Val in Real Life LLC

Category: Exploring

Dive in to my adventures and travels of all kinds here. From outdoors to urban and via foor, auto, motorcycle, or as a full-time RVer, I’ve embraced adventures of all kinds.

A Surprise Birthday Trip
They got me good. My dear man and our Georgia besties had been plotting a surprise birthday trip for most of 2025. And I had no idea. They were sneaky as fuck.
How to make Val grumpy (to put it mildly)
I wish I could say I was more gracious about the surprise. When I found out about this mystery trip, I have to admit I was not a happy camper.
By the time I learned about it, the “adventure” was only a couple of weeks out. When my dear man sheepishly mentioned I’d scheduled a gallery shift during our mystery winter trip he had on the calendar, my response was “What the ever-loving fuck are you talking about?”
It turns out he’d put this “mystery winter trip” placeholder on our shared calendar but it was somehow accidentally marked private. So I hadn’t seen it and was going about my merry way with life.
At any rate, in my life as it stood at that point, I was booked solid 3-4 months out. So you didn’t just get on my calendar. Shuffling calendar shit around was like trying to solve the Theory of fucking Relativity.
So I embraced my inner Einstein and somehow got things moved, canceled, etc. The dependencies were extreme—the calendar equivalent of a house of cards.
Side note
I’d like to interject here that the calendar from hell is not a badge of honor. It’s not some self-serving humblebrag. And I’m not advocating “busy-ness” as an honorable life goal.
It was just my reality at the time in start-up mode for Southwest Art Towns on top of my obligations as an exhibitor at a local art gallery and all sorts of other things related to running your own business.
I was hella stressed and over-extended. I’ve made significant life changes since then to rectify the situation. But I’m still working on it and fixing a shit show like this is a long play. Like, really long.
I have a lot more thoughts on the whole “busy” life motif but that’s a post for another time.
Ok, back to the story.
How to make Val grumpy–Part 2
When I finally found out about the trip, I knew nothing other than we would be traveling. That was it. And it was only a couple of weeks out.
My brain went into overdrive. What was he planning? And why the secrecy? There must be others involved. The only people I could imagine would have been our dear friends in Georgia—Leslie and Jim.
But they couldn’t get away in December! On top of their real estate businesses, they run the Farmhouse Inn. And it’s a demanding business, especially in the holiday season. If there is anyone who is more over-extended than me, it’s them.
So not only did I not know who was involved in these shenanigans, I had no idea where we were going. Which meant I had no idea how to pack. My dear man gave me some guidance but that only raised more questions.
Are we taking the bikes or the truck? That’s unknown? Fucking great. How am I supposed to know how to pack? Those are two entirely different travel scenarios.
Did I need camera gear? Yes.
Ok, all of it? Some of it? Do I need a tripod? Which bodies? Which lenses? (I have a lot of camera gear—it’s an occupational hazard.)
What kind of clothing, layers, shoes, etc. do I need to bring?
Are we camping? Staying in a hotel?
Those details were minor compared to having no idea how I’d be able to manage work shit.
Will we have internet access?
How busy will we be?
What do I need to make sure is handled work-wise before we go?
Will I have time to manage things? A little? A lot?
So. Many. Questions.
My favorite people gave me quite the birthday surprise.
Trust
In the end, my dear man asked me to trust him. And I did. But that doesn’t mean I was happy—or comfortable—with it under the circumstances.
With all of the stressors and unknowns, the fun-factor was pretty low for me. At a different time in my life, I could have rolled with it. At the time, not so much.
I learned later it hadn’t occurred to them that I didn’t know about the trip. They thought my lack of questions up until I actually found out about the trip was just me being super-chill about it. That should have probably been their first clue. “Chill” was not happening in my life then.
Extra layers of not-fun
Through all of this I was pursuing foot surgery to deal with a couple of issues, one of which is the fact that I can barely bend my big toe thanks to some fuck-all gnarly bone spurs. When I finally decided I was going to go for it and began the scheduling process (I’m quite surgery-averse), I thought it would be a month or so before the big day. Nope. It would be the next week.
Little did I know that behind the scenes Leslie and J. were trying to work around my recovery from timing standpoint for the trip as well as our activities. Leslie was coordinating a tour of the Ladder Ranch for us without knowing if I would be able to walk at all and what kind of accommodations I’d need.
Of course, I had no idea this was happening in the background. I was only approaching the surgery crap from a managing my day-to-day life perspective, not a managing fun travel perspective. (And trying not to be a whiny little bitch about having to be off the bike for a couple of months, to be honest.)
Then, insurance struck. Once the surgery was scheduled, the folks at the podiatrist’s office began the insurance approval process. Keep in mind, this is only a week out from the procedure.
As I’m frantically making plans to manage the travel and other logistics of the surgery (this isn’t really something I can do locally in my small town), I got a call saying that with deductibles and whatnot, my out of pocket would be $9,000.
My response? The fuck it is.
So I spent a few days navigating that bombshell trying to salvage the procedure so I can get some relief from the constant fucking pain. (Apparently the ability to walk is considered “elective” in the insurance world. But let’s not go down that rant-hole right now.)
In hindsight, I now know that J. and Leslie were in their own secret swirl of chaos trying to manage the unknowns throughout this in a scenario that was changing constantly, hour-by-hour.
In the end, it was no surgery for Val. At least not until I can find away to get that price tag down. (For the record, that’s still in progress and I’m still miserable with an increasingly dysfunctional foot.)
Clues
In the eleventh hour, Leslie showed her hand. We’d been orchestrating one of our semi-routine virtual happy hours but she was cagey about it. Then out of the blue she called. That was a major red flag.
We don’t “chat” on the phone. We message each other. We share bite-sized updates that don’t show up on social media, arrange our video happy hours, send silly goat videos. That kind of thing. But we don’t talk on the phone.
So my initial reaction when the phone rang and her name came up on the caller ID was that something was majorly wrong. Like I-need-to-get-my-ass-on-a-plane-to-Georgia-right-fucking-now wrong. She scared the ever-loving shit out of me.
Once I realized she called for no ostensible reason, I essentially had confirmation she was the one behind this mystery trip. And once I relaxed that there wasn’t some major catastrophe, we had a great chat. Go fig.
The journey
By now you’re probably thinking “For fuck’s sake Val, what about the damn trip?”
Well, it was great. Eventually.
Through the last-minute preparations, I managed to get enough information from J. to get packed and out the door. It ended up being a truck trip rather than a motorcycle trip which made the packing a much less challenging task.
Keep in mind though, we’re rolling out of the driveway and I still have no fucking idea where we were going. Given that the trip was only five days and we were driving, there was an obvious distance limit. But other than that, I was relegated to detective mode to suss it out and eliminate possibilities as we drove.
J. pointed us east and we made over way over the gorgeous Black Range which eliminated a huge chunk of destination possibilities. But my brain was still swirling.
Were we headed to Truth of Consequences? We were just there for my birthday ride which we’d done early thinking I’d be laid up for my actual birthday. So that didn’t seem super likely.
It couldn’t be Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Reserve which we’ve been wanting to explore more. J. told me I didn’t need a tripod which would be important there so that didn’t seem likely either.
Santa Fe? No, we would have left earlier in the day if we were going that far.
I was baffled.
Then J. threw me for a loop. He turned south in Hillsboro, pointing us towards the Las Cruces/Mesilla area. All the pieces of the puzzle appeared to be coming together. Every time J. and I go to Mesilla, we talk about how much Leslie and Jim would love it.
Given everything up to this point in this trip insanity and being almost completely certain Leslie and Jim were the ones involved, I figured J.’s atypical route there was simply to throw me off the scent.
So I thought I had it figured out at that point. I was wrong.
The destination
So we’re cruising along and I’m feeling quite satisfied with myself for piecing the puzzle together and began looking forward to some time in Mesilla. Then out to the blue, J. pulls into Sparky’s in Hatch, the town known for New Mexico’s famous chile peppers and their annual Chile festival.
The fact that J. didn’t ask me where I wanted to go for lunch—or if I was even hungry yet—was another clue. Clearly this was part of the big plan. Sure enough, we walk into Sparky’s and who is standing at the counter but Leslie and Jim.
After the wave of being so fucking happy to see them subsided, more confusion set in. I got a lot of the backstory over lunch but it became evident Hatch wasn’t the final destination. So even with many mysteries solved at this point, I was still left wondering what was coming next.
As we stood in the parking lot and the three of them were trying to surreptitiously coordinate the next leg of the trip with me standing there, I caught a glimpse of one of their phones with the route highlighted on the map. Aha! We are going to Truth or Consequences!
I played it cool and pretended I didn’t know. And, in truth, I was still very much in the dark about where we were staying and what we’d be doing so only knowing the destination was only mildly helpful. I did know we were in for a good time with our friends though, so at that point I was hella on board with the whole trip.
The casita at the Sierra Grand resort.
Branching out
J. and I have been spending a decent bit of time in T or C over the last couple of years. Largely that’s been on behalf of our Southwest Art Towns project. And we’d just been there a few weeks earlier for the aforementioned early birthday trip—the one we took thinking I’d be in gimp mode after foot surgery.
On that last trip, we remarked that having the business budget to stay at the Sierra Grande hotel was a medium-term goal. We tend to stay at The Charles—a lower price-point motel that’s always an adventure.
Either way, we like staying downtown to be able to walk places. So being fairly familiar with the lodging options if T or C as we pulled into town, I was shocked that we rolled into the Sierra Grande. Not only that, we were staying in the two-bedroom casita on the property. And I have to tell you, it was glorious.
It was the perfect setup for two couples traveling together. And, quite frankly, to have a few nights in a house that’s not a construction zone was an enormous relief.
The Ladder Ranch near Caballo, New Mexico.
The next surprise
When J. and I are in T or C we tend to be hyper-focused on work stuff. Specifically, getting the word out about our Southwest Art Towns. So we zero in on artsy stuff these days.
But with Leslie in charge of plans, she forced us to break out of our little art-centric bubble by taking a tour of the Ladder Ranch. It’s one of Ted Turner’s properties located southwest of T or C.
