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 is due for a routine map refresh (we find our customers start complaining about the maps being out of date around 2-3 months) and we’re adding a new, frequently asked for feature.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.

Join us for a little journey in reminiscing about some past adventures.

(If you’re reading [...]]]> Over on the Escapee Forums, someone asked what quirky museums RVers have visited in their travels across the USA.  In compiling my response, I realized we’ve started a bit of a video collection of some amazing inspired artists.

Join us for a little journey in reminiscing about some past adventures.

(If you’re reading this post on RSS or e-mail, you may not see the embedded videos for each attraction. To view them, simply click through to the original post).

City Museum – St. Louis, MO

Our original post after a visit to City Museum.

We visit St. Louis often in our travels as we have family there, but it’s also become one of my favorite cities to spend time in. And we’ve had more nomadic rendezvouses here than anywhere else. And we always take our visiting friends to the City Museum.

The City Museum is no ordinary museum, however.  Sure, it is full of found things that are preserved. And it gets the ‘City’ part of its name because the found things are entirely from within municipal St. Louis.  But that’s where the museum part ends.. because this is definitely a place where you don’t just look. You touch. You crawl. You slide. You climb.

This place is what you might imagine would happen if you gave Peter Pan a blow torch.

Here’s a video we produced on the City Museum:

Cathedral of Junk – Austin, TX

Video of one of our visits:

Salvation Mountain – Slab City, CA

What other epic art projects are there to explore in the USA?  We seriously need to continue this journey!

There were far more buses here than at the BCM Rally we attended back in October in Chattanooga, and much more variety.  It was so [...]]]> Last weekend we attended the Arcadia Bus Rally - one of the longest running bus rallies in the country, and certainly one of the largest on the east coast.

Pano I took from the roof deck of Odyssey, with the iPhone app 'PhotoSynth'

There were far more buses here than at the BCM Rally we attended back in October in Chattanooga, and much more variety.  It was so much fun to see so many other buses of our vintage, and talk with so many other bus owners.  The rally posted a photo tour of all of the coaches in attendance – there’s some drool-worthy buses there.

Bus-side Seminars

We presented two seminars at the rally (on Mobile Internet Options and Lithium Ion Batteries), which seemed to be well received. We found out fairly last minute that the seminars would be live streamed, and apparently they may be accessible in an archive at some point.  The content is pretty much what we discuss in the linked blog posts, however – so if you missed the live stream, you’re not missing much.

Kiki even helped out with giving seminars.  During our Mobile Internet presentation, the screen kept advancing seemingly on its own.  We soon discovered Kiki was inside on the desk looking out the window at the crowd – with her paw on our wireless keyboard.

Technomadia & Our Odyssey

The highlight for us was getting some extended time being neighbors with Sean AND Louise of Our Odyssey.  We got to spend a week with just Sean up in Chattanooga, so it was great to re-connect with Louise as well.

Zephyr & Odyssey - Awning to Awning

Like we did at the BCM Rally, we parked our buses awning-to-awning and Sean & Louise set up their super-awesome portable hot tub for us to soak in at night.  There was some confusion amongst rally regulars, as last year our mutual friends Ben & Karen parked with Sean & Louise in a very similar configuration.

Recall that we have since purchased their MINI Cooper, and they are working on converting  Creative Cruiser – their vintage bus.  We had several folks mistake us as ‘Those friends of Sean & Louise’s with the MINI who were working on a vintage bus!’.    Well… obviously that description fits us now, but we had no clue this time last year!

Sean trying to fix our generator

We had a great time chilling with awesome friends over several days.  Sean, who doesn’t seem to be able to NOT try to fix things, made a valiant attempt at getting our generator working. It’ll start, but not keep running without bypassing some stuff.  He thinks we need some inexpensive parts or a new control board system.  That’ll have to be a project for another day. We are grateful for his efforts, and that Odyssey’s generator has more than enough power to share so that we could remain parked in the dry camping area with them.

NomadiCat MeetUp

But we weren’t the only ones enjoying a nomadic meet up. Angel & George & Opal (the onboard pets of Our Odyssey) and Kiki got to spend a lot of time chilling on our communal porch.

All and all.. a fantastic way to bring in the new year. Great friends. Hot Tub. Smoothly run rally.

Oh wait, I remember – we’ve been keeping busy!

Last April we parked in this very location at Wickham Park in Melbourne when we got the unsolicited offer to sell our Oliver [...]]]> Wow.. where did the month go?  It seems like we just pulled in to Melbourne, Florida for our long anticipated still time.

Our spot at Wickham Park, Melbourne FL

Last April we parked in this very location at Wickham Park in Melbourne when we got the unsolicited offer to sell our Oliver Travel Trailer.

Ever since we’ve been on a whirlwind tour of the country in search of our bus and making it back across country.

Melbourne (well, technically Indian Harbour Beach) is where I lived when I met Chris back in 2006 and decided to join him on the road full time. I had lived here 12 years and have a lot of roots – most importantly, my parents.  Like St. Louis (where Chris’ family is from), Florida is a frequent destination in our travels.

We consider quality time with family to be one of the main benefits of our mobile lifestyle.

Back in September, when we were still out west, my father started having some symptoms that were… concerning. We were already aiming to spend the holidays in Florida, so we made the decision to start heading eastward ‘just in case’.

And thank goodness, just days before we pulled in… his results confirmed that his symptoms where something manageable and treatable. Whew… big relief!

Our time here has been full of joy, happiness and celebration of life.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family.  My brother flew in for a long weekend for a long overdue family reunion.. and for my mother’s 65th birthday.

Chris working outside on iOS development.

Aside from re-caulking the shower, the bus hasn’t changed a bit in the last month. No bus projects!

In the past couple of weeks we’ve put out an update to both Coverage? and the final update to State Lines 2011. We’ve broken ground on a total re-write of State Lines to allow for easier expansion of data and iPad support. The re-write will also serve as a foundation for some other product ideas that we’re excited to focus on next.

We also started a total rewrite of our old ‘Answers to the Common Excuses to Not Travel Full Time’ (ugh, what a mouthful!) blog series, and are re-launching it as ‘No Excuses: Go Nomadic‘.  We’ll be releasing a newly updated chapter every few weeks, as well as updating the pay-as-you-wish eBook version as we go.

Kiki at 'work' (and our view off our porch)

Kiki has also gotten into a work routine while parked here.  Everyday we walk her over to a nearby clump of trees where she is managing a crew of squirrels.  She excitedly wakes us up every morning for her commute.

We’ve been able to get back into a bit of a fitness routine launched by us each completing a 1/2 Marathon.  We love staying at Wickham Park while we’re in Melbourne in part because of all of the walking & running trails around. Well, and it’s one of the few options in the area.  For $475/month, it’s a pretty good deal for long term stays in Florida.

Our social calendar has remained pretty full, between hosting a wonderful ‘open bus’ (which we totally forgot to take pictures at), reconnecting with old friends and making new ones.

Jessica & Duncan of Traveling On the Outskirts

We got to finally meet and hang out with Duncan & Jessica of Traveling On the Outskirts – who also originated their travels in Melbourne.  And we got to spend some time with Sean & Louise of Our Odyssey who are roaming around the area.

Tomorrow we’ll break camp and head over to the west coast of Florida (just north of Tampa) to where Chris’ folks are spending their first Christmas at their new Florida winter home. We’ll follow that up by attending the Arcadia Bus Rally (where we hope Sean & Louise will join us at – *poke poke*).

After last holiday season alone in the tropics (oh, woe is us) it’s really nice to get so much quality holiday time with loved ones.

We haven’t a clue where we’re headed after the first of the year.  There’s temptation to quickly head back west to join up with all of the NuRVers converging in Arizona and southern California for the winter (which our social side craves) or meander our way to Texas in time to ‘unattend’ SXSW in March (which our ‘take it slow’ side craves).

What’s your winter and spring looking like?  Any events, rendezvouses, gatherings, opportunities or invitations we should consider?

We’re often asked about our pace of travel – and for the record – these past couple weeks are not indicative of our preferred style. In our ideal world, we’d travel a couple hundred miles and stick around for a few weeks or more before [...]]]> Whew, what a few hectic weeks it’s been.

Too Rushed

We’re often asked about our pace of travel – and for the record – these past couple weeks are not indicative of our preferred style. In our ideal world, we’d travel a couple hundred miles and stick around for a few weeks or more before traveling another couple hundred miles – rinse, repeat.

In reality, it hardly ever works out that way.

Events we want to attend, people we want to see and opportunities pre-empt our intentions and far too often we find ourselves on a cross country repositioning in far too quick of time.

For a lot of folks, taking 12 days to travel 2000 miles may seem slow – after all, if you drive straight through you can get across country in a matter of a couple days. But this hyper mobile lifestyle of ours isn’t sustainable long term if we keep a pace like that.

We’re not on vacation after all. We have to juggle the rest of life in with those miles. Fitness, quality time with each other, resting, keeping up with the world, blogging, cooking & cleaning, walking the cat, social time with friend’s paths we cross, enjoying places we stop, errands, etc. And let’s not forget, unexpected obstacles and that work thing.

We simply find that trying to get in work hours and drive hours on the same day just doesn’t work well for us. We need to stop for a day or two at a time and have office days. Especially this time of year, when one of my major clients undergoes their fiscal year turn over that I have to orchestrate.

Ever since we left St. George, we’ve been in pretty much a state of exhaustion. 12-days to get to Chattanooga is way too rushed for our tastes.

Journey to the Rally

At our last travel update, we had just left Ben & Karen in Albuquerque after an amazing time at the Balloon Fiesta.

Lake Meredith - June 2007

We took a couple day stop along Lake Meredith, just north of Amarillo.  5 years ago on our maiden trial voyage in the T@b, we discovered this free camping spot.

With scenic waterfront views, excellent 3G signal and completely free – it’s a Technomad Trifecta.

But soon it was time to hit the road, with miles to make every day.  We crossed through a very windy Oklahoma with stops in Hinton and Wister.

Lake Meredith - October 2011

Then an overnight in Hot Springs, AR for a rendezvous with an old friend – and sadly, no time for a hot bath soak. An overnight at a most peaceful rest stop in Corinth, MS, and then on to a day in Huntsville for an overdue visit to the Apple Genius Bar to take care of some poking issues. We averaged about 200 miles a day to keep the pace as sane as possible.

We pulled into Chattanooga to the Bus Conversion Magazine pre-workshop week, and hit the ground running.

Workshops

We made the rush drive to take advantage of the day long workshops being offered before the rally.

Preventative Maintenance workshop with Don of Choo Choo and Mike of BCM

Our first day was spent on preventative maintenance, a topic we knew we needed help with to bring our bus up to date after 15 years of neglect.

And our second day was a planned nearly all day driving class. While Chris has been rocking the driving, I’ve been hesitant to get behind the wheel.

Both classes were good, but honestly, a bit underwhelming for what was advertised.  Both lasted about half their scheduled time, only had 4 students and neither taught by experienced trainers (but definitely by experts in their topics).

I did successfully parallel park a 40′ bus (woohoo!), and I do feel proficient in driving a bus around an empty parking lot.  But I had hoped to gain confidence in driving in conditions that I’m more likely to encounter – like tight city corners, traffic, hills and just generally avoiding squishing people.

Bus Maintenance

Before the rally, we were a bit confused as to the relationship between Bus Conversion Magazine and Choo Choo Express Garage, who share an address.  Turns out, they are separate entities – with BCM renting space at the garage.

The workshops were held at the garage, which had us staying there too. And this turned out to be a huge blessing.

The garage used to once be the yard of a fleet of charter buses, but is now a dedicated bus shop with highly skilled mechanical knowledge.

Our bus (yes, still nameless) being inspected.

So while we were there, we had them pull our bus over the pit and do an unofficial thorough DOT inspection. As a titled motorhome, our bus isn’t required to have this inspection. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea.

Joel pointed out some things that could use attention – primarily maintenance stuff that needed catching up, but all and all – the bus checked out as solid.  We had him tighten up our steering, change a pancake diaphragm in a front brake, fix an air valve, flush our coolant and swap out our transmission filter to be an easier to maintain screw on kind.

We also discussed some future projects that need to happen soon, including replacing all of the air suspension bags.

We fell in love with Choo Choo – friendly knowledgable folks, excellent shop rates and we learned so much.

The Rally

The rally itself was held just a couple miles away at Camp Jordan, so after we got our bus off the pit we headed over a night early to get set up and relax a bit.

Bus Rally!

Over the next days, there were a total of about 40 buses that joined up for the weekend.  There were buses of all sorts – Eagles, Prevost, MCI, GM, Neoplan, Wanderlodge and Skoolies.  It was great to see such a wide variety of both buses and bus owners.

Originally the rally had over a 100 buses saying they would attend, but not all of the registrations made it in. So unfortunately the organizer had to scramble last minute to scale back the event.  Considering he was taking this on alone, he did a remarkable job keeping the event together.  And we’re very appreciative of his efforts.

Presenting our Lithium Ion Battery Talk

There are many things that we could suggest to have made the rally better – but in the end, we prefer to count the positives.  We learned tons more about buses, got lots of great ideas, met many amazing people, made new friends, attended great seminars, gave a couple seminars of our own and had fun meeting up again with folks we had met during our bus hunt.

The highlight however was getting to rendezvous and park next to Sean of Our Odyssey.

It’s hard to believe we had only spent a short time once before with Sean & Louise over a year ago – as we felt an immediate kinship with them, and have maintained contact since.  Louise had to fly back to California during the rally, but we greatly appreciated getting some more time with Sean. He’s been a tremendous help in guiding us on bus projects over these past few months, even staying on the phone coaching us through priming our engine to take our bus for a test drive.

Sean presenting on hydronics in our shared seminar/hot tub courtyard.

He also set up their hot tub (yes, they travel with a hot tub) – so we enjoyed evenings with a glass a wine and a soak.  Oh yeah.  Good friends. Wine. Hot water.  That’s a recipe for bliss.

Road Ahead

We joined Sean back over at Choo Choo, where he’s awaiting parts to arrive for his bus. We intended to leave out on Tuesday, but awoke to news that has the potential to affect our routing.

So we coordinated with Choo Choo to go ahead and get the parts in for replacing our air bags and re-packing our bearings this week, while we wait for further information to know which direction we’re heading next.  And since we came across a pair of never-used Mini Max spring brakes (which are no longer made) at the rally, we’re going to have those installed as well – keeping the old ones as spares.  That should all happen today.

At current time, it’s looking highly likely that we’ll proceed as planned and arrive in St. Louis this weekend for time with Chris’ family.  We’ll also finally move aboard the rest of our stuff from the Oliver that we left in storage there.

Which is a good thing, because that includes our winter wardrobe and it’s starting to get cold!

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.

But we did know one thing – if we attended, we wanted a year off of hosting our theme camp, Camp Nomadia, [...]]]> We left Burning Man in 2010 for the first time without a plan one way or the other if we would be attending in 2011.  We left that decision up to serendipity.

But we did know one thing – if we attended, we wanted a year off of hosting our theme camp, Camp Nomadia, and being focused on a role as nomadic evangelists.

Technomadia at Burning Man 2011 (Thanks to Karen Nace for snapping the photo!)

We were thrilled to discover that enthusiasm for Camp Nomadia carried on, and past Nomadians were interested in taking on the reigns.  And then just after we bought our bus, and tickets sold out for the first time ever, we came across two extra tickets.  Finding our bus within a days drive – serendipity had clearly said that yes, we were intended to go again.  We even turned down an offer from a major TV show to film us at the burn, holding to our intentions to keep things low key.

This would be our year to focus on us, connect with friends and relax.  It was our rite of passage.

And it was glorious.

Camp Nomadia Caravan to Burning Man

We met up with campmates prior to the burn in Reno and Fernley, caravanned in together and had our most chill burn yet.

Our old bus powering Ben & Karen's

Before heading to the playa, we completed our lithium ion battery and inverter install, and it performed wonderfully for the week.  And thank goodness, as our friends Ben & Karen had trouble with their bus’ electrical system – so we were able to build a buddy plug to share our battery bank with them.

Camp Nomadia

Camp Nomadia was awesome, probably not much more than 35-40 folks this year (half that as last year) – a great size. Everyone was awesome, and it was wonderful be able to be part of the camp but not be in charge.  We did participate in the camp’s ‘Nomadic Lifestyle Workshop’ panel, which is always fun and a great to meet so many other past, future and present nomads.

The Temple at Burning Man

The Temple - burning.

The temple this year at Burning Man was the most amazing we’ve seen together.

We stayed at Burning Man thru Tuesday morning with many other Camp Nomadians, having one last camp party as we broke our communal shade structure.

Las Vegas, baby!

From there, we headed back south to Las Vegas to pick up Kiki, who had been staying with JoAnna Haugen and her hubby there.  Ben, who is a Photoshop guru and instructor, was able to get us guest badges to Photoshop World.

An amazing act in Absinthe - well worth catching!

So we’ve spent the last couple days attending inspiring Photoshop classes, hanging out and going to some shows. JoAnna gifted us with free tickets to see Penn & Teller, and we also followed her advice to catch Absinthe.  Both were awesome.

Today has been our first day in a long while to have a down day.

From here?  We’re actually quite unsure.  We had originally thought of heading to Sacramento to clean out Chris’ storage unit once and for all, and then moving some stuff to St. Louis to his parent’s place.

But we’re just not feeling it, and don’t have the energy to take on that huge of a project right now.  We’re behind on work, blogging and bus projects – and most crave being still somewhere for a week or two and attempting some catch up.

Just as we were coming to this conclusion, we got an unsolicited invitation from a reader who manages an RV Resort in St. George, UT to come stay for a week or so in exchange for hosting a couple of talks on Technology and RVing.  That’s a style of ‘workamping’ we hadn’t considered before, and sounds like a fitting idea!

So, we’re going to go check that out – after we have another nap or two.

We headed towards the sale with literally no plan for what was next. We started looking into buying a temporary RV, or renting a [...]]]> It was only a month ago when we found ourselves facing imminent homelessness, heading north from Florida to deliver both our truck and our beloved trailer to their new owner.

We headed towards the sale with literally no plan for what was next. We started looking into buying a temporary RV, or renting a u-haul to move our stuff to storage in St. Louis, or even finding a short-term apartment rental to base out of until we could really decide what was next.

I joked that we might just pile our stuff on the side of a road under a tarp.

But as usual, Serendipity stepped in at the last moment and presented us with the perfect solution.

We were already planning to stop by and visit our friends Elliott and Ann near Savannah as we headed north, but they surprised us by writing and offering to loan us their 1986 Winnebago Le’Sharo.

When we stopped by their home in Georgia to check out the Le’Sharo, it seemed perfect – small enough to park in a regular spot, yet large enough to serve as a “moving van with a bed” to let us transport all of our stuff from the truck and Oliver. We could then move at a slower pace to stop and research vintage buses on the way. It offered us relatively good fuel economy too.

While we were cleaning up the little RV to get it ready for use, I asked Elliott if he knew what “Le’Sharo” meant.

“You are much more curious than I am. I never thought to ask…”

So I googled it. The top link was about the rituals of the nomadic Fulani tribe from Nigeria:

“According to the Fulani custom of sharo (test of young manhood), rival suitors underwent the ordeal of caning as a means of eliminating those who were less persistent.” (Encyclopedia Britannica)

The Le’Sharo is the exceedingly rare precursor to the more recent and much more successful Winnebago Rialta model. The reason there were so few Le’Sharos left on the road is that they had been initially released with a vastly underpowered imported Renault engine that inevitably ended up blowing up and dying. With parts only available from France, it was little wonder that Winnebago canceled the line after only a few years on the market.

