Oconee River[/caption]

All in all we spent 4 full days driving and covered 1,900 miles and at one point we got 18 miles per gallon!! We decided to pack the van differently for the drive so we threw some things away, gave some weights and jack stands to Goodwill (getting rid of about 90 lbs.) and gifted some things to a nice homeless lady that needed them more than we did. We averaged about 13-15 miles per gallon, but that one day we got 18! woo hoo. We kept the bed down, the dogs totally digging that and packed the underneath side of the bed with most of the stuff we keep on the top. It worked out better than we had planned and gave us the mileage we were hoping to get!

[caption id="attachment_5494" align="aligncenter" width="480"] Where's all our stuff!!??[/caption]

Being back in Georgia after being gone for two full years is very, very different. We aren't just in Georgia, we are in one of the most beautiful places in this state, I believe they call our county the hidden gem of the Northeastern Georgia Mountains and also considered one of the greatest vacation meccas in Georgia. Pretty cool, huh!

[caption id="attachment_5477" align="aligncenter" width="485"] Welcome[/caption]

We are surrounded by cascading waterfalls, lakes, mountain vistas and fish filled creeks & streams. It's humid here, but with all of the water and canopies of trees around us, it seems to stay cool most of the day.

[caption id="attachment_5481" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Stonewall Creek Falls[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5482" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5483" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Abundance is flowing[/caption]

This part of Georgia is also considered a rain forest due to the amount of rain we get per year: over 55 inches (140 cm) a year and I tell ya, we had forgotten how much it rains here! The second night we were here, we were staying on our friends' property in the van and it stormed like crazy, at that moment we had realized we hadn't seen an actual storm in two years, it was thundering, lightning with heavy rain and a little hail, the van was even swaying! Our friends wanted us to come sleep in the house but to us, it was very exciting!

The future is wide open at this point, we will be here for the Summer due to being able to work for the season and get my medical stuff handled and then we hope to head back West, but we all know how plans go...believe us, two months ago we were going to Utah's Great 5 for the Summer...now we're in Georgia!

Dang making plans! haha

Wishing everyone the absolute best~

[caption id="attachment_5486" align="aligncenter" width="336"] PEACE[/caption]

Itchy feet may cause error in judgement

2014-04-13T07:45:00.000-07:00

Well, we're back on the road again looking for warmer temperatures...just can't satisfy ourselves! We left Lake Havasu for cooler temps and ended up in Williams, where the temperatures were cooler...much much cooler than we had anticipated!

Before going to bed, we made sure to get our Big Buddy heater out...just in case. Thank God we did that. We thought we might need it, and then ended up using it way more in one night than we have in almost a full year!

Halfway through the night, I'd say around midnight or 1 a.m., I got up to go potty...but first it took me a good 10 minutes contemplating whether I really needed to go that bad, it was sooooo cold. I pulled up my big girl panties and crawled down out of bed, already too cold that I turned on the heater before hitting the 'jon'. I did my business and went to take a swig of water...not gonna happen.

Why?

My whole water bottle was frozen solid!!!

Parched and cold, I let the heater run for about a minute or two then hopped back up in bed. Usually 5 minutes with the heater in this small of a space, is so hot I don't even want all of the blankets back on once getting back in bed....not tonight...it was still freezing.

We got up the next morning and the very first thing we did, before even getting out of bed, was look at the thermometer. We thought it might have gotten down into the 20's or something...nope, it was much colder than that.

[caption id="attachment_5442" align="aligncenter" width="350"] oy[/caption]

We conversed for about 15 minutes over moving...again and all of our other options, needless to say, we lasted in Williams for one whole night!

As we started driving towards Flagstaff, we saw all of the evidence that we needed NOT to stick around for a few weeks...

[caption id="attachment_5444" align="aligncenter" width="350"] ...[/caption]

The snow should have been our first clue, but we didn't see this mountain top coming in. Oh well, I guess we need to know our weather a little better before making such a big move.

All in all we drove about 294 miles in three days looking for a camp spot with good enough weather to last us about a month, due to having to move every 14 days.

We are now in the Cottonwood area and will move with the 14 day time limit. The spot we camped in last year, and would have loved to come back to this time, is now closed off to all motor vehicles and totally closed off at some points to foot traffic.

[caption id="attachment_5450" align="aligncenter" width="350"] Old spot view[/caption]

I guess we are just meant to move around at this point of our journey. Some places are easier, some places are a little harder but in the end we can say we have all of this knowledge and experience under our belts and nothing in the world can or will change that.

[caption id="attachment_5446" align="aligncenter" width="350"] New spot[/caption]

PEACE