It’s something J and I wouldn’t have sought out on our own as travelers. Especially since the start time was 7 am. Not exactly our rhythm. But of course it was totally worth it.
The tour was an all-day excursion via one of those side-by-side things I’ve never ridden in before. Leslie had chosen this type of excursion not knowing what my ability to walk would be.
Of course, this is where all of the question marks I’d had about the trip finally came together. And why J. said I needed camera gear but not a tripod. The high-speed, bouncy photography was certainly a challenge. And because I wasn’t mentally prepared, I pretty much hosed the photographic opportunity. And I’m still mad at myself for it. Probably always will be.
Our motley Ladder Ranch tour crew including our wonderful guide, Corey.
Rounding out the trip
The tour was the big highlight of the trip, of course. But the timing of this mystery adventure meant we were in town for T or C’s Second Saturday Art Hop. It’s quite a lively event and—being December—the Hop-goers were in a particularly festive mood.
Outside of the tour and the art hop, the rest of the trip was about having some face time with Leslie and Jim. And that’s in short supply these days—geographical challenges, professional demands, and all. So we ate our way through town and “partied” middle-aged style the rest of the time. Which means being in bed by like 10 o’clock.
And it was awesome. There are no other people we travel with so well. Partly because we learned long ago that we need to just step back and let Leslie be in charge and it always works out great.
Gratitude
I’m truly fortunate to have friends who will go to these lengths for me. And I’m mad at myself for being so stressed out that I struggled to ramp down and just roll with it. It’s testament to the power of stress to overtake our lives. And a hard lesson learned.
Leslie told me while on the trip that if she hadn’t made our face time happen, it wouldn’t have. And she was right, of-fucking-course. She’s always right.
Zoltar says “Val get your shit together and have a good time with your friends.”

September 24, 2026
Postcards from Real Life: Earth
Exploring scale solar system walks is a groovy way to refresh our perspective our place in the stars. And explore places on Earth.
Our little blue marble is amazing. How life began and evolved here over billions of years is mind-blowing. And yet within that marvel, we’re microscopic in the big scheme of things—in our solar system alone much less considering the entire universe.
One of the ways I love seeing our place in space represented is through scaled solar system walks. If you’re not familiar, they’re walking tours you can take that have plaques or displays showing the planets, not only in a relational distance to one another but also in the planet sizes themselves.
They can be super-fancy and formal (usually sponsored by a museum or some such) or simple, homemade versions. They run the gamut. But by far my favorite I’ve ever explored is the one on the road to Great Basin National Park.
Someone tied various objects and hand-painted signs along a barbed wire fence on the road leading to the park. The planets were represented by things like basket and tennis balls, a bell, etc. You get the idea.
And if you were simply focused on getting to the park, you’d miss the whole thing. It didn’t have a fancy marker or display to tell you about it. It just seemed to be someone’s quirky little project. But you had to be paying attention to notice it.
The last time I visited years ago, many of the planets had gone missing. So unless someone has tended to it, there’s probably not much left. And that’s a shame. It was so very on-brand, oddball Nevada. And I loved it.
Anyway, I encourage you to seek out scaled solar systems walks where you live or in places you travel to. They’re a fun way to explore a town or city even if it’s your own. Much like geocaching, they take you places you might not go otherwise.
And they’re an important reminder of the dichotomy our “little” Earth represents in the universe—tiny in the big picture but unique and amazing in its own right.
Peace out!
Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly theme each Saturday.
August 15, 2026
Postcards from Real Life: Background
My dear man and I sat in the shadows of a sidewalk cafe in Viñales, Cuba. The glossy table top reflected the bustle of activity on the street just a few feet away.
We sipped our coffee and watched the world go by. The marvelous diversity of “traffic” delighted us. Even in a similarly-sized small town in the U.S., we wouldn’t be treated to this glorious, wide-ranging assortment of passers-by.
People, horses, oxen, and dogs.
Cars, trucks, bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, and tractors.
Cargo carts, carriages, and wheelbarrows.
Some talked on cell phones. Some chatted with companions. Some carried ristras of onions. One woman carried new kitchen sink still wrapped in plastic.
We sat quietly, taking in an ordinary day in a small Cuban town. Most of the people going about their day didn’t give us much notice. We were the background.
That was fine with us. We wanted to blend in—as much as is possible as outsiders—to get a picture of real Cubans going about their day. People living their lives without the baggage that comes with tending to us as visitors that weighed on most of our interactions.
On this morning in our Cuban travels, I threw myself into exploring the scenes with my infrared camera. I love the effect it has on the colors and textures of images.
I like monochrome images in general for their ability to strip away the distraction of color and highlight form, lines, and texture. Infrared gives those images a little punch though, especially in foliage. It’s fun shooting.
I reveled in mixing the exercises of people-watching and street photography on this slow morning of our travels. Our time in the background at this street side cafe was one of our favorite experiences in Cuba. That’s saying a lot given how many rich and rewarding experiences we had there.
Cheers, friends. See you next week.
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly theme each Saturday.
March 28, 2026
Postcards from Real Life: Stone
The cliff dwellings of the west spur the imagination. Trying to fathom what it must have taken to build these stone walls in a high cliff face without the benefit of our modern tools is just the start.
I have no idea how many cliff dwellings there are out here. But I happen to live a stone’s throw (pun totally intended), from Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument.
The Mogollon people built their home here in the late 1200s and only used it for a couple of generations. Unfortunately we don’t really know a lot about them. And we probably never will. If only this walls could talk.
While I typically share straight-up photography in these little vignettes, this image is digital artwork I created from a two-shot panorama. Two shots probably doesn’t seem like a “panorama” in the most traditional sense but it was the only way I could get the composition I wanted. You know, without falling down the sheer cliff face a few inches to my left.
Cheers, friends!
PS—You can find prints and merch of this artwork on my art site.
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly theme each Saturday.
March 21, 2026
Postcards from Real Life: Vibrant
I’m not a big city person by-and-large. There are elements that are fascinating and intriguing about them, but I get overstimulated and overwhelmed pretty damn quickly.
But in thinking about this week’s theme, I wanted to step away from the obvious pretty images like sunsets and flowers. Because the theme got me thinking about cities and the ones I’ve experienced that ooze energy and vibrance. Those are the cities that draw me in.
Don’t confuse that with “busy”, though. Noise, motion, and chaos don’t make a city vibrant.
The foundation of urban vibrancy comes from the architecture, colors, public art, and parks. But the element that cinches the feeling of vibrancy is the people. It’s their energy and attitudes that makes or breaks the vibrant vibe.
And the city that stands out to me as vibrant—alive—is Havana.
There are the obvious physical traits of the city that ticks all the boxes. But the people—friendly, energetic, and spirited, even towards us outsiders—made it city I could embrace and explore in-depth without the overwhelm.
The true test is when you’re off the main drags and outside of the tourist-centric areas. Does the vibrancy still hold?
In Havana, it did.
The reality is that—like a lot of big cities—there is poverty in Havana. There are derelict buildings. There are areas with trash in the street. But even in those areas, the sense of place was still vibrant.
I made this image on a random side street on a quiet afternoon. And for me it’s a vignette of Havana. The colorful buildings, the historic architecture, the juxtaposition of the modern and vintage cars, the man walking, the laundry hanging from the balcony—and yes, even some trash piled in a doorway—encapsulates the complexity and reality of this place. A place filled with beautiful, vibrant people.
And the funny thing is that I went into that trip to Cuba intending to enjoy time with friends and not be “on duty” as a photographer. What the hell was I thinking that I could go to Cuba and not be a photographer? Silly me.
Cheers, friends. Stay vibrant.
Here’s a digital art piece I made with the original image you can find in my online art shop.
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly theme each Saturday.
January 10, 2026
Postcards from Real Life: Sky
I spotted this scene in Theodore Roosevelt National Park (South Unit) and was immediately captivated by its beauty and simplicity. The gentle arc of the hill with the lone tree under a sky filled with puffy clouds was a stirring vignette of the rolling plains of North Dakota.
The kids and I were on one of our jam-packed, mondo road trips but I knew I needed to take the time to photography this postcard-perfect scene. They waited patiently for me while I forced myself to not rush the process even though our exploration wish list for the day was long.
As I was wrapping up, a man in a little convertible raced into the pullout and called out to me. Well, shouted at me really.
“What do you see? Is there a buffalo out there or something?” the jerk asked.
“No, I’m photographing this beautiful scene.” I replied, gesturing condescendingly to the tree and sky that obviously deserved attention.
His faced drooped as his excitement turned to disappointment. “Oh, I thought it was something interesting,” he said in a tone dripping with disdain. He sped off, apparently in a hurry to achieve his quest of finding something meeting his definition of interesting.
I stood under that beautiful North Dakota sky and reminded myself we all enjoy our national parks in different ways. Even assholes.
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly theme each Saturday.
December 6, 2025
The Little Forester That Could
It’s my Subaru-versary! I think I must have blinked because somehow I’ve been ~~driving~~ beating the ever-loving shit out of this Forester for fifteen years. And it has taken every lick like a heavyweight boxer in a title match who refuses to go down.
On this anniversary, I realize how much I love my car. Not in the obsessive, fanatical treat-it-like-a-museum-piece way. But in the this-is-the-best-car-I’ve-ever-owned way. By a long shot.
Holy shit! Look how new and shiny she was on her Gotcha Day way back in 2010.
Breaking from the norm
And I had to fight for her. Subaru’s were not “a thing” in my world. While they’re very popular in certain regions of the U.S., they weren’t as prominent in Florida and Georgia where I’d lived up to that point in my life.
But I researched the fuck out of what my next vehicle should be and I came down to either a Forester or an Outback. I’d looked and test-driven several other small SUV-ish offerings in the Toyota-Honda-Etc realm that I ruled out for various reasons. Eventually it came down to the Forester and I was damn confident about the choice.
I got pushback from all directions from family members. A Subaru?!? You’d have thought I’d lost my fucking mind. Who knew my car choice could be so divisive? It was rather weird honestly. But that’s a conversation I should probably save for a therapist.
I did a fuck-ton of research to know the Forester was the right choice for me.