Elliott’s Le’Sharo was one of the few survivors that had been re-powered with a 1994 Buick LeSabre engine crammed haphazardly under the hood, Frankenstein-style.

This will do. All we need is transport for a month or so.

“Sharo – The institution of vital importance to the nomadic Fulani, and all kinds of customs and ceremonies has arisen around it. One such ceremony is the sharo, a public flogging that is a test of manhood. Not all Fulani nomadic groups observe this ceremony or insist on it before a young man may marry.” (The Fulani)

As we prepped the Le’Sharo for departure, Elliott explained a few issues… Such as, there is no working gas gauge. “Just don’t go further than 200 miles between fill-ups…”

And the transmission does not indicate what gear you are currently in – “just count the clicks”.

Oh, and the dash air conditioning had a coolant leak, so we picked up a can of coolant and recharged it, getting it to generate only a tiny bit of cold air. But we can handle a little sweat.

Testing the water tanks, we heard a hissing, and discovered an underfloor hose that had cracked and was leaking. Ok – we can do without running water.

Testing out the refrigerator, I noticed that the DC fridge was rated to draw more DC current than the AC/DC converter / battery charger was rated to put out – meaning that using the fridge while plugged in to a campground would actually result in a drained house battery. Who engineered this?!!? But OK, we planned to use refrigeration only while underway. At least the beer would be cold when we stopped driving for the day – no problem.

Testing the tail lights, we discovered the old connectors were not making a good connection with the bulbs. But after a few hours of jerry-rigging, we managed to get the turn signals, running lights, and one of the brake lights working. Ok, after a winter in the Virgin Islands driving a Jeep with intermittent lights – we know our hand signals, if necessary.

Elliott mentioned that the electric radiator fan was having issues, and to be careful that the engine doesn’t overheat while driving in slow traffic, or idling. But underway, it seems fine.

Uhm, ok… Sure. No problem. We don’t really have time left to find another alternative now. We can handle this.

So, we set off….

“During the Sharo festival, bare-chested contestants, usually unmarried men, come to the center ring, escorted by beautiful girls. The crowd erupts in thunderous cheers and drumming.” (Online Nigeria)

The Le’Sharo had plenty of issues, but we decided to view them all as practice for vintage bus ownership, trusting in serendity that we would be able to handle every challenge without flinching.

The first challenge came during our first nights camped in the Le’Sharo, after a short drive from Savannah to Columbia, SC. A few drops of rain dripping in around the roof vent wasn’t much of a concern. But when I plugged in our small inverter, I was surprised by an over-voltage alarm. Pulling out my multimeter, I discovered that the converter was putting out 19 volts while plugged in to the campground shore power – a high voltage that seemed likely to destroy any battery hooked up to it. A few more tests confirmed that the RV converter was likely toast, and that it had probably already irrevocably damaged the house battery. As a precaution, we decided to minimize time with the RV plugged in, and usage of the interior lights and fans when not. We also gave up on the idea of using the fridge even while underway.

Who needs electricity anyway?

“The sharo is a test of endurance; a youth is expected to undergo severe flogging in public without flinching.” (The Fulani)

Midway through the second day of driving – I noticed the dash battery voltage warning light had come on. We were in the middle of nowhere, North Carolina, and due to deliver the Oliver and Tundra in Lynchburg, VA the next day. We were 40 miles to the next town, Asheboro, NC – and calling ahead, I discovered that all the auto shops and mechanics would be closed by the time we arrived.

Ten miles outside of town, the Le’Sharo engine started to surge and sputter as the battery finally died and the electrical system failed. I coasted to the side of the road, and waited as Cherie pulled up next to me. We set up the jumper cables to recharge the Le’Sharo enough to get started again, and then noticed a great campground literally right across the street.

A place to stop for the night, perfect. Fate!

We’re not flinching yet.  But we are tweeting and Facebooking publicly the whole way, sharing the adventure.

“After some time, a challenger, also bare-chested, comes out brandishing a whip, trying to frighten his opponent.” (Online Nigeria)

We wired the Tundra and Le’Sharo together, and left the Tundra running for an hour to top off the Le’Sharo’s battery. We figured that with a fully charged battery we might be able to make it the rest of the way to Lynchburg, as long as we avoided needing to use the headlights or using any electrical systems.

As we were now completely moved out of the Oliver, we slept in the Le’Sharo for the first time – with just our iPhones for light.

But before chancing a long drive, the next morning we stopped into the Asheboro Advance Auto to get a battery & alternator test done, and to buy more engine coolant. (Remember that radiator fan – it was never kicking on, and the coolant tank was now close to empty…)

Advance confirmed that the alternator was dead, but the battery was good. They also happened to have a Buick Le’Sabre alternator in stock, and the clerk thought that her cousin might be able to install it right away. “He doesn’t speak much English, but he is a good mechanic….”

And indeed, Mario was amazing. We found his small hidden garage, and within minutes he had the new alternator installed. I asked him about the radiator fan, and he traced the wires and found a hidden blown fuse, and a seized up air conditioning fan that had likely blown it. He disconnected the fan, replaced the fuse, and suddenly the engine had cooling again. And so did we – the second air conditioning fan was now working as well, though it howled when turned on.

And Mario barely charged us a thing for saving the day. We tipped him extra.

We were back on the road again, and still on schedule to deliver the Oliver on time.

“The festival proceeds with lively drumming, singing, cheers and self-praises from both competitors and challengers. When the excitement is at a fevered pitch, it is the time for flogging.” (Online Nigeria)

Just an hour later, after the next gas stop, I get in and close the driver’s door, but it doesn’t latch. A closer look reveals that the spring inside the latch has sprung – right through the decaying old plastic fixture. We contemplate using a rope to tie the door shut, but thankfully I am able to disassemble the assembly with a star-head screwdriver and get the latch to reset. We discover that if we are very delicate opening the driver’s door, or only enter through the back, we are able to keep the spring in place…

Still not flinching. We are actually still on schedule even!

“The challenger raises his whip and flogs his opponent. His opponent must endure this without wincing or showing pain, lest he be branded a coward.” (Online Nigeria)

My theory was that the fried (from the over-voltage converter) house battery had killed the alternator, so I stopped bridging the engine and house electrical systems while underway. And indeed, the house battery died completely within a few more days to the point that the interior lights would no longer work unless we were plugged in to a campground. No problem, we have flashlights for our en-route Walmart and rest stop nights.

The Le’Sharo’s radio also quit working too. Who needs music – we can talk about our bus dreams to fill the hours.

The antique “Indian Head Nickel” that had been mounted on the Le’Sharo’s keychain fell off, but I found the wayward nickel intermixed in the change in my pocket, and we just-so-happened to be visiting a jeweler friend in Philadelphia that day who was able to properly fix the antique keychain.

It got really cold driving one night, and we discovered that the dash heat didn’t work. We grabbed blankets and made due, until we had a chance to stop and find the hidden valve under the hood (really!) that enabled the heating system.

And overall, despite the hiccups, the Le’Sharo was proving to be an ideal “moving van with a bed”, and the perfect vehicle for our initial bus explorations. We were doing great heading into St. Louis, until we stopped for gas just 20 miles away from my parent’s place.

The Le’Sharo was dripping red fluid – transmission fluid. Lots of it.

Fortunately, there was a Midas a few miles away. They agreed to take a look, just an hour before closing.

“Without warning he lands the whip heavily on the other’s ribs, sometimes drawing blood.” (The Fulani)

The Midas manager reported that the transmission hoses were a mess, old and cracking. But he had been able to tighten the fittings and topped off the fluid level, so we should be safe to make it the final 20 miles to my folks place. He told us that a proper repair however would require 3-5 hours of labor to unpack the front end to reach hoses to replace them.

Another hero mechanic – and he refused to even charge us the $29 diagnostic fee. Wow.

But… While driving the Le’Sharo up on the lift, the cap on the black tank drain had gotten bumped. Now instead of dripping red fluid, we were slowly dripping yellow. (Fortunately – we hadn’t used the on-board facilities for anything other than yellow purposes – so this wasn’t nearly as messy to fix as it could have been…)

We reached Columbia, and were able to unload our stuff, and the cat. Mission accomplished. Now all we needed was to get the Le’Sharo back to Savannah, GA with a stop in South Carolina for Cherie to visit a client.

“Blow upon blow may be struck, with the victim shouting for more. Other youths acting as referees observe the proceedings closely, ensuring that the blows are fairly struck.” (The Fulani)

The first local mechanic we called said he wouldn’t be able to take the job for a week, but the local Firestone shop said that they were able to do the work immediately. We were prepared to be billed for 5+ hours to have the hoses replaced, but the mechanic gave us an estimate of “one to two hours”, and then managed to do the job in 30 minutes! And that is all that he billed us for – amazing!

But… It wasn’t all good news. Firestone reported that the Le’Sharo’s left front tire was a “racing slick” and completely unsafe to drive on, and the other tires were showing extremely uneven wear. Consulting with Elliott, he didn’t want to get stuck with retail tire prices for the Le’Sharo’s hard to find size / weight rating (usually a special order), but the Columbia Firestone actually found replacement tires cheaper than the cheapest internet wholesaler we could find.

So in the end, we left with four new tires, an alignment, and a properly recharged air conditioning system.

Wow. Three amazing and honest mechanic shops in a row!

During the drive from Columbia, IL to Columbia, SC this week, the Le’Sharo felt like a brand new car. It drove straighter, and it didn’t shake and shimmy nearly so much while underway.

Pulling into our campground in Columbia late Tuesday night after a marathon day of driving, as soon as we pulled onto the gravel campground road, there was a pop – and all the headlights, dash lights, and running lights went out. Fifteen minutes earlier, and we would have been in the midst of heavy freeway traffic.

“The point, however, is that the victim does not flinch but shows utter indifference to pain and even sneers at his attacker. If he is able to achieve this, his family and friends surround him with joy, offering gifts and congratulations.” (The Fulani)

As the darkness descended, Cherie and I turned to each other and burst out laughing.

With a grin, Cherie grabbed a flashlight to walk in front of the the Le’Sharo, guiding us in the last little way to the campground loop.

A moment later, the headlights came back on.

We’ve survived the Sharo with a smile.

UPDATE: Never write your victory post before you’ve actually won the game. The Le’Sharo had a few more tricks in store for us.

“It is common for the boy being hit to shout or laugh after he is stricken. Although adolescents have died in this ceremony, young men are eager to participate and display their scars with pride. ” (Jamtan Fulani)

First – one afternoon while we were running some errands in Columbia, the turn signals stopped working entirely. Even the hazard lights were now inoperative.

No problem – I planned a route to Savannah with minimal turns.

We were almost home free.

And then – cruising to Savannah on Sunday, making good time on I-26, the Le’Sharo swung her last blow of the whip.

Suddenly, without warning, the engine sputtered and died. “What on earth now?”

We were 185 miles into the current tank, and literally just a quarter mile from the exit I had been planning on for our next gas stop. But after a full systems check under the hood, it seemed the most likely explanation – the lack of a working gas gauge had finally caught up with us, and we had run out of gas.

The combination of running highway speeds instead of back roads, new tires still breaking in, a working air conditioner and perhaps the last fillup cutting off a bit early had left us drained dry way sooner than our 200 mile “start looking” cutoff.

So… no problem… we’re not flinching even now. We grabbed our sunglasses, left a note on the door, and started walking down the freeway towards the next exit. Before long a kind stranger offered us a lift, and the clerks at the BP station loaned us a two gallon jug, and after a short hot walk back upstream, we were soon back underway, and after just a few hours more we were safely docked back at Ann & Elliott’s place.

The final score: 2,876 miles. 170 gallons of gas. 16.9 MPG.

We have indeed and at last conquered the challenge of the Sharo.

And it was perfect.

Now we are packed for our next adventure and ready to hit the rails today.

While parked in San Francisco hanging out with friends post Burning Man, we were trying to figure out what was next for us. After a very hectic summer [...]]]> Time period: Oct 7, 2010 – March 30, 2011
Miles traveled by RV: 3140
Miles traveled in total: 4405

While parked in San Francisco hanging out with friends post Burning Man, we were trying to figure out what was next for us. After a very hectic summer of a lot of physical and emotional movement with places to be, our schedule was suddenly open.  And that’s when magic happen.  On the evening of September 22, the opportunity to sublet in St. John was plopped in our inbox.  Within a couple hours, we were pretty certain we were hopping on it, and within 48 hours it was a signed deal.

The next logistic was figuring out how to get there.  We contemplated RV storage in California and just flying the whole way.  But with never traveling by plane with Kiki before, a work trip that needed to be fit in and desiring some quality time with friends and family before we left the mainland for a few months – we decided to suck it up and do a mad dash across the country to Florida.  While our lease technically started on October 1, we factored in not being able to utilize the first month into our decision.  We booked flights for November 7, and gave ourselves a couple weeks to get to Florida and start the packing up process.

Lake Havasu City, Arizona

Our first stop was in Lake Havasu City to catch up with our friends there, as we totally missed getting quality time with them at Burning Man.   They hosted a small party for us to celebrate our upcoming adventure, and there was threats of people trying to dress up like Kiki to earn her spot on the plane to St. John.

New Mexico

Some friends of ours where on a short road trip visiting their family cottage in northern New Mexico, and invited us to stop in a for bit to share the experience.  It was a perfect get-away  mid country to escape and spend quality time. I also had a good bit of work that I was able to facilitate during the stop.

Gonzales, Texas

It was a given that we route through Gonzales to visit the good folks at Hillshade RV Park for a few days – where the NuRVers Rally was hosted earlier this year.  It was excellent to catch up, despite everyone (including us) being in seemingly chaos mode.  We also got up to Austin to spend a day with my brother sailing on the lakes, and got to meet up with Carmon of NuNomad.com.

Orlando

After two lengthier stops (and craving both being still, and having the mad dash over), we pulled long driving hours and made it into Florida as quickly as we could. There was much to be done to prepare for leaving our house on wheels behind and getting to the island, including:

- Business meetings with my staff (who are located in central Florida) to kick off some projects
- A business trip up to South Carolina to teach a class
- Going through everything we owned and deciding what got packed, and what stays behind
- Quality time with my parents and friends in the area
- Getting Kiki’s health certificate so she could fly
- Thoroughly cleaning the Oliver and preparing it to be still and unused for several months

And we did it all without too much stress, and me having a dreadfully draining cold/flu the entire time.

We picked up a rental car in Orlando, loaded our stuff in it and drove to Miami to catch our flight.  Finally landed in St. Thomas after a couple aborted landing attempts, caught a shuttle, then a ferry and then picked up our rental Jeep..  and finally we landed at our winter home in St. John.

Where we have a lease through the end of March – and absolutely no clue what is next for us after that.

Our daily pictorials from Burning Man 2010 should wrap up our time there:

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Time Frame: August 29 – October 6, 2010
Miles Driven: 344

Our daily pictorials from Burning Man 2010 should wrap up our time there:

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8

After a summer of travel with essential stopping points, plans, emergencies, lots of social time and time lines – we had intentionally left everything post-Burning Man up to serendipity to decide.  When we left the playa, we literally had not much of a game plan other than retrieving Kiki from her kitty-sitter.  We contemplated heading up to PermaBurn – the year round Burning Man inspired community in northern California, San Francisco or finding somewhere off-grid and away from people.

Mostly we were craving somewhere to set up with decent connectivity for a while to launch a few work related projects.

Sacramento

First stop was back in Sacramento, where we keep our storage unit – we needed to put the playa covered Burning Man gear back in storage.  Upon arriving to our friend’s home where we base out of, we were asked if we could house and cat sit for the remainder of the week. Perfect!   A place where we could put Burning Man behind us without feeling like we’d be in anyone’s way, at the same time feeling like we were helping out.  It was awesome to take care of business, shake off the dust and repack the house at a slower pace.

San Francisco

Even towards the end of our time in Sacramento, we had no firm plans for afterwards. And serendipity sure wasn’t voicing an opinion loudly.  Chris, by the way, thrives on the unknown.  For me however, it’s outside my default operating space and I can start to get stressed and agitated, especially if I’m already at my exhaustion point.  So I pushed for a plan to formulate.  After so much motion in the months leading up to this point, I wanted to know when we could put down the landing gear and really get caught up.

We decided fairly last minute to follow our calling to San Francisco. It looked like our friends Sam & Tracy of ZenNomads would be able to meet up there – and that seemed like as good a plan as any. It’s always fun to show off San Francisco!

The thing about San Francisco however is.. it’s not a place to go when you feel you need chill and relax time. It is so full of awesome, opportunity and amazing people – it can either be highly distracting & inspiring or completely overwhelming & intimidating.  Add on top of that, both Chris and I having a lot of community there – San Francisco is anything but a relaxing place for us. We tried our best to make it more on the inspiring than overwhelming side.

We literally made the plans and hit the road west within a few hours, and in that time period – e-mails and text messages started pouring in. Invitations to meet up, attend conferences as guests, present/speak.  Instead of pulling in and getting grounded for a couple days, we hit the ground running – first attending the AppNation conference for iPhone app developers, where we were offered free booth space to pimp our app, State Lines.  And then we were asked to be ambassadors at the Meet, Plan, Go! meetup (a great event, and wonderful to meet so many folks itching to leave the cubicle world to travel).  Visits with friends (including nearby nomads, Shonda & Michael) piled on top of that – and before we knew it our first week was up and we had hardly done anything we intended to do just for us.

We also had a very kind offer from a blog reader looking to hit the road himself – Matt of MuscleActivate, invited us to his studio to sample his muscle activation techniques. He did some body work on us both (even alleviating pain in my hip that had been there for years!) and taught us a lot about muscle mechanics. He even gifted us with custom made strengthening cords to attach to our trailer to improve our fitness on the road!  Amazing experience with an amazing person living his art.

Sam & Tracy then joined up with us, parked next door – expanding our neighborhood social network. It’s great being camped with them, as they’re also balancing a tech career in with traveling. So we can co-work, co-inspire and then have happy hour together.  It was good to focus more on work projects, and I even closed on my new software development contract and was able to get that in motion.

The invitations for meetups and events continued to fly in.. to a point of overwhelm on top of everything else going on in our lives. Which of course included considering the unexpected serendipity to regear our focus to winter in St. John.   We eventually got to a point where we surrendered ourselves to the idea that we just weren’t going to experience San Francisco this time around as much as we intended, and canceled a week’s worth of social engagements. But of course, not first without dressing Sam & Tracy up in leather and exploring Folsom Street Fair.   And we did make it a priority to spend an afternoon hanging out with our friends Christine, Drew & Cole Gilbert (AlmostFearless) before they headed off for their tour of Asia filming the digital nomad documentary.

—-

All and all, trying to spend a month in San Francisco was probably not the exact right idea for what our mental needs were. It was certainly however the perfect juxtaposition for jumping on the opportunity of being in St. John for several months with limited social opportunity to focus on work, and on ourselves.  We booked our tickets to St. John (thus setting the count down clock), left a week remaining on our San Francisco RV space and pulled out the other evening – starting our cross country journey before parking the rig and flying away for a while.

