We’re still in Florida, parked in Kissimmee.  Our location is ideal – a gracious friend is letting us park on his amazing land that has full hook-ups. It is such a blessing to have a safe place to leave our home, and a place to retreat to. Without worrying [...]]]> Just a quick, rather disjointed, update.

Kiki climbing trees!

We’re still in Florida, parked in Kissimmee.  Our location is ideal – a gracious friend is letting us park on his amazing land that has full hook-ups. It is such a blessing to have a safe place to leave our home, and a place to retreat to. Without worrying about the expense of a peak season priced RV Spot.

Kiki loves it here, as it’s the only place we let her go off leash for a bit, as there’s no predatory animals here to threaten her. She does amazingly well, and to her – this is Disney World.

It’s an easy hour drive to my parents place in Melbourne, where we’ve been splitting our time between the the bus and in their guest room. And with the MINI getting great fuel economy, the commute expenses have been low.

Our past month has mainly been focused on family, and getting my dad’s treatment plans off the ground.  It’s been hectic and at times emotionally draining, of course – but it’s going well so far. I thank you all dearly for all the kind comments, e-mails and support.

For the month ahead, hopefully the hectic pace will subdue some and we can all get back to a bit of a routine.  For us that means shifting attention back to work and bus projects, and doing a little bit of nomading around Florida. We’ll stay close to the area, as the next round of testing to see how treatments are going won’t be until March.

Here’s what’s generally on tap for us in the next month:

Work

We are working on updates to both our apps, Coverage? and State Lines.   Coverage? is due for a routine map refresh (we find our customers start complaining about the maps being out of date around 2-3 months) and we’re adding a new, frequently asked for feature.

State Lines will be a massive re-write with about double the amount of rules & regulations that affect US travelers, with an entirely new interface including iPad support.  If you have a suggestion for info to add to the app, now’s the time to request it!

This is of course, on top of our normal workload and taking over some support tasks from my father in our shared software business.

Bus Projects

We are potentially moving the bus over to the Tampa area next week, for a skilled family member to do some interior work for us.

We want to pull the oven/stovetop out of the kitchen and replace it with a cabinet for storing our portable induction cooktop and other kitchen gadgets that we actually use for cooking. We’ll eventually replace our microwave with a combo convection oven style for our very occasional baking needs.

We’ll also have the countertops replaced in both the kitchen and bathroom, as our temporary paint job we did back in July is starting to show wear.  We may even do some modifications to our dual desk set up to make it even more awesome!  We hope to consult on what cabinetry modifications will need to be made to swap our propane/electric fridge out for an energy efficient 12v one (such as a Novacool).

Recent changes to the bedroom in the bus - valances recovered, new TV over nightstand.

We actually did tackle a couple of small bus projects last month – we recovered our valances in the bedroom, and installed a 22″ LED TV & Blueray player that streams over wifi (with many thanks to Chris’ folks for the awesome holiday gift!).  The TV is on a swing arm over a nightstand, as we tend to watch content while snuggled up in bed anyway. It’s the first TV we’ve owned since we hit the road back in 2007 – but it’ll  mainly be used for viewing movies, Netflix content and discs.  For viewing movies in the living area, we use one of our huge computer monitors.

And we’ve started some research into approaching installing solar panels on the bus.  In preparation for that, we did a comprehensive energy evaluation on all current systems by taking measurements of each device, light fixture and appliance.  This will help us focus on our needs, as well as where to concentrate on improving our efficiency.

Moving up in the World

We’ll be moving Technomadia.com (this blog) to new hosting.  In January, we had a record breaking month for traffic (we’re up to over 30,000 page views a month these days, and nearly 19,000 unique visitors). This, despite having a fairly slow month for new content as we switched our focus to family.

Recent traffic on Technomadia.com

We’re blown away by this, particularly since we never set out to be ‘bloggers’ and don’t put effort into building traffic.

However, the increased traffic is starting to tax our current cheap shared hosting solution on Dreamhost. We’ve turned off just about every plug-in we can, but still encounter slow load times and frequent timeout related 404 and 500 errors when trying to update/write posts. The other evening, it took me 2 very frustrating additional hours to get our Purging Stuff  post polished and scheduled – just fighting these errors.

If we’re going to continue upkeeping the site, which we do mostly enjoy, it’s time to move up in the world.  We were researching other solutions (other shared hosts, switching to VPS, etc) – when our friend offered to let us have some space on his scaleable Cloud Services account with Rackspace that is way underutilized.  He made an offer we couldn’t refuse that doesn’t increase our costs to keep providing this site.  So, over the coming week or so, we’ll be trying it out and moving.

Hopefully we can do this without interruptions, but – in case we fail, now you know why.

So, next week might see us over in the Tampa area for a bit, which will let us visit Chris’ folks who are still wintering in Spring Hill.  After that, we’ll be taking it one step at a time, and perhaps doing a little bit of meandering around central Florida while we await the next round of tests for my father to know what is next.

If you’re around and would desire a meet up, have bus parking, have a hot tub, ideas for interesting things to see & do in the area, etc. – let us know!