Getting down to adventure business
In spite of my unpopular decision, I secured my new adventure-mobile. At the time, I was homeschooling the kiddos so it became the literal vehicle by which we explored and learned. The car became our mobile school.
We packed up our camping gear—oftentimes with The Disapproving Beagle—and hit the road. This Forester covered a shit-ton of ground in the course of our road-schooling adventures. We camped, geocached, explored national parks, and visited historic sites and museums all over the U.S. and Canada in this plucky little car.
She’s criss-crossed the country from points as far as Key West, Vancouver BC, Los Angeles, and Prince Edward Island. This little car has got some serious fucking adventure cred.
One of her first camping trips in Georgia.
Showing off my US sticker map to our pal Scott.
When your kid asks if we can geocache the ET Highway. We sure can, sweetie.
The Disapproving Beagle was our mascot for many Forester adventures.
Great Sand Dunes was a frequent destination.
It was a sad day when our sicker map finally gave up the ghost.
Semi-retirement
Our road-schooling adventures wound down as the kids attended higher-level homeschooling classes. She more frequently served as my mobile office while the kids were in class. Since moving out west she’s mostly enjoyed semi-retirement as a putt-around-town car.
Which aligns with her beleaguered status, having done hard time as my adventure-mobile. A lot of her bits-and-pieces are showing signs of how hard I’ve treated her. The seats are stained—like hella stained—with 160,000-plus miles of adventures, kids, and dogs.
I spent many hours working out of the Forester while the kids were in class.
Memories
So with that intro of sorts, here are some random memories about my beloved Forester.
Maintenance on the road
Given my penchant for lengthy road trips, she’s had oil changes and such all over the country. During what was supposed to be a routine maintenance stop in Maine, a mechanic suggested she needed new rear ball joints.
I balked at first, partly due to the delay in our travel plans but also because I wasn’t certain I wasn’t being played. Let’s face it, I wouldn’t be the first woman to be screwed over at an auto shop.
Fortunately I was able to get ahold of my mechanic in Georgia and ask him if that sounded legit. He said, “The way you load that car?!? Yes, you need ball joints! And don’t try to get home from Maine on them. Fix it.”
I had the repair done—obviously!—and subsequently apologized to the Forester for treating her so unkindly. Not that I changed my ways, mind you, but I did thank her for taking one for the team.
On the lift in Maine when we got the news we’d been loading her pretty harshly.
Testing my mechanic’s patience
Speaking of my trusted mechanic, I swear he had to dread every time I came in. I returned from one of our gonzo-cross-country trips for an all-points kind of service.
In going over everything that needed to be done I said, “Hey, while it’s on the lift just be sure to give it a good look underneath.”
He replied, “Everything is tucked up in there pretty well on these cars, I’m sure it’s fine.”
I gave him some raised eyebrows and said, “No man, really. Give it a good look.”
He sighed and sort of deflated like an exasperated parent, “What the hell have you been doing now, Val?”
“Don’t ask questions, man. You don’t fucking want to know. Just give her a little extra love this time, ok?”
Everything was fine, by the way. Another win for the Forester.
“WTF have you been doing, Val?” Gee, I dunno, just having some off-road adventures. Nothing to see here. Move along. Don’t ask questions.
Campground entertainment
As for the the-way-you-load-that-car-of-course-you-need-ball-joints scenario, we were often the subject of much amusement in campgrounds. Other campers with much bigger vehicles—or a lot less gear—would insist there was no-fucking-way I was getting all our stuff into that car.
When I reminded them we’d gotten there in the car with all that stuff they had to acknowledge it was obviously possible. But they were still skeptical and stood around to watch me pack. So yeah, I had audiences marveling at my totally lit, badass Forester packing skills.
I have ace packing skills in case you didn’t know.
Camping with Toby
After I moved the Subaru out west, we camped with Toby out of the Forester exactly once. You know, just for shits-and-giggles even though we usually camped out of my dear man’s pickup.
For the record, there’s a pretty massive difference in car camping with an 80-pound adventure mutt than with a 20-pound beagle. But Toby had a grand fucking time. He loved being able to look over our shoulders from the back seat. What we didn’t account for were the gallons of drool we’d be wearing as a result. Lesson learned.
So. Much. Drool. But Toby loved our camping trip in the Forester.
My dear man’s sole experience camping out of the Forester.
Snowpocalypse
For all of the bang-for-the-buck I’ve gotten out of this car, there’s one clear “adventure” when she proved she was worth every penny—the Atlanta Snowpocalypse in 2014. I was never so happy to have stuck to my guns about choosing the Forester. She was a champ and the all-wheel drive saved my ass in a really dicey (well, actually really ice-y) situation.
The 2014 Atlanta Snowpocalypse was no joke but the Forester saved the day.
Character
One time the kids and I were at a Subaru dealership for some routine service. We looked around at the shiny new Subarus longing for their next owners while we waited. I mentioned our little adventure-mobile was looking pretty bedraggled by comparison. (Keep in mind, this was only a few years into owning her.) The eldest kiddo replied “Yeah, but our Blubaru has character. We’ve done so much in her!”
Damn straight, kiddo. We sure have. And there’s been so much more since then.
Our geocaching adventures took us deep into Canada.
My humble little Forester held her own amongst the “rigs” at Overland Expo.
The Forester serving as a tent drying rack somewhere in Minnesota.
A sign of good times.
She even has a built-in burrito shelf.
Even her time in storage while we were full-timing was not without challenges. Because Nevada is, well, dusty.
The future
She’s definitely showing her age these days. But more so the abuse I’ve unleashed on her over the last fifteen years. Even so, she’s been kind to me in terms of repairs and surprises. These days she has a couple of issues we’re addressing but nothing catastrophic so far. I certainly haven’t been as diligent about maintenance as I was when I was on the road all the time so she’s got a little backlog of TLC that needs tending to.
I plan to drive her as long as possible and hold on to what feels like a lifetime of adventure memories. Plus, I have no desire for a more modern vehicle with their overly-complicated electronics and bullshit “features^*“.
But maybe I will invest in some seat covers.
Adventure on, friends.
My Forester has proven beyond that doubt she can survive the abuse I can dish out.
^*My little Forester won’t last forever obviously. But hopefully she’ll outlast the over-teched BS until reason prevails in the auto industry. There’s hope.
August 25, 2025
Reclaiming My Soul with Motorcycle Travel
Motorcycle travel has been woefully absent from my life lately. It’s left a huge hole in my life. Here’s where I confess it’s been over a year and a half since my last motorcycle trip. Ouch.
In the course of my annual birthday reflection, I had to acknowledge that my life is way off-kilter. So I made myself a few promises. One of them was to reclaim my soul and get back to motorcycle travel. And what better time than for my birthday?
Unfortunately, in an off-kilter life, it’s not as simple as just packing up and going on a trip, responsibilities be damned. But my dear man and I figured out a way to combine business with pleasure. We charted a route that would allow us to get in some nice twisties and still accomplish what we were originally planning to do by car. It was a win-win.
Birthday pizza
Our first planned stop was in the Village of Magdelena, New Mexico. We did a deep dive on understanding the lodging and dining options there before we left but there were definitely some question marks. It’s a really small town with limited services so we were prepared to make the extra 27-mile stretch to Socorro if we couldn’t make it work.
We found a motel room that seemed to fit our needs and was walking distance to a saloon that served pizza. There was another restaurant with more offerings at the far end of town but would have required scrambling much further along a busy state highway with no sidewalks in the freezing dark. Call me crazy but that just didn’t sound like fun. So my birthday dinner was frozen saloon pizza. It wasn’t delivery, it was Digiorno. Literally.
You might be thinking, “Wow, Val, you really know how to go gourmet for your birthday.” Fortunately I didn’t have any expectations of a grand birthday dinner. And it still beat the time we overnighted in Twentynine Palms on our way to Baja with only a motel vending machine to raid for dinner. It’s all about perspective, right?
We ended up having a great time at the saloon with lots of friendly, welcoming locals. Plus a bonus surprise of live music by a great musician. So I call it a win.
My epic birthday pizza.
And then things go bad
Magdalena rests at about 6,660 feet elevation and the overnight temperature was forecast to be 25 degrees. The motel room had a small mini-split unit that we cranked up once we arrived. During the night, though, we both woke up realizing it was fuck-all cold in the room.
The heater was not doing its job. We fiddled with the unit, each of us trying different things as our frustration built. Eventually I thought to look up the manual for the unit online to see what we needed to to do get it running again. I’ll let you fill in the blank on the string of profanity I uttered when I discovered that the unit doesn’t heat when the outside temperature is below 41 degrees. Which is, of course, when you actually need–you know–heat.
We tried to layer up and regain warmth in the room but by around 7 am we decided to set off for an early breakfast with the hope of warming up someplace else.
Just a wee bit chilly that morning and only slightly warmer in our motel room.
Hunting for breakfast
We had some concerns about the availability of breakfast given our pre-trip research and what we noticed coming into town. Sure enough, the small café in town wasn’t open. So we walked down to the fuel station to see if we could grab some coffee and frozen breakfast burritos—another less-than-optimal food management scenario we’ve had to employ in the past.
We were pleasantly surprised to score some locally made burritos that hit the spot. They were certainly a far cry better than the mass-produced frozen variety.
The fuel station had a small table and a couple of chairs tucked in a corner inside that I was eyeing intently for us to hover at for a bit to eat and thaw out. No luck. A couple of locals were hanging out chatting and there wasn’t room for us to join in. It was clear they planned to be there awhile so we begrudgingly shuffled our popsicle-like bodies back to our motel room.
It may not look like much but it was better than a frozen burrito.
Do we stay or do we go?
With some food and coffee in us, we had a little more bandwidth to consider our options. This was technically a work trip and we’d planned to spend the first part of the day scouting the art businesses in Magdalena. There aren’t many there but our new project is all about connecting rural artists so we wanted to meet some folks.
Under the circumstances, we opted to bail on that notion for this trip and try again another time. We were in no mood for it by then and needed to manage the more pressing situation of freezing our asses off.
That left us facing our next decision: do we stay in the freezing room until things warm up outside or head out on the bikes in below-freezing temperatures. Sure, we have some heated gear but even that has its limitations, especially when we’d be starting out already hypothermic.