After a way too brief of a stop in St. Louis, it was time to continue west towards Burning Man. It seems every year we find ourselves in this predicament – way too little time to traverse some of the most beautiful scenery our [...]]]> Time Frame: August 2 – 28, 2010
Miles Driven: 2825

After a way too brief of a stop in St. Louis, it was time to continue west towards Burning Man. It seems every year we find ourselves in this predicament – way too little time to traverse some of the most beautiful scenery our country has to offer. Some might say that 3 weeks is plenty of time to traverse the western half of the country, for us, it’s barely scratching the surface.

We tend to find ourselves a bit remorseful of the deadline that Burning Man gives us, and always feeling like we’re skimming this area of the country.

So, we decided to try to find a route we hadn’t took before, to at least give us some variety of seeing different parts of the area. We put out a call for recommendations, and made a general plan of traversing highway 40 this time through northern Colorado and Utah.

Missouri, Nebraska and Eastern Colorado

We pulled a couple long driving days to make it through Missouri and Nebraska, with a goal making it to Colorado by my birthday. Back country driving through Nebraska and Missouri makes the trip much prettier than following interstates, but it is the same pretty over and over again.

We arrived to Brush!, Colorado (yes, they actually have a ! in their city name) and found a cute little city park that offered free overnight parking. We opted to rest up for a couple nights here, explore the little town and celebrate my birthday.

Colorado

After a break in Brush!, we started looking ahead to what in Colorado we wanted to explore this time. Having never been to Rocky Mountain National Park or the Loveland area, we put aims to there. We also put a silent wish to the universe for an RV Park with a hot tub with mountain views. Within moments, we received an invitation from a friend in the area to camp on her mountain land above Loveland, and partake in her hot tub. How’s that for serendipity?

We were having a lovely time.. until a bit of chaos erupted.

One morning I awoke with a horrible toothache. We found a dentist that very morning who could take me, and I ended up having an emergency wisdom tooth extraction that involved quite a bit of chiseling and prying (ouch). Then, just as soon as we got back home – Kiki got bit by a rattlesnake! So another speedy trip down the mountain to find care for her.

Thankfully, cats do well with rattlesnake bites, and Colorado rattlers tend to have low venom. Both Kiki and I recovered quickly – but quite a spendy and traumatic day for us. It also kept us in Loveland a few more days than anticipated.

After follow-up appointments confirmed we were both safe to move on – we headed to Rocky Mountain National Park, only to discover that despite the entrance signs saying otherwise, all campgrounds were full. We found a small county run park right on the border of that national park which turned out to be better for exploring Estes Park as well. We enjoyed a day of driving and hiking through Rocky Mountain NP.

After way too long of being in good cell phone reception area, we were feeling quite behind on several things. So when we found a beautiful meadow of wildflowers outside Steamboat Springs, CO on the continental divide – with decent signal, we decided to stop for a couple days. It seemed like a technomad dream come true… until…

We started receiving roaming overage messages from both Sprint and AT&T. With none of our devices showing us in a data roaming area, we were quite frustrated. Which lead Sean Welsh of Our Odyssey to start planting the seed of satellite internet. He even tracked down a used tripod setup for sale in Gunnison, CO – not too far away. We decided, what the heck? Worst case, we get it and end up selling it. Best case, we have a great option for getting online in remote locations (such as, Burning Man!).

So, our Highway 40 intentions were scratched and we diverted south towards Gunnison. Which ironically put us on a path of rendezvousing with two blog readers who had just sent in invitations to stop for a visit.

The first was Jim & Julie of ImperfectDestiny, who were just about to leave their home in Leadville, CO in a geeked out 17′ Casita (very similar to our Oliver) with their two dogs. We had a great time hanging out with them, swapping stories and sharing tech tips. We also happened to be in town for the Leadville 100 mountain bike race – which was quite a site to see!

Next stop was Gunnison to rendezvous with the sellers of our new satellite dish. Turns out the couple selling the dish had previously spent many years full timing on a sailboat – so we were able to pick their brains on that too. It’s always awesome to encounter other cool nomads by complete serendipity! They trained us on setting up the system, which was much easier than anyone had lead us to believe.  (Yes – we will have a post up soon with  more details on our satellite system & plan we selected, as well other cellular connectivity research and options we selected during this time period. Patience please!)

After Gunnison, we accepted an invitation to stop in Grand Junction, CO to visit another blog reader, Pam. She’s about to set off full timing as a solo female traveler – and we were excited to share with her tips for living on the road. As a former chiropractor and body worker, she gifted us with massage before we hit the road. Life is sweet indeed.

Utah

Unfortunately, with all the delays – our time in Utah was compressed to a single day. Which is such a shame – it’s one of our favorite states to explore.

Nevada

We made intentions to make Great Basin National Park, a stop we had made on our first cross country trip back in 2007. We camped at the upper campground where we knew no cellular signal lived. We wanted to fully test out our new satellite connectivity and see how well it would work for us.

Chris was able to get us set up in under an hour – and it was sweet to be online at elevation 10,000 ft.

Aside from surfing the interwebs, we took an afternoon and did a 6 mile glacier rock hike.

After a respite up the mountain, we crossed Highway 50 – which is a beautiful if monotonous drive through the crumple zone of Nevada. We made it into South Lake Tahoe for a night of rest.

California

Our goal was to make the iOSDevCamp in San Jose – an iPhone developer’s conference being held at PayPal’s headquarters. We had no idea what to expect, except that building an application at the conference was one of the goals.

It was a fantastic conference, very well run (especially given it’s all volunteer).. and we were able to get an operational version of an idea we had due to our connectivity frustrations. Our idea for an app, Coverage?, won the ‘Most Useful’ award of the conference. We were also thrilled that PayPal/eBay let us camp in their parking lot, which helped facilitate late night coding!

Still high on the unexpected award, it was time to shift focus to preparing for Burning Man. So we were off to Sacramento to switch things out in our storage unit (which is mostly Burning Man gear), then off to Black Rock City to settle Camp Nomadia.

Our time at Burning Man was blogged daily.. and there may be more posts about our experience there upcoming.

For now, we’re eyeing getting a monthly spot in San Francisco to focus deeply on a few projects and catching up with our community there. We’ve been in constant motion since mid-May, and it’s time for some still.

With my father well on the mend after his lung removal, we were ready to head on from hot and muggy Florida and continue our adventures. With only one destination to make this summer – Burning Man 2010 at the end of [...]]]> Time Frame: July 7 – August 1, 2010
Miles Driven: 1818

With my father well on the mend after his lung removal, we were ready to head on from hot and muggy Florida and continue our adventures. With only one destination to make this summer – Burning Man 2010 at the end of August – we started listening to where nomadic serendipity would send us.  Never ones for taking the most direct route from Florida to California, options seemed to align beautifully for us to experience some amazing things and spend time with amazing people.

State Parks up the East Coast

Our first destination got set for Columbia, South Carolina for a meeting with a new software development client we just signed. With a week until our first meeting and now integrating in running into our travels, we decided to find some state parks with trails to stay and run at.

First stop was Tomoka State Park in Ormond Beach, Florida – which is one of our all time favorite places to stay. Right on the Indian River and nestled in the Florida hammocks – it’s a very relaxing place to kick back at, while still remaining accessible to civilization (including awesome 3G cellular signal!).

And then we meandered northward and decided on Skidaway Island State Park near Savannah, Georgia. Almost as soon as we got the landing gear down, long time followers Elliott & Ann contacted us and offered to give us a tour of Savannah!  It was awesome to finally meet up.  We also enjoyed Skidaway Island, got some good running in and enjoyed a private nighttime guided tour of the salt marshes by the ranger.

And then it was onward to Columbia for our business meeting.  We found Sesquicentennial State Park right in the middle of everything and also offering wonderful wooded sites and running trails. In addition to our meeting, we had a nomadic rendezvous with Andy & Lori of Life In The Right Lane who were ending their several month long RV road trip and heading for an epic adventure to Ukraine! It was great to catch up with them.

Our business meeting went really well, we even put on business clothes (a rare thing for us) – and we’re excited to be starting this new long term, nomadic-friendly, contract up in the coming weeks.

Rendezvouses with Friends

Almost just as soon as we set the meeting in Columbia up, our former sailing nomad friend, Barb (who we had just seen in St. Louis a month prior), told us she’d be in Floyd, VA teaching a jewelry class.  Which was perfectly on our route up to Indiana and gave us the opportunity to traverse more of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We enjoy a couple day rendezvous with her in Floyd, met some of her friends and enjoyed some awesome live music on Friday night!  Floyd seems like a cool little hip town where hippies and farmers converge.

Our next destination was Westville, Indiana – and we discovered that our nomadic buddies Ben & Karen were hanging out at a vintage bus rally in Ohio. Which was also perfectly on our way.  So we routed via Loudonville, OH to converge with them and catch up since we last saw them in St. Louis. We got to see the type of vintage Flxble Starliner bus that Ben is currently converting to be his new technomadic home enjoyed a round of mini golf before we made plans to meet up in a week in Chicago for a photowalk.

And then on to Indiana for a week with our friend Kele.  I’ve known her for a decade now, from my life in Florida – and we’ve kept up and grown closer since our physical lives diverged.  Her academic career is now taking her to Afghanistan for 3 years to be an administrator in a university there. We are overjoyed with excitement for her new expat life, and so happy we could arrange to be with her for a bit to help her put her tech life together and help purge a bit of her stuff.  She’ll be blogging her adventures at PomegranateVeils.com.

One evening as we were coming back from dinner along northern Indiana backroads, we saw Ben & Karen’s bus pass right in front of us!  A quick call revealed they had rather spontaneously decided to pull into Michigan City (not realizing this was just a couple miles down the road from where we were staying) instead of heading all the way into Chicago.  So we had a bonus nomadic rendezvous and got to introduce our friends to each other! What serendipity!

World Wide Photowalk – Chicago

On July 24, it was Scott Kelby’s Third Annual World Wide Photowalk – part of the whole Photoshop thing that Ben & Karen are known for in their professional and artistic careers. Since the event was open to photographers of all levels, we decided to join them for it.

With them now living just down the road from us, we decided to all take the train into Chicago together, and enjoyed an afternoon of shooting stuff.

Here are some of our favorite shots from the day that Chris & I took:

We departed with Ben & Karen after brew and dinner, probably not to rendezvous with them again until this coming winter. This year we’ll be able to count Texas (twice), Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and hopefully Florida as rendezvous spots with them.

St. Louis – Redux

Since our time in St. Louis in June got cut short due to my father’s illness, we wanted to route through St. Louis before heading westward to Burning Man to spend some time with Chris’ family.

Our time here has been filled with helping Chris’ aunt purge her record album, attending a free Concert in the Park, catching up with local friends and doing some cleaning and general maintenance on our Oliver Travel Trailer.

And now we start our westward trek to Burning Man.  We just signed up to attend an iPhone app developer’s conference in San Jose, CA on August 20 – so now we have a target arrival date , but no plans for our route there.

We’ll let serendipity figure that out for us, as it did a fine job for us this past month!

After a couple months of being still in central Texas with a lot of social time, it was time to get back into motion. Our impending plans seemed to be calling us towards heading to St. Louis for Gateway Burn, and then traveling [...]]]> Time frame: May 27 – July 6
Miles Driven: 2256

After a couple months of being still in central Texas with a lot of social time, it was time to get back into motion. Our impending plans seemed to be calling us towards heading to St. Louis for Gateway Burn, and then traveling westward through Canada.  However, on the morning we were pulling out of Austin to head to Burning Flipside (the regional Burning Man event near Austin), I got a call from my parents that my father had just been diagnosed with lung cancer.

It was crushing news, to say the least – and all plans were put on hold. We played things day by day, ready to head to Florida when needed as we awaited more test results to let us know what we were dealing with.

Burning Flipside – San Gabriel, TX

We had been sticking around Texas through May because we had been able to procure tickets to the Austin regional Burning Man event. It’s the largest regional, with about 2500 people in attendance. It’s so popular, that they only have ticket sales for one week – and then they have a lottery to draw who gets tickets.  We had been greatly looking forward to checking this event out.

Obviously, with the news of my father, we went into the event with less enthusiasm.  We were graciously invited to camp with our St. Louis burner community who had put together a camp called ‘Starship Inner Thighs’. It was great to camp with people we know, and we had a great time serving drinks at our community starship bar.

Burning Flipside is a fabulous event, and we highly recommend it. It’s large enough to attract larger scale art projects, but yet small enough that you can actually see it all. Our favorite part was that the San Gabriel River runs through the land, so hot afternoons were spent chilling in the river rapids.

Austin

After Flipside we headed back to Austin to pick up Kiki from her cat sitter.  As my father’s biopsy result was due back in the coming days, we opted to stick around Austin for a couple days before making a decision if we should head on to St. Louis or go directly to Florida.

This gave us the opportunity to hang out more with my brother and his wife, as well as Brice & Rose of TackyTexans, who did henna art on my feet.

The biopsy results on my dad turned out to be inconclusive at this point, and seeing as he had more testing to be done before he was even scheduled to meet with a surgeon, we figured we likely had just enough time to get to St. Louis before heading to Florida.

St. Louis

We had a few reasons why attending Gateway Burn was such a high priority for us.  For one, the St. Louis burner community has thus far been most welcoming of us nomadic folks. When we attended last year, we immediately felt appreciated and included – and then they further invited Camp Nomadia into their fantastic placement at Burning Man later in the summer. The organizers this year decided that they wanted to be a nomad friendly regional burn, and went to great lengths to write their rules in such a way that if following their rule of ‘Leave the pets at home‘ meant bringing them with you – that they would allow nomadic pets to attend. So Kiki was super excited to get to attend her first burn!

We had also put a lot of effort into inviting other nomads to join us at the event – and we had assembled a smaller Camp Nomadia. We ended up having a bit of a NuRVer’s repeat in St. Louis with Ben & Karen and Sam & Tracy (ZenNomads) converging with us.  I also had a dear friend and custom jeweler, Barb, and her daughter, Wendy, who were former full time sailing nomads come out from Philadelphia to join us for their first burn event.

It turned out that everyone was converging in St. Louis a week prior to Gateway, so we would get an opportunity to share one of our favorite cities with some of our favorite people! We took our nomadic tribe to the top of the St. Louis arch and to the ever awesome City Museum.

Barb has also developed a fascination with Gooey Butter Cakes, which seem to be a regional thing in St. Louis that spread to Philadelphia. So Chris’ mom graciously got out her family recipes and hosted a Gooey Butter Cake Extravaganza in which we all spent an afternoon baking. As you might imagine, these cakes are gooey and buttery.. and they’re also super sweet.  No one in their right mind should ever attempt to eat this much gooey butter richness!

Gateway Burn

Our nomadic tribe left St. Louis and caravanned down to Camp Zoe near Salem, MO for Gateway Burn. After some adventurous driving navigating 3 RVs down steep dirt mountain roads – we arrived to Camp Nomadia.

The land where the event was held was fabulous, and also featured a stream suitable for floating and swimming. This helped make the hot afternoons a delight.

Gateway had about 200 folks this year, double what it had last year. The land will give them a lot of room to grow the event and perhaps become a major regional event. It was lovely to be with our St. Louis friends and introduce our nomadic tribe.

Kiki also had a great time sporting her elwire harness!

Melbourne, FL

On the way into Gateway Burn, my father finally received results from his PET scan and had talked to his surgeon. The cancer appeared to be contained and not spread, but needed to come out ASAP. Surgery would be scheduled in just a few days to remove at least one lobe of his lung.

We left Gateway Burn in a bit of a hurry on Sunday morning so that we could make a mad dash to Florida. We wanted to arrive in time to spend some quality time with my folks before the surgery, and get settled in.  After driving through the night with a couple stops for long naps, we made it to Melbourne in time for dinner on Monday.  We set up camp and it was off to surgery early Wednesday morning.

The placement of my dad’s tumor unfortunately necessitated taking his entire right lung, but the good news is – so far, it looks like there was no spreading, and my father will not need further treatments. He’s been making great progress on healing, and will have several months of adapting to life with one lung.  Apparently John Wayne did it, and so can my dad!

————-

We’ve not done much else while in Florida but spend time with my family, a few friends, catching up on some projects, getting the truck maintenance caught up and juggling logistics of reorganizing the software business I run with my folks to glide my father into retirement to fully enjoy this life he was just gifted.

Interesting times ahead for us as I go back to being more involved in the business than I have been in the past couple of years.

After SXSW wrapped up, we entered into an intentionally still time. We knew we needed focused time to concentrate on giving birth to our first iPhone application which became State Lines.

This is probably the least amount of miles driven in any [...]]]> Time frame: March 22 – May 26
Miles Driven: 139

After SXSW wrapped up, we entered into an intentionally still time. We knew we needed focused time to concentrate on giving birth to our first iPhone application which became State Lines.

This is probably the least amount of miles driven in any such Travelogue we’ve posted, but yet likely one of the most eventful.   Just goes to show – experience is not just about the miles driven, and sometimes slowing down the pace invites awesome to your doorstep.

Our awesome mileage these past two months has been astronomically off the charts.

McKinney Falls State Park – Austin, TX

With SXSW chaos in Austin over, our spot at McKinney Falls State Park became available. It’s one of our favorite places to stay – beautiful surroundings, but yet close enough to south Austin to be accessible without feeling like you’re out in the boonies. We stayed here last year on our way through Texas, and fell in love with it – and been looking forward to launching our development here while keeping close enough to Cherie’s brother for quality hang out time.

When we arrived, most of the trees were still barren from a hard winter in Texas. Over our two weeks there, we watched spring bloom around us and turn brown into brillant greens. Wildflowers, including the Texas Bluebonnet, had an epic bloom.  It was an awakening after a long cold winter, and a perfect environment for launching new projects.

The start of our stay at McKinney Falls was a visit from our friends in Hemet, CA to Austin – Helene and her brother Victor. We had a blast doing a photo walk with Helene, and introducing them to Cherie’s brother, Ken, in Austin.

Aside from breaking the back development wise on State Lines, we also took on a new personal challenge – health improvement. Keeping fit on the road can be a challenge, and our options are limited with little space for carrying things like bikes. The Couch to 5K running program kept popping up in our social circles, and we found there was an iPhone app that took away the need to think about interval training. We decided to take advantage of the wonderful trails at McKinney Falls to start up running/jogging.

While at McKinney Falls, one of Cherie’s major software development contracts was up for renewal – which she rebid and won. It secures another couple years at minimum of guaranteed mobile friendly income for us.

We also received an invitation for dinner (delivered to our campsite) from a blog reader in Austin who had just purchased their first RV to gear up their lives to be mobile. Brice & Rose, the Tacky Texans, turned out to be folks very much of like minds, and offered to be our tour guides in exploring Austin.  It was awesome having new friends in Austin to encourage us to take breaks from development to get out and explore.

Hill Shade RV Park – Gonzales, TX

Texas state parks have a 2 week limit on them, so we knew we’d have to move on. When the NuRVers Days of Nu 2 location was announced in nearby Gonzales, we decided to contact the park about securing a spot for a month or so.  We wrote the owners to ask about their wifi and if it was parkwide.  Their response blew us away – they said it should, and if we encountered problems – they’d make it work!  So off we went to Hill Shade RV Park, with intentions in mind of being out in the middle of nowhere for a few weeks before the rally to concentrate on launching State Lines without distractions.

Intentions rarely live up to reality.