We imagine we’ll be returning the Melbourne and/or Kissimmee area by the end of month, as that’s when the next set of appointments is and my brother is coming in town. After that? Too soon to know.

One thing is fairly certain – our bid to ‘win’ a Burning Man ticket in their new lottery system was a fail. We, and several other core Camp Nomadia members, received confirmation last night that we did not win tickets. So, like last year, we’re not making plans around attending the burn this year.  If it happens, it happens.  Which means, we’re not contemplating a cross country transition to make it to the playa in late August.  It also means, we’ll not be organizing Camp Nomadia. And with very few core members making plans around going, it’s too soon to tell if there will be Camp Nomadia.  We suspect many other veteran camps are in the same position.

Every so often [...]]]> Following serendipity at every turn is an interesting game we’ve been playing for the past several years.  It’s not about taking every opportunity that comes up, but rather creating a life that allows us to both be in tune with the possibilities, and being agile enough to follow the ones we choose.

Every so often we shake our magic serendipity ball, and nothing happens.  Approaching the end of 2011, that’s exactly where we were. No plans.  Hardly any ideas.

We enjoyed an excellent Christmas with both our parents under one roof. And we attended the Arcadia Bus Rally bringing in the New Year with dear friends.

A picture I took in 2007 in Yellowstone National Park (during our T@b days).

Just before we were pulling out of the rally, the news came in.

The latest unanticipated test results on my dad revealed that serendipity had left the time ahead open for a reason.  Our family is embracing hope and optimism for the rough road ahead.

We’ve been parked at a gracious friend’s tranquil place in Kissimmee – and are splitting our time out in Melbourne (about an hour away) taking an active role in his treatment, giving my folks all the support we can and taking over tasks as needed in our co-owned family software business.

Unfortunately there are few options in the Melbourne/Palm Bay area for RV parks, and they are either 55+ only, prohibitively expensive, not much closer and/or full up with the seasonal influx of snowbirds.  (Incidentally, if anyone has connections in the area for land or large drive ways that might welcome some technomads with a bus for a while, it would be quite a blessing to be closer. Although, aside from the distance – our current setup is pretty ideal.)

We don’t know yet how long we’ll be in Central Florida, we’re taking it one step at a time.  But it’ll likely be a while.  If you find yourself in the area, please do reach out – social breaks may be welcomed distractions.

All of our pre-scheduled blog posts have gone live. There were a couple more we had started and may complete.  Beyond that, I can’t say how much time or motivation we’ll have for writing. Maybe we will, maybe we won’t? (One of the big reasons we blog for joy, not income.)

We ask for your understanding if our postings here become sporadic.

Location independence is often portrayed as a glamourous life of galavanting around the world to see great places, eat great food and have amazing experiences. That’s certainly a nice motivation and benefit we enjoy.

But the core reason for our location flexibility?  To be where we choose to be.

Our plans ahead may not be exotic or inspiring blog fodder – but we’re exactly where we need… no … want to be.  No tropical beach or warm desert boondocking with friends compares right now.

We feel so incredibly blessed to have designed a lifestyle that allows us the flexibility to do something like this, and really be there for our loved ones.  No taking vacation or family medical leave time, no expensive travel to and from home, no feeling of putting our life on hold.  It’s simply built into our lifestyle to pull in and do whatever we can.

If you have a positive thought, well wish or prayer to spare – we would most welcome them.

It’s not often that we actually have plans more than a day or two out, but Florida is a difficult place to winter in an [...]]]> After a brutally hot summer in Arizona getting the bus ready, we’re definitely following the good weather this winter.  We are headed to Florida to spend the holidays with family!

It’s not often that we actually have plans more than a day or two out, but Florida is a difficult place to winter in an RV without reservations. So, we’ve gone against our default of trusting in serendipity on a nightly basis, and have actually laid out plans!

Here they are:

• November 13 – 17 – Altamonte Springs, FL (north Orlando)
• November 18 – December 19 – Melbourne, FL (yes… a month!! In one spot??)
• December 20 – 28 – Hudson, FL (north of Tampa)
• December 28 – 31 – Arcadia, FL for the Arcadia Bus Rally
• Early 2012 and beyond – Undetermined.

Technomadia’s Open Bus Invites

Hosting a talk on Lithium Ion Batteries at the BCM Rally.

The benefit to having actual plans, is that we can dip our toes into something we’ve been wanting to do for a while – which is organizing casual meet-ups with our readers.

As such, we have scheduled a couple of ‘Open Bus’ events while we’re in Florida.

If you’re in the area, we’re extending an invite to stop on over, meet us, ask questions about technomadism and tour our bus.

You can RSVP on our Facebook event’s pages:

Open Bus – Orlando Area – Thursday, Nov 17 – 3-8pm

Open Bus – Melbourne – Sunday, Nov 27 – 3-5pm

Eventually, when we know in advance we’ll be somewhere, we’d like to organize some casual multi-day gatherings and talk series – sorta like taking our ‘Camp Nomadia’ concept on the road.  But this is a start.

We’ll also be at the Arcadia Rally in late December – and have been invited to present on Lithium Ion Batteries and Mobile Internet Options.  If you’re also attending the rally, we look forward to meeting you there!

