Tag Archives: full-time RV

RV Life to House Life Transition: Final Month #38

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I’d like to start off this post by thanking my supportive friends for following along and sporadically commenting on my full-time RV life journey for the past three years and two months. Only half of month #38 (the last of the months I’ll be numbering, don’t worry) was spent on the road, but I wanted to write one final post in this series to chat about those final two weeks and the transition to house life in New Mexico.

If RV life does anything, it makes you super-adaptable to whatever comes your way. This is probably why making such a dramatic move hasn’t been an insane shock to my system like I once worried it might be.

Here’s a quick recap of this past month’s batch of homes on (and off) the road.

California Summer Road Trip: Home on the Road #126 (continued)

We wrapped up our time in the Bay Area of California with a few more visits with friends and family and then started the journey back to New Mexico – by way of Yuma, Arizona to clear out the random five-foot by five-foot storage unit we’d been keeping there. Storage unit clean-out day was a stifling 113 degrees, as it often is in Yuma. But finally for the first time in several years, all of our worldly possessions were in one place: fully contained in our RV and Jeep.

I also had the pleasure (?) of turning 36 on this return journey, which I can’t say was exactly the most fun way to spend a birthday. However, we made up for it with a refreshing hike and fun night out in Flagstaff, Arizona. Then we spent our last night of full-time RV life at a campground in Bernalillo, New Mexico that was only about 10 minutes from our future house that we would get keys to at the real estate closing in the morning.

  • Highlights: Lovely Bay Area weather for bike rides and outdoor lap swimming, buying myself an early birthday present of new cowgirl boots, campground pool on a 113-degree day, squeezing in a national forest hike after 6+ hours of driving on my birthday, vegan Thai restaurant for birthday dinner followed by a visit to our favorite Flagstaff beer hub (Dark Sky Brewing)
  • Lowlights: Long days of driving the RV and Jeep separately due to the heavy weight of carrying all of our worldly possessions, insane hotness, feeling guilty about not feeling more emotional about these last RV days but eh whatever because there’s plenty of adventure that lies ahead

Placitas, New Mexico: Home OFF the Road 

We’ve now been in our New Mexico house for a couple weeks, and it’s been a whirlwind of logistical hassles, cleaning tasks, furniture delivery and assembly, and early-stage DIY projects. But beyond all that practical crap, I must say, I’m really loving this house so far. The layout makes perfect sense in my mind, there’s plenty of space but it still feels cozy, and everything’s in good condition but just in need of some aesthetic updating.

It’s been a lot of upfront costs to get started with house life since we moved out of an RV and previously had zero furniture to our names. However, the previous owner of the house left behind some of her old furniture, which has been a great starting point. Besides, we saved a ton of money by RVing for 3+ years, so dropping a sizable amount of cash all at once hasn’t really felt like a bit hit.

  • Highlights: Introducing Monkey to her new home and seeing her run around and play in all the big rooms, picking out furniture that we actually like rather than settling for hand-me-downs, becoming a master at furniture assembly, getting New Mexico driver’s licenses and registrations at a DMV that was actually not miserable, eating dinner outside every day while watching the sunset, starting to learn how to keep fish and plants alive in my very own backyard pond, going for a little hike around my property and realizing that I am HIKING around MY property, starting to get my very own office set up with a minimalism/Japanese theme equipped with a tatami mat and mini tea table, checking out local events like a garden tour and jazz concert, first pizza delivering to the house by my new favorite nearby eatery, scenic runs and hikes on the national forest trails just a few minutes away, so much sunshine, so peaceful going outside my home and not being surrounded by people (no neighbors in sight!)
  • Lowlights: Lots of drama trying to get trash and recycling set up, exhausted all the time, paying for and accumulating lot of stuff and slowly losing my minimalist lifestyle, many gnomes still in boxes, having to call and talk to people to get house things set up and feeling like an idiot all the while

Random impressions about the RV-to-house transition so far:

  • Everything is just easier and more comfortable now
  • I’m obsessed with taking showers in my new bathroom vs. the RV bathroom or public facilities
  • I have more personal time now that I’m not constantly running around
  • I feel more relaxed and less anxious and irritable in general now
  • I’m doing all the same things I did during RV life plus a few new hobbies (for example, the husband got me an electric piano as a birthday gift so I’ve been reteaching myself to play and pick up where I left off with my 10 years of childhood lessons)
  • Transitioning is really easy when you busy yourself with a ton of new distractions
  • I don’t feel a void from constant change yet, but that may come later
  • Interactions with people aren’t just temporary like they were with life on the road, so I’m trying to be chatty(ish) and friendly(ish) with local folks – you never know when they’re gonna pop up unexpectedly again, right?

We’re keeping the RV for now, and it’s parked right out front of the house. That was a big factor in choosing a house because we didn’t want to be inundated with overbearing HOA rules about camper parking or simply not have the physical space to store it. It’s too big for our camping needs now since we aren’t living in it full-time, so we’ll be looking to downsize to something smaller after a while once things calm down a bit and we can wrap our heads around that. We’ll take it out for a least another trip or two before that as well, possibly for a RV trip around Thanksgiving.

It’s not “settling” if you consciously choose your path. It’s not “settling down” if you find it impossible to stay still for very long.

As you might expect, this is my last monthly post about “homes on the road” since my home is now firmly stuck on the ground and down a winding, gravel road where the desert meets the forest. I’m thinking that occasional future posts I write here will be about “becoming New Mexican,” exploring awesome new places in my new state and the greater Southwest region, and also about trying to wrangle a wild property and grow things that are pretty to look at and delicious to eat.

Until then, thanks for reading along. It’s the end of an era but a new beginning that feels like right where I’m supposed to be. And what more can you ask for than that?

Relive the journey one last time:

Anniversary Edition: Three Years of Full-Time RV Life!

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Today officially marks three full years being a nomad! After this long on the road, I barely remember what it’s like to not live in a camper. I’m not sure what people are supposed do with their time if they aren’t in a constant state of figuring out where to sleep, looking up what to do in a new temporary home, or driving a glorious monstrosity down the highway. It’s been a wild ride of ups and downs, and while I wouldn’t trade the last three years for anything, we’re also looking at this milestone as turning point.

To round out year #3, it’s been a long, weird month that has been lots of fun at times and downright miserable at others. Month #36 featured our annual summer jaunt to the Midwest and back, without the RV and just with the Jeep and tent. With a gas-guzzler that gets less than 7mpg, you don’t jet across the country and back for just a few weeks – you just don’t do it.

This past month, I got to bridesmaid in a good friend’s wedding, see a bunch of old friends that I love, and spend time with my family for an “early birthday” visit. Meanwhile, I’ve also been sweating, itching, and wondering what the hell I’m doing with my life while being stuck in a 95-degree tent where sleeping is impossible, menaced by biting insects, feeling nastier after using campground bathrooms than before using them, and complaining a lot. As you can tell 🙂

More on that in a bit, but first, here’s a little three-year RV life reflection to kick things off:

SOME FAVORITE HOMES ON THE ROAD THAT COME TO MIND

  • Boise, Idaho
  • San Luis Obispo, California
  • Albuquerque, New Mexico
  • Salt Lake City, Utah
  • Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada
  • Wenatchee, Washington
  • New River Gorge, West Virginia
  • Santa Barbara, California
  • Glacier National Park, Montana
  • June Lake, California
  • Cedar City, Utah
  • Santa Fe, New Mexico
  • Virginia Beach, Virginia
  • Cortez, Colorado
  • June Lake, California
  • Marfa, Texas
  • Asheville, North Carolina
  • Bend, Oregon
  • San Diego, California

THE THINGS I’M SO OVER WITH ABOUT RV LIFE

  • Calling incompetent old-timers to make campground reservations every week in the most inefficient way possible
  • Campground pit bull discrimination
  • Hauling laundry across campgrounds, only to pay for laundry machines that don’t work
  • The lack of personal space, privacy, peace, and quiet
  • Other campers – whoever says that meeting people in campgrounds is the best thing about RVing either hasn’t been full-timing very long or is way more extroverted than me
  • Trying to drown out the husband’s work phone calls to focus on my own work in a tiny space when noise-cancelling headphones just don’t cut it
  • Loose dogs in campgrounds despite supposedly enforced leash rules
  • No room to work on crafts or do hobbies
  • Being unable to wash my hair and shave my legs in the same shower due to the lack of hot water in an RV shower
  • Hassles of trying to find RV storage and dog boarding in a new place every time we want to catch an international flight
  • Researching new places every week so that travel planning feels like a burden instead of an adventure
  • Questionable internet reception = questionable work productivity
  • Being generally cranky because my heart just isn’t into this like it was in the beginning

THE THINGS I’LL TOTALLY MISS ABOUT RV LIFE WHEN IT’S OVER

  • Waking up to new scenes and landscapes each week
  • Having access to new trails and outdoor experiences on a regular basis
  • How much money I’ve been able to save over the past 3 years by doing RV life instead of paying rent or a mortgage
  • The general concept of living a non-standard, un-boring life
  • Following the good weather with the seasons
  • How easy it is to live a minimalist lifestyle in an RV with very little stuff to weigh me down

And now, here’s a quick recap of this past month’s batch of homes on the road.