We opted to layer up as much as possible and get some work done in the motel room while we waited for temperatures outside to get more agreeable. And then around 9:30 as we were nearly done loading up the bikes, the heater in the room decided to get to work. What a kick in the ass. It was almost insulting.
Equipment failure
My dear man’s bike doesn’t really like to start when temperatures dip low. He’s well aware of that and had gone outside earlier to make sure it would start. And it started like a champ so he let it warm up a bit before shutting it off. At least that’s one victory in this shit show. Or so we thought.
By the time we were fully loaded and ready to saddle up, his bike decided it wasn’t going to cooperate. Sigh. I pulled out my battery-powered jumper kit only to discover that we had the wrong set of alligator clips with us. The clamps we had on hand didn’t have the proper connector to the battery pack. We have multiple kits from the same brand but with differing connecters and somewhere along the way we mixed up the pieces of the kits.
Now what? We looked at the gravel parking lot ahead of us. There was just enough distance to bump start the bike. Maybe. It would be tight. In my head I was sizing up the scenario. We’re cold, tired, and frustrated. The parking lot is a gravel surface with not a ton of room to accomplish our goal if we don’t get it right on the first try. No way this can go wrong. But we were out of options.
My dear man reassembled his bike seat from the failed jump starting machinations and mounted up to attempt the bump start. Then he gave it one last try. The bike started. We both took a deep breath. He said “How about we get the hell out of here?” I agreed, wholeheartedly.
A much more agreeable elevation for winter travel.
Truth or Consequences
I’m happy to report our fortune improved from that point. We made a brief stop in Socorro to visit a gallery there, grabbed lunch, and boogied to Truth or Consequences which was our main destination for the trip. The stretch between Socorro and T or C is largely interstate but we were able to mainly stay on side and frontage roads and not have to participate in that scene. Freeway riding is unequivocally horrible and we avoid it as much as possible.
We arrived in T or C just as the daylight was getting low and temperatures were beginning to drop. We shacked up at a funky historic hot springs motel downtown to be walking distance to the art galleries we wanted to visit. When we saw that the rooms were equipped with the same kind of lame mini-split unit from the motel the night before I thought, “Are you fucking kidding me?!?”
It was a false alarm, though. The overnight lows weren’t nearly as onerous in T or C now that we were at much lower elevation. Plus our room was also equipped with a space heater. What a concept, right?
In spite of a toilet that sounded like a second-grade recorder recital, I reveled in the otherwise agreeable, spacious room. I spread out my yoga towel and tended to my stiff muscles from two cold days on the bike with a short but vigorous Vinyasa flow.
With some physical relief, I was ready to explore T or C. We ate our way around town for the next day and a half in between art gallery visits. It finally felt like a proper birthday trip.
We had a very good time eating our way through T or C.
Keeping the rubber side down
Our whirlwind tour required one last day of riding to get home. We opted for the scenic route over Emory Pass in the Black Range. It’s a spectacular ride with fantastic twisties—the kind that remind you why you ride. It’s actually our favorite day ride from home and we ride it quite a bit.
So we know the road well. Well enough to know we would be riding it gingerly that day. There is a longish stretch of those gorgeous twisties that spend most of the time in the shade. Sure enough, there was ice coating the asphalt in those shady spots, even though it was well into the afternoon.
It was also a very high-contrast day in terms of lighting. Our eyes were having to adjust to the quickly alternating bright sun and deep shade which adds to the challenge of managing the potentially slick surface. As you can imagine, it was not a spirited ride through that section, but beautiful nonetheless.
We made it home safe and sound then celebrated having broken our moto travel dry spell. I don’t know what the next trip will be yet but I can tell you it damn well won’t be another year-and-a-half before it happens.
Ice in shady corners over Emory Pass was our final challenge of the trip.
Trip assessment
You might not know that I have an inner Type A personality that I work pretty hard to keep in check. She can be a real bitch. But I do try to use her for good on occasion. Just like my annual life assessments when I reflect on the things I’ve done well and the areas I need to improve, I do post-trip assessments as well. That’s when I can let Type-A Val do good work instead of evil.
Overall, I’m pleasantly surprised how much moto travel muscle memory I still had. It came back really quickly in terms of being in the mindset of not only managing the challenges of motorcycle travel but also enjoying the pure bliss of it. Motorcycle travel is a unique experience.
In the case of this trip, the only true surprise was the lack of heat in the motel room on the first night. That’s not something we could have anticipated. There was nothing in the reviews we found in our pre-trip research that gave us a head’s up on that one.
As for the breakfast issue, we knew that could be problematic going in so we had a backup plan. We always carry a handful of Kind bars (affiliate link) for emergencies. Had we not been able to score the burritos, we would have just noshed on a couple of those to hold us off until we got to the next town. Not ideal, but we would have been ok.
I do need to refine my packing skills. I could have gotten away without the messenger bag that I strap to the passenger seat if I’d been more resourceful with the space in my panniers. In the past I’ve usually only had to make use of it when camping off the bike and needed the extra space to accommodate camping gear. It was unnecessary for this trip and just a hassle instead of a benefit. It would have been far better to rework my panniers and eliminate it from the equation. In the big scheme of things, that was very much a minor point.
The big take-away
The biggest reminder I’m taking away from this trip is the value of adventure travel. It forces us out of our comfort zones, makes us think ahead to manage avoidable issues, and requires us to flex our problem-solving muscles on the fly. All of those skills are good for our mental health and keeping the gray matter sharp.
And then there’s simply feeling like yourself again. That’s priceless.
Adventure on, friends!
PS — By the way, I sorted the mixed up jumper cable issue as soon as we got home. That lesson was well-learned. We’re not going to make that mistake again.
December 30, 2024
The Baja Break
How do full-timers take a vacation? We were about to find out. A vacation by definition is a change from your normal activities. And after what had become our normal activities as full-timers over the previous six weeks we definitely needed a break. So while going to Baja added to the chaos, it was also necessary for us to step away for a short time and regroup.
Breaking away
We normally travel to Baja by motorcycle. This trip would be quite different—only a handful of days, with dear friends we would pick up in San Diego, and in our new-to-us truck. It felt bizarre not to be towing our house behind us and we reveled in the ease of it and let the stress in our lives of late fall away with each mile.
Just before entering California, we took an extra long break in a highway rest area to give ourselves some mental space to decompress. We had plenty of time, a feeling we hadn’t experienced in months, so we embraced it. I grabbed a geocache smiley and we mostly just allowed the mental dust to settle. That unusually lengthy road trip break led to one of the strangest small-world encounters I’ve experienced—bumping into the original owners of our truck, who we’d never met before.
Bewildered by the insanely slim odds of that occurrence, we laughed our way to San Diego where we would spend our first evening away from “home” catching up with good friends who live in the area. Boy did we blow off some steam! That set the tone for connecting with our travel companions the next evening. It was Leslie’s birthday and we had some celebrating to do before heading over the border at Tecate and introducing them to Baja.
Getting the much-needed party started.
Baja adventure
Our trip would be short—only a four day toe-dip into the wine region of Baja. Once across the border at Tecate, the first stop had to be tacos, of course. We were high on relief and they felt like the most delicious tacos we’d had in our lives. And with that, we got serious about not being serious for a few days.
Leslie scored us a great AirBnB nestled amongst the vineyards in the Valle de Guadalupe. It felt good to step into a different world from what we’d been living in. The laid back pace of Baja is the reset we needed. We took our friends to our favorite restaurant, made a day trip to Ensenada, and explored new places together. The where and what details aren’t really all that important—it was the time together. We stayed up late, ate too much, drank too much, watched silly movies, danced like idiots—the list goes on. We hadn’t seen them in person since our Cuba adventure a year earlier and we had a tremendous amount of friend therapy to accomplish in a very short time. And damn if we didn’t make every moment count.
Our first tacos of the trip at Tacos El Guero.
Tacos El Guero in Tecate.
Rooftop relaxation at the AirBnb.
Happy hour on the roof.
Lomita winery view from our AirBnb.
Mural at Lomita winery.
View from the Lomita winery.
Wine tasting at Lomita winery.
Overdue friend time.
Fish market in Ensenada
Bringing home goodies to cook at the AirBnb
Jim keeping an eye on our fresh seafood.
Viagra man around town.
Tacos from El Chente in Ensenada.
Ice cream in Ensenada
Finca Altazano, our favorite restaurant.
Smoke on the horizon
In the midst of our silliness, we couldn’t ignore the unsettling story brewing on the other side of the world. Leslie checked the news feed frequently, trying to make sense of the growing health crisis. We kept thinking, “this isn’t good but hopefully it’s too soon to worry.” It wasn’t, as we all know now.
After our short frolick in Baja, we sent Jim and Leslie back to Atlanta and made our way back to Phoenix to see if we could get our full-time RV-ers act together. Hopefully our rolling home was still intact after being left unattended for a week. It was.
Our plan was to head back to northern Nevada, handle some personal tasks, then set back out as footloose-and-fancy-free full-timers, open to where the road would take us with some of our challenges now in the rearview mirror. Basically, finally dive into our adventure after some false starts. Novel idea, right?
But first we had to sell the Power Wagon. With the title in hand after my blitz back to Carson City to retrieve it from our safety deposit box, J listed the truck. He was brutally honest about its shortcomings and priced it to sell quickly as a project truck. We simply didn’t have the time or bandwidth to try to squeeze every penny out of it, deal with multiple meetings with potential buyers, and play the irritating negotiation game.
We ended up selling it to the first guy who came to look at it after fielding a mind-boggling number of inquiries in just minutes after the listing was live. J has quite a knack for writing listings like that and his prowess did the trick. We were able to put the Power Wagon saga behind us.
We had lots of adventures in this old beast but it was time to move on.
A vision for the future
Feeling like we were starting over on our full-time adventure, we revisited our path forward. It was prudent given how horribly our first month and a half went. So what were we hoping to accomplish with nomadic life?
With our accelerated timeline exiting the house, we figured we’d just try nomad life on and see if we liked it—a proof of concept. Combined with the distinct lack of progress on building out the property, we wanted to make sure we didn’t have on blinders about where we wanted to be long-term.
So, we set out to enjoy the freedom of full-time travel for a bit and take a break from the building frustration. Maybe we’d discover something that would change our course. Maybe full-time life would finally work for us and we’d keep at it. Or maybe we’d be able to return to the building project with renewed spirit. We were open to the possibilities.
Cue the Covid-19 pandemic.
October 14, 2021
A Rough Start
It’s well-documented at this point that my transition to nomad life with my dear man was an utter shitshow. We were exhausted before we even hit the road. Starting from the bottom is not exactly a recipe for success.
Neither is having your tow vehicle give up the ghost three days into your nomadic travels.
On borrowed time
We knew we’d have to replace the Dodge Power Wagon along the way. It was old, beleaguered, and struggling to manage the load. It wasn’t the right tool for the job and after many attempts to fix chronic issues, putting any more money into was a fool’s game.
Fortunately, J had already been researching our next vehicle thinking we had six months to a year to figure it out. We thought we had time to get settled in and keep our eyes out for the truck we wanted.
Then, on a two-lane stretch of US 93 in Arizona while attempting to make a rapid, uphill exit from a dicey-as-fuck rest area with no line of sight into traffic going over 80 miles per hour, the Power Wagon lost its shit. A blood-curdling series of flashing lights and warning beeps spewed forth from the instrument panel. The truck struggled to get up to speed at all much less as quickly as we needed it to before a speeding vehicle rounded the corner into us. It was heart-stopping.
After a few minutes regaining our composure and being very grateful we were still alive, reality began to sink in. The Power Wagon couldn’t be trusted. It was going to strand us somewhere with our house in tow. Or worse, cause an accident because it could no longer do the job.
J looked at me and said, “We need a new truck.” And, after a short pause, “Like right now.”
I nodded and croaked out “Yes. Yes we do,” my heart still not having climbed down from my throat.
Limping into Phoenix
In the last few days before leaving Nevada, we’d pieced together a series of stays at Maricopa County campgrounds that would cover our first few weeks on the road. The area is extremely popular that time of year so we had to hop, not only between parks, but between campsites within the parks based upon reservation availability. The parks are true gems but the logistics were complicated and exhausting on top of our other struggles.
Our first stop was Cave Creek Regional Park. We oozed into the Phoenix area the day after our US 93 Code Brown, being ever-so-ginger with the Power Wagon. Given the uncertain nature of its failure issue and lack of reliability, we were on edge the whole day. We took a huge sigh of relief and had a substantial happy hour after getting settled in.
We finally offloaded the sidecar outfit that we’d been tripping over the last four days as it consumed all of our living space in the toy hauler. That’s on top of the piles of extra stuff we threw into the trailer at the last minute because we didn’t have time to sort it before we left. So in addition to crawling over the sidecar, we were constantly moving the extra load back and forth around the trailer every day as we tried to get settled in and organized.
And now it was suddenly time to get serious about a new tow vehicle. Everything else would have to wait.
Meals are not glamorous while transiting with the sidecar.
Scrambling for wheels
We spent the first day in Phoenix getting oriented to the area. I’d never been there before and knew basically nothing about it. We picked up tacos and went to our pal Dave’s house to catch up over lunch and filled him in on our troubles.
That night back at camp, J searched relentlessly online for a truck. He wanted a 2nd generation Dodge Ram 2500 manual diesel long bed with a crew cab. Those were a lot of boxes to tick off on a 20-ish year old truck. He found some within our 500-mile search radius that were close on specs and was doing the mental gymnastics on what he was willing to forego given our now-urgent time frame.
The next morning over coffee, he resumed his search. It was Christmas Eve. He looked up from his screen and said “I think I found it.” The kicker? It was right there in Phoenix.
He said, “I think we need to go look at it today.” I agreed and we shoveled some breakfast into our pie holes and drove an hour to the used diesel truck lot where it sat.
Commiserating about our challenges over tacos with Dave.
Diesel dream
The 1999 forest green diesel beast met all of J’s desires. Every one of them. And it was in fantastic condition. You wouldn’t have guessed it was twenty years old. It had only one previous owner who had clearly been meticulous with its care.
We took it out for a test drive, trying to be as critical as we could. It was a challenge in Phoenix traffic on a rainy day in an unfamiliar, manual transmission truck that essentially drives like a tractor. But it was clear that J was loving it. We forced ourselves to step away and sleep on it even though the choice seemed clear.
The next day was Christmas of course so we spent the day enjoying the hospitality of our dear friends, Dave and Merelyn. Then it was back into the fray of sorting our tow vehicle issue.
These fabulous people saved our asses.
Putting the pieces together
The decision was no longer in doubt but as with any large purchase, you need to cover your ass. So the day after Christmas, we arranged to take the truck to a nearby diesel shop for an inspection. The report came back overwhelmingly positive. They had a few recommendations but overall they were impressed with it.
We were a little in shock that not only had we found a truck so quickly, it was exactly what J wanted, it was sitting right there in Phoenix, and it was in amazing condition. It was almost too good to be true. We kept waiting for the catch.
The truck dealer whipped up the paperwork and we began finalizing the deal. That’s about the time I realized I’d forgotten our checks. They were back at camp over an hour away. I couldn’t stand the thought of driving over an extra two hours in Phoenix traffic. I was crushed. Eventually we worked out a deal with the seller. Yes, he would let us charge the truck purchase! Thankfully we have a lot of credit.
A short time later I found myself driving the Power Wagon behind J in the diesel to the local tag office to get our temporary plates. Then we bee-lined back to the diesel shop to have them do some upgrades and minor repairs. It turns out it was going to take them a couple of weeks to get the parts and do all of the work so we said goodbye to the truck we’d owned for all of an hour and headed back to camp.
Finding our new truck right under our noses in Phoenix was quite a stroke of dumb luck.
Truck hokey-pokey
So now we own two large trucks and live as full-time nomads. We can’t sell the old one until we get the new one back. And we needed the Power Wagon to last long enough bridge the gap. We were also in the throes of heading to Baja for a trip with friends we’d planned long before the house sold.
That means that in the midst of the ongoing campsite shuffle we had the challenges of finding a way to get back to Nevada to get the new truck registered since it would be our travel vehicle to Baja. Going into Mexico with temporary plates wasn’t an option.
Yet another issue? The title to the Power Wagon was in a safe deposit box, back in Carson City. Awesome, right? Can’t sell the truck without the title in hand. We also needed to figure out where we could stash the trailer for the 9 to 10 days we’d be on our Baja trip. Oh, and we needed a sitter for the Adventure Dog. The complexities and dependencies quickly became overwhelming and the trip was approaching quickly.
Having two large vehicles as a nomad was a lot to handle. I call this happy hour scenario “truckhenge.”
It takes a village
Fortunately our pals Dave and Merelyn are two of the most amazing friends we know and they saved our asses. With their help we were able to put a plan together.
First, they let us ship all sorts of bits, pieces, and farkles for the new truck to their place. Then they let us store the Power Wagon at their house while we used the new truck, back from the shop at last, to tow the toy hauler to Lake Mead. From there we hopped into Las Vegas and secured plates for the truck. Next, I flew to Reno for a day, rented a car, chased down the Power Wagon title, and checked on our household goods and vehicles in storage for good measure. It was a whirlwind and we’d knocked out several of our obstacles and charted our return to Arizona.
We had a few more details still to manage, though. The biggest of which was a place for Toby and where to park the trailer while we were in Baja. Dave and Merelyn to the rescue again. They agreed to keep Toby for us and that was everything. Knowing he would be with people who adore him and not with an unfamiliar sitter meant we wouldn’t worry about him constantly.
It was down to where to park the trailer. I couldn’t find much temporary storage to begin with, much less without exorbitant fees. Dave and Merelyn offered to let us park it in front of their house—yes along with the Power Wagon, the dog, and storing other valuables for us.
It was too much; we couldn’t bring ourselves to ask that of them as well. In another stroke of dumb luck, we found a marina RV park with dry camping as our last Maricopa park reservation came to an end. They also had RV storage, but only long-term. Chatting with the friendly desk clerk, we came down to paying the $20/night fee for dry camping and we’d simply leave the trailer unattended for our trip. In the end, we came out ahead since it saved us the two nights in a hotel we would have needed to manage putting the trailer in storage. Go fig, right?
The relief of having those details sorted after weeks of not being able to solve the problem was tremendous. We decided to park the Power Wagon in front the trailer while we were gone, not only to ease Dave and Merelyn’s load, but to hopefully make the trailer not look abandoned for over a week.
Clearly the Toby the Adventure Dog would be quite content at Dave and Merelyn’s while we were gone.
Time for Baja
The plans were in place at long last. We were hopeful that stepping out of our challenges for a short time would let us return with fresh, new conviction to get ourselves settled into nomad life. And we just crossed our fingers that our 200-square-foot home would be ok while we were gone.
It was time for the beauty of Baja, our good friends, and to decompress from the unrelenting stress of the past six weeks.
Fresh Nevada plates installed and a quick bath for our new workhorse before the Baja adventure.
June 6, 2021
One Night in Durango
I was riding my BMW F700GS across the country along with my dear man on his Yamaha FJ-09. We left from our home (at the time) in Dayton, Nevada with various destinations in Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina on the radar. We didn’t have a strict agenda, necessarily. There was a need to be in the southeast for particular events but we’d given ourselves enough buffer to have a leisurely ride there.
We don’t make reservations for trips like this. We’re well aware that moto travel is far too unpredictable for that. Plus we like having the flexibility to change course if we want. So one late afternoon as we were figuring out our end-game for that day, it was clear that Durango, Colorado would be our resting place for the night.
Riding in Colorado
Tacos to the rescue
We didn’t realize that it was the weekend of the Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering. The town was packed with well-dressed folk attending the event and hotel rooms were in short supply. By the time we rolled into town, we were lucky to get a passable room at all, much less one a walkable distance from downtown to be able to enjoy some good grub and cocktails.
It was later in the day than we would normally have stopped and we were starving after a vigorous day in the saddles. There was no time to shower before walking to town. We needed food quickly. Tacos were in order and I knew just the place, having been through Durango a few times before.
With a quick change out of our moto gear and bit of a freshen up, off we went for tacos, sans showers. J followed my lead, trusting my taco judgement. Nini’s Taqueria fit the bill for our weary traveling souls. We devoured dinner with all the gusto of people running on far too few calories for the day.
These tacos didn’t stand a chance after a vigorous day of riding.
Happy hour shenanigans
Now we needed Manhattans, our go-to happy hour cocktail. Again, I knew the place and led J to the The Diamond Belle Saloon. We found it full of revelers decked out in their western finery. It was a sight for sure. And we were certainly out of place in our casual clothes and unwashed helmet hair.
We hovered at the end of the bar, jostling between the comings and goings of the other patrons and hoping to snag a space. Our patience paid off a short time later. We settled into the two stools at the end of the bar a short time later. We savored our well-deserved Manhattans, reliving a great day of riding.
A proper Manhattan is a fitting end to a day of travel and adventure.
Eventually J stepped away for a personal break. Before leaving he asked, “Do I need to leave you with a weapon?” I laughed, of course. His query was mostly facetious. Not that he had anything usable as one anyway, but I understood he wanted me to elevate my situational awareness while he was gone.
I ordered a beer from the bartender and began checking in with the world on my phone after a day mostly offline. You know, the usual BS—email, social media, etc. A few moments after J left his seat, with his cocktail on the bar and his coat still on the stool, a group of four men commandeered the end of the bar.
They were clearly many drinks into the evening. And they certainly weren’t there for the poetry festival, dressed in preppy casual clothes. Hardly the rugged cowboy look.
The bartender approached to deliver my beer and see if we needed anything else. Just then one of the men asked what I was drinking. Without looking up from my phone, I picked up my beer and tilted the label slightly towards them with a healthy dose of leave-me-the-fuck-alone attitude.
He didn’t get the message. His next comment came quickly. “Kinda light, don’t ya think?” I whipped my head his direction, Exorcist-style, and gave him a look that could not be mistaken for anything but pure, unadulterated malice.
“Are you dissing my fucking drink, dude?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a bemused grin emerge on the bartender’s face as he stepped back to lean on the bar behind him. He folded his arms on his chest, looking like he wished he had a bowl of popcorn for the show that was about to start.
The offending man took a slight step back. It was clearly not the reaction he was expecting. He doubled down on his poor behavior, though, and continued his intrusive commentary on my drink choice.
“I mean, beer isn’t exactly a real drink.”
I was a bit taken aback by the absurdity of this man-child so I didn’t respond immediately. All I could think at first was that I was being punked. This had to be a joke. No, there were no cameras around, this guy was seriously saying this shit to me.
Before I could begin to excoriate him with profound pleasure, J returned. I saw his face over the shoulders of the wall of very large men between us, blocking the path back to his seat in the crowded bar. They didn’t pick up on the fact that I wasn’t looking at them but past them.
I got a little grin on my face thinking of the question J asked me just before he left. I let out a little ironic chuckle that he was right about the weapon. Understanding I wasn’t in distress, he stood back and watched for a moment, waiting for a cue from me. I simply glared at the clueless men and growled “You’re in the fucking way,” as I gestured behind them.
Startled back into reality, they turned to find J looking, shall we say, quite unamused. They parted so he could get by and one of them asked him if he was my husband. “No. I’m her fucking bodyguard,” he replied sternly as he resumed his seat.
After a bunch of sputtering gibberish pseudo-apologies—mostly to J and not to me, mind you—they settled into their own conversations again. I was intent on not letting the brief encounter ruin our evening. So I returned to my beer and my conversation with J, ramping down from Defcon 1 and my plans to rip this guy a new asshole.
The old timey piano music added to the standoff atmosphere in the saloon.
A grown-up in the mix
One of the men, by far the oldest in the group, eventually spoke to both of us again. He made a sincere apology for his young friend’s behavior. He was a nice enough guy and seemed pretty embarrassed.
After some chatting, he put together that we weren’t there for the poetry festival either. He’d traveled from Pennsylvania with his son and his son’s friends for a golf weekend. The preppy look suddenly made sense.
J looked at me, not knowing how much conversation had passed while he was gone and asked “Did you tell them what you did today?”
“No, didn’t get around to that” I said casually as I sipped my apparently inadequate-for-twenty-something-assholes beer.
J proceeded to explain our cross-country motorcycle trip and that today was just one of many 300-plus-mile days of carving mountain twisties on the bikes.
“Oh,” the man said with a look of admiration and a healthy dose of intimidation. “We got in some good curves today. On the… golf carts,” he said with stilted hesitation. He laughed and we chatted a bit more.
He had a lot of questions about our motorcycle adventures. His young companions listened silently and with increasing sheepishness about choosing me as the target of their manipulative, juvenile antics.
After some time they drifted away to other parts of the saloon as the conversation wound down. I never got around to deflating them further by mentioning that just a couple of weeks before I’d been riding in camel races.
Have fun in your golf carts, boys. Try to keep up.
Epilogue
I later learned that the tactic this asshole was using on me was called “negging.” It’s an actual thing – a manipulation technique designed to get someone (often women) to engage by undermining their self-confidence and self-esteem to seek approval from the person delivering the comment.
This has been around for awhile but it was news to me. I have no idea if this guy targeted me because he couldn’t tell I was considerably older in the dim light of the saloon. Or maybe because he noticed I’m older, thought I was alone, and figured I was some desperate cougar. I have no idea.
All I can hope is that the dad gave them some proper guidance once the jerks sobered up.
February 28, 2021
The 300-mile Cherry Ride
Motorcyclists will find any excuse to ride. Not that we need an excuse but it adds to the fun. As is finding the longest, most interesting path to achieve our goal.
One morning a few years back, my dear man woke with a notion. He does that sometimes. This particular morning, he decided to take up canning his own cocktail cherries. Happy hour is kind of a big deal at our place. And Manhattans are our cocktail of choice the vast majority of the time.
A proper Manhattan needs an excellent cocktail cherry and he was set on making his own. We could just go to the local grocer and pick up some cherries that have been in transit for who knows how long. Or we could scoot over the hill (what we call crossing the Sierra) to get some fresh from a farm.
So of course that’s what we did.
Rest stop above frozen Caples Lake.
Mission: cocktail cherries
A quick breakfast and off we went, enjoying the glory of the Sierra over Carson Pass. It was a brisk ride and the lakes were still capped in winter ice, making for a captivating ride.
Our destination was a question mark. We just knew we’d pick one of the farms that looked good when we got there. We landed at Clement’s Ridge Produce in Clements, California. They stock lots of fresh produce, locally-sourced sundries, and have a killer deli and bakery. Our first order of business was visiting the deli and devouring their offerings. After 150 miles of spirited riding, we were ravenous.
With our bellies full we could think straight again. J thoughtfully chose the cherries that would become the culinary canvas for his first experiment in cherry-canning. And fortunately, our space limitations kept us from buying too much else, though the temptation was strong with all of the yummies on display.
Small world
On the return trip, we stopped at Peddler Hill vista overlooking Bear River Reservoir on Carson Pass (CA 88) for a rest break. There were a lot of riders out enjoying the agreeable weather and many stopped at the overlook as well. We helped them get pictures at the majestic vista as we often do when we see folks wanting to capture their smiling faces on their journey but have no one to take it for them.
Just as we were heading back to the bikes to saddle up and finish the ride home, a westbound rider hit the brakes and swung quickly around into the pullout next to us. It was our pal Fonzi, a fellow whiskey aficionado, who we know from our time at Overland Expo. How he recognized us while riding by at highway speeds, I’ll never understand. But we live nowhere near each other and we were all far enough from home that there was a lot of serendipity at play that afternoon.
And before we left, a couple of riders he knew from a tour in Baja rolled in and stopped to say hi. The odds of this happening are remarkably small. To top it off, they were on the way to look at houses in our little Nevada town of Dayton.
And all of this came together because one morning, J got inspired to make cocktail cherries.
Helmet hair, don’t care! We’re always happy to see our pal, Fonzi.
Cherry on top
The cherry mission was simply the inspiration for the ride—the cherry on top so to speak. The depth of this spontaneous adventure lies in all of the experiences surrounding it that have lasted well beyond that one ride. We still laugh about our random encounter with Fonzi.
And in the following days, J immersed himself in the canning process, diving into kitchen chemistry and experimenting with various bourbon syrups that produced the best flavor. The fruits of his new-found hobby have since found their way into our friends’ homes, spreading the joy of happy hours and Manhattans.
Alternative cherries
It won’t be a shocker to you that we don’t have the ability to can cherries in our current state as full-time RVers with only a microscopic kitchen to work with. We brought our remaining stash with us when we hit the road but ran out long ago.
Our nomadic scenario has impacted our friends as well who have come to cherish the delicious J’s delicious treats. In fact, during one happy hour not long ago, we even got a panicked message from a friend who was horrified to find himself out of J’s cherries. He desperately needed to know what alternative to use to preserve marital bliss in the midst of a cherry crisis.
For the record, that would be Luxardo maraschino cherries. [You can find them on Amazon using my affiliate link. TIA for your support of my little blog.]
Luxardo cherries aren’t made with the same love as J’s cherries but they’re pretty tasty.
An adventure gone good
It may surprise you that I don’t subscribe to the adage that it’s not an adventure if nothing went wrong. That’s a total load of crap. Our 300-mile cherry ride was quite an adventure filled with surprises and delights. Everything went great and it was fantastic. Its legacy makes it even more fabulous.
Adventure on, friends! Wrap yourself in the memories and lasting impacts that each adventure leaves in your lives.
Along Carson Pass in search of cherries.
January 25, 2021
Fumbling into Full-Time
You know I like to keep it real here in Val in Real Life land. And let me tell you, the last year has been an utter shit-show. And not just because of the pandemic but that’s certainly added to the absurdity of our journey into full-time nomad-hood.
My newsletter readers know much of the story as I’ve relayed it piecemeal each month. But it’s finally time to put it down in one place and get it all out of my head and put the swirling memories to rest through the catharsis of writing. It turns out it requires thousands of words of mental release, so brace yourself, this is going to take a few posts.