As always, we absolutely enjoy meeting up with our readers during our travels – as that’s the primary reason we keep this blog.  So if you’re also in Florida this winter, let us know – and let’s see what we can coordinate.

We are very much looking forward to putting the landing gear down in a few days and having much quality time with friends & family in Florida. And maybe, just maybe, a few less bus projects??

I write this from Amarillo, TX.

Which you might notice was NOT on our intended route.

So what happened?

As we were leaving Lake Powell, we heard a sudden WOOOSH of [...]]]> It’s only been a few days since we left St. George with intentions of heading eastward through Colorado.

I write this from Amarillo, TX.

Which you might notice was NOT on our intended route.

So what happened?

A Lot of Air Pressure Leaks

As we were leaving Lake Powell, we heard a sudden WOOOSH of air in the driver’s compartment, and we suddenly lost air pressure – which meant our main air breaks are inoperable and the spring emergency breaks would soon be engaging.

Chris got us safely pulled over to the side of the road.

Immediately behind us was an empty tour bus, which pulled over in front of us. The driver got out, and introduced himself. Turns out, he used to own a 4106 – and helped us check things over.  Even as avid followers of Serendipity as we are – this was quite the coincidence.

While we were making a new friend, the air pressure refilled on the bus on its own.  We put out a quick message to the bus conversion community asking if we were safe to move on to the next town, or if we needed a tow.  The diagnosis was that one of our air release valves likely released (normal when air pressure gets a touch high – which is explained by us recently changing out the air compressor filter), but was so gunked up that it didn’t immediately close as it’s designed to do.

Nothing a little WD-40 and cleaning wouldn’t fix up. So we did that to the visible dump valve we could reach.  The bus nut community is *amazing* and we feel so blessed. We had several mechanical gurus sending us advice and re-assurance that we were ok to drive on.

We made it into Page, AZ just fine, and decided to move onwards to our next intended stop of Durango, CO.

The incident reminded us however that we still had routine maintenance that we haven’t able to do as we have no drive-up ramps and a suspension blocking system (something we need to fix ASAP).  So we called around to truck repair centers anywhere near our route before the Rockies to schedule a brake adjustment, chassis lubbing and replacement of all of the dump valves.

We found a place in Durango that didn’t seem too scared of a vintage bus.

In the morning as we were leaving Monument Valleny, the same thing happened – except this time, the air pressure didn’t rebuild.  Some diagnosis with our bus nut friends led us to suspect the air compressor governor’s relief valve as the culprit.  It was likely gunked up, and now stuck open causing a consistent major air leak.

Some percussive maintenance (ie. pound it with a hammer) and some WD-40 fixed that right up – saving us a tow into Durango!

We arrived to Durango a bit later than anticipated, but the diesel shop was awesome.  They spent two hours with us giving the bus a good underside servicing.  They even invited us to join them in the pit, and taught us all sorts of things about maintaining the parts.

This was the first opportunity for us to see under our bus, and we again patted ourselves on the back for finding our bus in arid Arizona. Especially after seeing a 1976 Prevost we had closely inspected in our bus hunt that was seriously corroded after years of service in Canada.

Working in the pit, under our bus!

Their general assessment was that ‘She’s old – but in great shape!’ (we can only hope for such an assessment in 10 years!).

We left with brakes adjusted, every zirk found lubed and some air leaks taken care of. We also left with a new governor, which Chris replaced on his own later.

A couple scary moments, but all and all – we thrived with the challenges, and are upping our bus knowledge exponentially!

A Lot of Hot Air

We were originally going to route through Colorado primarily to visit our friends in Salida. However, we had already eaten into the weekend time they had available.  And with a couple of scares that would have been much MUCH worse on an incline or descent, we decided that risking driving through the Rockies was probably not the wisest of decisions.

We opted to take the flatter southern route – which put us going through Albuquerque.  And guess who was there?

Yup, our awesome bus nut technomad friends – Ben & Karen! They arranged us a spot next to them, which was amazing – considering it was also the start of the 40th Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.  Being neighbors with these guys is something that we can’t get enough of – we always have fun adventures together.

Now, we’ve heard great things about the balloon fiesta – but nothing prepared us for its awesomeness.

Sunday evening Karen and us headed over for our first glow event (Ben had to fly out for a seminar he was giving, so we were sure to tease him as much as possible).  During a glow, many of the balloons inflate on the ground and synchronize glowing with their propane jets.

What I hadn’t realized is that spectators get to roam the grounds right next to the balloons!!

I spent the entire evening with my eyes up and my jaw down, and feeling like a little kid. It was absolutely beyond belief. The sounds. The crowd energy. The lights.  The BALLOONS – they’re everywhere!!

All three of us were in similar states of disbelief.  And we all decided that we HAD to return in the morning for the ascension.

Which meant getting up at the “butt crack of dawn” (my new favorite expression, coined by Karen) – something us night owled technomads don’t do well.

Karen photographing the ascension.

But we did it.. and it was so worth it.  I counted at least a kabillion (give or take a dozen) balloons launching.