Durango, Colorado: Home on the Road #121

Before hitting the road for the Midwest, we stayed in Durango for a week. We’d visited this outdoorsy Colorado town once before a couple years ago and knew we’d like it here. It was beyond easy to get active here, and it’s a place we’d probably look to plop down at for a while if it weren’t so expensive and far away from an airport for international trips.

  • Highlights: Animas City Mountain hike, biking the Animas River Trail, beers at Animas Brewing, probably many more things that have the name Animas, getting back on the rock wall for some climbing 
  • Lowlights: Crappy cell reception AND campground Wi-Fi for working, more campground laundry machines that don’t work, long hours working in advance of the Midwest road trip

Journey to the Midwest: Part of Home on the Road #122

After a week in Durango, we set out for the Midwest on a day that started off all bundled up at 35 degrees. Little did we know (well, we really did know because we obsessively check weather) that we’d soon be living in 100-degree temperatures with high humidity with no easy access to cool off for the foreseeable future. The Jeep’s air conditioning has been on the fritz and tends to completely die on the absolute hottest days after you’ve been driving for 8+ hours.

The idea of camping every night along the way and knocking out a few new states to camp in sounded good in theory. But in reality, some of these days were especially rough for trying to get work done, keeping Monkey from overheating and burning her paws, dodging mosquitoes, and basically not strangling each other.

  • Highlights: Colorado sand dunes, dinner meet-up with our good friend in the Denver area, Grateful Gnome Brewery in Denver, exploring the cute Colorado town of Golden, saying I’ve camped in Nebraska for the first time ever, walking up and down the Indiana sand dunes
  • Lowlights: Insane heat and humidity, insane bugs, trying to sleep in a tent next to a train, disgusting bathrooms that even challenge my low standards, trying to work on a laptop in the passenger seat without puking

Chicago and Arthur, Illinois: Part of Home on the Road #122

Chicago was a whirlwind visit filled with good beer, great friends, and a cozy place to stay with some awesome buddies who set us up with an actual bed and the best shower ever. There was lots of eating and drinking while catching up with old friends and my sixth bridesmaiding experience in a suburban wedding. From there, we headed a few hours south to spend time with my family for an early birthday trip. I can’t claim another year around the sun for another month and a half, but isn’t making what’s supposed to be a single celebratory day into an entire season of celebration what being an only child is all about?!

  • Highlights: Staying with good friends that are dog parents to Monkey’s favorite friend, brewery meet-up with favorite folks at Great Central Brewing, experiencing the chaos of the Montrose Dog Beach with Monkey, catching up with my girls from freshman year of college over dinner, not falling off an electric scooter and busting my head open, getting to be an indoor bridesmaid in the A/C instead of sweating and getting soaked at an outdoor wedding, wedding reception open bar (enough said), having my parents take care of me like I’m 15 years old again (they’re the best), spending time with my grandma
  • Lowlights: Chicago traffic, non-stop heat and humidity, freak (Monkey-caused) rope burn accident that ripped apart my ankles, trying to hike in Illinois and remembering why people don’t hike in Illinois  

Journey Back from the Midwest: Part of Home on the Road #122

After a few days staying at my parents’ house, we hit the road for the westward journey back to our home on wheels, but not before making a bunch of tent-camping stops along the way. To knock a few more states off our list, our route back to Colorado included campgrounds in Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, and Kansas. Some of these overnight adventures surprisingly sucked (hey there, Tennessee!), while others were surprisingly pleasant (oh hi, Kansas!).

  • Highlights: Saying I’ve now camped in Missouri/Arkansas/Kansas for the first time, surprisingly fun mini-golf and good Indian food in Branson, sunsets, a little magical time to read a book, swimming in a lake, second visit to the Hopping Gnome Brewery in Wichita, Boot Hill Museum with a dinner show and gunfight in Dodge City, reaffirming that I oddly now enjoy water parks in my mid-30s
  • Lowlights: Not being able to work in the passenger seat due to a busted cable and having to frantically find a new power adaptor on the road, insane bugs, insane heat and humidity, tough working conditions, stupidly being surprised by the tough working conditions even though we’ve done this sort of thing countless times before

Bloomfield/Aztec, New Mexico: Home on the Road #123

Our original plan was to camp for two more nights in Colorado, but we’d had enough of the tent life and decided to power through nearly 13 hours of driving instead to get back to our comfy, cozy RV back in Durango. It was a grueling day, but after it, my RV bed and memory foam pillow had never felt better. We found a campground near Aztec Ruins National Monument that could take us in at the last minute and finally settled back into that New Mexico life.

  • Highlights: Exploring the Native American ruins and kivas with low crowds, getting caught up with post-trip laundry/groceries/cleaning, checking out a new part of New Mexico we hadn’t been in before
  • Lowlights: Super hot but it’s okay because we’re back in the RV with A/C, meh pizza takeout for dinner, dead Jeep battery (Chief was clearly exhausted and needed a break after this road trip)

Looking Ahead to Next Month

As you might assess from my current lists of “loves” and “hates” about RV life at the top of this post, this three-year milestone is making me more and more ready for a next phase as the days go by. Full-time camping has been an adventure for sure, but there are lots of ways to have adventures, and I’m curious to explore what those are all about too.

Just today, we got back into the Placitas, New Mexico area, where we are interested in scoping out houses that are not on wheels. We have a couple weeks here to dive back into the local real estate scene before hitting the road again – this time westward to California to put in a friends and family visit on the husband’s side of things. Staying put never seems easy for us, but honestly, that will never change whether we are full-time RVers or just occasional RVers in the future.

Thanks for following along for the past three years, my friends! Life on the road can get a bit isolating at times, so having people to share my journey with, even if it’s just through the internet, has helped me feel more connected to the rest of the world at times. Three years is a milestone, but it’s also a turning point towards something that may be entirely different, and hopefully just as exciting.

Catch up with the journey:

Beach & Bayou Life: Nomads Along the Gulf Coast in Month #33

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I sometimes forget how peaceful it is to walk along the ocean. It’s been a while since we’ve been to a beach, so we spent the bulk of Month #33 of camper life along the Gulf Coast of Texas on Galveston Island. This served as a vacation destination for my parents, who survived yet another miserable Illinois winter and flew out to see us. It was also a welcome change of scenery for us.

To continue on with this spring’s Gulf Coast theme, we’re taking the next few days off for a long-distance bike trip along the Gulf with stops in FOUR states along the way!

But first, here’s a quick recap of this past month’s batch of homes on the road.

Huntsville State Park, Texas: Home on the Road #110

Before we hit the beach and the bayou, we settled into the pine forests of Huntsville State Park in Texas. This was one of my favorite campgrounds in a VERY long time because of the spacious site that felt like having our own little backyard. It was also insanely easy to access pretty much every type of outdoor recreation. Finally being rewarded with the perfect 70s and sunny weather that we came to Texas for didn’t hurt either!

  • Highlights: Getting a little better at mountain biking, getting out on the lake twice to kayak and SUP, close-by hikes and trail runs, sitting in a hammock, painting with acrylic on canvas, few distractions meant getting lots of work done in advance of some exciting trips coming up.
  • Lowlights: Some party-hardy campers nearby who can still manage to stay up until 4am (how? why?! I’m old.), kinda sucking at getting a campfire started on two different evenings.

Galveston Island, Texas: Home on the Road #111

Although we’ve camped on beaches in our tent, this was the closest we’ve ever camped to a beach in the RV. We literally just had to walk across a parking lot to be greeted by sand and surf, and of course a few off-leash dogs. After getting settled in, my parents flew into Houston and we brought them down to Galveston for a little slice of island life as well.

The weather was rainy but not nearly as bad as last year in Oregon. Top sightseeing stops included an Amazon distribution center tour, a dolphin cruise in the bay, murder mystery show at a local theater, offshore drilling rig museum (because…Texas), beach time, and hanging out at our camper by the lagoon.

  • Highlights: A view of the ocean from our RV, great campground Wi-Fi, decent laundry facilities to catch up after recent state park stays, a successful parents’ visit with lots of solid quality time, spending time at the beach, staying active with biking/boating/lifting, feeling really on top of my work.
  • Lowlights: First sunburn of the season (you think I’d have learned by now), trying to hike and only finding mud pits instead, doing taxes and paying an insane amount to the government as usual.

Lake Charles, Louisiana: Home on the Road #112

Now it’s time to take a break from Texas and explore a bit further along the Gulf Coast! We’re staying at Intracoastal Park south of Lake Charles, under a bridge and among the huge barges passing by. It feels like we’re officially bayou people.

  • Highlights: Watching the huge barges pass by our camper (but what’s ON them?!), kayaking among the barges and swamps too, chill place with few distractions so pretty work productive despite getting slammed with every new project all at once, warm weather in the 70s-90s, winning $34 playing video roulette at the nearby Golden Nugget Lake Charles casino, finally buying new running shoes (bright pink!) to replace the ones my toes are sticking though. 
  • Lowlights: The insanely loud noises of camping pretty much under a metal bridge, no electricity for a day after 2 transformers blew out during a thunderstorm, mosquitoes galore, nothing ever dries in this humidity, camper leaks from ongoing rain.