Our gamble on this little house paid off but exiting was an ordeal.
Let’s rewind a bit
My dear man and I bought a little house in Dayton, Nevada, several years back. We intended it to be a temporary landing place for us—an investment, not a dream home. And as life goes, we were there longer than we planned.
We kept hunting for the place we wanted to settle down in but we never found an existing house that suited us. We did find a groovy piece of undeveloped property, though.
In the booming northern Nevada economy, getting contractors to even call us back about our little project, much less get work done, turned out to be nearly impossible. They’re not interested in our modest, one-off deal. They want to build high-profit mansions or massive subdivisions. They hold all the cards in that kind of market and we were going nowhere fast.
We had countless happy hours on this front porch.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch
In the meantime, the value of our little investment house was clearly nearing its peak as pressure from surrounding new construction mounted. Plus, all indicators in the economy started pointing toward the beginnings of a recession. We knew we had to sell to get the maximum value. So we listed thinking it would take a several months to land a contract and get through the sale process.
In conjunction with that, we happened to find a contractor who would build a driveway out on our property. Keep in mind, for our oddly-shaped 10-acre patch of dirt and sagebrush, we’re talking about over a quarter-mile of driveway. With a ditch at the road encroachment and a large swale to cross half way in. The project is substantial as driveways go and, in the midst of the construction boom, we were given the we-don’t-really-need-your-business, fuck-you price.
It was heart-stopping. But we needed access to the property to move forward with any other decisions and construction. So we signed on the dotted line with the understanding that the contractor would handle all necessary permits and work would be done within a few weeks.
Why the rush? Well, the house went under contract like lightning. We were deer in the headlights at first. But we figured, we have our toy hauler so we have a place to live. No biggie, right? And with the driveway going in, we would be able to drop some shipping containers on the property to store all our stuff and still have access to it, especially the motorcycles. It was a golden plan.
Enjoying dinner on the ranch, in spite of no house.
Unraveling
But our plan fell apart in spectacular fashion. Out of the blue, the contractor pulled some last-minute bullshit about us needing to get a grading permit. Yes, even after we expressly said he was to obtain all necessary permitting and he agreed to the terms.
By that time, we were in full-on moving mode. Even if we had the time to navigate the permit process, it was painfully clear the driveway wouldn’t be done in time for us to put our belongings in storage on the property. If you know me at all, you’re well aware of the string of profanity that spewed forth from my mouth.
Clearly the contractor simply didn’t want the job. I’m not sure why he wasted his time and ours. It cost us months of time, energy, and anxiety—just to name a few of the swirling emotions we had in the process.
After our heads stopped exploding, we dove into problem-solving mode. We frantically switched gears, found a 400-square-foot storage unit nearby, and started the process of emptying the house. Closing day was approaching like a runaway train.
This is basically the only move-out picture I have. There simply wasn’t time or energy to spend on documenting the process.
Moving sucks
With everything happening so fast, we didn’t have time to manage things well at all. We simply had to react and get it done, even if the result wasn’t ideal. Decision fatigue rained down on us. We busted our asses for weeks on end—trying to keep working in the midst of packing while also attempting to prepare for life as full-time nomads.
All of this was, of course, assuming the house sale went through. Real estate is fraught with about a million ways contracts can fall apart, as we all know. Turns out we were buried three-deep in contingencies. Sure enough, our buyers’ contract on their home in Tennessee fell through.
Now what? We were half moved out. Do we keep plugging away? Do we stop running ourselves ragged until we know what’s going to happen? There wasn’t much time to worry about it, fortunately. Their house was back under contract in quick order. It did buy us a little more time, though. And we wouldn’t have to close on my birthday.
With barely a pause, we were back at it.
What a difference between move-in day and move-out day. I’m not sure I remember what it feels like to be that relaxed.
Fleet management
If you’ve followed along here for any length of time, you know we have a substantial adventure fleet—the Power Wagon (our tow vehicle), my Subaru Forester, our toy hauler, my motorcycle, my dear man’s motorcycle, the sidecar rig, and—wait for it—two non-running motorcycles.
When you’re transitioning to life on the road, having that much overhead is a really big problem. Our plan was to store the Forester and our motorcycles and take the sidecar with us. With the adventure dog along on our journey, we needed something he could ride in.
We needed to sell the non-running bikes. We’d been planning on it for some time anyway and we sure as hell weren’t going to have them take up vital storage space. Fortunately my dear man is a wizard with words and his ads for the defunct motorcycles worked like a charm. The “project” bikes sold quickly but the added time suck and complication in the midst of everything else was less than optimal.
Jettisoning the non-running KLR and Honda CX500 took precious time in our rapid exit.
And, of course we’d neglected the sidecar rig and she was not in great form. She wasn’t running well, if at all. Our fabulous BMW mechanic agreed to get her back up to snuff for us even though the shop doesn’t have a lift for a sidecar rig. The only catch was that he needed extra time to be able to manage the special job. So we schlepped Betty to the shop a few weeks before closing day, hoping he’d be able to finish the work before we had to leave town. It turns out in a dumb luck sort of way, that having it out of the mix during the height of the moving chaos was one of the best things we could have done but we weren’t certain we’d have her back in time.
And, in our attempt to be proactive about heading out to live in the trailer full-time, we took the toy hauler to the RV shop for some minor repairs and upkeep that we didn’t have time to manage on our own. Because we didn’t have enough complications already, delays on a few parts kept it there until two days before we had to be out of the house.
Yep. The “home” we were moving into wasn’t even with us to start moving into as we were moving out. We had no way to prepare it or get settled in. By the time we got it back, we were in the death throes of exiting the house. There wasn’t time to sort life in the trailer so we unceremoniously threw any remaining overstock of food and clothing into the trailer in a fit of desperation. It was pure chaos. There was so much extra stuff in the trailer we could barely move.
No rest for the weary
Exhaustion overtook us in the last few days. There were moments I thought Frankenleg would collapse under me. I was in supreme pain with no other option than to just keep pushing through.
And just for extra fun, the weather went to shit. Snow and rain slowed us down. As did my mistake of renting a little moving truck from our storage facility, not paying attention to the fact that it didn’t have a loading ramp. Fuck me. So we made the best of it for that day and rented a different truck—with a ramp—for the final days. That mistake cost us a lot of crucial time and made everything harder than it had to be.
On closing day, we thought we’d be done by mid-afternoon. What a laughable delusion! And for good measure, the buyers’ funding ended up posting earlier than expected. By mid-morning we technically no longer owned the house. We weren’t even remotely done packing by that time.
Then the cleaners showed up two hours early. We needed to be out of their way so we frantically jettisoned all last remaining flotsam into the garage, adding exponential new levels to the chaos of trying to organize things for storage. But it had to be done.
So we spent the rest of the day exiled to the garage, trying to deal with all of those annoying last bits of stuff, tripping over ourselves, and generally kicking ourselves for not being more pro-active in simplifying our lives before now.
Flinging random items into boxes, it felt like we weren’t getting anywhere. For hours, every box and truckload didn’t seem to make a dent in what was left. Yet our storage unit was filling up quickly.
Our soon-to-be home spent much of its time in situ at our little house but still needed some maintenance before going full blast into full-time life.
Finding the finish line
You’ve seen marathoners crawling to the finish line, their bodies shutting down. That was us. We had no choice but to keep working relentlessly. Eventually we started to see the garage floor. It finally felt like we’d make it even if we were supremely late exiting the house.
The new owners finally stopped by late that evening. They were simply delightful and friendly. They mentioned that they weren’t planning on spending the night there but asked if they could do their laundry. They’d been living in their RV in a nearby park for months and were tired of plugging quarters into the machines in the laundromat there.
I just laughed and said, “Well, it’s your house so have a ball!”
But wait, there’s more
Other full-timers plan for years to transition to life on the road, selling all their belongings and whatnot. We had to be set up to be on the road indefinitely and with the intent of being back in a house one day. So unlike simply moving to a new house, we had the added complication of fitting everything into a storage unit.
The need to arrange it in a way to still have access to certain things from time to time was an absurdly complicated puzzle. The level of decision-making required while exhausted and out of time was beyond overwhelming.
To top it all off, we still hadn’t secured storage for the Forester and motorcycles! Yep, right up until the last hours of the last day. We’d been bogged down in analysis paralysis in trying to figure out the best place to store them. We considered keeping them near the airport for access in quick trips back to town. But the truth is we really had no idea what our returns to the area would look like.
In a last-ditch decision while still packing up the rest of our crap, I called the manager at our storage facility and asked about the size unit we needed. She said, “Well, I have one more but a man is coming to look at it tomorrow to see if he wants it.” I told her I wanted it sight unseen and I’d be there in five minutes to sign the paperwork. She laughed and said, “I guess he’ll just have to do without!” And off I went to rent yet another storage unit.
Seeing us scramble, the new owners of the house offered to let us keep the motorcycles in the garage until the next day. It was a tempting offer but the truth is, we just needed to be done. Mentally, we needed to not have to come back to the house. They were amazingly understanding. I’ll be forever grateful for their kindness and compassion for our situation.
The last-minute vehicle-storage locker.
Hitting the road
In one moment of decent decision-making in all of this—maybe the only one—we deliberately planned to stay in the area at a full hook-up RV park for our first week as nomads. We knew we would need to get our feet under us and put some finishing touches on our affairs in Nevada before being gone indefinitely.
We chose full hook-ups not because we enjoy RV parks but because we wanted to reduce what we had to manage at first. Not having to stress about water and waste storage removed a lot of extra mental cycles from the equation. Plus, it was winter. Remember all the rain and snow during the move-out? That meant we needed to make sure we could protect our systems from freezing. That’s way easier to do while fully connected.
We had a stroke of good fortune just as we were preparing to leave. Our mechanic got the sidecar rig finished the afternoon before we were due to blow out of Carson City. So we dropped everything to blast up to Sierra BMW in Sparks to retrieve her. And she ran beautifully!
We picked up Betty just in the nick of time before leaving town. And Scott had her running like a dream.
With our first week behind us and feeling a little bit more together, it was time to become full-timers in earnest. Our first stop was Scottsdale, Arizona, to spend Christmas with our friends there. So we headed out for the 700-plus-mile journey, giving ourselves what we thought was a leisurely four days to make the trip.
Three days into our new adventure, the Power Wagon told us to fuck off. Yep, the thing that would tow our house from one place to the next took a giant crap in BFE Arizona.
But that’s a story for next time.
The old beast gave up the ghost early in our transition. An extensive string of WTF-are-we-gonna-do days followed.
Our first nomadic happy hour was severely cold but we were determined to celebrate the end of a very challenging time. Or what we thought was the end.
October 31, 2020
The Chipmunk Incident
You folks don’t have a pet chipmunk, do you?
That’s the question a neighbor asked us upon returning to camp after a long day away in town. Imagine our confusion. Because well, no, in fact we don’t.
We’d exited early that morning to drive the 70 miles to the nearest sizable town. We needed better cell service to participate in a virtual meeting, visit the laundromat, resupply groceries quite unexpectedly, and run to the hardware store for some unfortunate trailer supplies. We were ambitious enough to think we’d be able to get in a shower too. Silly us. Something had to give.
But let’s back up a bit.
Oh, why hello little “friend.”
The visitor
We’re camping at Great Basin National Park at the moment. A couple of days ago we ventured into the small town of Baker, Nevada to mail a Sierra Mountain Passes order. We arrived back “home” to a little surprise. An uninvited visitor had clearly been partaking of our hospitality.
Our chipmunk friend saw fit to chew through a window screen and make itself at home. Finding no buffet waiting, it decided not to stick around for our return. Or so we thought.
Over happy hour, I joked with my dear man that with the exception of a small screen hole to repair, our unexpected visitor left only footprints. How very Leave No Trace of it.
We have to joke, you see, because it’s one of the only things keeping us sane lately.
We thought it was a simple situation with the first hole.
If only it had stopped at leaving footprints.
If at first you don’t succeed
Our little friend decided to visit again the next day while we were gone handling all of the above-mentioned, tiresome tasks. Try, try again it did after not succeeding in a feast the previous day. We anticipated another visit from it, though, knowing they’re persistent little buggers. So we made sure all the windows were closed before we left.
Our camp neighbor walked up to us after we pulled in that afternoon and asked us that question. He said the chipmunk was sitting in the window for a long time chewing on the screen. We looked at the window and saw the shredded carcass of what was once our bedroom screen. He showed us cell phone pictures of the critter sitting in our bedroom window. We were flabbergasted.
It took some time to process and comprehend. We still had so much more to wrap up before we could relax for the evening—perishable groceries in the truck as well as not-entirely-dry laundry. And now this. We almost didn’t know where to begin dealing with it.
We cautiously opened the trailer door expecting a panicked chipmunk to lunge out at us, likely going for our jugulars. Nothing. We inspected around the bedroom and obvious areas. No chipmunk.
It left more than footprints this time, of course. Droppings, urine puddles, and the destroyed screen were part of the offerings. Along with a ravaged cabinet face that we deluded ourselves was its exit point.
The battle weary screen in the bedroom.
The little chipmunk had to be terrified. It was clearly quite a battle to get out of the trailer.
The little critter went apeshit on the screen.
We were wrong
We tended to the tasks of putting away groceries and laundry, eagerly anticipating a well-deserved happy hour. But first I swapped the destroyed screen for the only other matching one in the trailer so we didn’t have to choose between having the bedroom window open with no critter barrier overnight—if even a flimsy one—or sleeping in the equivalent of a sauna.
Feeling like we had averted the crisis, we set our sights on happy hour. First I strolled to the pit toilet, though. Walking back towards the trailer I noticed the bedroom screen looked funny. It was probably the 20th are-you-fucking-kidding-me moment of the day. The screen was chewed through. Again. In less than an hour.
If I were a cartoon character, I’d be the one with the exploding head. That’s what it felt like when the realization hit me.
Happy hour would have to be delayed. We desperately went through another round of digging through the trailer looking for the intruder. Tearing apart the bedding and mattress, looking through cabinets, and so on. No chipmunk. Well, surely it left this time. We convinced ourselves that the new hole was its gateway to freedom and the saga was over.
The bedroom window was the scene of much drama.
In less than an hour, the bedroom screen was violated again.
Our chipmunk friend tried to help us with some remodeling. Gives the trailer that lived in look, don’t ya think?
We were wrong again
The next morning we awoke to the Adventure Dog being unusually animated. We assumed he just needed to go out for a relief session but his behavior was a bit off. My dear man took him out and came back to bed. Moments later we heard a commotion in the kitchen. Our stainless steel cocktail glasses make a distinct sound. We knew something was in the sink. We thought it was a mouse. (More on that in a bit.)
We jumped out of bed and saw the chipmunk scrambling towards the rear window of the trailer, looking for an exit. It had none and, startled by our arrival, dove beneath the bench. We hastily threw on some clothes and I raced out the door to the back of the trailer to open the toy hauler ramp.
We yanked up the rear screen to give it a clear exit, pulled off the bench cushions and lifted one bench. It ran under the other bench. We lifted that one. The frightened animal was cowering between my riding boots and my camera-gear backpack. We swished it out with the broom and it frantically ran to freedom.
It was not exactly a relaxing morning. We were so baffled how it kept getting in. In reality it never left. It’s just an expert at hide-and-seek.
At happy hour that evening, my dear man said “I think now I understand why some people don’t like camping.”
Our MacGyver-inspired repair.
Yet another MacGyver repair
The rodent exit ramp.
Are we living the dream yet?
Eight months on the road so far. You’d think we’d be settled in by now. We are decidedly not. I summarized some of our struggles a few months ago.
But guess what? It gets worse.
Because the prologue to the chipmunk drama is that we’ve been battling a mouse invasion for over a week now. That was the driving force behind the need to make the big trip to town to resupply compromised food and buy more mouse traps and other deterrents.
We’ve spent hours and hours every day cleaning up after them, reconfiguring our food storage, emptying traps (the body count is at nine so far), and figuring out how to defeat them. Our 200-square-foot home has been a battleground.
We know we need to get under the trailer and start sealing up entry points. Yet another big job to do and there are only so many hours in the day. And we’re worn out.
So no, definitely not living the dream yet. Send more whiskey, please. This was definitely not in the brochure.
We scored the best site in the campground. Gee, if only we could actually enjoy it instead of battling rodents.
Adventure on, friends! One way or another.
August 21, 2020
Spreading Our Wings Again at Washoe Lake
We are all living in surreal times in our own different ways. The meme I’ve seen that captures the sentiment best is “We are not all in the same boat but we are all in the same storm.”
And, of course, we entered the global storm while in the midst of our own personal one. We were decidedly behind the eight ball when the pandemic hit. Not starting from a place of strength made it all the harder to manage.
The weight of the world seemed to suddenly lift off our shoulders as soon as we got back to doing what we love.
Physical emergence
Now for better or worse, shutdowns are easing. Parks have reopened for the most part. So we trepidatiously left our Covid-19 safe house after eleven weeks, knowing the chaos isn’t over.
Our hosts are wonderful and we’re grateful for their generosity as we had to respond to rapidly changing events. It was time to move on and get back to what we set out to do, in spite of less than ideal conditions out in the world. But we’re in a better position now to manage our personal situation in the midst of the ongoing pandemic.
Ironically, we ended up back at Washoe Lake State Park as our first stop. That’s where we were when everything shut down. It was a deliberate choice to have a short trip—only 15 miles—to get back on our nomadic feet. We wanted to give ourselves the space to refresh our memories. The procedures and routines of life on the road in a trailer have languished while sitting still for nearly three months.
Tapas, Manhattans, and cigars overlooking Washoe Lake revived our spirits.
Finally back on the road just in time to celebrate six months as nomads and the first anniversary of Sierra Mountain Passes.
Mental emergence
The exhilaration of going back to doing what we love took a few days to manifest. We needed decompression time first. There was a sort of shock to being on the road again. The landscape at Washoe Lake certainly fits the bill to ease weary souls, though. Mountain views, sand dunes and wild horses grazing in the in the distance, abundant bird life—that put us back in the frame of mind to embrace exploring again.
We also quickly realized what we needed most was a motorcycle ride. In our houseless situation, the Adventure Dog can’t be left behind while we go riding together. Plus we had to retrieve the bikes from storage. But with a dog-sitter reservation and some vehicle swapping efforts in the storage unit we were able to regain some of our previous life. It was glorious.
The joy of a day out on the bikes together for the first time in four months was almost beyond comprehension.
The nesting killdeer pair relit a fire in me both as a photographer and as a naturalist.
Inspiration
Inspiration often comes from unlikely sources. Sometimes is makes sense to take on a challenge to regain your mojo. Sometimes you have to not fight it.
My attempts to revive my photography fire by force or challenge have not panned out over the last few months. It took a nesting killdeer pair at our Washoe campsite to excite me once more.
With increasing mental bandwidth each day, I suddenly found myself pulling out my camera and tripod to try to capture their antics and sweetness. Right in the middle of happy hour, no less! I was excited to be shooting again — genuinely thrilled and giddy. It felt tremendous.
I took delight in watching the birds tend to their eggs and do their fake injury stunt to lure people away who inadvertently (or willfully cluelessly) got too close. It became the talk of the day as we peered out at them through the trailer windows to check on them constantly.
We never did get to see the eggs hatch before we had maxed out the seven-day stay limit at the park. No matter. They gave me a gift they’ll never realize. That encounter and excitement led me to dip my toe back into time lapse photography for the first time in well over two years as we moved on to Wild Horse Reservoir State Recreation Area. Boy I’m rusty but happy to be refreshing those skills as well.
The view from camp at Wild Horse is nothing short of magical.
I felt like me again with the inspiration to spontaneously pick up the camera do a time lapse.
Time will tell
We’ll see how things play out for us on the road as the Coronavirus runs amok. But we’re in so much better shape to respond thoughtfully rather than react constantly. That’s a big difference this time around.
And to be sure, this year will certainly stand out in the history books for all of us as individuals and as a global community. And it’s only half over.
Adventure on, friends!
June 28, 2020