And apparently those were the ‘just for fun’ launches.  Later in the morning, balloons launched from around the city at different locations to compete for prizes by tossing super tiny little rings onto poles planted on the main launch field.  And considering balloons have no steering, that’s some pretty amazing piloting.

Think the pictures above are descent?  Hah.   Be sure to follow Karen’t blog at http://www.thepixeldiaries.com , as her pictures are going to be 1,000,000x better than mine. And she’s there for the rest of the event, which wraps up this coming weekend. (If you’re anywhere nearby.. GO!!!)

What an amazing experience, and so delighted serendipity routed us this way!!!

Path Forward

We’re still heading to Chattanooga, aiming to arrive there next Monday evening for some bus workshops before the Bus Conversion Magazine Rally.  We’ll now be meandering from Amarillo, TX through Oklahoma, northern Arkansas, and then through Tennessee somewhere over the next week.

But before then, we’re taking a couple day distraction-free break north of Amarillo, TX at one of our most favorite free camp spots ever.

And I promise – if I can get Chris to focus on anything other than plotting how to carry a hot air balloon with us; his lithium ion battery post should be the next post you see here later this week.

We came here intending to cool off – both our bodies and on the bus projects. We were also [...]]]> Two weeks ago we finally escaped the intense Arizona desert heat in Lake Havasu City, and headed to nearby Flagstaff. Sitting at elevation 7000 ft, it’s many degrees cooler and has things that are green.

We came here intending to cool off – both our bodies and on the bus projects. We were also tempted here to be temporary neighbors with some fellow nomadic friends.

We had dreams of lots of hiking, catching up on some projects, exploring Flagstaff, birthday celebrations and beer.

Ahh… dreams.

Upon arriving, some prior conversations we had started inquiring about the state of lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4 – or LFP) battery technology for RV use elevated from intriguing to interesting. This newer LFP isn’t your old school lithium ion battery chemistry that is known for exploding – it’s non-combustable, making it vastly safer.

As our bus came with no house battery system or inverter, tackling that project was on our priority list – especially with planning to go off-grid at Burning Man at the end of the month.

One conversation lead to another, and we were introduced to a supplier of the technology – who happens to be just down the hill in Phoenix.

As we know that Burning Man would present an ideal opportunity to field test such a system, if we’re going to get it done – we had to move quick to take advantage of the Phoenix connection before leaving the area.

So instead of our chill no bus project escape, our time in Flagstaff has been consumed with intense all-nighter research into batteries & inverters, house electrical systems and taking measurements of all our bays. We’ve been weighing the benefits and risks of a bank of lithium ion versus AGM batteries, corresponding with our braintrust of electrically inclined friends and tracking down our ideal inverter.

We’ve decided that while lithium ion batteries have not fully proven their potential yet, especially for RV house electrical systems – heading to Phoenix this week is worthwhile. If it continues to hold our interest, by the end of the week we could have one very interesting and cutting edge house electrical system that could be a fantastic platform for our eventual solar install.

And yes, you can bet I’ll force Chris to sit down and write a more technical report.

So, this morning we’re off to Phoenix. Back into the intense Arizona desert heat.

I haven’t even checked the weather forecast for the expected highs.. I really don’t want to know.

By the way, we should note – we are not trying to motivate anyone to follow us on this path. We are not selling these batteries, we are not affiliates with any battery dealer, we paid for all our components and nor do we have any financial stake in the technology beyond our own systems.  We are simply full time RVing technomads who are designing our own cutting edge home & office on wheels, and are sharing our research & project. Of course we’d love to have more folks out there pioneering and helping us take the arrows in our backs.  Right now, we do not consider this technology ready for the mainstream, and those contemplating this technology need to be a bit savvy with electrical and battery technology. 

Other Posts In this Series:

Promise of Lithium #1: Lead Acid Battery Downsides
Promise of Lithium #2: Lithium Ion Battery Advantages
All our Lithium Ion Battery Posts 

I have updated our video bus tour to include footage of some of the recent updates. [...]]]> The following post will be nothing new for those who have been following along with our daily updates on Facebook.  It’s just a wrap up of some announcements we’ve made this week.

Updated Bus Video Tour

I have updated our video bus tour to include footage of some of the recent updates.  It’s amazing to see how a good wash, scrubbing and wax and new tires & wheels improved the exterior.  And of course, all of the interior changes with new floors and layout.

Link to Video Tour

Incidentally, having a video bus tour has proven to be quite handy. We encountered some difficulty securing full insurance coverage, as many companies won’t cover a non-professional bus conversion. Add in the few carriers who offer full timer’s insurance (sort of a mash-up of an automobile policy and a homeowner’s policy) – and our pickings became very slim. However, because our awesome agent at Epic Insurance was able to submit our video tour, she was able to convince a better ranked company to take us on.

We’re also finding that RV parks that have restrictions on older rigs are more prone to accept a reservation from us by giving them a link to the video, showing that the bus is actually pretty cool.

Apparently, having a yawning cat in your video also helps.

Coverage? App Update

Our Coverage? app continues to have a steady trickle of sales, and has gotten quite a bit of positive feedback for its usefulness. Even we have found it far more useful than excepted to be able to overlay data coverage maps from all of the cell data carriers, without needing an internet connection.