This Month’s Ramblings from the Road

  • I finally painted something! Working on my trees and landscape scenes here while enjoying some awesome weather and a big campsite at Huntsville State Park.

  • Wildflowers are in bloom in Texas! It’s nothing like the photos I’ve been seeing come out of California lately, but it’s still nice. These are some of my favorites. They’re called confetti lantana. They’re also reminding me that I want a garden.

  • I always enjoy a good game of mini golf and can get a bit competitive (i.e. belligerent) with it. This was a course near our beach campground in Galveston. Although the husband and I tend to be evenly matched at most games, I won this game by 2 putts…just for the record.

Looking Ahead to Next Month

I’m posting this a couple days early because tomorrow we’re setting out on an epic Gulf Coast biking adventure. We’ll be tent-camping in four states in four nights (Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana) between bike rides with Monkey in tow via dog trailer. There’s are heavy chances of rain and storms, so I have no doubt that this will be quite the adventure.

Afterwards, we’ll be coming back to our home base near Lake Charles, visiting our favorite chimpanzee nonprofit sanctuary (Chimp Haven) near Shreveport, quickly moving back through Texas, and then reaching Albuquerque, New Mexico. The pace quickens from here on out because literally days after returning from Japan, we caught the overseas travel bug and, on a whim, booked a week-long trip from ABQ to Hawaii! Neither of us has been to the islands before, and it sounded like a solid way to celebrate the husband’s birthday and our marriage anniversary.

But first, on with this bayou bike adventure. Wish us luck, sunny skies, and no flat tires!

Catch up with the journey:

Japan & Vegas: Pretty Much the Exact Opposite of RV Life (Month 32)

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For nearly three years now, pretty much all of my blog posts have been about camper life and full-time RVing. However, month #32 of camper life was largely spent outside of this tiny home on wheels and in a random collection of hotels, hostels, and ryokans. It was just the kind of break I needed to feel like a traveler and not just an RV traveler.

To kick off the month, the husband and I flew to Japan for an international vacation. We’d grown frustrated with putting off international travel until camper life was over and honestly a bit America-ed out. So, we stashed Monkey in an awesome at-home dog boarding situation and hopped on a plane for my very first trip to Asia. From there, the randomness continued with a girls’ trip to Vegas with my college roommates and stays in some familiar Texas cities as well.

Here’s a quick recap of this past month’s batch of homes on the road.

San Antonio, Texas: Home on the Road #106 (continued)

Our stay in San Antonio was a bit of a weird one. Our camper stayed put in one place for a full month (a record for us!) but we really weren’t in it all that much. It ended up being cheaper and easier just to pay a monthly campground rate and leave it sit empty than deal with an RV storage facility. For most of the time we actually spent in town, I was sick or it was raining. I’ve been to San Antonio a couple times before though, so fortunately I didn’t develop a case of FOMO.

  • Highlights: Finding an awesome dog sitter to take in Monkey for 8 days who sent us daily pics and videos (she and her new best bud, Radley, are pictured below!), finally getting to do a few touristy things by biking the missions and taking down some tasty veggie quesadillas on the Riverwalk.
  • Lowlights: Being sick much of the time we were actually in the city, another urgent care visit, campground was about 30 minutes from everything in town, non-stop working to make up for taking vacation days off, rain and more rain.

Tokyo/Yamanouchi/Kyoto/Nara, Japan: Home on the Road # 107

Japan was amazing, and I can’t say enough good things about my first experience in Asia. We flew into Tokyo and quickly mastered the train system to travel to Yamanouchi, Kyoto, and Nara. It was surprisingly easy to get around as a dumb American tourist, thanks to so many signs and menus with English translations and also because of how many people there could speak a little English. I had learned some basics (please, thank you, etc.), but I felt that most people were friendly and patient with me, especially compared to other places (I’m looking at you, France).

  • Highlights: Seeing snow monkeys in the wild, embracing the crowded streets of Tokyo, feeling comfortable among locals who are polite/non-intrusive and keep to themselves (unlike pretty much everywhere I go in the U.S.), amazing food everywhere we went (okonomiyaki is my new favorite), temples and shrines (Fushimi Inari was my favorite), roaming deer and the national museum in Nara, staying in a traditional ryokan with an onsen, giving public nude bathing a try, animal cafes with hedgehogs and cats, flashy show at Tokyo’s Robot Restaurant, not as expensive of a trip overall as expected.
  • Lowlights: Airline lost our luggage so we had to wear the same clothes for three days and buy new toiletries/underthings, insane jet lag that had me totally loopy and talking out of my head like an emotional rollercoaster, being sick on the trip and getting sicker when we got back, a few frigid/rainy days but not too bad honestly.

Ladies-Only Trip to Vegas! 

Just one week after getting back from Japan, I was back on a plane for a much-needed girls’ trip to Las Vegas. My senior year college roommates and I hadn’t taken a trip together since just after graduation, so we were definitely overdue for some ladies’ nights out and husband breaks.

  • Highlights: Finally having a place to wear going-out dresses, getting 34K+ steps in walking up and down the Strip, fun Gwen Stefani concert, cheering on scantily clad men at Thunder Down Under, nice hotel room at NYNY, catching up with awesome long-time friends, doing a little bachelorette party celebrating with festive sashes.
  • Lowlights: Our fourth partner in crime’s flight was cancelled so we were a group of 3 instead of 4 (love you, Nicole!), mediocre/overpriced food options, not nice enough weather for pool time, clueless/unhelpful hotel staff, not being able to wear bachelorette party tattoos because we didn’t have a mini scissors to cut them out (first world problems).

Austin, Texas: Home on the Road #108

I’m sure the SXSW music festival is awesome and all, but it really threw a wrench in our Austin camping plans. Campsites were either totally booked out or insanely priced during the event, which means we had to cut our Austin stay short to just six days. We were staying in McKinney Falls State Park though, which meant easy access to outdoor recreation and being a safe distance away from the crowds and chaos.

  • Highlights: Getting on the wall at Crux Climbing gym, hikes and trail runs at McKinney Falls, the dog-friendly Uncle Billy’s Brewhouse & Smokehouse that had vegetarian options and a live band, pretty much everything being dog-friendly in Austin, seeing a live improv comedy show (it was just okay though) at The Hideout, randomly holding a baby goat, biking along the river downtown.
  • Lowlights: Only getting to spend a few hours really in downtown Austin, crowded trails with loose (“he’s friendly!”) dogs everywhere, cold days below freezing, remembering what a sticky mess cotton candy is and how truly terrifying crawfish are at the Austin Crawfish Festival.

Somerville, Texas: Home on the Road #109

With our Austin plans cut short, we fled further into Texas to camp near Lake Somerville in hopes of squeezing in some water recreation. It’s been a bit rainy and windy so far, so we have yet to get out on the boats (but maybe today!). But this has still been a super peaceful and low-key place to stay with pretty much nothing to do besides get outside at the state park every day and get work done. It’s pretty much exactly what I needed after Japan, Vegas, and Austin.

  • Highlights: Slower pace to relax and not be overwhelmed by options of things to do, camped about a mile from the state park for hikes and trail runs, board games and smoothies on a rare lazy Sunday, windowsill gardening.
  • Lowlights: The great laundry debacle of 2019 with a broken dryer and unexpected trip with dripping clothes to the nearest laundromat 20 miles away, rain and mugginess, mud everywhere, loud barking neighbor dogs that wake me up at night (makes me appreciate my mostly bark-free Monkey though!)

This Month’s Ramblings from the Road

I’m now the proud owner of a Ninja mini blender! I’ve definitely missed making smoothies and protein shakes over the last couples years, but my old blender got tossed out in the downsizing efforts before we set out for full-time camper life. It’s been fun experimenting with tossing random combinations of things in these single-serving cups and feeling damn healthy about it.

Nobody likes to have lost luggage, but it’s particularly stressful after 15 hours of flying and upon arriving in a country where you’re too dumb to communicate in the local language. Somehow, we were reunited with our bags within a day and a half though, and I’ve never been so happy to see a silly backpack.

When I’m done with RV life and have my own house, I’m going to have the most amazing washer and dryer that money can buy. Doing laundry in nasty public facilities and with chronically broken machines has scarred me for life. I pretty much get the shakes every time another sock gets dirty these days.

Looking Ahead to Next Month

Month 33 might not be as random or international Month 32, but it’s still set up to be an interesting one. This is somewhat because we’re having visitors in just a couple weeks! My parents are flying down to Houston for an extended weekend, so we’ll be checking out Houston and Galveston with them. After that, we’ve planned a brief, yet epic, bike ride/tent camping adventure along the Gulf Coast that will pass through the southern parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida.