The Happy Janssen’s had also decided to make Hill Shade home prior to the rally – so our mobile tribe was already gathering. And soon more started to trickle in. Sam & Tracy, ZenNomads, made an early arrival, and there (happily) went our evenings to ourselves. Every night became a new adventure in community – of campfires, pot luck meals, gaming and movies. Happy community bliss.

And wouldn’t you know it, our intended social-free time was further thwarted by the awesomeness of Hill Shade’s owners, Christine & Michael and their amazing kids. A friendship quickly started to bud with them, and we just couldn’t resist the temptation to be distracted from our seclusion.

By the time the rally officially started, there were already a dozen NuRVers, including our long time technomadic rendezvous buddy and his new sweetie – Ben & Karen who we hadn’t seen since last November. Hill Shade was already rocking before the sound of the rally tweets. It was an amazing and connective experience to be part of the ramp up energy.

We did take a break and made one trip up to Austin, while Cherie’s parents came in from Florida for a small family reunion. Otherwise, we barely left Hill Shade for weeks.

Despite all the attempts at distracting us, by the time the rally started we had the core of State Lines completed with just need for polishing. We wanted to show off our new creation to the very type of people the app had in mind to get initial feedback.

Days of the Nu 2

We had missed the first gathering of NuRVers the year prior, and had made it a priority to make this gathering. All and all, 17 nomadic households made their way to Hill Shade – all in different stages of their nomadness. There were several families on the road in attendance, as well as many childfree folks. It was an interesting experience in trying to find balance to make sure events met the needs of all involved.. and much learned for future events.

The rally was a mix of scheduled and spontaneous events – a field trip to the Shiner brewery, jewelry making workshop, happy hours, crowdsourced meals, costume night (which we won for ‘Best coordinated couple’), bartender wars and more.  The days quickly became a chaotic blur to us, especially as we had taken on the challenge of documenting the event with video. All footage has now been shot, and now we start the long process of condensing down several hours of footage into an approachable documentary to share with all the variety of ways we make this lifestyle work.

Instead of trying to recap all that happened at the gathering, check some of the posts made by other attendees who somehow found the time to record the daily happenings:

Sara Janssen’s Daily Wrap-Ups: Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Karen’s:  Pre-Gathering Wrap Up
Jim & Rene’s: Tequila Tasting
Jonathan & Dasy’s: Wrap Up
Tara & Justin’s: Sculpting Passion
Becky and Chris’: Traveling Neighborhood
Jennifer’s: First RV Rally
Brice & Rose’s: A Rally at a Perfect Time
Shonda’s: Intimidation amongst peers

Us: Cast of Characters at NuRVers

Photos:  NuRVer Flickr Pool

Gonzales Inquirer Newspaper Article (notice that everyone’s names in the paper is wrong?  Small town publishing or protecting the innocent?)

While the rally officially lasted 4 nights – things ramped down like they ramped up – slowly. It would be almost nearly a week before the majority of the nomadic households moved on. This was wonderful, as it allowed us to experience community without the chaos of a rally schedule to follow.

Hill Shade – Post NuRVers

Us and ZenNomads decided to stick around Hill Shade post rally to finish up various projects we were working on.

We dove back into finishing up State Lines, which got submitted to Apple early morning on May 8, and was in the App Store on May 17.  We loved being able to share our joys with community, and are proud to consider Hill Shade the birthplace of our first app.

We enjoyed hanging out more with Christine & Michael, and made some trips into Austin to see Cherie’s brother, into San Antonio with ZenNomads and more touring around Austin with Tacky Texans. We even got to help them learn their new home on wheels, which was a joy to see their excitement with their new home and life simplification.

We also got to know some of the locals in Gonzales and sampled lots of home made wine, collect our own chicken eggs right from underneath hens and help harvest fruit for future batches of wine to enjoy on our next trip through.

Landa RV – New Braunfels, TX

While some of us stayed behind in Gonzales, some of the NuRVers moved to nearby New Braunfels to enjoy some time along the Comal River.  With our app launched, and starting to get a bit of nomadic itch – ZenNomads and us decided to hit the road and join up too. So a sort of round two of NuRVers happened for a few days, in a much more chill fashion.  It was a lovely time along the Comal, with tube floating, swimming, shared meals and community. Christine & Michael and Tacky Texans even joined up for the fun!  How cool is that that the owners of your previous RV Park drive to come join you??

Pecan Grove RV Park – Austin, TX

Next stop would be the fabulous Pecan Grove in Austin, TX – a spot we had been itching to check out. Both ZenNomads and us were able to score spots next to each other for a few days.  The location is fabulous, on Barton Springs Road – and in walking distance to yummy places to eat, Town Lake, Zilker Gardens, downtown and even a brewery next door.   We’ve been enjoying a lot of social time in our little nomadic caravan.

We’re also using the opportunity in Austin to provision for attending Burning Flipside this coming weekend.

——–

We’ll part ways with ZenNomads in the morning, only to join up again in a couple weeks near St. Louis for Gateway Burn.  Where some others from our nomadic tribe will join up too, including Ben & Karen.   If you have any inclination to join up with Camp Nomadia at Gateway, tickets are on sale through June 5.

After that, it’s back to traveling on our own for a while – which is going to be a strange experience after so much abundance of nomadic community.   Our route to Burning Man for the summer is still unknown.

After an extended stay in Florida catching up with family and friends, checking out sail boats and making new friends – we decided to head on to Austin to be in the area while SXSW Interactive was going on.

With so many bloggers [...]]]> Time Frame: March 7 – 21, 2010
Miles Driven: 1229

After an extended stay in Florida catching up with family and friends, checking out sail boats and making new friends – we decided to head on to Austin to be in the area while SXSW Interactive was going on.

With so many bloggers and friends planning to be there, we decided to splurge and booked the last RV spot we could find in Austin. We also decided to just wing it, and not actually buy badges – instead relying on serendipity to social network our way around.

And on a bit of a whim.. off we set, taking backroads whenever feasible.

Manatee Springs State Park – Chiefland, FL

We made our way west, aiming to find the western most road north out of Florida, exploring an area of Florida neither of us had been in much before.   Just about when we were ready to call it a day, we saw a park sign for Manatee Springs State Park. A quick confirmation that there was camping in the park with our handy RV Camping in State Parks book, and off we set in hopes of making it to the gate before the park office closed.

We totally scored by making it just in time, and were assigned a beautiful camp site and set off for a hike around the lagoon at sunset.  The campground is also close by the manatee viewing area, and we caught sight of a few swimming around in the morning. Unfortunately, due to high waters, swimming with them was off limits during our stay.

New Orleans

In the morning we continued our drive west, boondocking overnight in Pensacola. We drove the coastal route along the Florida panhandle, and got to witness the chaotic kick off of spring break in Panama City Beach.

We had decided before we left Orlando that we’d like to treat ourselves to a couple days in New Orleans, as neither of us had been back there since Katrina. Researching camping options online surfaced the French Quarter RV Resort, located just on the edge of the French Quarter.  While pricey , we decided being able to walk to everywhere  was worth it.  The resort itself was nice – huge spaces, a central courtyard with private bath suites, an ice machine and a hot tub.  It was a nice departure from our normal style of boondocking and public campgrounds.

We spent a couple days wandering around the French Quarter and the Frenchman area. On our way into town, we happened to catch a tweet from Carl Nelson, and remembered that he had recently settled in NOLA.  Carl immediately offered to meet up with us while we were in town.  He directed us to a jazz club, where we marveled at his awesome Lindy Hop swing dance talents.   Carl is also known as the Dance Nomad, and teaches swing dance around the world and online.  It turned out that Carl was heading to SXSW, and would also be ‘not’ attending like us.

Houston

On our way west, we were contacted by Rasheed Hooda of Present Day Nomads, who had done a feature on us last year. He invited us to dinner and to street camp in front of his home in Houston on our way into Austin. Perfect timing!

After a drive-break stop in Avery Island, Louisiana for a tour of the Tabasco Factory – we arrived to join Rasheed for an evening of very yummy Pakistani food, and great conversations.

In the morning, Rasheed shared with us how he’s currently making his income – by twisting balloon animals!  He left the corporate world to find something that brought him joy. And, it’s a portable business model that he plans to take on the road with him as a nomad eventually.

He shared with us that at first, when people asked him how much a balloon animal cost, he quoted a price of $2-3.  And, as one would expect, he received just about that. A while back he started answering the question with ‘Pay whatever you think it’s worth’.  He’s now averaging $5-10 an animal.

Something to think about, for sure.  We tend to undervalue ourselves.

Austin – SXSW

And then.. our arrival to Austin!  We pretty much hit the ground running, attending various SXSW Interactive social events we were invited to.

First off was breakfast hosted by our friend and podcaster Ewan Spence at Magnolia Cafe (yum). We were immediately seated with Dave Delaney (part of the Griffin road trip to SXSW), Julien Smith (co-author of Trust Agents) and C. C. Chapman (Campfire Creative) – we indulged in gingerbread chocolate chip pancakes while talking about life on the road with mobile technology.

Next was the Location Independent Professionals MeetUp, where we got to rendezvous again with the fabulous Cath Duncan (who we met last year when our paths crossed in Colorado) and Carl Nelson.  We also finally met many other location independent folks we had been corresponding with, including: Jon Woodward, Andy Hayes of Sharing Travel Experiences, Mike Boyink, Adam Baker (Man Vs Debt) and a video chat with Lea Woodward, who stayed back in the UK.  Our breakfast meetup ended up going well into the afternoon, and we followed a string of serendipity, and ended up attending SXSW social events well into the late evening.

We got to spend a lot of time with our friend Kaye Porter, and help her map out her next business venture, and ended up crossing paths repeatedly with Carl, Andy and Cath. We ended up meeting many more fabulous people – including Pace and Kyeli of FreakRevolution,  Ali Hale of Aliventures, Nathalie Lussier of Raw Foods Witch, Kelly of Sticky eBooks and a whole crew of author’s of Thrivable.

Our heads are still spinning after all the awesome new friends we met!

We ended SXSW the same way we started it – breakfast with Ewan at Magnolia Cafe.  We then stopped by our campground for him to tell Kiki scary stories before dropping him off at the airport to return to Scotland.

And that’s just our first week in Austin…  stay tuned for our anticipated upcoming plans.

After an extended month long winter and holiday stop in St. Louis visiting Chris’ family, it was time to head south for the remainder of the winter. Cherie previously lived in Florida for 12 years before we hit the road, and that’s where [...]]]> Time frame: January 20 – February 20, 2010
Miles Driven: 1776

After an extended month long winter and holiday stop in St. Louis visiting Chris’ family, it was time to head south for the remainder of the winter. Cherie previously lived in Florida for 12 years before we hit the road, and that’s where her parents and a lot of our friends live. We knew we’d be in for a hectic schedule of trying to fit seeing everyone in.  We started our adventure south on January 20, 2010.

Atlanta

Our first planned stop would be in Atlanta, a place we never seem to get enough time in as we’re alway just passing through. However we wanted to be sure to stop in and see Diane and Jill, who own a T@b clamshell twin to our former home on wheels. We used to be able to park at their place, but with our slightly larger Oliver Travel Trailer, we weren’t certain our trailer would still fit in their back lot.

And then serendipity happened.  We received a well timed e-mail from someone who almost camped with us at Camp Nomadia the very first year we brought the camp together. Dale was formerly a nomad, but he ended up camping elsewhere and we only got to meet briefly at Burning Man 2008.  Before he switched camps, he had made up some awesome caribineer/flashlight/bottle openers with ‘Camp Nomadia’ printed on them. He gifted us a handful, and they’ve been quite useful. Especially for lightpainting!

As it turns out, Dale has since settled in Atlanta, and invited us to stop in – citing he had plenty of parking space.  His directions ended with ‘park anywhere on the tennis court’ – which raised an eyebrow.  So thus we parked, intending to only stay a couple nights, on his tennis court in front of his airplane hanger converted loft.  It was awesome to get to know Dale and compare stories from the road, Burning Man and geekery. Our intended couple night stay turned into 5 nights (see what we mean about Nomadic Standard Time?) until we figured we really did need to be on our way.

While in Atlanta, we also got to meet up with Diane, however Jill was sick. We also got to make a new friend, who was introduced to us via a mutual friend in California. We went to an independent artists fundraiser and saw a cool afro-celt band play.

Tomoka State Park

After coming off of our intense month working at Amazon.com, holidays, cold weather in St. Louis and our unexpected social time in Atlanta – we were craving some alone time with just the three of us before heading into more social time. One thing we’ve found in our travels is that if we want time for ourselves, we have to carve it out.

So we selected one of our favorite campgrounds in Florida – Tomoka State Park in Ormond Beach. It was one of our destinations when we were first trying out nomadic life together back in early 2007. We love it for it’s authentic Florida hammocks and nicely wooded campsites along the waterway.

We got some relaxing and alone time in. However, one thing about state parks in the middle of the week, is that we’re not the only interesting people traveling through. We ended up meeting two other traveling couples.  They were closer to traditional retirement age than us – but what was interesting, is that in each couple, one of them was earning an income by being online professors. They were each using mobile technology to explore their wanderlust, visit their families and keep funded.  It’s so inspiring to encounter so many people exploring these mobile lifestyles before retirement.

Titusville

Next stop was Titusville, primarily to visit with Cherie’s ex and her former cat, Alma.  Cherie and Fritz dissolved as a couple primarily because they were simply on different life paths – Cherie wanting more mobility and adventure, and Fritz wanting to settle into one spot and focus on planning for retirement with a stable career.  Their solution was to seek what they both wanted in life and remain close friends.. instead of getting bitter and angry over it.  It was wonderful to see just how happy they were now that they were well into their chosen paths.

We did split our time down in Melbourne, staying with Cherie’s parents a few nights.  Unfortunately, they live in one of those neighborhoods where they don’t allow RVs, so we opted to stay in their guest room while we left our camper at Fritz’. It’s worth it to get quality time!

While in Titusville, we noticed that the last planned night shuttle launch was planned, and ended up being temporary neighbors with the delightfully awesome nomadic Louis and Sean of Our Oddyssey. We were part of ‘Camp STS-130′ – an amazing temporary RV city that forms around launch time.

James and his partner Maria came over from Tampa – he’s better known as @NomadRIP, to join the fun. We look forward to many future rendezvouses with all these like minded folks.

The launch was delayed an evening, but it was an amazing 4:14am launch of Shuttle Endevour.

Melbourne

We relocated down to Wickham Park, a county run park in Melbourne for a couple nights.  Chris’ parents are experimenting with being snowbirds on the west coast of Florida this winter, and came over for a fajita cookout at Cherie’s parents place.    Chris also took care of routine medical exams at our primary care physician in Melbourne, and we both had our routine eye exams.  While we have medical access all over the country via our individual health plans, we do prefer to establish providers in spots we consider ‘home bases’.

Orlando.. no.. now Miami!

At first we were planning to relocate to the Orlando area, where we have friends with several wooded acres who extend an open invite. However, we got hit with a Nautical Bug, and found our way to Miami instead to attend the Miami Internatational Boat Show.  Chris has written prolifically about this.

Following Nomadic Serendipity

The next week was an amazing ride of following the Ripples of Serendipity – which took us down to Marathon to check out an older catamaran we were intrigued by.

Then up to Jupiter Farms to meet with some awesome readers of our blog – Richard & Claire and Dave & Julie, and answer their questions about nomadism on wheels. Richard and Claire have a pig and backyard chickens, and we spent an evening combusting Christmas trees in their backyard firepit with their awesome sons, Glenn & Patrick.

Then serendipity decided we weren’t done yet, and handed us a connection to a similarly aged full time sailing couple, Gray and Cindy, who seemed happy to spend an afternoon sharing their lifestyle with us. It was great to be on the other side of the table, inquisiting someone else about a lifestyle we’re interested in embarking upon.

Orlando.. and beyond?

We finally found our way to the Orlando area, a full week after our original intentions.  We plan to stay here a week or so – get caught up on a bunch of projects, and just enjoy the solitude of our wooded nest camped next to great friends, Cec & Paula, who truly embrace our self sufficiency and temporary neighbor preference.

—–

Soon we’ll decide when we need to start heading to Texas. We’re still undecided about South by Southwest, mostly because we just can’t justify the high ticket cost.   If we make it to Austin by mid-March, we may just meet up with friends attending outside the event, and enjoy the ancillary festivals and events that apparently happen.  Perhaps next year we’ll submit a proposal for a Technomadic panel and try to get in as presenters.  At the very least, we need to make it to Central Texas by late April for the NuRVer‘s Gathering (or whatever they decide to call it) – a rally of other younger full time RVers.

With plans to spend the holidays with family in the St. Louis area, we looked ahead to doing a mid-country run very much similar to the path we took earlier in the year.  We decided to sign on to workamp [...]]]> Time Period: Oct 25 – Dec 31, 2009
Miles Driven: 2125

With plans to spend the holidays with family in the St. Louis area, we looked ahead to doing a mid-country run very much similar to the path we took earlier in the year.  We decided to sign on to workamp at Amazon’s distribution center in Kansas on the way to kill a month, which would mean the trip across country would be at a much quicker pace than our normal.

San Diego, CA

Upon discovering that we had potential vehicle issues with our Jeep that might need additional attention before attempting another cross country jaunt, we decided to relocate from Hemet, CA to San Diego – where there would be more resources for repairs. It also helped that our technomadic friend, Ben Willmore, was also hanging out there – so for only the fifth time in our travels we stayed in a commercial RV park.

And much to our surprise, the park was able to place our tiny 17′ rig right next to his 40′ bus. It was nice to be temporary neighbors with Ben for a week while we took care of our chores and he took care of his. And as it was the San Diego Beer Week, we spent many an evening sampling some fine craft beers together.

In the end, it turned out that repairing the Jeep didn’t make sense, so our focus shifted to finding a replacement tow vehicle  more suited for full time towing. We said good bye to our beloved diesel Jeep Liberty CRD, and hello to a 2006 Toyota Tundra.

Exploring the Salton Sea

With a new tow vehicle procured, it was time to start our eastward journey – but not before a long anticipated rendezvous with nomadic photographer Sandi Wheaton.  She had been put in touch with us several months ago after she lost her job and decided to spend several weeks doing an epic phootography roadtrip down Route 66 in a small travel trailer. During the course of conversing about the lifestyle, a friendship was formed.

With her now  in Los Angeles and ready to start her eastward trek back home – we rendezvoused back near Hemet at a paragliding field that Chris had been practicing jumping off mountains at.  While we just missed the opportunity for him to have a sled ride down, we had an awesome time meeting Sandi – so much so, we called our awesome artist friends Sean Mahonney and Helene Lohr (who we had spent the past 6 weeks with).   They came out and joined us, and an epic Salton Sea photo exploration for the next day was conceived.

Arriving after dark, our first night on the Salton Sea was spent boondocking at the old Niland Marina and doing some epic light painting.  Both with Cherie doing fire and LED poi dance, and of Sandi’s triangle trailer.

In the morning, we all spent several hours photo exploring this area – coming up with some amazing shots!   And then, Sandi offered to give us a tour of Slab City and introduce us to her friend who lives there.

Went spent the rest of the day in an artistic wonderland that is known as East Jesus in Slab City, and exploring Salvation Mountain – both of which we’ve written about separately.   We ended up staying the next two nights at East Jesus before continuing on our way eastward.  We will be returning for an extended visit.

Eastward to Kansas

As we had previously gone a very similar route through Arizona and New Mexico earlier in the year,  we opted to traverse this section of the trip on the interstate and make good time.

We did stop off for a couple nights in Lake Havasu City to visit our Oliver-owning Burning Man friends – where Andrew was sweet enough to help us track down some problems we were having with our tail lights.

We made good time through Albuquerque, then decided to slow the pace down a bit and started taking our preferred backroads once we hit Tucumcari. We got across the great state of Texas in record time by just crossing the tip of the panhandle, and explored around Oklahoma. Spotting a sign for the city of Laverne, we took a detour to do a special photography holiday gift for Chris’ grandmother – of the same name.

We arrived to Independence, Kansas and began scoping out our camping options for our month long stay in the area while we worked at Amazon. We checked out the closet options in Coffeyville – but at the time the only spots left were spack dab in the middle where we’d have neighbors on all four sides. While the commute would have been nicer, we opted for the open meadows and lakes that Elk City State Park offered, which is also where another Oliver owning friend of ours was staying as they workamped too.

Amazon.com

The month of December was mostly working at Amazon.com’s fullfillment center in Coffeyville, Kansas. It was a physically intense experience that left us with a lot of illumination on many aspects of American culture we might not have otherwise received.  We’ve already written some of our initial impressions about the experience, and did an interview with Gizmodo that has been since featured on Slashdot. We find it a bit humorous that us normally tech-enabled nomads taking on a manual labor job gets us so much publicity!

We will be following up in the coming weeks with a lot more information on our experience at Amazon – mostly we’re just waiting on our final paycheck to make it through our forwarding system so that we can show exactly how much money can be made at these sorts of gigs.

St. Louis

We’re  now in St. Louis spending the holidays with Chris’ family.   Mostly we’ve been catching up on sleep, readjusting back to daylight hours and catching up on all of the chores that can accumulate in a month.

In a few weeks, we’ll start heading south to warmer climates and time with Cherie’s family.

However, I didn’t anticipate [...]]]> We had such as awesome time visiting and exploring Slab City – the remains of the abandoned Marine barracks of Camp Dunlap just outside Niland, California along the Salton Sea in the desert of southeast California. And I had big intentions of writing prolifically about it to share with you.

However, I didn’t anticipate just how little ‘free time’ we’d be getting working at amazon.com’s distribution center in Kansas this month.  We’ve now completed our first full week (working 11 hour days – 5 days a week), and it’s exhausting. It’s not mentally challenging by any means, but it sure is physically challenging.  And it’s quite an experience and peak into this side of consumer culture and America. We’re all about experiences and learning about things we’re not normally exposed to – so it’s definitely worthwhile from that perspective.  Hopefully when we’re done with our time here in a few weeks we’ll have the energy to post more indepth about what we’ve learned (without violating the terms of our NDA we signed about the specific processes.)

So back to wonderful antithesis of consumerism – Slab City and East Jesus. When we met up with Route 66 Roadtripping Sandi Wheaton in what seems like so long ago now, she was thrilled to be able to play tour guide for us around the Salton Sea – an area of the country we had not yet explored, and were quite curious about.

We posted previously about our afternoon at Salvation Mountain.

However, we also explored The Slabs, and were introduced to her awesomely cool friend Container Charlie who has created an experimental artistic habitat constructed out of found materials and made into art – he calls it ‘East Jesus’. It came as no surprise to us that he’s a fellow burner (Burning Man participant) and vagabond. We instantly clicked, and new friend found.

Sandi just saved us a ton of writing by posting her write up of our visit to East Jesus. So instead of trying to muster the creative energy to post about it ourselves, I’m going to refer you to her awesome post – East Jesus, Pop 1, Elev 75.

Before starting at amazon, I also managed to complete a video piece about The Slabs in general (not focused on East Jesus) to give you an overview of our time there.

In case you don’t see the video above if you’re on RSS – here’s a direct link to the video.

So, I wouldn’t be expecting much in the way of posting for a few weeks from us as we complete our time at amazon – we hope you enjoy your vacation from our stories, and we look forward to continuing sharing our adventures after the first of the year with you.

As a gentle reminder – aside from working there as temps this season at amazon, we’re also affiliates.  If you’re going to be shopping at amazon anyway, if you start off your shopping session using this link – we’ll get a small cut of your purchases.  Every little bit helps to pad the meager hourly wage they’re paying us to package your stuff.

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Most never act on this.

But a rare few are overcome with purpose, and devote their lives to the call.

Artist Leonard Knight heard such a call (“to my knowledge, it was on a Wednesday, about ten-thirty in the morning [...]]]> Some people have a calling, a message they must deliver to the world.

Most never act on this.

But a rare few are overcome with purpose, and devote their lives to the call.

Artist Leonard Knight heard such a call (“to my knowledge, it was on a Wednesday, about ten-thirty in the morning in 1967″), and has dedicated his life to nothing else since.

And for the past 25 years, Leonard has been toiling tirelessly in the California desert – building a monument to his message – that “God is Love”.

I have met tenacity and it’s name is Leonard Knight.

When the simple message of ‘God is Love’ hit Leondard in 1967, he was inspired to stitch together a massive colorful hot air balloon to fly the message to the people. But after 14 years of work, he was never able to get his balloon inflated without tearing. And eventually his patchwork of fabric had become a lost cause, beginning to rot.

When he gave up on the balloon project in 1984 Leonard was passing through Slab City in the southeastern desert of California – a fascinating no man’s land that we will feature in a story all its own. Before leaving, Leonard decided to stay one more week to make a “small statement” – a monument to his message built into a local hillside.

Decades later his “small statement” has grown into a 150 foot wide by 50 foot high mountain built out of adobe clay and buckets of paint, and he’s still going at it.

This kaleidoscope of colorful hills, limbs, arches, flowers and scripture became known as Salvation Mountain, and it marks the entrance to Slab City today.

When the county tried to tear down Leonard’s creation in 1994 locals rallied to his defense, collecting hundreds of signatures to stop the monument from being torn down.

Today no one even thinks of tearing down Salvation Mountain, and it has become a treasured landmark and tourist attraction that has become famous around the world. The Folk Art Society of America has declared Salvation Mountain a national folk art shrine, and in 2002 the US congress officially recognized Salvation Mountain as a National Treasure.

And all the while, Leonard has continued to work on it.

Salvation Mountain entered further into the pop culture mainstream when Leonard and the mountain were featured in Sean Penn’s 2007 Oscar-nominated movie Into the Wild (read our movie review), a dramatization of the true story of Chris McCandless, who spent time in Slab City on his nomadic journey towards his tragic death in Alaska.

We visited Slab City and Salvation Mountain recently with two photographer friends – Sean “Epic” Mahoney (get your website up already, dude!) and Route 66 Road Nomad Sandi Wheaton.

When we arrived, we were immediately greeted by Leonard Knight and taken on a personal tour of his amazing monument. We even got to witness adobe being made for further construction. (And we couldn’t help but giggle when he asked us Photoshop proficient photographers if we “knew anything about adobe?”…)

View our guided video tour of Salvation Mountain with Leonard Knight.

While none in our group are particularly religious, we were all overcome by Leonard’s energy and enthusiasm and sheer joy at being alive and sharing his message. And the mountain itself beautifully embodies his joy and love. Taking a tour with Leonard (free, btw), and then climbing the yellow brick road path to the top is an experience not to be missed.

Leonard started off alone in the desert, and through faith and tenacity his message has now touched millions.

Inspiring indeed.

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Post Burning Man we only had one specific goal – to make it to Hemet, CA for much needed down time. We had met some folks in the area during our travels earlier in the year that we [...]]]>

Time Period: September 6 – October 24
Miles Driven: 1179
(not including non-RV trips)

Post Burning Man we only had one specific goal – to make it to Hemet, CA for much needed down time. We had met some folks in the area during our travels earlier in the year that we only had the opportunity to visit for a few days back in April – and we were anxious to return to their beautiful home.

We stayed at Burning Man late, helping with the clean-up efforts and taking responsibility for our camp achieving a ‘green’ rating for leaving no trace behind.

Directly from Black Rock City, we went back to Fallon, NV to pick up Kiki and wash some dust off.

Afterburn at PermaBurn

Eyeing a handout we received during our clean-up days, we were intrigued by an opportunity to visit PermaBurn for their Afterburn event.  PermaBurn is 600+ acres that were purchased about 85 miles due west of Gerlach, with the intentions of being an intentional full time Burning Man inspired community. Well within range of the playa, it’s an ideal place for testing out and staging art projects.  The vision is one of community effort and manifestation.

Always in search of nomadic ports with like minds, we were intrigued enough to divert up to Northern California for a few days to check it out. It was a small gathering of folks for the weekend and we had opportunity to meet many of the folks behind the project. It was just what we needed – an opportunity to chill with community post Burning Man, before returning to the ‘real’ world. And bonus, there’s cell phone signal out there!

For just $200, interested folks can buy in with a lifetime membership – which gives you a vote in how the land is used. It also gives you full access to the land for as long as its held as part of PermaBurn. An awesome opportunity, and one that we definitely recommend checking out if you’re so intrigued. The folks behind it are awesome and well intentioned.

Sacramento and San Francisco

After PermaBurn we returned to Sacramento, where we have dear friends – Sean & Lindsay, as well as our storage unit. We spent a few days putting our Burning Man gear back in storage and getting our house reorganized and prepared for potentially not returning to the area for a while.

And then it was on to San Francisco for an evening to spend with our dance community – Rhythm Society. It was their quarterly All Night Dance Celebration. Not even a fire marshall could keep the event from happening, and it was quickly re-tooled to take place at an alternate location right on time. It was definitely worthwhile to make the stop on our way south.

After lunch on the Presido munching down on our favorite burritos from Taqueria Cancun, we started our southward journey.  We opted to take the interstate instead of a slow meandering way – anxious to get to Hemet.

Hemet, CA

There are definitely places in our travels that feel more like a homebase than a stop,  and Hemet is amongst them. It’s not so much about the place, as it about the people. Fortunately for us, this place has both!  Beautiful scenery and awesome people.  Here they also have a little porch with RV hook-ups right off of it. We’ve taken it over, giving us a beautiful outdoor living room and office.

Another reason for hanging out in this area of the country was its proximity to Las Vegas, as we had been invited to attend Photoshop World as a guest of our technomadic friend Ben Willmore (who is a presenter there).  Deciding it was cheaper to carpool up and split a room with our friends from Hemet – Sean & Helene and us made the trip together up to Vegas.

We had a lot of fun, including participating in the iStockPhoto party invite process – which involved decorating Munny dolls. We made ours to resemble Ben with his rocking mohawk – which he boldly decided to keep from Burning Man where we last saw him.

Upon returning to Hemet, we each got invitations to attend two different conferences in two different places.  Cherie was invited to the Experts Academy up in San Francisco, and Chris to the Los Angeles Idea Project.  For the first time in our 2.5 years of travel together – we went our separate ways for a few days – which is probably a good thing for traveling couples to do every so often.  With no rush to be anywhere, Cherie opted to take the Coast Starlight train back – enjoying a relaxing and scenic adventure.

We’re now hanging around Hemet for a few days more as our Jeep has some maintenance and warranty issues taken care of.  Chris has been practicing his paragliding, a sport he’s not done in a couple of years.

We anticipate in the next few days we’ll embark on the next adventure – which we actually have no clue where we’re headed yet.

The last segment of our Summer 2009 travels was wrapping up our cross country adventure and arriving for Burning Man. With a month ahead of us to get there, we looked for ways to optimize backroads and scenic routes. We aimed to visit a [...]]]> Time Period: July 29 – August 28
Miles Driven: 2764

The last segment of our Summer 2009 travels was wrapping up our cross country adventure and arriving for Burning Man. With a month ahead of us to get there, we looked for ways to optimize backroads and scenic routes. We aimed to visit a few more National Parks along the way, as well as friends.   We also put ourselves up to the challenge to try not to pay for camping and to stay entirely off grid by not needing hookups for the month ahead. Given the higher temperature month of August, this was an especially tall order.

Thus we conceived of the Technomad Trifecta: Scenic. Free. Connectivity.   And we aimed to find it wherever we went.

Missouri

When we left St. Louis we anticipated that we’d jet as quickly as possible through Missouri and Kansas – figuring there wouldn’t be many options for the Technomad Trifecta.  We were proven wrong.

To avoid heavy traffic along the interstate out of St. Louis, we quickly diverted to backroads and followed the Missouri River westward towards Jefferson City. Beautiful drive with rolling hills and lots of pulls offs for scenic views.   With the approaching setting sun, we started researching possible camping options.

Not actually expecting to find scenic free camping in the area, were thrilled to discover that the Pine Ridge campground within the Mark Twain National Forest was on a donation basis. The campground was not far off the road and only offered a few camp spots, only a couple of them suitable for RVs.  But we found one that was available and pulled in.

The next morning we received the crushing news that our Burning Man theme camp for Nomads, Camp Nomadia, was denied placement.  Too bummed to move on, we took advantage of the wooded camping for another night to sleep on the news another day. In the morning we headed on, and I remembered that a dear friend was now located in Kansas City. A quick call to touch base, and off we were for a lunch rendezvous of catching up.

Kansas

We were dreading Kansas. Our mental image was of flat land, endless roads, farms and sunflowers. Mostly we were right.  We eyed a free campground outside of Junction City, Kansas run by the Army Corp of Engineers called Rolling Hills.  It hit the Technomad Trifecta perfectly. All of the campspots were spread out along Millford Lake, each with private lake access. There was ample cellular sign. And it was free.

We stayed two nights, enjoying amazing sunsets, online catching up and relishing in the beauty that Kansas could offer. On the way out of Kansas, we went in search of Mt. Sunflower – the highest point in the state.

Colorado

We had aims to visit our friends Teresa and Andrew in Salida, Colorado. We also anticipated it would be a decent spot to put down the landing gear for a few days and enjoy a truly wonderful little mountain town.

We found perfect free boondocking just east of the city along the river with excellent cell phone coverage – again, the Trifecta manifested. We ended up staying a week – enjoying awesome microbrews, farmer’s markets, art shops, live music and hanging out with our friends. We also had a nomadic rendezvous with Cath & Andy Duncan, who were passing through town on their USA tour.

We considered the routing we would take out of Colorado to get new vistas and opted to head north up to I-70, fabled to be amazing hiway as art through the natural features. We were not disappointed – definitely some of the most beautiful interstate around.

Utah

Utah has more than its fair share of scenic driving and vistas. We’ve heard it said that you can drive an hour and visit new landscape that seems like an entirely different planet.  And it certainly seems true.

For this pass through Utah we decided to aim for Capitol Reef National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park and Cedar Breaks National Monument.  We got into Capitol Reef to discover that their first come first serve campground was already completely full at mid afternoon on a weekday.  Initially disappointed, we decided to head westward to find some of the campgrounds in the neighboring national forest.

Just as we left the park and before we reached the town of Torrey – we saw a little dirt road. Curious, we stopped and checked it out. Definitely dispersed camping on National Forest land.  We backed into a spot with an amazing view of Capitol Reef and enjoyed free boondocking for a few nights – with cellular internet from the nearby town. Amazing. And definitely a Technomad Trifecta score.  And bonus, the Persiad Meteor Shower was starting up – so we enjoyed some of the most spectacular star gazing we could possibly imagine. We literally had dozens of shooting starts per minute at peak hours.

The heat was building each day, almost tempting us to hook up the generator for air conditioning. Instead, we experimented with evaporative cooling with a water mister – to much success.  We were able to keep in the temperature to a cool 88 while the outside temperature was peaking at 98.

Onwards from Capitol Reef we experienced a new planet every few dozen miles. From red rocks, to forests, to white cliffs, to the spectacular formations of the escalante.

Absolutely jaw dropping amazing driving.

We arrived to Bryce Canyon to lots of crowds.  We entered the park just to get a few pictures and take a short hike. We had a tip on Cedar Breaks that it was similar scenery but without the crowds that we were banking on for a better experience.  And we were not disappointed at all.

We were so impressed by Cedar Breaks – both in the formations, lack of crowds  and friendly rangers – that we decided to break our free camping streak and pay for a night in the park.  We were much rewarded for this choice, as soon after making camp we had the ranger stop by and invite us to the evening’s talk about the geology of the region. The talk was interesting and informative, however spending quite a while afterwards talking with the ranger about her motivations for switching out of nursing and into geology was even more fascinating.

Nevada

Nevada is beautiful in its own right. However its monotonous series of 600+ distinct mountain ranges and valleys have caused me to call it the Crumple  Zone of the west. After going over a few passes in Nevada, you pretty much get the point.  On previous traverses, we’ve taken the Loneliest Highway – this time we wanted something different.  So, we selected the Extraterrestrial Highway, in hopes of meeting some aliens or something.

Beautiful drive, but no aliens found. Not to give up hope, we followed our GPS’s advice to take a short cut via a 40 mile dirt road across the valley into Warm Springs.  It’s always an adventure to choose an overland road – you just don’t know what you’ll find.  Nearing sunset we had dashing antelope, fox, cows and wild mustangs.   Somewhere along the way we took a wrong turn, because we ended up at a back gate of Nellis Air Force Base Bombing range.  Whoops.

Around we turned and found our correct little dirt road.  And just as we reached the turn off our GPS was telling us to take – we discovered we still had many more miles of dirt road traversing to go.  Instead of missing a sunset by driving precarious roads, we opted to stop right there and stay the night at an old mine shaft.  It wasn’t a trifecta night – as there was no cellular signal to be found. However we’re quite sure we were the only humans in the valley, and there was not a single artificial light to be seen.  Another amazing star gazing night.

In the morning we went exploring around, and found a lot of old abandonded stuff – propane tanks, a VW Beetle, a stove and more. And the most amazing find?  A huge barrel being fed by a spring full of coy fish.   Fish.  In the middle of nowhere off the ET highway in the Nevada Desert.  That’ll count as being alien enough for us !

California

We came into the backside of Yosemite and stayed a night near Mono Lake, anticipating hitting Yosemite on a Sunday afternoon in hopes of less crowds.  We were wrong, Yosmite was insanely packed making the experience pretty miserable. Guess we should have timed our visit to not be on one of the National Park free weekends.  We’ll just have to check it out at a different time of year.

We made our way to our homebase in Sacramento with Lindsay & Sean, discovering that our trailer exactly fits in their side driveway allowing us to utilize the front porch too and get off the street.  Awesome.  Our time in Sacramento was mainly spent getting our Burning Man gear out of storage.

Burning Man

We ducked down to the San Francisco Bay Area to catch up with a few folks, and then started the journey back into Nevada for Burning Man, stopping a night in Reno to meet up with Kev & Ang of NuRVers.com. It was awesome to finally cross paths with them.

We then headed down to Fallon, which is where we had run a field office for the Obama campaign the year prior. Our host family there had offered to take care of Kiki while we were at the burn. It was great to catch up with them and provision for our time on the playa.

And then off we headed towards Black Rock City, where the adventures have already been documented:

Connected at Burning Man

Camp Nomadia at Burning Man 2009

Burning Man From Start to Finish

Time Period: June 30 – July 29
Miles Driven: 1904

We had no plans for how to spend the summer. We had toyed with the idea of finding [...]]]>

Indiania to St. Louis via Philadelphia & DC

Time Period: June 30 – July 29
Miles Driven: 1904

We had no plans for how to spend the summer. We had toyed with the idea of finding a nice campground in the Smokey Mountains and parking for several weeks to catch up on some work projects.  We had toyed with ducking into Canada and getting some international time under our wheels in a cooler climate.  But then one of Cherie’s clients called and asked if she could be in Washington DC in mid-July to teach a class. We looked at the calendar, and said yes!   So we booked time in Philadelphia with friends, and off we went.

Philadephia, Pennsylvania

On the day before we planned to leave Indiana, we got a call from Chris’s folks who were leaving Baltimore and headed back to St. Louis. We saw that there was an opportunity for a rendezvous, so we left a day early and met up with them outside of Dayton, OH for dinner. It’s wonderful to be able to take advantage of nomadic serendipity.

When then traversed across Ohio and Pennsylvania, stopping a couple of nights at Laurell Hill State Park, and then serendipitiously discovered the Flight 93 Memorial while driving around backroads.

We arrived in Philadelphia in time to attend a 4th of July party at a 300+ year old house that one of our followers invited us to attend. There was live music jamming and a hoppy local IPA beer on tap.  It was incredible to celebrate the 4th at a house that literally saw the birth of our nation.

We toured around Philadelphia, on actual assignment from TripFilms to produce a few video pieces on things to do and eat in the city. It was fun playing tourist and visiting the Philadelphia Art Museum, Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, Waterworks, Comcast’s Largest Television and more.  We also were blessed to be able to spend a lot of time with dear friends.  We both had friends in the area that pre-dated our relationship together, which always makes for a wonderful time of getting to know each other better via our past connections.

Washington, DC

Next up was our visit to our nation’s Capital. We found Cherry Hill RV Park in College Park to stay at, our first experience with staying at a RV park that dubbed itself a resort. It was close enough to Bethesda, that it made Cherie’s classes easy enough to teach.

Still on assignment from TripFilms, we played tourist in on the Mall in DC. We even got to meet up with a friend who was also on business from Florida and spend the evening catching up and visiting museums.  We also had the pleasure to meet Jonathan and Dasy of WeGoFar, who are about to set off on a long term nomadic RVing adventure! We can’t wait to rendezvous with them out on the road!

After DC, we relocated out to Reston, Virginia where there’s a reputable Jeep dealer – as we were due for our regular maintenance on our tow vehicle.  We took care of that.. and off we continued.

Appalachians

The Transformus regional Burning Man event was about to happen in Asheville, NC, and we had hopes that perhaps tickets to it would manifest for us. Unfortunately their ticketing process is not very nomad friendly – and we couldn’t find last minute tickets to attend.

So, we started our eastward trek and decided to spend some time in the Appalachians. Off we headed to Shenendoah National Park for a couple nights.  We loved the scenic drive (sorry Lonely Planet, we don’t concur with your ‘scenic drive to end all scenic drives’ evaluation.. but it was pretty nice).

Next, we went into the Blueridge Parkway, which was even more scenic and less untouched.  We stayed a night there, and then started meandering through the mountains westward.

We stumbled upon the Breaks Interstate Park, run by both Virginia and Kentucky.  We ended up staying two nights, as we scored a nice secluded spot with excellent cellular broadband signal!

St. Louis

We explored our options for our westward trek, and decided to go ahead and route through St. Louis again to spend some more time with Chris’ folks. Afterall, they are awesome.

We spent a week at their place, and got to catch up with new friends we made recently at Gateway Burn.

We explored the City Museum, Hobo University and Chris ordered a new MacbookPro and got situated with it.

After St. Louis, we continued our trek westward following the Missouri River.

After a couple of weeks of our adventures being driven on visiting family in Texas and St. Louis, our attentions turned to social time with new and old friends. We had found some regional Burning Man events to attend, and even rendezvoused with another [...]]]> Time Period: June 12 – June 29
Miles Driven: 799

After a couple of weeks of our adventures being driven on visiting family in Texas and St. Louis, our attentions turned to social time with new and old friends. We had found some regional Burning Man events to attend, and even rendezvoused with another friend and took him road tripping with us.

Gateway Burn – Potosi, MO

We took a jaunt down to Potosi, MO to attend the St. Louis regional Burning Man style event called Gateway Burn. We figured it would be an excellent way to meet some awesome people in the St. Louis area, so that next time we’re visiting the area we have people other than family to visit.

It had been raining lots, and the land the event was held on was very primitive. A lot of vehicles where having difficulty getting in. When we arrived, they stationed a huge 4×4 truck with a tow rope at the top of the hill, in case we got stuck. But Chris mastered pulling our Oliver up a muddy slippery hill with ease with our 4×4 Jeep – and everyone watching was suitably impressed. We spent most of the event giving tours of our Oliver – which was a great way to meet folks.

And did we ever meet some great folks!  We’re looking forward to future visits to St. Louis to not only spend quality time with family, but further develop a community there.

Midwest Couchsurfing Roadtrip

Our good friend Matt Bell was just finishing up his 4.5 month sabbatical world trip, and decided to join us in the midwest before heading home to San Francisco. We promised him a midwest roadtrip so that he could also get a taste of what full time technomadic life is like for us.  It was also our first time taking on a passenger in our travels.  We picked Matt up at a local hostel upon our return from Gateway Burn, and then swept him away to Chris’ father’s Flag Day celebration at the local Elks. A fitting reintroduction to America, we think.

We also took Matt to explore to totally uber awesome City Museum in St. Louis. And then we packed up the Oliver and converted the space around for sleeping a third.

Is it still Couchsurfing if the couch is moving?

Matt booked his flight out of Chicago, so we took a 3 day meandering tour up the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers – exploring riverside towns along the way.

Northern Indiana & Chicago

We dropped Matt off for his flight in Chicago, and then headed to our friends place in northern Indiana. She had ample trailer parking for us.  I knew Kele back when I lived in Florida, and it’s been a true pleasure to be able to stay close to her by rendezvousing in our travels.

We took a day and trained into Chicago to meet up with some other friends from Florida, Sterling and Melissa.  Melissa is now living in the Chicago area, and Sterling just happened to be up visiting. We also rendezvoused with them last year while they were vacationing in Las Vegas.   While in Chicago, Chris also upgraded his iPhone to the new 3G S.

Lakes of Fire – Lacota, Michigan

One of our purposes for our visit to this region was to attend the Lakes of Fire regional Burning Man event in western Michigan – and introduce Kele to the community. It would be her first Burning Man experience.

We had also met quite a number of folks at Gateway Burn who were heading up to Lakes of Fire, so we formed an impromptu theme camp with them. It was awesome to spend more time getting to know these folks!  Lakes of Fire was a much larger event – about 500 people, and extremely well run. We had a blast, and Kele really seemed to click with it all.

We headed back to Kele’s place for a couple of days to decompress and catch up.

Next up..  we headed to Philadelphia and Washington DC… but those stories will come later.

After arriving in St. Louis for Mother’s Day and learning that Chris’ grandmother’s surgery would be scheduled in early June, we opted to take the opportunity to divert down to Hohenwald, TN to visit the folks at the Oliver Travel [...]]]> Time period: May 18 – June 11, 2009
Miles Driven: 677

Our Loop to Hohenwald

After arriving in St. Louis for Mother’s Day and learning that Chris’ grandmother’s surgery would be scheduled in early June, we opted to take the opportunity to divert down to Hohenwald, TN to visit the folks at the Oliver Travel Trailer factory for some tweaks and fixes.  We also used the opportunity to test out our new ‘Two Night’ Rule, to force us to travel a bit slower and be still a bit more.

Down the Mississippi River

We routed down the Mississippi River from Columbia, IL, passing through Popeye’s hometown of Chester and enjoying many scenic overlooks.  The Mississippi was also pretty full and we heard weather reports anticipating flooding in the coming days.

We ended up camped at Columbia-Belmont State Park in Kentucky, scoring a river front spot along the bluff. We stuck to our rule, and stayed two nights – utilizing a day working outside with a gorgeous view of barges moving up the river.  We tried as best we could to ignore the lawn care crew tending to the Kentucky blue grass most of the day with their buzzing mowers and weed whackers.

Hohenwald, TN

We arrived at the Oliver factory in Hohenwald on May 20, where the crew got right to work on our fixes.  Most impending was that our axle was showing signs of defect by causing uneven tire wear on the outside of one tire. After a couple rounds of eliminating other causes, the great folks at Oliver had a new axle made for us, and replaced our now balding tires.   We also had been fighting a leak in the roof vent fan, which they finally solved for us.  Now, we can enjoy a rain storm without bringing out towels to keep from indoor flooding.

We camped overnight in the factory – which is an awesome experience to be alone in a 7 acre industrial factory, and even bumped into Jim & Evon Oliver on their super cool Harley – we had just seen them in Lake Havasu City, AZ a few weeks back. We also had a chance to learn about their new product line which is keeping the plant open while the entire RV industry is experiencing financial troubles.

We then turned our focus to finding a spot to stop for about a week that might have availability over Memorial Day weekend. Our contact at Oliver mentioned that the nearby Meriwether Lewis National Monument along the Natchez Trace had a primitive campground that he thought was free. So off we went to check it out.  And indeed it was free!   We enjoyed 6 nights of free camping in the forest, which gave us much needed catch up time on various work projects and relaxation. We even encountered another Oliver owner coming in for upgrades to their trailer.

Land Between The Lakes and back to St. Louis

We then started our journey back to the St. Louis area so we could help out with Chris’ grandma’s upcoming surgery and celebrate his mom’s birthday.  Leaving in time to try out our 2-night rule again, we built in time to camp along the way.  We selected Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, as it simply looked scenic on a map.  Our camp spot was a bit indulgent, as we opted for a waterfront spot – which came with unnecessary hookups.

Along our route we spotted these tall rock structures, and stopped in Bear Springs, TN to check one out. Some friendly locals pulled up and told us all about them. It was great fun to share travel stories and meet folks along back roads. The rock towers turned out to be furnaces, used in the late 1800s to melt iron for weapons and tools.

But we did enjoy another day to enjoy a gorgeous office view!

We then meandered around backroads in Illinois coming back to Columbia. Along the way we stumbled into The Chocolate Factory, who were tempting us with free kittens.  We thought better of bringing one of these cuties back as a birthday gift to Chris’ mom and instead brought her chocolates.

St. Louis

Back in St. Louis, Chris’ folks graciously offered to let us park our home in their park-like yard poolside.  Being able to stay in our own home while being temporary neighbors with his folks worked out to be a fantastic balance for us – and what a view we had!  Kiki loved bird watching and going for daily visits to see her Grandmeow and Aunt-dog Molly.

Chris’ grandma came through surgery with flying colors, we helped his folks switch from PC to Mac, attended a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game and caught up on some tech upgrades of our own.

All the while, we prepared for the next chapter of our adventure – a regional burning man event and taking a passenger for a midwest road trip.  That’s up next!

After weeks of no firm plans and trusting in nomadic serendipity to guide our journey through Arizona and New Mexico, after Carlsbad Caverns we were back on route to our next planned destination – Austin, Texas.

Austin is where Cherie grew up, and [...]]]>

Travelogue: Texas to St. Louis

Time period: April 24 – May 17, 2009
Miles Driven: 1593

After weeks of no firm plans and trusting in nomadic serendipity to guide our journey through Arizona and New Mexico, after Carlsbad Caverns we were back on route to our next planned destination – Austin, Texas.

Austin is where Cherie grew up, and her brother now lives – so it’s a frequent stop over point for us as we criss cross the country visiting friends and family.

Our specific timing for being in the area was to rendezvous with Cherie’s parents in nearby San Antonio for her father’s USS Robert E Lee SSBN-601 Submarine Reunion, which he organizes – and was finally stepping down as president.

Austin, Texas

Anxious to be stopped for a bit, we opted to violate our own intentions of only driving a few hours a day and made the drive from New Mexico into Austin in one day. It seemed the right thing to do after weeks of overwhelming beautiful and amazing views. The scenary in west Texas just can’t compare. So we got on I-10 and made good time getting into Austin in time for Tex-Mex food for dinner with Cherie’s brother, Ken and his wife, Kristina.

We stayed at McKinney Falls State Park in South Austin, which proved to be the perfect place to stay to be close by but on our own. It was beautiful, affordable and close to everywhere we needed to be. We spent the week catching up, meeting with other nearby Oliver Travel Trailer owners, socializing with Ken & Kristina in the evenings and Ken even took Chris rock climbing at the Barton Creek Greenbelt. Cherie’s parents arrived and came up to Austin for a family dinner, and they also got to meet Orion (our Oliver Travel Trailer) and Kiki for the first time.

New Braunsfels & San Antonio

And then we relocated down to New Braunsfels to Landa RV & Campground, where some of the NuRVer crowd was supposed to still be lingering, but they had all departed by the time we arrived. Oh well, we’ll catch up with them some time down the road. The advantage of staying here was that it was closer to San Antonio for attending and helping out at the reunion.

Cherie helped her father with organizing the troops for an Eternal Patrol Table Ceremony, as well as handing out awards. She even got to pin a ‘Submarine Angel’ on her mother – making mother and daughter the only submarine angels for the USS Robert E. Lee. Afterwards, Elvis hit on her mother during a performance.

East Texas Driving

From New Braunsfel, we started our northeastward trek towards spending time with Chris’ family up in St. Louis. We stopped in Round Rock for lunch with Digital Nomads moderator, Bill Bivins, and then overnighted near Lexington, TX at the property of another fellow Oliver Travel Trailer owner, Doug & Geneva. Awesome folks, and we have so appreciated the little community that the Oliver Forums have provided for us in our travels.

Eastward on, we decided to use our Texas State Park pass one more time, and overnighted at Martin Creek Lake State Park.

Louisiana and Arkansas

And then dipped into the northern corner of Louisana (just so we can mark it as a state visited this year, in case we don’t get back), and then decided to aim for making it into Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas.

We found ourselves at the beautiful Gulpha Gorge campground, and in the morning indulged ourselves in traditional baths the Buckstaff Bathhouse. It’s quite surreal to have a bath, scrub down by your attendant and a massage at a national park, and definitely an experience to remember. It was a strange combination of being in a hospital setting and being processed through the various steps, and being at a spa. We both came out relaxed and refreshed.

From Hot Springs, we took scenic highway 7 through the Ouachita National Forest. As dark approached for the evening, we saw a sign for a national forest campground along the Buffalo River and made a spontaneous decision to search it out. Down a dirt path we went, and in the darkness of both light and knowledge of what was ahead, it seemed to go on forever until we reached Erbie Campground. It was a full moon night and misty out, and we were all alone – quite enchanting! Kiki and Chris went out for an early morning hike down to the river.

St. Louis

And then it was onward into St. Louis the next day, arriving at Chris’ parents house where Kiki got to meet her Aunt-Dog-Molly for the first time. We caught up on more projects, had a second rendezvous with fellow technomad Ben Willmore as he was passing through, had concretes at Ted Drewes, explored Forest Park and Grants Farm.

All before the next leg of our adventure – starting with a trip down to the Oliver Travel Trailer factory in Hohenwald, TN.

With very few planned stops and knowing that Arizona and New Mexico were both full of amazing things to see, we opted to primarily follow Route 66 across these states, using the old highway as our guide.  We had both traveled across Arizona [...]]]>

Travelogue: Arizona & New Mexico

Time Period: April 9 – April 23, 2009
Miles Driven: 1255

With very few planned stops and knowing that Arizona and New Mexico were both full of amazing things to see, we opted to primarily follow Route 66 across these states, using the old highway as our guide.  We had both traveled across Arizona and New Mexico independently before, but aside from a brief crossing through the northeastern tip of New Mexico in our travels in 2007, it was the first time for us to explore these states together.  Our route, as it turned out, ended up looking a lot like the roadtrip that Cherie’s family took back in 1983.

Lake Havasu City, AZ

Our first destination in Arizona was to meet up with fellow Oliver Travel Trailer owners, Lisa, Wayne and Andrew.   They had extended an open invite to stop in whenever we got in town and stay as long as we like (our favorite kind of invitation!).

They turned out to be amazingly cool folks, and we ended up geeking out about our trailers, going off-road Jeeping, meeting lots of their fabulous friends, visiting the Desert Bar, and we tempting them to join us for Burning Man 2009.  We even introduced them to light painting after lessons from Ben Willmore the week prior. We  got out on our own a bit and visited THE London Bridge, which was purchased and rebuilt by the founder of Lake Havasu City.

On our way into town via Parker Arizona, we had our first encounter with someone stopping us in the street already knowing what an Oliver Travel Trailer was – and asked if we knew Jim & Evon Oliver, the owners of the company.  We had met Evon last year when we joined up with the Oliver Road Crew at the International Camel Races – but we had yet to meet Jim. We were excited to learn they had a home in Lake Havasu as well, and we might finally get to catch up with him.. and maybe even sneak a peak at the new 22′ Oliver Travel Trailer they had just built the first of!

And indeed we did.  The 22′ version is awesome, adds extra space and addresses a lot of the feature requests folks have had. It felt too big for our needs, but we were definitely impressed by it.  And we do lust after the 4 battery capacity it has.

Route 66

After leaving Lake Havasu, we back tracked a few miles westward to join up with the start of Route 66 in Arizona. There’s a section of about 60 miles between Golden Shores and Kingman that has been beautifully restored and maintained by the BLM, winding through the Black Mountains – and we figured that would be a fabulous way to start our Route 66 tour.

We overnighted on our new friend’s land outside of Hackberry Arizona, and it had an absolutely gorgeous view. We can’t wait to join them on a future group camping trip there.

The drive was beautiful, and we enjoyed checking out old forgotten towns along the way.

The Grand Canyon

We made a quick last minute decision to take a detour off of Route 66 and head on up to the Grand Canyon, since we were in the area anyway. We figured since it was mid-week, we stood decent odds of being able to find camping too. When we arrived, it started snowing – which was a very much unexpected treat for mid-April.

We ended up staying at Mather Campground in the Grand Canyon for two nights, as we had great data signals. It provided a good opportunity to catch up, relax, play in the snow and see some of the most amazing terrain on the planet.

Back to Route 66 in Arizona

After a brief respite in the Grand Canyon National Park, we rejoined Route 66 in Flagstaff but not first without discovering a beautiful traveler’s chapel called Chapel of the Holy Dove along the way.

Continuing eastward we stopped at Walnut Canyon National Monument to check out the cliffside housing ruins of the Sinaqua people, and then took a sunset drive through the Petrified Forest National Park before crossing into New Mexico.

New Mexico: Santa Fe & Albuquerque

We continued following Route 66 all the way to Santa Fe, even going across a section that has turned to gravel road. Wild horses even crossed our path. The emotions of actually driving on the crumbling old road were intense after seeing so many abandoned towns.

We first stopped in Santa Fe and stayed with our friend Bugs, who took us for a tour of the surrounding mountains. We also got to catch up with the couple who bought our T@B (the trailer we traveled in together in 2007) – it’s such a sweet story, he bought the trailer for his wife’s birthday as a surprise to be her mobile painting studio! After Santa Fe, we headed down to catch up with my dear friend Eve and her wife Kelli, and enjoyed a couple days camped on their new property. It was awesome to catch up.

White Sands & Carlsbad Caverns

Leaving Albuquerque, we made stops at Gran Quivira and Three Rivers Petroglyphs on our way to White Sands National Monument, which was overwhelmingly beautiful. Here you drive through a carved out path in the dunes, and then you can climb and play on them. We had great fun here, although Kiki didn’t know quite what to think of it.

And then we moved on to Carlsbad, NM, where we had a serendipitous rendezvous with other fellow Oliver Owners, Geri & Chuck who were on their way to workamp in the area. We had a great time meeting them, comparing trailers and dining together.

The next day, we toured Carlsbad Caverns – another spot that just can’t be missed. Cherie had toured it as a kid and remembered it being impressive – but not as impressive as it is now with life experience behind her.

After Carlsbad, we moved into Texas… where the adventures continued.

On the morning of March 22, 2009 we pulled up the jacks in South San Francisco, hitched up and made a mad dash out of California. Well, mad dash in a nomadic sense. We didn’t actually cross the border into Arizona for another [...]]]>

Travelogue: California Exodus

Time Period: March 22 – April 9, 2009
Miles Driven: 991

On the morning of March 22, 2009 we pulled up the jacks in South San Francisco, hitched up and made a mad dash out of California. Well, mad dash in a nomadic sense. We didn’t actually cross the border into Arizona for another 2 weeks. What follows is a condensed version of our amazing journey during that time.

Sacramento

Our first stop was Sacramento to visit with our dear friends, Lindsay & Sean. This is also where we keep our storage unit for all the stuff we don’t want to carry with us as we travel. We traded in our winter wardrobes for our spring attire, stocked up on SmartPower Energy Drink (which we currently have a pallet of) and left Chris’ paramotor gear behind.

Sean and Lindsay also gave us a tour around downtown Sacramento and showed us some of their favorite things.

Lonely Planet Travel Blogger Awards

Next up was back to the San Francisco area for the Lonely Planet Travel Blogger Awards. We had been invited to attend by our friend, Matthew Cashmore who was in from Australia to run the show. We had been enjoying many evenings hanging out with him. And we met a lot of great travel blogger folks at the awards.

We stayed at our friend Dawn’s place in San Leandro, and enjoyed lots of time hanging out with her daughter Allegra – who our kitten Kiki adores.

Pacific Coast Highway

And then we started heading south along the Pacific Coast Highway, with a stop in Santa Cruz to make a guest appearance on the radio show GeekSpeak.

And then south we went enjoying amazing coastal views the entire way!

Some of our stops included Morro Rock, an old bridge near Gaviota and overnighting at Thornhill Broome State Park along the beach.

Los Angeles

We had intentions of staying in Los Angeles for several days to visit with friends and Chris’ cousins. However, options for parking a trailer in Los Angeles are quite limited. Until we met Melanie of TravelsWithTwo at the Lonely Planet awards. She invited us to park at her place in Studio City, gave us a tour of the neighborhood and did a fun interview with us!

We ended up only staying for a very jam packed 24 hours in the area, which included a private music performance by Chris’ cousin’s band, Watson 66 and a tour of Paramount Studios.

Hemet

Our reason for staying on the west coast for so long was speak at the O’Reilly ETech conference in early March – where we met Victor. He invited us to stop in at his family’s ranch new Hemet if we were ever in the area. And so, there we were.  It was absolutely beautiful.

We met his wife Jennifer, his sister Helene and her boyfriend Sean as well as his parents. All amazing people who felt immediately like family, and they extended an open invite for us to stay as long as we like. However, we already had rendezvous plans with our friend and fellow technomad, Ben Willmore. As serendipity would have it, Helene mentioned she had met him at Photoshop World before. They extended an invite to have our convergence on the ranch, and Ben was quite agreeable to the idea.

So thus, we had a several day stay on the ranch – having lots of fun hiking, learning about sustainable off grid living and working on fun light painting/poi spinning photography projects. We even did a video interview with Ben to compare our technomadic lifestyles. Our stay kept getting extended in the fun of it all, until us technomads made a pact to leave together on Wednesday morning.

Joshua Tree

We then meandered through San Jacinto National Forest and descended into the oasis that is Palm Desert and into our last stop in California – an overnight and drive through Joshua Tree National Park. We arrived at sunset, which also happened to be the rise of a full moon over the mountainscape.

The drive in the morning through the park was gorgeous, and we saw lots of blooming desert flower. We then took Route 62 into Arizona, leaving California behind for now.

On the way up, we [...]]]> We recently did a quick trip up to Seattle so that I could teach a training class for one of my clients. We had to get back much quicker than we were originally planning, so that we could start on our new work contract back here in San Francisco.

On the way up, we of course stopped in Lebanon, OR and encountered Kiki, who joined us up in Seattle on a trial run to see how she did on the road.

It was a quick but fun trip, and we got to visit with many friends and see some great sights.

This being my third trip to Seattle, and having seen Mt. Rainier about 80% of my time in the area, I no longer believe the locals that they hardly ever see it. I love this image we captured after our training class – the cloud formation makes it look like Mt. Rainier is erupting (it wasn’t).

An old friend of ‘s, Samantha, who I had met once before in Tampa many years ago contacted me before our trip up and invited us to visit with her and her partner, Anita. They treated us to a wonderful home cooked meal, and then a fantastic walking tours of both the quirky little town of Fremont (complete with a troll and Lenin) and Seattle. They both rock, and it’s awesome to have friends in Seattle to tempt us back up there for a future extended trip.

After Seattle, we headed up to Camano Island, and visited with the original Technomad, Steve Roberts. It was too short of a visit to go see his newest creation, Nomadness, but I did get a tour of Nomadic Research Labs. The three of us had fun geeking out throughout the evening. I look forward to future longer visits.

We took two days to drive back down to the Bay Area – viewing Mt. Shasta for a second time.

We opted not to stop back in Lebanon, as we decided to invite Kiki to become part of Technomadia. Our Journey back to San Francisco was capped off with a brief visit to Sacramento to see Lindsay & Sean.

Now that we are parked in San Francisco and will be here through the end of the year, I present our routing map for our road travel in 2008.

The quick facts:

Left Florida: July 13, 2008
Days intentionally “homeless”: 171
Miles traveled: 9120

Now that we are parked in San Francisco and will be here through the end of the year, I present our routing map for our road travel in 2008.

The quick facts:

Left Florida: July 13, 2008
Days intentionally “homeless”: 171
Miles traveled: 9120
States visited: 17

The blue line represents our journey towing the T@b, and the red line represents our time since picking up the Oliver on July 30 in Hohenwald, TN. I only include miles actually in tow.

Combined with our 2007 Adventure, we have a total of 379 days on the road, 22,021 miles and 26 states visited together.

Due to popular demand, here are pictures of actual camels!

When we last left our technomadic adventurers, they had just completed 12 days at Burning Man 2008 and joined up with the Oliver Road Crew for the International Camel Races in Virginia City, NV.

From the Camel Races, we ventured on to Carson City to meet up again with the Oliver Road Crew for a couple of days to help them set up their new blog tracking their adventure of touring with a couple of demo Oliver Travel Trailers. (ahem… ORC folks, you need to continue updating it!)

We headed back to Reno to pick up the last remaining parts from our pre-warranty expiration visit to a Jeep Dealer. Nothing major, just didn’t want to let the warranty lapse without having everything looked over. And then we headed to Nevada City to meet up with a potential new client that we met at the Camel Races. We boondocked overnight in the Tahoe National Forest, after Chris did an incredible job of backing up a dirt road, uphill into an old miner’s wagon trail – where we found the one exact spot that was level. It was an amazing feat that was worth every ounce of effort for the view.

After our stay in Nevada City with our gracious host, we headed on into Sacramento for some de-playafication with our intentional family and homebase with Lindsay and Sean. We did lots of laundry, repacked the Jeep and Orion and got everything back out of Burning Man mode. We attended the Tamale Festival as well as toured art on the streets of downtown Sacramento during the ‘Second Saturdy’ event. We had a generally awesome time hanging out with these awesome people.

One evening, Lindsay called us after her workday in need of a substitute bowler on her league team – so Chris and I rushed over and filled in the gap. I hadn’t bowled much at all since my days as a child league bowler (yes, I will now admit my secret past as a bowler, which I think scared Chris a bit when he found out). I did pretty decently, and had an absolute blast.

(Note the jeans I’m wearing – Haven’t been able to fit into them since my hysterectomy back in February..woohoo!)

After Sacramento, it was off to House Weirdness ( and ) in San Leandro for a few nights, where there was a nomadic convergence of sorts happening and we got to hang out more with and meet the lovely .

Our first outing was the quarterly All Night Dance Celebration (ANDC), which had a pajama dress code this time around. Lindsay had loaned me an adorable leopard print nightgown, that I wore with some other things from my wardrobe. And Chris looked absolutely smashing in his silks.

This was followed by an amazing weekend of socializing before Chris and I headed to the hills overlooking San Leandro to Anthony Chabot Regional Park. It was beautiful and remote there, even if only 3 miles from where we were. We stayed up there three nights, mostly relaxing and catching up. Aside from a visit from , we stayed pretty much out of physical contact with other humans. The campground is very beautiful, but unfortunately the cellular connectivity was a bit sketchy even with our uber cell phone booster system. We scoped out some potential other sites that may be better for future stays in the park.

And then we moved to Woodside on the other side of the Bay, where had invited us to crash. Little did we know that the room she is subletting is part of a huge lot where a 75′ sailboat is being constructed by the owner of the house. He’s been working on the project for nearly 30 years, and it is arguably the most impressive thing I have seen. It’s mind boggling, and we’re parked right underneath it. made an awesome post about the boat during our tour of it over the weekend by the craftsman complete with pictures.

This past weekend has been much fun with more socializing and fun events that included a ‘Flavor Tripping’ beta test for a party that is hosting soon, a pool party at our host’s home, a tour of TechShop, more social partying and Sunday at Folsom Street Fair.

TechShop was really interesting to explore. Imagine you could construct your dream workshop with every tool and building toy imaginable. Now, imagine that you didn’t have to pay to assemble said workshop and could instead just pay for access to it. And you get the incredible coolness that is TechShop. invited us to join him for his scheduled time on the lasercutting machine and told us to bring something to play with. Inspired by his uber cool jeans he created there, I brought a pair of my jeans and he converted my jeans into artwork in mere minutes:

On Sunday, we joined up again with Matt in downtown San Francisco for Folsom Street Fair. I had never been, but considered it something I just had to experience once in my life as part of the awesomeness that is San Francisco. It’s a street fair dedicated to the gay man’s leather community, and, well.. there is lots of leather, lots of gay men and lots of general sexual openness. It was really cool. (I am so totally dragging to this next year!)

After FSF, Chris and I headed to the Rhythm Society Friend’s Meet, who host the All Night Dance Celebration as well as many other cool spiritually infused dance events, and became an offical ‘Friend’, thanks to my sponsor Peter. It feels really cool to be officially part of that community that I’ve been flirting around the edges of for a year or so now. It’s a perfect spiritual expression and community that I have been feeling a desire for in my life for years. And perhaps even more impressive, I managed to do yoga postures in my leather corset dress I was still wearing post-Folsom.

Monday was a very hectic day of moving Chris’ storage unit from San Francisco to Sacramento – there was much public transit goodness and heavy lifting involved. And we did it one day.

For a man who espouses the ‘Stuff is an Anchor’ philosophy, I just gotta say – he has too much stuff for a nomad!!

So, that catches us up until now.

We currently await word from the Obama Campaign, as we have applied to volunteer until election day in anyway we can best contribute. We may be relocating to Nevada (a swing state) for the month of October. Our stay in the Bay Area is on a day-to-day basis until we hear otherwise.

On Saturday, we did a brewery tour at Annheiser-Busch.

Charter Cable to get cable hooked up at Chris’ parents place.. we did get out and have a chance to be tourists!

On Saturday, we did a brewery tour at Annheiser-Busch.

It was very cool, but I must admit – after the frustrations with Charter, the free beer samples were much appreciated.

After the free beer, we drove around a bit and came across the Soulard Farmer’s Market, which was started in 1779. We browsed around it for a while, and scored 8 kiwis for 50 cents, 3 avocados for a dollar, a delicious pineapple for a buck ninety and two pairs of fuzzy socks for five bux.

And then it was on to the famous Ted Drewes for concretes (a frozen custard mixed with fun stuff.. sorta like what DQ tries to replicate with a blizzard). I had the Cindermint.. very yummy!

On Sunday, we joined Chris’ Aunt S and Uncle S for a day of exploring the City Museum. Let me preface this by saying that the name ‘City Museum’ may give one a different impression of what you’re about to experience.

It’s a museum showcasing found stuff around the city (old bridges, airplanes, building materials) and such – and put together in a unique, artistic and interactive ways. It’s much better described as being a year round midwest embassy for Burning Man.

It’s entirely interactive.. and not just press-buttons interactive. More like: crawl around inside 5 story tall wire tubes and slide down 3 story tall spiral slides, crawling through mounted open airplanes that exit into castles, explore the inner funky caverns constructed in the middle of the building, watch teams of bouncy circus performers, find hidden cool shops and bars and such. Kinda like a human habitrail that had to be conceived while tripping on something. It’s art! It’s imagination! It’s incredible construction, architecture and vision. It’s the ultimate in reuse philosophy. It’s a playground, and adults can play too!

Words, pictures or stories really can not convey the awesomeness of this place. If we ever settle down somewhere, renting a loft in this building would be *so* cool!

Oh, and the best part.. City Museum is host to the official Midwest Spatula Museum:

After the City Museum, we had the best pizza ever at Feraro’s New Jersey Style Pizza. And it got even better cold for breakfast this morning.

(As always, click on thumbnails to see larger versions of the pictures on Flickr, and I do have more photos posted there that I don’t include in the travelogue.)

When Chris and I were doing research on the best states to set up residency for tax and voting [...]]]> All photos hosted on my Flickr Technomadic Adventure Set – click any thumbnail for larger versions, comments always welcomed. I also usually upload more photos to Flickr than I include in my travelouges.

When Chris and I were doing research on the best states to set up residency for tax and voting purposes while being nomadic, South Dakota stood out as being very attractive. Only 3% excise tax to register new vehicles, low annual fees, no inspections, no state income tax, low insurance rates and no requirement to actually be in the state except to pick-up your driver’s license. And many companies in South Dakota have set up mail forwarding services just for ‘full timers’ that help handle a lot of things remotely (like registering vehicles).

So all of these factors eventually outweighed the hesitancy of setting up residency in somewhere non-exotic sounding like South Dakota, and on we proceeded with virtually moving Chris there back in July. The only thing left to do was pick up a driver’s license within 90 days, so thus our trek eastward began back in early September. Chris had more immediate needs to set up residency than I did.. being a California resident with a new vehicle to register. I still own a house in Florida with a homestead exemption, and Florida is on the list of top states to set up residency in if you’re nomadic.. so I’ll stay there for now.

We usually get raised eyebrows when we tell folks that Chris is ‘moving’ to South Dakota. I’m guessing, like us, they don’t have much prior experience with the state to go from and have it classed as a ‘good place to be from.’ I know I wasn’t much looking forward to having to visit South Dakota even once, and we planned our trip for Chris to stop in Rapid City, the city closest to the southwest corner of the state with a DMV so we could just bounce in and out quickly.

We arrived in South Dakota almost two weeks ago, and we haven’t left yet.

Rapid City

As we were arriving, I researched our camping options. After a month of being on the constant go with no more than 3 nights in any one spot – we were both craving some down time. I found rave reviews of Mystery Mountain Resort on Hwy 16 between Rapid City and Mt. Rushmore – it sounded like our style. And when we arrived, my online intuition proved right. Friendly staff, well maintained, acres and acres of woods, laundry center and wifi. And, we were maybe one of three folks camped there. All the beauty of state and national parks, with the amenities of a private park.. perfect for an extended stay. We got a deal on a weekly rate, and put up camp. And to our delight, there was a cat hanging around who loved getting snuggles in the evenings.

Our week there was so peaceful, recharging and relaxing. We caught up on work and were productive, ventured into Rapid City a few times for dinner, movies, shopping and strolling. A great little city with all the essentials but not too big. And being still for a little bit was such a treat. Mostly we just ‘lived’ and didn’t make efforts to go and see things. We used rainy weather as a perfect opportunity to extend our stay a few more days.

In our time, we did some exploring around the Black Hills.

Mt. Rushmore

I was expecting this to be a somewhat obligatory American tourist destination. It was actually quite impressive.. more so than I was prepared for. The artistry, the dedication to the project, the vision and the representation of the changing times during when it was built all gave some beautiful ties into American history and cultural climate of the 1920s and 30s.

Chris took some amazing night shots, that I hope he’ll post and share later.

Custer State Park

This park is just south of Mt. Rushmore and contains Sylvan Lake (which had been recommended by several people) and Needle’s Highway, winding it’s way through impressive cathedral like rock formations. Some of the roads also were built to give great views of Mt. Rushmore. And we even had our path blocked by a herd of.. donkeys. Yes. Donkeys.

A beautiful drive, and it had me craving a small car or motorcycle to experience it with. I can see why thousands flock to nearby Sturgis to bike in this area.

Eastward through south South Dakota: Wall drug and Badlands

We then headed eastward and decided to stop in the famous Wall Drug, where you too can get FREE ICE WATER! This midwest icon used to be a failing pharmacy that turned into a stopping point for road travelers on their way to Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone to get some water, ice cream and stock up on supplies. It’s now a huge roadside tourist spot, complete with jackelopes and animatronic T-rex dinosaurs. Bizarre.

And then, the Badlands, which were named exactly because they were bad lands to cross.

But beautiful and other worldly lands indeed.

Eastward and ‘stuck’ in Madison

We overnighted in Pierre, intending to head up to Hwy 12 for our eastward trek into Minneapolis. In the morning however, we noticed that staying on 34 would take us through Madison – which is where Chris’ mail forwarding service, My Dakota Address is located. And since we knew we had some Netflix movies and checks waiting for us, we decided to use the opportunity to stop in and pick up our mail, meet the staff and actually step foot in Chris’ new hometown.

We pulled into Madison mid-afternoon and met the awesome Teri, and picked up our mail. We were starting to contemplate where we might overnight, and as we were pulling out – we noticed Jeep’s check engine light was on again. And the transmission was acting funky. A quick look online showed that there was a 5-star Jeep dealership, Prostrollo Auto Mall, just literally around the corner.

Nomadic Serendipity?

We pulled up, explained our situation to the service representative, Dale. He had his mechanics run a diagnostic and determined that the transmission was indeed starting to have problems. He was so considerate of our traveling situation and plans to get to Minneapolis, and said that we might make it there, but there was a good chance of the transmission getting burned up and us being stranded along the way. But the repairs would take likely until Tuesday to be completed, and he was afraid it might interrupt our weekend plans. Not wanting to take a chance of getting stranded and our plans of socializing could be rescheduled, I asked if he had recommendations for places to camp locally. A few moments later he came back with some campgrounds he had called around on our behalf to see what was open, and an offer of a loaner car for the time we’d be in town without Jeep.

Wow. Was this real? He called around for us? Loaner car without begging for it?

What a complete contrast to our experience with Great Valley Jeep in Sacramento, who we couldn’t even get to return a phone call for a week to get a status update, and refused our request of a loaner vehicle.

So, we set up camp last night at a beautiful campground on a lake on the outskirts of town, that amazingly still has the bathhouse/showers open (so many close down after Oct 1 in the north), with a very friendly staff. It’s simply beautiful here, and we’re soaking in the charm and friendliness of a small town.

Speaking of which, nomadic serendipity just arrived.. Teri from My Dakota Address just dropped off firewood and a town paper for us. And our requisite trailer kitty just appeared.