I always take it as a positive affirmation when we start getting a flood of e-mails asking when the next map update is coming out, and we also take that as a signal it’s time to get to work. The maps have been quite a labor intensive process to create, taking upwards of 40 hours of intricate graphics work.

With all of the bus chaos, we’ve just simply been lacking the time to sit down and crank out an update.

However, between getting a Wacom Pen Tablet and discovering some fresh techniques – we’re now able to get the updates out with a lot less effort.

Earlier this week we submitted an update to the app with all new maps, and it’s now available in the app store.

We also came out with a nifty new icon for the app!

Earlier this year we gave an analysis of our app sales. Coverage sales have picked up (now with just over 3500 downloads) – but we in no way consider the app to have reached even close to a break-even point for our development efforts. Combined sales of Coverage? and State Lines average about $9/day. We basically consider it beer money.

Sorry Android users – sadly, we just can’t justify the massive expense and effort to port the apps. We will however continue to support our apps on iOS for as long as the apps continue to sell, and they’re useful in our own travels.

Burning Man – Yes, We’re Going

This was the first year that we made no specific plans around attending Burning Man. We didn’t buy tickets when they came out, and we didn’t base our travel plans for the year around being in Nevada in late August.  We also didn’t plan to NOT attend either.

We instead decided to leave it to serendipity to decide for us.

Honestly, we had gotten a bit tired of always routing over the same paths at the same time of year, generally on a hectic cross country re-positioning.  And, last year I got a tad burnt out from organizing Camp Nomadia (even though it was pretty much stress-free and awesome) and not feeling free to just enjoy Burning Man with all the media interviews and visitors wanting to pick our brains on becoming nomadic.  So it was nice to take a break from the mental attachment of making attending a priority.

And, serendipty has spoken.

Our bus acquisition and project status has us feeling within proximity of attending.  In Lake Havasu, we came across a pair of tickets (Burning Man, for the first time ever, sold out a few weeks ago). And, a Kiki-sitter manifested right along our route in Las Vegas.

So, we’ve now got Burning Man in our plans.   And yes, we will be camping with Camp Nomadia (which is aiming to be near 6 & G) – but not hosting it.  We are absolutely thrilled with the past Nomadians who have stepped in and taken on the organizing efforts, and we’re greatly looking forward to being part of the camp.

Unlike years past tho, we’re not pre-setting up appointments for media interviews and visits.  This year is for us to enjoy the event, and not be focused on being hosts or promoting nomadism in general.    We had seriously contemplated not announcing we’re attending and going incognito… but, we just couldn’t do it.

This doesn’t mean folks aren’t welcome to stop by and say hi – just don’t expect us to be sitting around waiting, or heck, being “proper”

Plans Forward

Our plans are always somewhat nebulous. But after the burn we’ll be returning to Las Vegas to pick up Kiki, and attending Photoshop World with our fellow technomadic friends Ben & Karen.   After that, we’ll head to Sacramento where Chris will be tackling a long overdue project of finally getting rid of his storage unit.  We’ll use the bus as a moving van to relocate anything he wants to keep to his parent’s basement in St. Louis.    And from there…  we’ll probably meander around with a stop in Texas and eye towards wintering in Florida.

But… this all on NST (Nomadic Standard Time), and always subject to change.

So when we started looking at ways to get to the west coast [...]]]> I don’t know which of us actually voiced the idea first when some intriguing sounding vintage buses cropped up for us on the other coast of the country. Taking a cross country train trip has been something we’ve always wanted to do.

So when we started looking at ways to get to the west coast – ranging from taking the borrowed Winnebago Le’Sharo to catching a flight – hopping on a train just seemed right.

We’ve both done some shorter term train travel in our past. For me, my first major train trip was from Helsinki to Leningrad when I spent a high school summer traveling around the former Soviet Union. And we’ve each taken the Coast Starlight along the California coast and various commuter length rail trips.

The more we researched our options for getting across country, the more we both fell in love with the idea of sharing a long train adventure together.

We’re currently in St. Louis where Kiki can stay with her grandparents, and will be heading back to South Carolina this week for me to teach a class.  We’ll deliver the Le’Sharo back to her owners near Savannah, GA (stay tuned for some tales about what we learned from that experience!).

Amtrak's Routes with our First Adventure Highlighted

From there, we decided on a train route that would take us up the east coast to Washington, DC, across to Chicaco and then catching the scenic California Zephyr into San Francisco. And then up the coast to Oregon to view our next bus contenders. A total of 5 nights on trains!

The rail fare for this trip (not including a roomette on the 2-night California Zephyr segment) came to $584 each. And that’s only 1-way. Not exactly cheap transit. But not bad for an adventure.

The Amtrak Rail Pass

And then I remembered meeting Brett ,aka The Amtrekker, several times in our respective nomadic wanderings. A few years ago, he ditched his day job, bought an Amtrak rail pass and spent a long time traversing the US crossing items off his bucket list (we first encountered him at ‘Ride an Ostrich’).

My research discovered that a 15-day/8 segment pass would only cost $389/each. Nearly $400 in savings!