Texas has been a bit rainy for us lately, but it’s still nothing compared to Oregon last spring with the steady rain and crazy mold growth in the windowsills of the RV. So, I’ll keep reminding myself of that and hoping it clears up to get out on Lake Somerville at least once before we move things along to the magical land of Huntsville State Park to see yet another new part of Texas. Being back in Texas makes me miss Japan a lot though, and we’ve already started talking about the other places in Japan we want to visit on our next trip overseas.

Until next month, sayonara.

Catch up with the journey:

Picking Up the Pace of Southwest Adventure: Month 29 of Nomadic Life

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It’s holiday season, which means chaos and cold, even for your favorite nomad out on the road. Since traveling full-time, the Southwest has carved out a soft spot in my heart. But over the past month, we’ve been moving through it at record speed.

We’ve been in search of warmth and off-the-beaten-path places that we might not make it back to anytime soon. We’ve also been in search of change and something to drive us towards decisiveness to start a post-camper-life phase of life next year. On top of all that, this time of year is always insanely stressful for me with work thanks to everybody and his brother having last-minute projects and year-end deadlines.

But first, it’s a race towards Christmas, which will once again take us “a long way away from home” to Georgia, Illinois, and everywhere in between. I’m exhausted and burnt out at the moment, so hopefully the change of scenery and schedule will help rather than hurt.

Here’s a quick recap of this past month’s batch of homes on the road. Oh yeah, the husband recently pointed out that apparently, I don’t know how to count. So, I’ve adjusted the “home on the road” numbers and just reached the big #100 in Gallup!

Lee Vining, California: Home on the Road #95

When I think back upon our extended weekend in Lee Vining, one word comes to mind: freezing. We’d driven through this tiny town of approximately 222 people once before while spending three weeks in nearby June Lake. However, this time, we dry-camped in a forest service campground with no hookups to revisit the area while passing through.

This part of the Eastern Sierras is a favorite place of the husband, who’s a big fan of snow-capped mountains, green forests, and skiing nearby. There’s no denying it’s stunning, but we’ll get to my all-time favorite landscape a little further down.

  • Highlights: Making it through Tioga Pass before it closed for the winter, the most peaceful campground nestled among the trees, walking again among the tufas of Mono Lake, revisiting our favorite June Lake Brewing and its Hawaiian food truck
  • Lowlights: Further realizing how miserable I am when I don’t have a warm place to escape to

Tonopah, Nevada: Home on the Road #96

For Thanksgiving, many people have traditions of traveling to see family, going shopping, and eating turkey. Our Thanksgiving tradition involves none of those things. Instead, we aim to find remote destinations that no one goes to in order to escape crowds, traffic, and consumerism. This year’s Thanksgiving destination was Tonopah, Nevada, a place where we hoped to learn a bit more about this mysterious state outside of the usual trappings of Vegas and Reno.

The town itself is a bit run-down and dusty, but it has a quirky charm to it that really can’t be beat. I mean, seriously, where else can you find a creepy Clown Motel, haunted cemetery, and spray-painted cars upturned in the dirt all within a few miles of each other?

  • Highlights: Exploring mining history areas that were dog-friendly, discovering that casino campgrounds really can be alright, getting spooked by haunted attractions in town, walking through a car graveyard not unlike Amarillo’s famous Cadillac Ranch, delicious pesto tortellini for Thanksgiving dinner and craft time with clay and construction paper in the RV
  • Lowlights: More freezing cold days (a big theme of this month), the only brewery in town had not-so-great service and no vegetarian options (but the beer was pretty good)

Mesquite, Nevada: Home on the Road # 97

In search of a little more warmth and to check out another random Nevada town we’d never been to, we booked a spot at another casino campground in Mesquite. Casino campgrounds seem to be the norm in Nevada, go figure. However, the route for getting here was a big part of the intrigue. You see, we took a drive down the Extraterrestrial Highway (Nevada State Route 395) in search of aliens, UFOs, and anything else on the paranormal spectrum.

But upon reaching Mesquite, an entirely different type of invasion actually occurred. Much to my surprise, my best friend conspired with my husband to book a spontaneous flight to Vegas and then drive to Mesquite just to see me. I had literally just taken my last bite of Saturday morning pancakes and was two seconds away from hopping in the shower when I stuttered, “Um…what is Michelle doing outside the camper right now?” It was baffling and amazing at the same time.

  • Highlights: Stocking up on alien souvenirs and a grilled cheese sandwich at the Extraterrestrial Highway pit-stop of Little A’Le’Inn, getting a surprise visit from my best friend and spending the day in the desert and later on the Vegas Strip with her, biking around Mesquite to check out the town, ending our stay at the hot tub at the Casablanca Casino & Resort
  • Lowlights: Only having a weekend to check out this new part of Nevada, having to say goodbye to my favorite lady and send her back to a blizzard in Illinois

Kanab, Utah: Home on the Road #98

If I had to pick a place to live based upon landscape alone, I’d pick Southern Utah. Ever since my previous visits to Zion, Bryce, Arches, Canyonlands, and Kodachrome, there’s been something magical that draws me to the impressive red rock formations of this area. We stayed in the nearby town of Cedar City for a couple weeks last year and made Kanab our destination this time. Aside from having our first snow of the season, Kanab welcomed me with views I never got tired of, uncrowded trails, and non-annoying people.

  • Highlights: Best landscape views ever, awesome BLM hiking that’s dog-friendly and uncrowded at this time of year, seeing snow on the red rocks, touring the dog and potbellied pig areas of the Best Friends animal shelter facilities, getting into the Christmas spirit with a local musical production, slot canyons you can walk right into, going to my first-ever real estate open house (maybe SoUT will be in the future plans?)
  • Lowlights: Trying to work while wrapped in a sleeping bag/countless layers/hand warmers/etc. when our propane heater broke once again, almost getting stuck in the sandy backroads

Monument Valley, Arizona: Home on the Road #99

Our stay in Monument Valley was short – just an extended weekend. But we packed a lot into it and saw Navajo National Monument, Monument Valley National Tribal Park, Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Sites, and the Chaco Culture National Historic Park. This circuit encompassed Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico and was a bit of a three-day whirlwind.

  • Highlights: Seeing incredible rock formations with hardly anyone else around, epic photos of light snow on the formations, learning about Navajo history, receiving a beautiful turquoise and silver Kokopelli necklace as an early Christmas gift
  • Lowlights: Having the Jeep’s battery die and failing to successfully charge it with our solar system battery or push it to the front of the RV for a jump (had to ask a neighbor for help…ugh), lots of time driving and passengering in the RV, stray dogs everywhere and lots of dead dogs on the sides of roads

Gallup, New Mexico: Home on the Road #100

Our last pre-Christmas journey on this road-trip-called-life was Gallup, New Mexico. We’d been to Gallup before and honestly weren’t all that in love with it. But it was the next logical place to stop before starting to head east. Plus, we wanted to check out the Red Rock Park and see a different side of town.

  • Highlights: Scenic hike up the Pyramid Trail and hike to Church rock, quiet campground and no neighbors for few work distractions, surprisingly decent Wi-Fi, the best public laundromat experience I’ve had in a long time
  • Lowlights: More stray dogs everywhere, work stress galore, immune system shutting down, all the prickly thorns that get in Monkey’s feet from the desert shrubs (she got carried for almost a whole minute before squirming her way down), no time or inspiration to do anything in town

This Month’s Ramblings from the Road

  • You always have to pay attention to tunnels when you’re driving a home on wheels. Our RV is about 12 feet tall. This tunnel was 13 feet and three inches. The one after this was only 10+ feet on the sides but taller in the middle. Spoiler alert: we made it through.

  • Maybe it’s a sign of getting old, but my body is having serious trouble adjusting to the cold. However, I’m sure it would be more manageable if I had a comfortable place to wake up and come home to instead of an un-insulated tin box with a chronically broken propane heater. The circuit board gets flooded, no matter what, every time it rains, which kills it and only a $100 replacement gets the back heat on again. This is a shot I took on a morning when I woke up to 31 degrees inside the RV. Warming measures we’ve taken include 1 space heater (2 blow a fuse), covers for the roof vents, carpeted floor mats, and complaining a lot.

  • Then there are days like this…pretty, but no thanks.

  • I’m not a fan of snow, but if I have to see it, I prefer it to be lightly coating some glorious red rocks in Utah.

  • These are Thanksgiving crafts we made to celebrate the holiday out in the middle of nowhere in Nevada over copious amounts of wine. Because we’re like five.

  • Picking up non-space-consuming souvenirs from super-random places is a favorite pastime of mine. This license plate now lives on the front of the Jeep (that’s legal, right?), I can never have enough fun tank-tops, who wouldn’t want to drink out of an alien shot glass, and my insanely large souvenir patch collection continues to grow.

Looking Ahead to Next Month

From here, we embark upon our big Christmas journey back east and sans RV. It never makes sense to schlep this gas-guzzler across the country for just a short amount of time, so we’re sticking it in storage and heading eastbound in just the Jeep.

We shifted over to Albuquerque to make the transition because we found a campground with onsite monthly storage, which makes everything easier. The RV sofa is already piled with crap to pack, yet my packing list has a confusing number items yet to be checked off. Well, you know what I’ll be doing for the rest of the day. Until next month, signing off and happy holidays to all!