And I will never again have any shame in my voice when we tell folks that our residency is in South Dakota. It’s a beautiful and friendly state I’m proud to be linked to.

Yellowstone National Park

We stayed in Yellowstone for two nights, and spent two days exploring around. It is truly other-worldy there – mud volcanoes, steam vents, geysers and all sorts of other gloopy colorful [...]]]> On our way to South Dakota, we decided to pass through Wyoming and visit some places recommended by Chris’ dad.

Yellowstone National Park

We stayed in Yellowstone for two nights, and spent two days exploring around. It is truly other-worldy there – mud volcanoes, steam vents, geysers and all sorts of other gloopy colorful things venting stinky gases. All the pictures in the world can’t capture the full experience your five senses get to experience in this unique part of the world – smells, textures, sounds, sights and tastes (hot cocoa!).

The wildlife there is abundant – we saw herds of buffalo (side note, did you know that ‘Buffalo buffalo Buffalo’ is a complete sentence?), elk, birds and I even spotted a wolf. There’s massive formations made by seeping minerals, snowy mountains, amazing waterfalls (with closed bathrooms), and miles and miles of roads and hiking trails. There’s even villages located throughout the park with camping, hotels, restaurants, stores and my favorite – hot chocolate! I came in prepared to be all primitive like – fighting bears off with sticks, living off the grid and having no communications. Quite the surprise.

Definitely put Yellowstone on your to-see list.. and do yourself a favor. Give yourself more than 2 days to explore it. I’m definitely looking forward to coming back, and Chris and I are even tempted to explore doing seasonal work there sometime.

Bighorn Canyon National Recreational Area

We took the East exit towards Cody, Wyoming out of Yellowstone. Caught up on some work projects during the day in Cody, then headed north up to Bighorn Canyon National Recreational Area – as suggested by Chris’ dad. And wow, I need to buy the man a beer when we get to St. Louis.. it was absolutely beautiful! And free campground all to ourselves overlooking massive red cliffs and water to boot.

We spent the evening huddled in Tab as a massive thunderstorm blew through with strong cold winds that kept us swaying all night. In the morning, we crossed northwards into Montana one last time to see Devil’s Overlook – the massive canyons in the picture above.

‘Scenic’ Byways and Devil’s Tower

We did a long day of driving eastward through the very scenic Wyoming. We took 14A – a scenic backcountry byway – across most of the state. A very twisty, windy road that goes through a 10,000 ft mountain pass. I’m sure it was quite beautiful, but unfortunately we had very low hanging clouds causing foggy conditions. So much of our view of the drive was like this:

We did get to notice the really cool red roads.

And then it was onwards to northeastern Wyoming, where we passed our 10,000 mile mark for our journey. To commerate the milestone, I have started a journey route map that shows where we’ve been since leaving Florida together on May 10, 2007:

Our last evening in Wyoming was at the nation’s first national monument – Devil’s Tower.

Recognize the formation? Yup, that’s the mountain that was in 1977 movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Unfortuantely, we didn’t have that movie with us, so instead we watched Spies Like Us after we got into camp. Eeeks.. I can’t believe I ever thought that was a good movie.

We did a hike around Devil’s Tower in the morning before heading out.

After a yummy lunch (and more hot chocolate) at the Ponderosa Cafe and Bar in Hulett (highly recommended).. we crossed into Chris’ new ‘home’ state for the first time. It’s also the first state that we’ve been to where neither of us has been before. We’ve set up camp near Rapid City, and will likely stay here for a week or so. We’ve got some business to take care of, including getting Chris his driver’s license to complete his residency.

And it’s good to have the stabilizers down for a bit.

We [...]]]> For a little over a week now, Chris and I have been working our way eastward, following the Lewis and Clark trail, at least as far as Montana. It’s been an amazing adventure, and I have added 4 new states that I had never been to before – Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

We headed east out of Portland, working our ways through the Columbia Gorge – which is some stunning scenery. We stopped and saw and played in waterfalls – even some (Multnomah Falls) that could easily have passed as a set for Lord of the Rings.

We overnighted 3 nights along the gorge – two of them at John Day Dam on the Washington side of the gorge. It’s an Army Corp of Engineers campground – and free. I have come to believe, after staying in a variety of campgrounds – that the free ones tend to be the most amazing in terms of scenery and privacy. We had a stunning private landing, watching ships pass our campsite. And we had an awesome internet connection to boot – making it a great place to use to catch up on work.

From there, we stopped to see Stonehenge. No, not that Stonehenge. This is scale replica of what Stonehenge might have looked like before it decayed, that was built as a war memorial near Maryhill, Washington. Or you could go by my story.. I’m a genie and I restored Stonehenge back to its original condition with a blink.

We briefly crossed back in Oregon before heading into southeastern Washington, stopping in Walla Walla and overnighting at a small state campground. This area of the country is so vastly different than the gorge – fields of caramel and chocolate, reminding me of a marble cake.

And then we were onwards into Idaho, passing through the Clearwater National Forest, which we overnighted in. I had only one image of Idaho in my head – which was fields of potatoes. So the mountains and forests really amazed me. And I didn’t see a single potato.. however, we did find a drive-up soft serve ice cream shack before entering the forest. I love nomadic serendipity.

After a night deep in the forests of Idaho, we crossed into Montana. We worked our way across the western part of the state, overnighting outside of Missoula and then Butte. We actually paid for a commercial campground with hook-ups outside of Butte – as we broke a battery cable while in the Clearwater Forest that we repaired in Missoula, so the batteries were not getting recharged. For the first time since June, we had to actually plug in to top off our batteries (we usually get our power from our solar panel and while driving).

All topped off and rested, we started our trek southward towards Yellowstone as snow flurries started to sprinkle the tops of the surrounding mountains. We overnighted on the way at Harrison Lake – a campground that I had little information to go by to find. Really quite beautiful to wake up to in the morning – particularly watching a flock of birds fly overhead.

And then it was south down 287, passing through Ennis and enjoying an antique soda fountain for lunch (real vanilla creme soda… yum). We were stopped along the route by a herd of cows being wrangled by cowgirls in the street.

This afternoon, we crossed into Wyoming and the western entrance into Yellowstone National Park. This afternoon we have seen so much wildlife.. elk, buffalo, bear, ostrich and even a fox. (There was a warning notice in our entry package into the park that read “Warning: Many visitors have been gored by buffalo”.. gulp.. we’re not in Disney!)

We made our way north to the Mammoth Hot Springs village, and found plenty of camp spots available – and an astonishing high speed data cellular connection. This evening we climbed the terrace around a hot spring deposit site, and the found the grill in the village and enjoyed a nice hot cup of hot cocoa. I never anticipated that camping in Yellowstone would be so luxurious.

We may just stay in Yellowstone a couple days and explore around.

On our way back from Reno, we stopped in Sacramento at Lindsay and Sean’s for a couple of days to get things washed and repacked. [...]]]> I looked at the calendar this morning and realized that September is almost over, and I haven’t posted much at all about our travels since Burning Man. So, here goes…

On our way back from Reno, we stopped in Sacramento at Lindsay and Sean’s for a couple of days to get things washed and repacked. As always, an awesome visit with those two. On Thursday, we headed into the Bay Area and stayed in San Leandro to pick up some stuff we had shipped to meet up with us. And then on Friday, we relocated to the South Bay so that we could carpool in with our friend Dave to the Singularity Summit for the weekend.

The Summit was fabulous.. an amazing amount of brain power and focus on Artificial General Intelligence.

Above is a picture of Eliezer Yudkowsky presenting the three differing definitions of the Singularity. Unfortunately, this is the only picture of the summit that came out with any clarity – so I don’t have good pictures to share of the many other fabulous presenters. But I can say, the summation of the the summit that I walked away with is that when we go into the Singularity, AGIs will get bored with us humans and eat the planet on their way out of here. So.. enjoy life while you can *grin*. The other pic is of Chris looking all smart-like as we discussed the summit with Dave during our lunch break on the grasses of the Palace of the Fine Arts.

After the summit, we stuck around in the Bay Area for a couple extra days for a business meeting. Yes folks, Chris and I are working on our first major contract together.. as nomads, no less! Woo-hoo. It’s been a lot of fun meshing brain waves with him to do the research for this and write our technical papers. And it’s really nice to have some funding and biodiesel money.

After the meetings, we headed up the coast with a stop in Benicia for one last stay over with our SmartPower drink friends, Mark and Min. It was awesome to visit with them, hopefully helped get them situated in some great places that can get them more market distribution and stocked up on a few cases ourselves. We are leaving the SmartPower region afterall.. and we have gone on rationing.

And then.. we left the Bay Area for a while, heading up 101 with a goal of being to Portland by September 21st. We loaded up with a tank of B100 biodiesel in Hopland on the way out.. and on we went, releasing french fry smelling emissions in our wake.

We stayed in a couple of Redwood parks on our way up the coast in Northern California. Absolutely stunning. And then we crossed into Oregon.. our first new state in our journey in months! There is something special about Oregon, you feel as soon as you cross the state line – from the flower landscaped ‘Welcome’ sign, to the uber friendly road signs to friendlier drivers and a general shift in attitude in the people you stop to talk to. So warm, inviting and friendly.

And the coast of Oregon? Simply breathtaking. We made a stop in Bandon overnight to stay with the folks of Poly Pots (there is no kidding with the ‘many pots’ there… their house was covered with many pots they handmake and sell), who had invited us to stop in on our travels. Delightful people, and it was amazing to watch them work on their art form.

Next, more driving along the coast and many stunning views. I was also on a mission to stop at Yaquina Head Lighthouse, just north of Newport for my father. We were on our way to meet them in Portland for the reunion of the submarine my father served on in the 1960s, which my father also happens to be the organizer of. As part of the awards banquet, he always gifts my mother with a lighthouse (as, she’s a major lighthouse nut). When they were scoping out Oregon to host the reunion at, they did a romantic night in Newport to see Yaquina Head, but it was shut down for renovations. So, he had us stop and pick up a statue of the lighthouse as her gift. Beautiful lighthouse.

From Newport, we took Highway 20 eastwards towards Lebanon, for a stop over on a former Rhea Ranch that now just has llamas, chickens and bunnies on it. It’s owned by a friend of Chris’, Martha – and it was an absolutely delightful stay to get a taste of more rural Oregon for the week. Many great conversations, and an instant feeling of welcoming and being part of an extended family. Martha also gifted me with some great clothing.. better than going to a thrift store .

After visiting Martha’s ranch, we headed northwards towards Portland to rendezvous with my parents and my brother and his wife who had flown in from Texas to be there as well. A long overdue family reunion.. and a chance for my family to get to know Chris better.

The reunion was amazing, as always. My father pulled out all the stops, organized many great ceremonies, included active service submariners from a local base and really touched a lot of the veterans who attended. And I was once again honored to be able to help out in making the reunion happen.

We also got to tour the SS-581 Blueback, that was at the OMSI in Portland with my family.. lots of fun!

And now.. we’re making our way eastward towards South Dakota. We just picked up a brand new digital camera – a FujiFilm FinePix F50SE, and here’s the first picture of us camped in Cascade Mountains this morning:

So.. last I updated, we were at Lake Meredith in Fritch, TX – which was a [...]]]> One thing I’m noticing about nomadic life, is that the days start to blur together and I really loose track of what day it is. I was relieved last night when I realized it was Thursday, not Friday.

So.. last I updated, we were at Lake Meredith in Fritch, TX – which was a spectacular location. We actually considered staying there for another night, but thought we should get a move on westward as our desired date of arrive in California is quickly approaching.

So, onwards into New Mexico we went. I loved watching the terrain change the further west we went. We got past the border after a lunch at Red’s Drive-In while still in Texas. We stopped in Clayton, NM for a stop at the traveler’s center for recommendations on where to overnight. It looked like a storm was brewing, and we were not inclined to drive through it. We were pointed towards Clayton Lake State Park just 15 miles away, and we headed out that way – watching the storm approach in the distance. We arrived, and we were the only ones in the non-electric section and took a spot furthest away from anyone. We road out the storm in Tab, and then when it passed there was still plenty of daylight for a hike out to the advertised dinosaur prints by the dam. I’m not convinced they’re anything other than holes in the ground.. but what the heck. It’s apparently the best collection of dinosaur tracks on the planet.

In the morning I woke to the most amazing sunrise out our window, and the winds were gusting. Forecasts where predicting steady 35-45 mph winds with 60 mph gusts. We headed on with our plans, taking the ‘short cut’ out of the park – which lead us down dirt roads in NE New Mexico. It was a challenge to navigate through, given that half the roads that Streets & Trips routed us down didn’t exist. But, we found a way through and visited Capulin Volcano. We went to the top and hiked the perimeter in the high winds.. which was quite an experience.

And then it was onwards. Our mileage indicator showed that we had well over 100 miles on the tank – and the nearest city was about 50. No problem we thought. Except that the stiff cross winds greatly reduced our mileage. We ended up pulling into Rotan, NM with just under a gallon of diesel left and the indicator reading zero for the last 7 miles. The winds were brutal and exhausting to drive through, and every time a big rig would pass us we’d shift over a couple feet. Scary.

We got some lunch in town and then decided to find campgrounds not too far out. There was no way we were making it into Salida – which was still a good 4 hours out. We wanted to avoid the interstate so that we could go at our own pace, so routed up a back way down ‘Old Rotan Pass Road’ through the mountains. Beautiful dirt road.. until it ended in a wall of boulders. Grrr. So we backtracked to the interstate – but not before having a wild black bear cross right in front of us!! Amazing.

Up north into Colorado, and across the Highway of Legends. We overnighted in Purgatoire Campgrounds in the San Isabel National Forest. Hardly anyone there, the camp host greeted us and warned us of a bear that had been hanging out near the campground. At dusk, we decided to take a quick stroll around the campgrounds to stretch our legs, and as we were rounding the corner – I spotted the bear not more than 50 ft off. I stopped Chris, and hung still. The bear stood up (to smell) – which was amazing to see in the ‘wild’. It noticed us and turned around to head back up the mountain it came from. Thankfully, we were nearby a restroom so we had shelter nearby if things had gone differently. But wow.. two wild bears in one day!!

The night was rough with all the gusty winds bouncing us about, but we were up and moving fairly early and headed on north towards Salida. We took some gorgeous roads up with incredible Rocky Mountain views, and even saw buffalo roaming in a refuge. We’ve also spotted several deer, chipmunks, birds, bunnies and more. It’s been like our own little southwestern safari!

We arrived in Salida yesterday afternoon to visit with Teresa and Andrew, and decided to put up camp in the RV park they’re staying at near Cotopaxi while they house hunt. We’re off on our own, down in a basin right on the banks of the raging Arkansas River. We even had white water rafters zoom by earlier. It’s breathtakingly beautiful here, and it’s nice to not be in motion today.

We’ll leave out sometime tomorrow and start a pretty direct route, aiming to arrive in Sacramento by Thursday.

I’ve never really been to much of the midwest, besides Chicago and Champaign, IL before. And honestly, I really never previously had much of a desire to visit them – hearing less than exciting tales from friends who grew [...]]]> When last we left our technomadic adventurers, they were heading out of Atlanta towards St. Louis…

I’ve never really been to much of the midwest, besides Chicago and Champaign, IL before. And honestly, I really never previously had much of a desire to visit them – hearing less than exciting tales from friends who grew up or lived there. So we passed through Tennessee, with stops in Chattanooga and Nashville. We cut through Kentucky under the dark of night, so unfortunately I didn’t get to see much of that. And then we crossed through Illinois, arriving at Chris’ folks house outside of St. Louis around 3am – arriving to a very excited mom who had been waiting up for our arrival.

I have to admit, I had low expectations for St. Louis upon my arrival. I had an impression of it being old, crime ridden and nothing of note other than an arch. The last week has totally changed my opinion. I experienced several firsts during my visit – from first tastes of food, adventures and baseball!

Thursday – Columbia, IL

On Thursday, Chris’ mom gave us a tour of their suburban town of Columbia, IL, ending the day with dinner at their country club to celebrate her upcoming 60th birthday, along with Chris’ grandma. I got a tour of their beautiful home, which is on a large lot with a pristine garden that was on par with living in a park. It was a gorgeous environment for working with my wireless connection outside in the shade.

I also got to try roped provel cheese, apparently a St. Louis area speciality. It was super yummy on the salad we had for lunch.

Friday – St. Louis, MO

After working most of the morning, Chris, his mom and I went into St. Louis where they showed off Forrest Park – an uber cool park with lots of free community resources. Including a zoo, amphitheater, museums and more. We went to the zoo, which was awesome and totally amazing that it’s completely free. They had one of the best penguin exhibits that I’ve been to – very open, and the penguins come right up to you. I even got drenched by one.

After the zoo, I got a tour of Chris’ college – Washington University. We then hooked up with Chris’ super cool aunt and uncle who just moved into a loft in downtown St. Louis that used to be a shoe warehouse. They have an awesome view, including the old AT&T building that was filmed in Ghostbusters that the Stay Puff Marshmallow man climbed. We had wine, and then dinner at a quirky Mexican/Cuban patio restaurant with wonderfully cheesy live music. It was super yummy. After dinner we went to the famous Route 66 destination of Ted Drewes Frozen Custard. The crowds gathered there were unbelievable.. but I can see why, it was very yummy.

Saturday – Monday – Lake of the Ozarks

Saturday morning, we picked up Chris’ grandma and headed towards her lakehouse in Lake of the Ozarks, where Chris’ father was already down at for a reunion. We also joined another aunt and uncle for the weekend. It was totally stunning there, and we had such a relaxing time. We had an awesome view from our bedroom. Chris’ uncle had brought down his Sea Doo, and I had my first experience with a personal watercraft. It was super cool fun, and I even got the guts up to take it out on my own. Zoom!!!!

Other notable things from lake: I got to spin fire and LEDs for his family and Chris got some amazing shots with the lake behind me, dinner with his parents on our last evening with lots of live music and just lots of quality time getting to know his family.

Tuesday – St. Louis

Tuesday was getting ready to hit the road again – including scraping love bugs off of Tab & Jeep from our FL exodus, doing laundry and restocking things. After that, Chris’ dad dropped us off in St. Louis with the super cool aunt. We hung out with her for the afternoon getting a tour of downtown St. Louis. We visited the city museum and the arch and had a great walking tour (my favorite way to tour a city).

After an great sushi dinner, we joined up with Chris’ parents at Busch Stadium for my very first baseball game. What an amazing experience – the energy of the crowds, the fireworks, the beer (and drinking games we played) and the whole atmosphere was wonderful to take in. The Cardinals won (beating out the Pittsburg Pirates) – making this the perfect ending to my introductory visit to St. Louis.

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I’m highly impressed with St. Louis and it has been added to my list of all time favorite cities. I’m also grateful for the opportunity for so much quality time with Chris and getting to know his family.

Wednesday – Transit to stop-over in Oklahoma

We left out of St. Louis Wednesday morning, heading southwest towards Oklahoma. We overnighted just west of Tulsa in Prue, at Walnut Creek State Park on the Osage Indian Reservation. We rendezvoused with who was in Oklahoma visiting family. It had been two years since I had seen her during my visit to NC after she had major surgery. It was wonderful technomadic serendipity that we were able to arrange the rendezvous, and we had a very pleasant evening catching up at our waterfront campsite along Keystone Lake.

Thursday – Transit to Austin

And now we’re heading south towards Austin – where we’ll be staying with my brother and his wife for the next weekish.