And with our desired route using up 4 segments, it would leave us ample return trip options if we needed it. We called Amtrak to confirm that our itinerary was available with a pass, as there are only a limited number of seats for pass holders on each train. No problem.

We ended up purchasing the 30-day/12 segment pass at $579. It was still slightly cheaper than the booked fare, and would give us a lot of flexibility. Leaving us 8 pre-paid segments to see other buses and/or have other adventures.

So, we’ve each packed a backpack with the intention of being ‘out there’ for a month traveling by train. Exploring the country by rail, searching for our vintage bus and seeing what serendipity has in store for us next.

We can’t wait!!

If you live near an Amtrak rail station, and would be open to hosting a couple cool technomads for a night or two – give us a shout. Who knows, we may just be able to route to you during our rail adventure!

Sailboat? Not yet.

International adventures? Yes, we want more extended jaunts to exotic places. But we want to keep some sort of (mobile) base in the US to return to, [...]]]> Its no secret that we’ve been pondering “what’s next” for a while now, particularly since we’ve returned from the Virgin Islands.

Sailboat? Not yet.

International adventures? Yes, we want more extended jaunts to exotic places. But we want to keep some sort of (mobile) base in the US to return to, so that we can regularly spend time with friends and family here. And after an extended stretch in St. John, we are ready to be back on the mainland for a bit before heading out again.

More RV’ing? Well… We love our RV’ing lifestyle, but the thought of another cross-country trek in our Oliver was feeling a bit “been there, done that” and just not very exciting. We’ve mastered life in a 17′ fiberglass egg, and we’ve been craving something new, more space and new challenges.

Our Oliver (named “Orion”) is the one of the most well designed and engineered travel trailers ever built, and it was made custom for us – with every detail down to the tile on the floor, the gauge of the electrical wire, the solar panels on the roof, and the fabric on the seats carefully chosen. Before Oliver shut down their production indefinitely, less than 50 of them were made.

How could we give up something so uniquely ours?  The trailer has become iconic to us, and part of our identity.

The more we thought about it, the more we grew open to the idea that the time was right to move on, and we even started dropping hints that we might be open to selling later this year.

Meanwhile, we started thinking that a smaller motorhome would be a next step for us, and started to research suitable unique vehicles – including the awesome GMC Motorhome and more recently, smaller vintage buses like the Flxible (yes, inspired by our friend’s Ben & Karen and the bus they’re currently converting) and GMC 4104. We’re so thankful to have knowledgable bus-nut friends in Ben & Karen and Sean & Louise of Our Odyssey to keep reality in check during this research.

(We post daily to our Facebook Page if you want to keep up with what we’re currently researching or up to.)

The universe had other ideas

Just as soon as we had mentally made peace with the idea of moving on from the Oliver, literally within hours, the phone rang.

The conversation went something like this:

Him: “Hi, you may not remember me, but I’m the guy who asked about your Oliver at that campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway last year.”

Us: “Of course we remember you! Who could forget someone coming up to our campsite and asking if we were in Carlsbad, New Mexico a couple months before.. where you first saw our trailer in a parking lot.’

Him: “My retirement dream is owning an Oliver like yours, I’ve been calling the factory every couple months… and I detected you might be open to selling yours?  I know how unique they are and what they’re worth.”

Yeah, serendipity tends to work that way for us. And being serendipity’s minions and all, we listen.

We get to help make somebody’s dream come true, and we don’t have to spend time searching out a buyer? Sounds promising.

Oh, and it turns out he needs a tow vehicle too, and is interested in buying our matched Tundra. And he’s right – he really does know what an Oliver configured like ours is worth. His opening offer makes it well worth it for us to move quickly and not pursue a bidding war amongst our growing list of interested potential buyers. And he also wants to buy Cherie’s older laptop – which has the same custom graphical design on the case as on the side of our trailer?!?!

Could this be for real? Sell the matched set in one fell swoop?

That phone call came last Tuesday, less than a week ago. The non-refundable deposit check arrived yesterday.  It’s real. A perfect match delivered before we sought it out.

A week from now we’ll be in transit from Florida, making a beeline to Virginia to deliver our baby to its new loving home.

Yeah, our heads are spinning! We’re a mix of anxious and excited!

And in just over a week – we will be very literally homeless, without even a vehicle in our name. We opened the door to possibility, and serendipity swept in like a tidal wave, leaving us with a completely blank slate to paint our next adventure upon.