Catch up with the journey:

Adventures Off the Grid: Month #27 of Camper Life

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As my last post hinted at, month #27 was a bit of a unique one. Somewhat suddenly, it seems that we have entered a new phase of full-time camper life – a phase that’s more off-the-grid, more self-sufficient, and a whole lot eco-friendlier.

It all started with a solar panel system investment while we were staying in Bend, Oregon for a couple weeks. The research, ordering, and setup got off to a rocky start thanks to components that didn’t work together as expected. After some irritating returns and Plan Bs, we emerged with a battery and inverter that look like this and are connected to cables running out the RV window to connect to the solar panel.

Initial Off-the-Grid Observations from week #1:

  • We are moving the solar panel for a more optimal sun position more than once an hour
  • To save energy, I’m wearing a headlamp to do dishes, brush teeth, eat dinner
  • Usable electronics with solar power: laptops, phones, watches, essential oil diffuser, electric toothbrush
  • Non usable electronics with solar power: electric blanket, space heater, dog heating pad, hair dryer, TV
  • Sleeping in hats, sweatshirts, gloves
  • Allowable generator use hours are exciting! Charge everything all at once!
  • Filling up water with an outside spigot in a jug to save tank usage
  • Watching TV shows on laptops/iPhones instead of RV television
  • My new laptop has a really long-lasting battery – yay!
  • No distractions out here = crazy work productive
  • It’s pretty hilarious to watch my husband use his dental Waterpik over the kitchen sink and plugged into an extension cord connected to the inverter after warming up water in the tea kettle
  • 1 solar panel is enough to keep our devices for the week charged but our RV batteries are running low…something we didn’t anticipate
  • Using public showers again just like in the old pop-up camper days
  • Don’t flush just for pee
  • Made it 7 days without dumping tanks – success!
  • ABC: Always Be Charging
  • ABS: Always Be Strategizing (about how to keep this going for as many days as possible)
  • Only enough propane to heat up the RV for less than an hour each morning to get out of bed in the cold….oops rain touched the circuit board and now the heater is broken
  • Man, this is cheap living
  • Washing dishes with cold water
  • Using decorative Halloween pumpkins as lights – ’tis the season
  • How is there internet out here?! Hooray!

But backing up a few steps, here’s a quick recap of this past month’s batch of homes on the road.

Bend, Oregon: Home on the Road #84

I’m torn about Bend because yes, it’s a bit crowded, trafficy, and becoming overdeveloped, but it’s also still an outdoor lover’s dream with every type of recreation you could ever want. This is also where I checked off a long-time bucket list item: riding in a hot air balloon!

  • Highlights: Super peaceful hot air balloon ride over beautiful landscapes, hiking Smith Rock State Park, best indoor climbing gym I’ve been to in a while, breweries galore, decent campground laundry facility, got a yearly doctor checkup taken care of, nearby visit to Newberry National Volcanic Monument, seeing a local play at 2nd Street Theater
  • Lowlights: Not having time to climb at Smith Rock State Park or go mountain biking in the area, traffic, more (un-monitored, dog-groping) kids at breweries than adults, catching up on shopping and spending way too much money, crowded shantytown-like campground

Crater Lake National Park, Oregon: Home on the Road #85

I’d never been to Crater Lake before, and now seemed like the perfect time to check it out: late enough in the year to avoid the worst crowds but not yet too cold and snowy to close campgrounds.

  • Highlights: The stunning blue color of this crazy lake, surprisingly few crowds on hiking trails, hiking a new section of the PCT with Monkey, playing our current favorite board game (Ticket to Ride) outside at the campground with the new India expansion location
  • Lowlights: Having to move to 3 different campsites to escape partying teenagers and lack of shade to leave Monkey behind in this dog-unfriendly park, nightly lows in the 30s

Keno, Oregon: Home on the Road #86

Staying in southern Oregon was our first foray into what I like to call goondocking. Boondocking has more of a connotation of free and pulled off the side of the road in a random place. We can’t necessarily do that because we work full-time. So goondocking is our compromise between that and crowded RV parks, inclusive of a good internet connection but not really anything else. Also, “Goon” is one of the many nicknames we call Monkey. This random spot we goondocked in a couple miles outside Keno, Oregon felt more like a magical piece of property than any campsite we’ve been to.

  • Highlights: So much room to spread out, playing guitar and working outside, trails for running and dog walks, no distractions and great work productivity, surprisingly awesome public showers nearby, nice Monkey trailer-friendly bike trail in nearby Klamath Falls, decent beers at the one brewery in Klamath Falls, sunrises and moonrises over the Klamath River from our campsite, super peaceful afternoon of kayaking and SUPing on the river
  • Lowlights: Failing at our first goondocking attempt at the Topsy Campground because of crappy internet, the craziest dust that permeated everything

Lava Beds National Monument, California: Home on the Road #87

About four years ago, we did a quick visit to Lava Beds on a late-summer vacation. It’s one of the coolest national monuments I’ve been to because you can explore lots of caves on your own without a guide and without lots of tourists everywhere.

We originally didn’t intend to camp overnight at all here, but then we discovered that the area had surprisingly good AT&T and Verizon internet. Yes, I realize that this post makes me sound like I’m obsessed with internet, but oddly it’s really the driving force of where we go these days. With national monument campsites at $10/night, we first booked two nights, then a third, and finally a fourth. This extra time allowed us to check out nearly every cave in the park after work days!

  • Highlights: Taking headlamps and bike helmets into caves to explore the underworld on our own, reasonable generator use hours to get all our stuff charged, good but not great internet, peaceful, lots of space, making up our own “cave loop 5K race” even though I came in last place out of the three of us, getting better at conserving water/electric
  • Lowlights: Painfully bumping heads and backs on sharp cave roofs, some rain and cold but not too bad, no public showers equals more days of grossness

Lassen Volcanic National Park: Home on the Road #88

Although national parks and monuments certainly aren’t off-the-grid, they are places we never used to be able to camp due to lack of hookups and our 24/7 reliance upon campground amenities. We originally planned to spend three nights at Lassen, but cut that short to just two. The campground walk-in reservation system was confusing, and the temperatures were downright frigid up in the mountains. Regardless, I’m glad we finally made it here to check out the sights.

  • Highlights: Interesting geological features from the eruptions 100+ years ago, waterfall hike, bubbling mud, campfire
  • Lowlights: Confusing campground check-in situation with no staff onsite to help, morning temperatures in the 30s with no heat, trying to shower in a freezing RV, nothing is dog-friendly

Oroville, California: Home on the Road #89

We’d never been in the Oroville area of California, and honestly it was a bit of a disappointment throughout the week. The state park we stayed at had some crazy rules, most of the trails were closed and all are dog-unfriendly, the area was filled with shady characters, the park conducted a series of controlled fires leaving us smoky and worried what might happen if they got out of hand. Things got even more interesting when another camper set a car on fire and was threatening suicide while being pursued by rangers with big guns. At least it was warm, and my oh my how life is better when I’m warm.

  • Highlights: Amazing weather in the 70s and 80s, sitting outside to work, going bowling by the casino, making do with our solar energy and generator with no hookups once again, decorating for Halloween, surprisingly great casino buffet and brewery, a nice day trip to Chico to check out Bidwell Park and the brewery scene, dog-friendly 8+ mile waterfall hike to Feather Falls
  • Lowlights: The reminder that much of California hates dogs, smoke and haze, weirdos everywhere, businesses/boat ramps/trails closed unexpectedly, so much laundry to do at a really dirty laundromat, too much work to squeeze in personal time and fun, being on lockdown at the campground while cops investigated a madman on the loose

This Month’s Ramblings from the Road

  • Saturday morning pancakes are my culinary specialty.

  • I’m trying to draw better landscapes in my sketchbook, starting with trees. This little workbook is helping.

  • We’ve missed playing tennis since living in our posh old apartment complex in Atlanta. Our old rackets got lost in the move, but we’ve picked up a couple new ones and have played twice at local parks in places we visit. Spoiler alert: I always win 🙂

  • Holy shopping spree! We pretty much cleared out the clearance section of the Columbia Outlet store in Bend. But when all you pretty much wear is hiking clothes, it’s justifiable!

  • My favorite new place to work: patch of dirt with a view of the Klamath River and a steady internet connection.

  • We’ve been coloring pages in our national park coloring book as we visit new ones. Just finished up with Lassen!

Looking Ahead to Next Month

Now back in California for a while, Month #28 will feel oddly familiar. While Month #27 was all about getting off the grid, Month #28 will be all about going to places we’ve already been. We’ll actually be staying in a couple of the same campgrounds as last year and different ones in familiar cities in order to visit the in-laws and celebrate Halloween and Diwali.

The days ahead should be pretty warm, which is good news since our heater still doesn’t work and this aging body of mine is having serious trouble heating itself up. Our needs for solar energy may be a bit less as we get back into the civilization of Northern California life for a little while, but hopefully I can still find some peaceful places (like this one below) to take a deep breath in and think about what lies ahead for this camper journey.

We’re looking to narrow down and reevaluate our wall of post-it notes identifying potential plop-down places to start planning ahead for our next phase. It’s something I’ve been personally procrastinating for a long time because committing always makes me feel a bit sick to my stomach. There are some things that make me feel really excited for whatever our next phase is, and other things that make me nervous as heck because this has been my “normal” for two years and three months now. Change is never easy, even when you change your home every week or two. Right now, I’m only able to narrow down my list of plop-down places to about six or seven. So, it seems I have some soul searching and real estate research ahead of me in the month ahead.

Until next month…

Catch up with the journey:

A Very Idaho Birthday & Back on the Oregon Trail: Nomad Life Month #26

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Mountains, wide-open spaces, and plenty of sunshine…just how this time of year should be.

Idaho was the last of the lower 48 states that I have visited, and I’m really not sure why it took me so long to get here. Before spending a month in Idaho, I really didn’t know what to expect from the state. Even now, I’ve only scratched the surface of exploring Idaho, but some things surprised me in a good way, so I’ll be back.

Idaho was where I had the pleasure of ringing in a new year of old age, where I got to hang out with some folks that truly understand full-time camper life, and where I discovered my new favorite city. Then as month #26 came to a close, we hopped back on the Oregon trail to check out Eastern and Central Oregon, which much to my relief are much drier and warmer than the six weeks of spring we spent in the state.

Here’s a quick recap of this past month’s batch of homes on the road.

Bellevue, Idaho: Home on the Road #81

We delayed our arrival to Bellevue due to wildfires, but everything was looking and fire-free by the time we arrived. Camper life and spending way more time by myself over the past two+ years has made me more introverted, so social settings leave me feeling more drained than they used to. Regardless, it was fun to step out of normal routines and schedule in some fun social plans with awesome people.

  • Highlights: Hanging out with locals/full-time campers Sara, Mike, Phoebe, and Aaron; free outdoor concerts galore, cheap campground right in town, great bike trail, forest road hikes with no one else on them
  • Lowlights: Crowded shantytown campground conditions, injuring my knee on a trail run which put me out of the active game for several days, negligent dog owners who have clearly never heard of leashes

Boise, Idaho: Home on the Road #82

Boise kind of took me by surprise. I’ve been pretty anti-city lately because they stress me out with all those people hovering about and traffic on the roads for no good reason. I’ve put in my city time dues while living in Chicago and Atlanta. Yet Boise was a refreshingly small city with just enough to do but not too much, and just enough people to see from a distance but not get too close.

  • Highlights: Nice-sized city with parks/breweries/downtown area; birthday weekend road trip to Malad Gorge State Park/Hagerman Fossil Beds/kayaking the Snake River, Banbury Hot Springs, camping and hiking at Brueau Sand Dunes State Park/low key concert in Eagle/Western Idaho State Fair; great city bike trail; chill breweries; responsible dog owners who know what leashes are; my first-ever waterpark
  • Lowlights: Not booking enough time here to hike very much or do a bunch of city things that we wanted to

John Day, Oregon: Home on the Road #83

Have you ever been somewhere
Where time slows down
The pace isn’t hasty
You’re not rushing around

There’s a river nearby
It’s small but it flows
I have it all to myself
A place nobody knows

Water over rocks
Enveloped by trees
Last hours of sunlight
Barely a breeze

Today feels endless
In a wonderful way
Didn’t expect to find peace
In the town of John Day

  • Highlights: Super chill and uncrowded Labor Day, boating on Lake Magone, painting on the side of the lake, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument’s Painted Hills and Blue Basin; feeling strangely relaxed and peaceful; solo hike to Strawberry Lake and Falls; able to walk to everything in the small town of 1,700+; cheap campground
  • Lowlights: Nothing really coming to mind

Ramblings from the Road

  • Semi-sewing project: No, I can’t claim to have made this purse – I wish! I actually won it at a paddling film festival raffle in Revelstoke. But it didn’t come with a strap, rendering it pretty dang unusable. So, I bought some webbing, made it into a strap, and BAM! Sadly, I found no time for crafting otherwise this month. But my favorite holiday of Halloween is coming up, so homemade costumes may be in our future.

  • I’m a big fan of boba tea. Small towns fall short in this regard, but Boise had a great spot downtown.

  • 35 years and not a single cavity! Thanks for the cleaning and checkup, random dentist in Boise that I’ll probably never see again.

Looking Ahead to Next Month

From John Day, we’ve recently moved onto Bend, Oregon, which I’ll save for month #27. Somehow, this is my first time to this outdoorsy destination, and we have some big adventures coming up here. First impressions:

  • Bend campgrounds are insanely crowded or insanely expensive.
  • This has prompted us to invest in our first solar panel system! It isn’t cheap, but it feels like our key to getting more off-the-grid and staying sane.
  • Our practical shopping errands have really piled up and I’m pretty tired of buying things and then finding places to stash them in our tiny home.
  • There are more kids than adults at Bend breweries (kids that love groping strange dogs without asking and then cry when you send them back to mommy and daddy).
  • Best rock climbing gym I’ve been to in ages here.
  • The traffic red lights are brutal.

But thus far, Eastern and Central Oregon have been much kinder to us than Portland, Salem, and the Oregon Coast. Unlike our six weeks of Oregon springtime, it’s not raining, it’s not cold, and the camper isn’t filled with mold and mud.

Right now, my #1 dislike about camper life is being surrounded by people all of the time. That’s why I’m putting a lot of muted faith in this solar panel system that is a work in progress. If all goes as planned, we might be able to stay off the grid more often and avoid these dreaded RV parks that are the sheer definitions of claustrophobia and annoyance. Either way, my next month’s blog could be substantially more interesting…

Catch up with the journey:

Temporary Canadians: Camper Life Goes International in Month #23

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We’re just a month away from our two-year (!) nomadic anniversary, and we’re kicking things off in a foreign country. Okay, so Canada doesn’t really feel all that foreign. But we did have a bit of a sketchy border crossing and I’m hearing more languages around the campground than anywhere I’ve stayed in the U.S.

Although I’ve been to Canada several times before this, here are some first impressions of after living here for a more extended time in an RV:

  • Don’t bring pepper spray across the border – it’s considered a weapon and will be confiscated
  • However, border control doesn’t care much about dogs
  • Gas is expensive
  • But medical care (vision exams, new contacts, dental surgery) is considerably cheaper than in the U.S. if you don’t have good insurance
  • Finding kilometers instead of miles on the dashboard is hard to do while driving
  • Everyone here camps in RV rentals made by Canadream
  • The internet connection kind of sucks, even in cities/suburbs
  • But the campgrounds have surprisingly great free Wi-Fi
  • Canadian news is funny to watch, but my favorite new show is “Canada’s Worst Driver”
  • Food, household, and toiletry products you buy have labels printed in dual English/French languages
  • Late-May weather is pretty spectacular
  • But some places have snow in June?!
  • Ordering online from Amazon in Canada is expensive and the selection is crap
  • This place is just riddled with parks
  • The Canada-U.S. money conversion works in our favor
  • The Canadian dollar is called a “Loonie” – hilarious!

Here’s a quick recap of this past month’s batch of homes on the road.

San Juan Islands, Washington: Home on the Road #70 (continued)

We kicked off Month #23 still back in Washington with our anniversary celebration in the San Juan Islands. It was an awesome time involving a ferry ride from Anacortes to Orcas Island, backpacking with tent gear to overnight in a remote place, and renting an adorable log cabin along the sea.

  • Highlights: Dog-friendly ferry ride, getting back to our camping roots again with tenting, living in a cabin for a day and wanting to keep it, finally finding a great place to kayak and SUP with calm water and a beach to pull over onto for lunch, perfect weather in the 70s
  • Lowlights: Discovering how vague and unhelpful the information about where to kayak in this region was and actually having to ask a real person (gross), having to leave the island life behind (sad)

Vancouver/Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada: Home on the Road #71

After crossing the Canadian border at Blaine, Washington, we headed to the Vancouver area because we really enjoyed this part of Canada when we visited six years ago. Like many cities, there were no good camping options actually in Vancouver, so we settled for the nearby suburb of Burnaby, which we will forever refer to as “Burnbaby.”

  • Highlights: Taking care of our vision exams and contact ordering for way less money than in the U.S., revisiting old touristy haunts like Granville Island and the Stanley Park area, discovering a gnome trail, great Belgian beer at Dagaraad, getting caught up with a ton of work, pleasant weather in the 60s-70s
  • Lowlights: Crowded campground with Canadians being just as annoying as Americans, the husband got his wisdom teeth removed so much of our stay here was committed to recovery rather than exploration

Lake Country, British Columbia, Canada: Home on the Road #72

We actually never intended to camp in Lake Country, BC and had booked a site in the nearby area of Vernon instead. But about a week before our reservation, the campground sent me an email that they were at a serious flood risk due to the massive amounts of snow from last winter now melting and flooding the nearby lake. Fortunately, they refunded my non-refundable deposit so we could seek shelter elsewhere. Lake Country, near the city of Kelowna, is where we ended up to check out another part of BC and still get in some paddling.