*blink*

We do have to solve some imminent logistical issues though, and are opening ourselves to a range of possibilities…

• We are considering buying (or maybe renting) a cheap ($2k – $10K) older 23-35′ motorhome that we can move into temporarily while we head off in search of our ideal next home-on-wheels. Leads are appreciated on suitable RV’s for sale or folks open to renting theirs to us between Florida and Virginia.
• Or… Maybe we’ll find a suitable vintage bus in move-in condition within the next week, and head towards it once we hand over the Oliver in a one-way rental U-haul or borrowed vehicle. If you know of any converted Flxible, GM, Wanderlodge, or other cool (35′ and under) buses for sale – let us know!
• Or… Maybe we’ll decide to buy a less-than-ideal but very affordable and ready to live in “starter bus”, so that we can try out bus living for a few months before we invest more in a different rig and/or extensive upgrades. We have our eye on one promising starter bus in Salt Lake City, but that is a long way to travel for “promising”, so we’re likely not ready to jump on that right away.
• Or… To buy ourselves a bit more time to find either a temporary or (semi)permanent new home on wheels, perhaps we will seek out a weekly or monthly rental of a place to live and a vehicle to drive – spending a few weeks in Virginia while shopping for what is next. If anyone has any leads on house sitting opportunities, garages to temporarily unload our stuff into, or short term condo or RV rental opportunities, or, or, or…. anywhere near Lynchburg, VA – let us know!

A lot is up in the air, and serendipity is busily reshaping our lives yet again.

It is exhilarating, exciting, and exhausting to even think about.

The next few weeks will be crazy.

And such [...]]]> One of the things that we designed our full time traveling lifestyle to accommodate for was being where we need to be. Family and loved ones are extremely important to us. And we recognized that as our parents and grandparents age, there is likely to be more need for us to be there.

And such as occasion is currently upon us. My father was just diagnosed with what looks like early stage lung cancer. So we are now enroute back to Florida for his surgery this Wednesday. We will be there to support him and my mother through this over the coming weeks, and I will be taking over day to day operations of the software development business that I run with my folks.

We really had no firm plans for our summer – we were contemplating traveling through Canada perhaps. The news came at a time in which we had even more flexibility than usual. So yesterday after leaving the Gateway Burn event near St. Louis we started heading towards Florida.

Photo by ZenNomads - www.zennomads.com

At first, my dad was reluctant to accept our offer of routing to Florida. He was thinking in terms of a more typical situation in which one might need to spend extra money to travel and potentially taking time off work. Then I reminded him, that for us – our travel costs are our everyday living costs and we’d be spending gas and camping fees anyway. It isn’t an extra expense for us.

Routing to be where we need to be, even for the long haul, is exactly what we’ve designed our lives to adapt for.

My father’s prognosis is quite positive and is a best case scenario situation so far. Hopefully in a couple of months he’ll be back to full speed and embracing more digital nomadism in his life too.

Your best wishes, healing thoughts and positive thinking are most appreciated right now as our family comes together to get through this.

Our travel plans for the next few months are starting to shape up:

April: At the end of the week, we’ll be repositioning down to Gonzales, TX – to the site where the NuRVer’s Gathering will be held at the end of the month.  It seems like a great spot to be for a bit, to complete some projects (that we’re quite excited to announce soon!) and spend some time with the Happy Janssen’s, who are in the area early for the event too.  We’re getting quite excited about the event!

May: We’ll be hanging around central TX, as we received the wonderful news that we won the lottery to participate in Burning Flipside – the Austin regional Burning Man event.  We’re quite excited to be attending.  If there are other nomad’s also attending, we’d love to put together a Camp Nomadia theme camp there.  Let us know if you are!  (Kiki is also looking for someplace in Austin to stay, as Flipside is a ‘no pets allowed’ event.)

June: We’ll be immediately heading up to St. Louis, so that we can attend Gateway Burn – the St. Louis area Burning Man event.  They’re specifically reaching out to nomads to attend – and waiving their ‘no pets’ rules to specifically allow nomadic pets to attend (Kiki is very excited!).  Tickets should go on sale soon, and will be available for purchase until just a few days before the event – making it quite easy to accommodate nomadic standard time. We highly encourage any nomads who might be passing this way to come join us at Camp Nomadia there – it’s an awesome event, and a great way to get a taste of the Burning Man vibe without the epic adventure.

Our time between June and August is currently unplanned.  Although I recently realized that I have about 100,000 Delta miles that will be expiring soon.  It’s enough to get both of us somewhere in Central or northern South America, or me almost anywhere in the world.  So we’re starting to contemplate an international adventure – either together or perhaps a solo trip for myself.  We’re open to ideas on where might be a good place to go.

Unfortunately, we’ll not [...]]]> We are currently enroute to Austin, Texas to (not) attend South by Southwest (SXSW).  SXSW is a huge convention/festival combining independent music, film and emerging technologies – all rolled into the weirdness only Austin can provide.  We’ve never been, although we keep getting told it’s exactly our kind of thing.

Unfortunately, we’ll not be attending this year either – the ticket prices are just too steep for us, especially last minute.  It’s an unfortunate side effect of living via nomadic serendipity – there are financial penalties for not pre-planning far in advance for events like this.

Given that Austin is where I grew up, I have family in the area and a bunch of our friends are converging in Austin over the next couple of weeks – that’s the place we feel called to be.  Earlier this week we snagged one of the last RV spots in town.

From what we hear, there are plenty of ‘fringe’ SXSW related social activities going on that don’t require a badge to attend.  For instance, the Location Independent Professional’s community will be hosting a LIP Meet-Up (click to RSVP and join us!) this coming Sunday, and we’ll definitely be there.

If you’re attending SXSW and know of any events we can crash – or want to meet up – please do let us know.

Presently our plans have us in Austin through the end of the month, and then moving on to Gonzalez, Texas in April – which is where the NuRVer’s Gathering (a tribe of us younger full time RVing freaks) will be happening towards the end of the month.  We also have ticket requests in to attend Burning Flipside, the Austin regional Burning Man event over Memorial Day weekend.

We’re looking forward to hanging out in the hill country of Texas for the spring, enjoying the wildflowers and focusing deeply on a couple of projects, all the while enjoying a lot of awesome Tex-Mex cuisine!

But first we’ll be making a stop in New Orleans on the way.

Our projected nomadic path forward might look something like this:

Tomorrow [...]]]> We’ve been hanging out in Southern California without much of a plan on which direction will be next. Things are finally began to gel once we made it a priority to spend holidays with family this year – which means heading eastward!

Our projected nomadic path forward might look something like this:

Tomorrow – Depart our technomadic rendezvous in San Diego with Ben Willmore and rendezvous with Route 66 nomad Sandi Wheaton before she heads back to Canada.
Nov 11ish –  Hang out with some other cool Oliver Travel Trailer owning folks in Lake Havasu City, AZ.
Nov 14-18 – High tail it to Kansas, perhaps exploring some of Route 66 ourselves.
Nov 19 – Dec 23 – Trying our hand at ‘workamping’ at the amazon.com distribution facility in Coffeyville, Kansas.  With so many of our RVing friends signing up for the gig, we decided – what the heck? Camping is paid for, the money is relatively decent and it’s on our way to St. Louis.  Worst case, we get to meet some other full time RVers and get paid to workout for a month.
Dec 24 thru ?? – In St. Louis visiting Chris’ family for the holidays and reconnecting with our growing community there.

As always, if we’re going to be passing by you – let us know! We love meeting up with people.

——–
PS. Did you know that we’re an Amazon.com affiliate? If you’re going to be shopping online anyway this holiday season, starting your shopping on Amazon.com off with this link will support our travels in two ways: 1) We’ll get a small cut of your purchases at no extra expense to you and 2) you’ll be providing work to many full time RVers working at the distribution centers this holiday season, including us!

If it looks like we’re coming anywhere near you – let us know! We love meeting up with folks as part of our travel.

Our general plans are looking something like this:

now – June 30 : Northern Indiana, including a trip up to South Haven, MI for Lakes of Fire [...]]]> The remainder of our summer plans are starting to take form, in part thanks to one of Cherie’s clients booking a training class in DC in mid-July.

Our general plans are looking something like this:

now – June 30 : Northern Indiana, including a trip up to South Haven, MI for Lakes of Fire Regional Burning Man Event
July 1 – July 6: Meander towards Philadelphia, potentially dipping into Canada
July 7 – July 12: Visit friends in the Philadelphia area
July 13 – 15: DC Area
mid July – mid August: Cross country adventure back to California, route undetermined
August 28 – September 9: Black Rock City for hosting Camp Nomadia at Burning Man

We’ve starting to think forward as to where our travels should take us in the coming months. The map above is a very tentative possible travel plan for late March through mid- May.

Here’s what we’re thinking:

March 22 March 27 (few days) – Leave [...]]]>

We’ve starting to think forward as to where our travels should take us in the coming months. The map above is a very tentative possible travel plan for late March through mid- May.

Here’s what we’re thinking:

March 22 March 27 (few days) – Leave the SF Bay Area and head south towards Los Angeles
March 27 March 31 (few days) – Hang out in the LA area, visiting friends & family
April 3 (around 3 weeks) – Head east, checking out Arizona and New Mexico
April 21 (around 2 weeks) – Hang out in the Austin/San Antonio area
May 4 (around 3 weeks) – Head north towards St. Louis and hang out in that area

The plans (both the dates and routes) are very subject to change depending on events we want to attend, people we want to see and nomadic whims

However, if you’re anywhere in the vicinity of these plans and would like a visit – let us know! Or, if you have recommendations for ‘must sees’ along the way, always love those too.

Does anyone know anyone in Las [...]]]> We have volunteered to the Obama campaign in Las Vegas, we’re looking for an affordable way to stay there. With the long hours we’ll be pulling, we won’t actually be in the trailer much – so it would be silly (and costly) to pay for a commercial RV Park.

Does anyone know anyone in Las Vegas who might be able to offer us a flat, safe, space to park for a month? Side yards, drive-ways, back lots, commercial parking lots, etc. We’re solar powered (don’t need electrical), would mostly just be sleeping there and perhaps occasional access to real showers and laundry.

The volunteer coordinator is also looking for options for us as well.

So please help spread the word and help make it easier for us to volunteer our time to the campaign.

This is our current proposed route for our trek westward towards San Francisco. If anyone lives nearby the route [...]]]> .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Westward Routing, originally uploaded by Serolynne.

This is our current proposed route for our trek westward towards San Francisco. If anyone lives nearby the route and wants to meet up for dinner/lunch/hanging out.. let us know!

We’re planning to depart sometime tomorrow, and arriving San Francisco around Aug 18. It’ll only be a quick stop over there, and then heading out to the playa for Burning Man (with a stop over in Sacramento).