  • Highlights: Camping right next to a marina so we didn’t have to pump inflate and deflate the boats with each use, quiet campground with good Wi-Fi, the most scenic winery I can ever remember being at, finding a great self-serve dog wash station
  • Lowlights: Rain, feeling old age creep up on me with post-paddling and post-hiking soreness and struggling to keep up with the pace

Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada: Home on the Road #73

We spent a week in this Canadian mountain town with a badass name and badass scenery to match. If it wasn’t for the average 150 inches of snow this place gets each year, paired with lot of rain and not lots of sunshine, I think Revelstoke would make it onto our wall of “places to possibly plop down in someday” post-it notes.

  • Highlights: Hiking in Canada’s Glacier National Park and Mt. Revelstoke National Park, checking out at the least the 5th railroad museum during camper life so far and deciding that this is now a “thing,” good campground Wi-Fi for working, everything you’d want in a little mountain town
  • Lowlights: Snow and 42-degrees in June, way too much rain, mud, very unpredictable weather, only having a week here

This is my “why the hell am I hiking in snow in June” look

This Month’s Ramblings from the Road

As soon as we arrived in BC, it looked like it was snowing. However, it was May and 70 degrees outside. What the heck was it? Thanks to a well-marked hiking trail, I learned that tiny pieces of cotton were floating through the air courtesy of Black Cottonwood trees. I love learning about which trees are what. More trails need to teach me things.

I’m finally feeling ahead of the game with work. Woo hoo! At least something good came out of spending more time at home playing nurse for a recovering “less wise” husband with fewer teeth.

Something else I did with this magical extra time was break out my sewing machine again. Been awhile! Check out these recovery PJ pants covered in crazy dogs, posed next to our crazy dog.

Speaking of crazy dog, this new toy (a stuffed Canadian goose) didn’t stand a chance.

Month #23 required me to take on some new responsibilities during the wisdom teeth recovery period, such as grocery shopping. While I’ve certainly picked up a couple items here and there as needed, I haven’t done a full-blown weekly grocery shopping outing for literally years. In our division of labor, that’s the husband’s job.

Of course, being out of practice, my grocery endeavor didn’t go exactly as planned. Of course, I chose the one grocery store in the Vancouver suburbs that was going out of business in a month and had half the shelves empty. Of course one of the pre-packaged salads I bought gave me horrific abdominal cramps to the point of googling “symptoms of e-coli.” Fortunately, I was back to normal by the next day. But on the plus side, it was kind of nice getting to stock up on all of the vegan stuff that I like but that doesn’t necessarily get bought without me behind the shopping cart. Maybe I’ll try it again sometime soon. Or not.

Looking Ahead to Next Month

Next month is a big month because we’ll hit year #2 on the road on July 14! I wish we could stay in Canada longer and get further north, away from the main east-west highway and to the more remote areas that no one visits. However, internet reception for work is a major concern, and we have a Midwestern wedding to go to in late-July. Alas, Canada will always be here (or so we assume) for a later trip with perhaps a bit more time and advance planning.

We’ll be in Revelstoke for a bit longer and are then heading towards Banff National Park, the epicenter for Canadian outdoor tourism. Banff is insanely popular, so we couldn’t find a place to camp even months in advance. So, we’ll be staying at a provincial park about 40 minutes away. And since we hate crowds and traffic, we’ll definitely be visiting the national park on a weekday and swapping that workday out for a weekend. From there, our last Canadian home on the road will be camping on a farm near Lethbridge in Alberta. Thanks for making it this far down the page, and as the Canadians say “bye.”

Catch up with the journey:

Life as Washingtonians: A Year & 10 Months of Camper Life from the Evergreen State

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Greetings from the Pacific Northwest! Last month’s report from Oregon was a pretty dismal one….a downer, a real bummer of a blog post. But I’m happy to report that our time in Washington has been a serious morale boost. This is largely due to much less rain, much more sunshine, a manageable workload, and more time spent in the great outdoors.

This past month, I celebrated my sixth anniversary with my trusty 2010 Jeep Wrangler, a true adventuremobile in every sense of the word. After living the city life in Portland for a couple weeks, we were more than ready to get remote and venture off the grid. That’s why we started month #22 on the road in the town of Vantage, Washington – population 74.

From there, we moved on to the Seattle area for a week and then to those weird little islands off the coast of Washington. Here’s a quick recap of this past month’s batch of homes on the road.

Vantage, Washington: Home on the Road #68

Vantage proved to be exactly what I needed to renew my faith in camper life. The wide-open spaces reminded me more of the southwest than the northwest, it was easy to spend time outdoors, and the weather was amazing. From the landscapes to the weather and every type of outdoor recreation you could hope for, Central Washington definitely took me by surprise.

  • Highlights: Lots of state parks, very few people, getting back to our camping roots with some tent camping, falling in love with the town of Wenatchee, day trip to Leavenworth, hiking to the waterfall at Frenchman Coulee, ginkgo petrified wood, affordable campsites, good internet connection for work, securing two raises with work clients, wildflowers, apple and cherry blossom trees in bloom
  • Lowlights: Crazy strong winds that all the campground reviews warned us about, 40 minutes to reach any services/non-expired groceries/etc.

Seattle/Bothell, Washington: Home on the Road #69

I missed Vantage the moment I left, but alas, Wanapum State Park had a 10-day limit and it was time to move on. Since cities aren’t really our “thing” lately, we planned to only spend one week in the Seattle area. Not surprisingly, there aren’t any good camping options in the city of Seattle, so we settled for the northeast suburb of Bothell. We’d been to the city before, so this stop was more about making some social visits to old friends and taking care of practical things, like package delivery and stocking up on supplies.

  • Highlights: Drinking beers with my old rock climbing classmate/kayak instructor, Bob, from my Chicago days, Thali dinner and neighborhood brews with my old DC buddy, Marisa, and her husband Krzystof, Decent campground for a private RV park with a little lake and trails around the perimeter, successful Amazon package delivery, awesome Seattle weather that defied stereotypes, revisiting the Fremont Troll, biking with Monkey on the Burke Gilman Trail
  • Lowlights: Suburban traffic, city traffic

Oak Harbor, Washington: Home on the Road #70

I’d never been to any of those little islands off the coast of Washington before but was always curious about these tiny, scattered land masses. We’re about halfway through our stay on Whidbey Island near Deception Pass State Park and totally into it so far. We thought this would be a fun place to celebrate the husband’s birthday and our wedding anniversary, because islands….right?

  • Highlights: Coastal views from the Deception Pass trails, the Decent campground Wi-Fi, throwing a birthday party for the husband, excellent seafood, watching traditional Native American dancing and canoe races at the Penn Cove Water Festival, reading the story of the Maiden of Deception Pass
  • Lowlights: Standard/non-scenic campground with crowds and annoying people, learning how expensive/logistically challenging it is island hop between ferries

This Month’s Ramblings from the Road

Creating art hasn’t been a top priority of camper life thus far, but I’d love it to inch it up the list a bit more going forward to break up the monotony of never-ending work. To that end, we recently stocked up on a small set of acrylic paints, mini-canvases, and sculpting clay. Here’s my first crappy abstract landscape creation.

The husband makes some seriously delicious stuff in this camper despite the challenges of cooking in a tin box on wheels. Here’s a recent example with fresh shrimp, rice, onions, peppers, and the insane amount of spices we’re gotten accustomed to scarfing down. Meanwhile, I mostly stick to making tofu, salads, and pancakes.

Work is still aplenty and totally overwhelming at times, but it’s settled into a more manageable level thanks to turning down some assignments and putting in extra hours on weekends when needed. Working outside in places like this on beautiful always makes me shut up about my work complaining and be thankful I do what I do.

We’re also experimenting with taking weekends on Sunday/Monday or Monday/Tuesday to avoid spring/summer crowds. I mean, we’re already living a non-traditional lifestyle and working non-traditional jobs, so why stick to everyone else’s definition of a weekend?

Looking Ahead to Next Month

TODAY begins our big anniversary ferry adventure! We’ll soon be driving on-board a ferry from Anacortes to Orcas Island for a few work-free, celebratory days of kayaking in the islands, tent camping, cabin camping, and island town exploring. I’ll be reporting back on this little island excursion to kick off next month’s post.

Upon our return to Whidbey Island, our time in Washington will soon come to a close, but I must say that this state has treated us considerably better than Oregon did. It’s probably our fault for arriving in Oregon too early in the season, or maybe it was the universe’s way of pushing us along. Either way, I really have enjoyed my last several weeks in the Evergreen State and will be back sometime, somehow.

From here, we’re taking this camper trip international! We’ll soon be heading up to British Columbia to spend some time in Vancouver and then start moving eastward towards Banff. We’ve confirmed that our internet/phone coverage will work up there and that no special dog certificate is needed to transport this Monkey over the border. Canada promises wild adventure, even though it’s kicking off with vision and dental appointments. With our crappy health insurance coverage, Canada is actually way cheaper for stuff like that.

Looks like we’ll be needing to get some Canadian stickers to add to our RV life map though!

Catch up with the journey:

It’s Officially Been a Year & a Half of Camper Life!

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A year and a half? Whoa. Pop some champagne, because this sounds like a reason to celebrate!

Eighteen months ago, we hit the open road and never looked back. Well okay, that’s a lie. We’ve actually been back to where we started twice since then due to nomad logistics. In fact, that fact ties into the theme for month #18 of camper life.

It was a milestone month, but also a weird month thanks to the holidays. On the first day of it, we stuck Dragoon the RV into a storage lot in Arizona and headed out on a cross-country Jeep road trip to Georgia and Illinois.

From there, there were lots of cheap motel stays (fortunately no bedbugs, but unfortunately with plenty of neighbor noise), visits with family and friends, and a few fun national park/monument stops to break up excruciatingly long drives.

Here’s a quick recap of this past month’s batch of homes on the road:

Christmas Road Trip: The Eastbound Journey

  • Highlights: A chill, dog-friendly driving break at Sierra Blanca Brewing in Moriarty, New Mexico; Gorging on our favorite Torchy’s Tacos in Amarillo, Texas, not getting sick from $4 Chinese takeout in Texarkana, Arkansas; digging for diamonds at Crater of Diamonds State Park (sadly, we didn’t strike it rich though); checking out the historic bathhouses at Hot Springs National Park
  • Lowlights: 8-10-hour days in the car; very boring stretches of road (I’m looking at you, Central Texas), the annoyance of every stranger hassling us to meet Monkey in Hot Springs, Arkansas; not uncovering any sparkling diamonds while digging in the dirt, eating too much and exercising too little

A Few Days in Atlanta 

  • Highlights: Hanging out with my best gal pal and her kiddos for the day; dinner at a great Japanese restaurant with another old friend; boba tea and Asian grocery stores; finally going for a run (in the rain, however); the expansive salad bar at Fogo de Chao which made up for my distaste for all things meat on a business partner + family dinner
  • Lowlights: Lots of rain (totally forgot what rain was after being in the desert for so long); the loudest and most annoying hotel stay ever at Studio 6 in Chamblee (seriously, who does crossfit and sings every night between 11pm and 5am?); terrible hotel pillows

Celebrating Christmas with Family 

  • Highlights: Feeling like a kid again in my parents’ house; Monkey got to stay with us!; seeing real reindeer at a reindeer ranch; some well-timed snow that looked nice but didn’t get in the way of our travel plans; card games with Mom and Dad; running on my parents’ treadmill 5 days in a row to fight the fatness; hanging out with my 94-year-old grandma; meals out with friends in the area; not having to work much at all; ummm….presents!
  • Lowlights: Blisteringly cold and below-zero temps that will never make me miss Illinois; that day when Monkey ate half a box of animal crackers left behind in my parents’ SUV

Christmas Road Trip: The Westbound Journey

  • Highlights: Drinking beer and gnoming out at Hopping Gnome Brewing in Wichita, Kansas; motel hot tubs and free breakfasts; breweries and food trucks in Albuquerque; taking a day off driving to check out El Malpais National Monument and El Morrow National Monument in New Mexico; final stops at Petrified Forest National Monument back in Arizona
  • Lowlights: Also very boring roads (This time, I’m looking at you, Kansas); all the money spent on gas

And with that, we were reunited with our home on wheels and set to dive back into camper life. The road trip (versus flying) plan went off without a hitch, but this may not have worked out so well if the weather turned crappy or the Jeep broke down. However, none of that happened, so it was great to be able to spend additional time with family and friends for the holidays and also make some random stops in Arkansas, Kansas, and New Mexico to break up the monotony of driving. And the best bonus was that Monkey could come along for it all, rather than being boarded back in Arizona like last year!

After picking up the RV from storage and crashing for one night in Black Canyon City, Arizona, we moved on to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument to ring in the new year.

Organ Pipe National Monument, Ajo, Arizona: Home on the Road #58

  • Highlights: Awesome campground that actually had internet coverage so we could extend our stay from two days to seven; backcountry and off-road hikes where dogs are allowed; starting the year off with a slow pace; making it up ’til midnight on NYE (barely) by listening to podcasts and playing board games; managing to use the four hours of daily allowed generator time to charge laptops enough for working; an awesome day trip to Puerto Peñasco, Mexico for a day of eating good food and being beach bums
  • Lowlights: Only 2 dog-friendly designated trails; old people who stick their noses in others’ business; the ordeal of driving over to fresh water and dump stations every few days

Yuma, Arizona: Home on the Road #59

  • Highlights: Swapping out stuff in our tiny storage unit here (tent camping gear now in tow!); taking care of Monkey’s annual vet appointment and dental cleaning; revisiting the one and only brewery in town; getting a lot of work done and continuing a slower pace of life; finding a campground that allows in people under 55 and that doesn’t enforce its pitbull ban
  • Lowlights: Surrounded by snowbirds everywhere you go; the insane cost of Monkey’s vet bill (but she’s worth it)

This Month’s Ramblings from the Road

  • Time passes by differently in different places. For example, it always seems to move so slowly in Central Illinois where I grew up. It also moves slowly in places like Organ Pipe where there’s really not that much to do or be in a hurry for. The slower pace is refreshing to me right now, after always feeling in a frantic hurry to get to everything all at once for the sake of checking things off a list.
  • I brought my 1984 cabbage patch, Isabelle, out of storage and she is now an active member of this camper life journey! This little lady went to college with me and survived the 120+ degree heat in a non-climate-cooled storage unit in Yuma. I think that deserves a medal and a shot of something strong. She is 33 years old, after all. She’s a little worn and dirty, but then again, aren’t we all?

  • Also, having Georgia license plates is exhausting. At this point, I’ve lived longer on the road than ever in the state of Georgia. But everyone has to have license plates, and that’s what ours say. In the west/southwest, it’s a constant barrage “Georgia?! Well aren’t you a looooooong way from home? Whataya doin’ out here?!?” If I had a nickel for every time I had to endure this exhausting conversation, I’d have a couple bucks by now.
  • We’ve been redecorating and personalizing the RV! These are the cupboards above our bed, and we printed out panorama photos to display on the otherwise-boring surfaces. I love the way they turned out!

  • We also finished our replacement DIY curtains in the living room and office. These ones actually reach down to the windowsill and block out some light.

  • Another project (that was all S and no me) was building a second workstation for the RV. It’s bolted into the dash board and slides out like a drawer. Now we don’t have to sit next to each other all day and kick each other trying to scoot out…amazing!

  • There’s still something very appealing to me about New Mexico – something rugged, mysterious, and alas….uncrowded.
  • I love campground and hotel fitness centers, no matter how outdated or tiny. There’s never anyone in these mysterious places and I can finally lift something besides resistance bands and my own body weight.
  • While in Yuma, we went to a wood carving expo and I bought this necklace – totally obsessed. It’s a carving from mesquite wood from the desert and turquoise chips with copper and a leather chain. It reminds me of the mountains I’ve been hiking in, southwest landscapes, independence, and enduring strength despite getting a little worn and rough around the edges over time. One day, when I uncover magical free time, I’d love to make jewelry, and for it to be something like this.

  • A fellow full-time RV friend of mine recently commented how non-retired/full-time working RVers have very little in common with snowbirds, and I couldn’t agree more. Living in snowbird country is pretty much like living on Groundhog Day and having the same awkward interactions and forced conversations every day. Yet we are terribly outnumbered.
  • I’d 2018 to be my year of slowing down and being more spontaneous. Living a life on the road might sound inherently spontaneous, but it’s really not. All of our homes on the road are very planned out in advance, largely to accommodate our work schedules and find some normalcy while constantly moving. However, starting the year off at Organ Pipe reminded me of a few things. #1: Slow down and stop rushing because no one else cares what I do, where I go, or how many things I check off a list. And #2: Build in time for spontaneous time. In a rare wine-fueled moment, we decided to take a day trip to Mexico the night before crossing the border atLukeville, Arizona. It was probably the best decision we’ve made all year. With a super-easy border crossing, cheaply priced everything, and perfect weather for sand and sunshine, I need more Puerto Peñasco-style days in my life.

Looking Ahead to Next Month

From Yuma, we got back into California, but this time with goals to only stop by a few key areas in order to reach Oregon by early March. Rather than spending eight or so months in California like last year, we’re blowing through a bit faster this time so we can spend spring and summer in Oregon, Washington, Canada, Idaho, and Montana.

Our first Cali stop was a quick overnight at Pyramid Lake to break up the drive to San Luis Obispo, where we’ll spend a couple weeks revisiting an area that we really enjoyed last spring. SLO has made it on our short list of possible future plop-down spots, so I’m looking forward to getting to know the area better. From here, we’re northward bound with two-week stays being standard protocol.

Thanks for sifting through my rambles for the past year and a half! I’ll close with our fortunes for the new year, courtesy of $4 Chinese entrees from Texarkana, Arkansas.

Catch up with the journey: