This past weekend while hanging out with our new friends, and soon-to-be-nomads, Brice & Rose of Tacky Texans - we decided to stop by the Cathedral of Junk in south Austin.

You’ll know you’ve arrived to the Cathedral of Junk when you spot a car on the roof of a house, and obviously displeased neighbors displaying ‘Keep off the Grass’ signs.

Park, be respectful of the neighbors – and then spend the next few moments of your life reminiscing as you see toys, electronics, signs, bikes and more from your past artfully constructed into a cathedral integrated in with the natural landscape.

Starting with a few hubcaps on the fence in 1989, over 800 bikes and thousands of specially donated items have been puzzled and wired together.   An ongoing project, the Cathedral continues to evolve.

Vince Hannemann is the yardist behind this monolithic collection of junk – he owns the yard that the cathedral has sprung from and has been working on the project for over 20 years. An inspired artist, not all that unlike Leonard Knight of Salvation Mountain, Vince claims to be ‘not as friendly’. We didn’t find him be necessarily unfriendly either.

The cathedral is well constructed – this really isn’t just a pile of junk. It’s wired together and built for full on interaction with winding paths, ladders to upper floors and various chambers. And in the case of a tornado tearing through the neighborhood, it’s quite likely the Cathedral will be the only thing left standing.

View our video tour of the Cathedral of Junk (click for those on RSS/e-mail)

(By the way, this HD video and many of the photos in this post were taken with my ultra compact Canon PowerShot SD780 – which I got back in July and am still totally loving.)

Some of the neighbors aren’t so amused however, and are trying their darnedest to create as many hoops as possible for the Cathedral to jump through. Their latest is involving the city of Austin for code enforcement – and presently the Cathedral has been granted only days to come up to compliance or face bulldozing. At present time, they have an April 9, 2010 deadline to file the necessary permits.

This would truly be a loss to the weirdness that Austin is – and many volunteers from the local community have come together to bring the Cathedral entirely up to code.  Vince is also seems fairly confident that his community can come up with funding to buy the displeased neighbors out and be able to sell the properties at full market value to enthusiasts of the Cathedral who would better appreciate the attraction.

Inspired like we were by this monumental art project?  Click on through to savethejunk.org to track the latest in the battle, and see how you can help out.

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April 17, 2010 Update: The Cathedral of Junk continues to meet challenges.. potentially terminal ones.  Not only is Vince trying to jump through hoops to meet code regulations, he is also now faced with possible zoning regulations.  Austin City Council has said it is open to hearing citizen feedback as to whether the zoning regulations need to be clarified to allow this treasure to continue to exist.  Write them now to have your voice heard!

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 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.

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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.

Though these events have traditionally been very distinct, the no-longer-appropriately-named “Strictly Sail” has unfortunately now been devoured by the vastly larger powerboat focused Miami International Boat Show. To our disappointment, there were only two docks featuring sailboats at the show. And to make matters worse, the two docks were 1.5 miles apart – requiring a trip on a water taxi (that ran just once an hour?!!?) or a shuttle bus trip to get between them.

Nevertheless, we had a great time checking out boats and the expo on Saturday, and on Sunday spending a day attending the Strictly Sailing seminars.

Here are some of the highlights:

The Miami International Boat Show was huge – filling up every nook and cranny of the Miami Beach Convention Center and a vast area outdoors as well. We couldn’t have seen it all if we had spent all five days at the show. And since we were eager to get to the sailboats, we ended up not staying long at the main expo area at all.

We did check out practical things for our current RV life as well as our future boating aspirations, such as folding bikes and inflatable kayaks:

And some rather odd items, like a floating dog (why not for cats?) bed and an “instant” wine chiller:

There was also lots of cool gadgetry to be found, such as dive masks with integrated cameras, and solar powered refrigerators:

I was really pleased to see so much “green” technology on display at the show, particularly in the separate expo area targeting sailors. In sharp contrast to the RV Show that we went to last month, here we found lots of solar panels, LED lighting, wind generators, and more.

The expo areas was fun, but the real reason we were at the show was to check out some sailboats, so after lunch we hopped the shuttle bus over to the marina to check out the action on the docks.

The boat we most wanted to see was the Gemini 105Mc catamaran, and it mostly lived up to our expectations:



The 34′ long Gemini has an incredibly well laid out interior, and it is perfectly sized for a single traveling couple with space for occasional guests. We really loved the hanging couch on the back that also serves as a solar panel mount.

The other catamaran that really impressed us was the innovative little TomCat 9.7:


The 32′ TomCat packs a lot into an even smaller space than the Gemini. The layout feels extra spacious because there is so little dividing up the interior space – the kitchen, main salon, and master stateroom are all open to each other with only curtains for separation. It reminds me of the interior layout of our Oliver in that regard.

All of the other catamarans on display were overly large, and packed with cabins for the charter market. And while a large salon area is nice, and we like the idea of a raised upstairs galley – a boat featuring up to FOUR bathrooms is not anything that we would want even if we could somehow afford such a monster.

After running out of catamarans to look at, we then turned our focus towards the monohulls.

Most of the models on display were either tiny day sailers, or cruisers vastly too large to interest us. When we asked why so few 30′ – 40′ boats were on display we were told that it was because the “middle class has stopped buying sailboats” and that only the most extravagant yachts were worthwhile to bring out to the boat shows. Interesting.

One of the monohulls that did catch our eye was the incredibly innovative Seaward 32RK:


Thanks to its retractable keel design, the Seaward 32RK can operate in less than two feet of water. It has a large, comfortable, well designed interior. And it is actually even trailerable!

The other boat that really impressed us was the beautifully designed Catalina 375:


More than any other boat that we toured, the interior layout of the Catalina 375 felt like it would make for a comfortable long-term home. We started the weekend biased towards catamarans, but thanks to the Catalina we left it completely open to a monohull as well.

Despite fewer sailboats on display than we had hoped to see, our trip to the boat show served its purpose well. We now have a much better idea around the sizes, layouts, brands, and features that felt best to us. Armed with this research, we’ve already started to begin distilling down what we want in our ideal boat.

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To see many more photos from our trip to the boat show, check out our full photo set or slideshow on Flickr.

Camp STS-130 in Titusville, FL

Since Saturday afternoon, we’ve been camped along the Indian River in Titusville, Florida – right off Highway US 1.  We’ve been enjoying a completely awesome nomadic rendezvous with Sean Welsh and Louise Hornor of Our Odyssey as temporary neighbors (it’s our first in person meeting after years of cyber stalking each other around

Sean & Louise of Our Odyssey

the country.)  We’ll post most later about our time with them.

What we’re here for was to watch the last planned night shuttle launch. And one of the last five shuttle launches, period.

I lived on the Space Coast of Florida for 12 years before going nomadic. Stepping outside to watch a launch is an amazing part of everyday life here, and an experience that never gets old. I feel very blessed to have serendipitiously ended up back on the Space Coast, in the perfect area to watch this last night launch.

Only on two other occasions had I made the effort to get a close up view and see the entire launch from engine ignition.

Our view across the Indian River - VAB & Launch Pad

There’s been a temporary RV encampment here along US1 that has been fun to be part of, it’s been sort of a ‘Quartzite East’.  The City of Titusville allows free overnight camping on their owned land during a 36 hour window surrounding launch time, something we greatly appreciate!

And we have had the most spectacular of views.

The first attempt of the launch was scrubbed Sunday morning due to low clouds in the area. However, we had an awesome time hanging out with Sean and Louise.  Nomad-stalker, James Schipper and his partner Maria, also came over from the west coast of Florida for the launch and for our first in person meeting.  The four of us huddled all night long in our little Oliver Travel Trailer until the last minute no-go call.

This morning however, at 4:14am EST – all systems were GO (or GEAUX for you Saints fans!), and we witnessed an amazing launch. We also had the nomadic Browski family stop by for a bit before they headed on to their shuttle view hotel room.  The past couple days have been quie the nomadic tweetup!

We recorded video to share:

Direct link to the video for those on RSS/E-mail. By the way, this HD video was taken with my ultra compact Canon PowerShot SD780 – which I got back in July and am still totally loving.

I had a tear in my eye watching this magical moment of technological splendor, knowing that the shuttle program is soon coming to an end. And most likely, this will be the last shuttle launch I’ll ever get to witness in person.  What a beauty!

Fake Fireplaces, Giant TV’s, Mobile Man Caves, Central Vacuum Systems

Things we didn’t see any of:

Solar Panels, Energy Efficient Lighting, Composting Toilets, Camper Vans

Though we have been full time RV dwellers for years now, neither of us had ever been to an actual RV show. When we saw that “one of the largest public RV shows in the country” would be happening last week while we were still in St. Louis, we knew that we would have to check it out.

Mobile Luxury: Kitchen Island, Huge Living Room, and Fake Fireplace

We were hoping to get exposed to variety of RV’s of different sizes and styles, and to check out a wide range of the latest products and technologies for mobile living.

We ended up being disappointed.

The RVs on display did not reflect nearly the breadth of RV’ing style and quality that we had hoped to see. Instead of variety, the St. Louis RV Show offered up aisle after aisle of fairly forgettable cookie-cutter box style trailers, oversized fifth wheels, and slide-out-laden class A’s.

Only a handful of smaller travel trailers were on display, and there were no camper vans, bus conversions, fiberglass trailers, or truck campers to be seen anywhere on the show floor.

If you were hoping to be exposed to a breadth of choices, this was not the show to come to.

We did however get a chance to ogle at some over the top RV’s optimized for hosting epic tailgate parties, and others designed to be luxury condos on wheels pushing the boundaries of ostentatious excess to new extremes.

Though nothing we saw fit out personal style of travel, it was nice to spend an afternoon checking out a few of the more impressive designs.

Here are a few things that caught our eye…

With many of the premium models costing upwards of $100,000, it is no surprise that a lot of emphasis is placed on recreating all the comforts of home while on the road. But I was disappointed in how rare an emphasis on intelligent design, practicality, longevity, or quality seemed to be.

For example – why worry about being able to open up your refrigerator door without cranking out the slideouts, if it means that you can have an elegant island in your kitchen? And why bother with energy efficient lights or space on board for more than a single battery when you’ll need to be perpetually plugged in to a 50amp circuit full time for your dual rooftop air conditioners?

We saw RV’s with dual kitchens (indoor and outdoor), dual bathrooms, three or more giant screen televisions (including outdoors), fake fireplaces, ceiling fans, elevated back porches, and cavernous cargo holds… Many of the toy haulers even found space for a dedicated beer fridge in the garage area!

One brand was using the tagline “Leave Nothing Behind” – and that was indeed a design philosophy on display at the show.

There were only a few RV’s at the show that were suited for full time living on the road, and there was nothing at all on display that was suitable for “boondocking” or operating off grid. Solar panels and power efficient technologies were completely absent.

For those wanting less emphasis on square footage, the smaller and easier to tow RV’s on display disappointingly tended not to have tanks or electrical systems worthy of more than a weekend away from power hookups.

And while there were plenty of “bargain” smaller designs on display, the lack of quality in construction and the pervasive smell of formaldehyde when you stepped aboard made it clear that with most of the cheaper models you were getting what you paid for.

One standout design was the ultralight Quicksilver CampLite. The all aluminum body and frame should last years longer than most traditional plywood & steel RV designs. And the sub 2000lb empty weight should allow for towing by even some cars!

One of the larger fifth wheels we toured actually had a built in beer tap in the “man cave” second living room that the garage in the back transformed into once you pulled your ATV’s out. Imagine – two living rooms, two bathrooms, two fridges, beer on tap, and a garage – all in a single RV!

And while having quality microbrews on draft is something that our Oliver lacks, we ultimately didn’t see much at the show to excite our technomadic souls. And in the end, there was nothing that left us fantasizing about upgrading from our Oliver.

One final disappointment was the vendor area. I was surprised with how little we could find of interest to full-time RV’ers. Instead of solar panels and satellite internet systems, there was an out-of-place preponderance of home-show style booths. Basements? Bathrooms? Aluminum siding? Kitchen remodeling? Dog training?!?

The only appealing thing we managed to find in the entire vending area was a very clever but way overpriced 50′ long wind-up collapsible water hose. After spending hours looking at all the mobile monuments to inefficiency, seeing an actual space efficient design – wow!

To see more from the St. Louis RV Show, check out our full photo set or slideshow on Flickr.

Also – for our advice on how to choose the style of mobile home that best suits you, be sure to check out Cherie’s guide to selecting a home on wheels.

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.

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.

Phone Car - Burning Man 2008

If you looked hard enough, for years now there have been options for communicating with the outside world at Burning Man via internet or satellite phone. (Not to mention via the exaggeratedly disgruntled Black Rock City Post Office…)

For as long as 802.11 has existed, some geeks have enjoyed the challenge of building a public WiFi network in the desert — it is very literally an expression of their art. I first ran across WiFi on the playa in 2003, and in 2006 I was able to photo-blog the construction progress of the Conexus Cathedral, often using a porta-potty as an office near one of the few open WiFi connections to find shelter from the wind, sun, and dust.

But most Black Rock City citizens remained blissfully unaware of the ever increasing availability of WiFi in the city.

Voice connections have always been even harder to find. A few years ago I ran across confused late-night party people lined up at a phone booth in the open desert. I overheard conversations like this — “wow, this thing actually dialed! Oh, hi mom…. Yeah, I’m at Burning Man…. I didn’t think this phone booth was real…. Oh, it is 4AM?!? Sorry!”

Bizarre world-bending installation art at its finest.

But cell phone service on the playa?!? No way. It has always seemed like Black Rock City would be the last place on earth the get cell coverage. Sure, some burners have been experimenting with developing open source GSM software that is part of a project to bring cheaper mobile phone service to villages in remote parts of the developing world, but their on-playa network in 2008 only accidentally allowed a few dozen outbound calls to go through. That connectivity was a bug, not a feature.

But this year…. AT&T and Verizon (with no cooperation from Burning Man itself) actually set up a temporary wind and solar powered cell tower on some leased land just off the playa. Connectivity, for better or for worse, had come at last to Black Rock City.

Fittingly – this year’s Burning Man theme: “Evolution”

Many were up in arms about how the arrival of cell phone service might change Burning Man.  We even received a reply to a tweet telling us to ‘put the phone down!’.  There were threats of protests, and some anticipation of people walking down the streets of Black Rock City shouting out ‘Can you hear me now?’.   However, by and large, cell phone use was kept close to home, and mostly when away from camp cell phones were not particularly noticeable.

Particularly after the city gates opened and the population swelled, availability of a line out became more scarce. Five bars isn’t very useful when there are 40,000 people trying to share a reported outgoing capacity of just 40 simultaneous calls.  We were however able to check e-mail just enough to not feel completely negligent of our clients. As full time traveling technomads, there really isn’t much difference for us between ‘real life’ and ‘vacation’ anyway.

Having some connectivity was also invaluable in organizing a camp of 70 nomads, half of whom were going to camp at a location that we land grabbed just as the gates open, and which we needed to try and get the word out as to where. There were also plenty of last minute logistics and challenges to handle – and while you can just trust in playa magic to work everything out, it’s awfully nice to hear a friendly voice on the line to help figure out the details.

And having some cellular service helped folks in emergency situations, such as a fellow Camp Nomadian receiving word of a family emergency and being able to coordinate an early departure.

Temple Burn 2009

A side effect of so much connectivity at Burning Man was much more information flowing out to the world in a streaming fashion. This year, those tracking Burning Man from their computers at home likely saw and heard about more things at Burning Man than those of us actually there.  Catching up with my mom yesterday, she was telling us all about the art projects and news she saw posted during the week – she had seen more of the playa art projects than we had!

Watching Burning Man from afar is no where close to actually being there. So much of Burning Man just simply can’t be relayed outside of Black Rock City. It’s about being there. It’s about enduring white outs, wind storms and heat with your community. It’s about the emotional highs and lows. It’s about the amazing connections you make. It’s about actually interacting with the art, not just viewing it.  It’s about conversing with an artist late at night about his vision, his challenges and his passion. It’s about being in the crowd at the Temple Burn and really feeling the release of so much emotions.

It’s about the life changing experiences and transformations.

And it’s about watching the most amazing full moon rise on the horizon with burn platforms dancing in the distance and fireworks crackling in the sky, while sipping fantastic home brew with new friends.

More than anywhere else on earth, to understand it, you just have to be there.

Camp Nomadia 2009

In 2008, Chris and I decided to host a Burning Man theme camp for other nomadic folks like ourselves.

We applied for official placement with Burning Man, and got it.  We manage to gather around 25 folks to camp with us, most of them aspiring nomads, though not many others were living full-time on the road yet. In addition to bonding with our campmates, we hosted several social events that brought together other nomadic souls, and connected with a lot of great people.

Overall, it was a highly rewarding experience, and we vowed to host Camp Nomadia again.

Our goal has always been to find and build a tribe of like minds, and by the time we had to submit our application in May to be a registered and placed camp for Burning Man 2009, we had lined up over 35 mostly full-time nomadic folks to be a part of the camp, converging from all over the world. We were astounded by the quality of the camp that was shaping up. Last year felt like the first small step towards building and uniting a nomadic tribe. This year, it was all starting to come together.

But then, just a few weeks ago… we were crushed and thrown into disarray when we learned that Camp Nomadia would be amongst the 130 camps not pre-placed this year due to the shrunken size of Black Rock City.

But out of the ashes rises great things, and the St. Louis based theme camp Pandora’s Lounge & Fix-It Shoppe stepped in and invited us in to share their premium placement right behind Center Camp – a way better location than we would have ever gotten on our own!

This turn of events was the direct result of our stopping by the St. Louis regional Burning Man event, Gateway Burn, earlier in the summer.

Pandora’s didn’t have enough room to take all the Nomadians in however, so we opted to start a Camp Nomadia Annex to avoid turning anyone away. Chris, fellow technomad Ben Willmore and I were able to get Early Access Passes to help build Pandora’s, so we knew we would be able to do a land grab near the main Camp Nomadia right as the gates opened at 12:01 AM Monday morning.

As soon as we had plans in place, we were contacted by the Digital Vagabond, who was not thrilled that the camp he was planning to host the Roads Scholars and Matador Travel at was placed in a loud and remote section of the city.  So just a few days before we headed to the playa, we merged the Digital Vagabond tribe in with Camp Nomadia. This brought our total estimated camp population up to 70+ folks. And the majority of them are actually full time travelers and travel enthusiasts. We could not have been more thrilled – or overwhelmed!

But suddenly, our little minimal-organizing-and-infrastructure-needed camp now involved herding 70 nomadic burners (most of whom have never met) to two separate locations on the playa, and making sure we were perceived as excellent guests of Pandora’s. Egads!

Nomadic Happy Hour - Chris, Cherie, Ben, Roberto, Asami, Steff & JoAnna

It was a lot of work, but so worth it.

Camp Nomadia ended up being equally split between two nearby locations.  We had nomadic folks who travel via RV, motorcycle, tour bus and hitchhiking. We had folks who had been traveling for years, those just embarking on their journey and those currently in transition to a more mobile lifestyle.  We had folks from Australia, New Zealand, USA, Britain, Mexico, Canada and beyond.  We had global travelers and domestic travelers.  We had folks actively writing about their travels, and those who were intentionally living as off the radar as they could.  We had folks who were working as they travel, as well as those who are taking a sabbatical or newly retired.

Merging with Pandora’s also gave us an awesome lounge in which to host Nomadic Happy Hours, to invite nomads from across the playa to join us.  We even decided to try hosting a ‘Technomadic Lifestyle Workshop’.

I honestly wasn’t expecting more than perhaps a dozen folks sitting around a couch talking about technomadism and swapping travel tips.  Instead, 15 minutes before the start of the workshop, the lounge was completely full.  By the time we started the workshop, we were literally overflowing into the streets.  Our best estimate is that there were 80-100 folks present, all eager to learn more about how to do what we do.

Merging in with the Digital Vagabond Tribe also meant that we were able to host the Roads Scholars Graduation Party, the culmination of

Roads Scholars Grad Party

the road trips of four young folks who had spent the summer on the road with sponsorship from Matador Travels.  It was an honor to meet three of the scholars – JoAnna Haugen, Kyle Smith and Allana and attend their graduation ceremony conducted by the honorary dean of Vagabond U, Ed Buryn, the author of the 1970’s travel classic Vagabonding in America.

The week spent hosting Camp Nomadia was full of incredible moments of connection and inspiration. One moment stands out in my mind right now – on the day before we left the playa, an attendee biked up to thank us for the workshop. He told us that he had been so inspired this week that he was planning to head home, sell all of his stuff, and hit the road full time.

Yeah, Camp Nomadia rocked.

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

Pre Gate Open @ Burning Man

One of the wonderful things about early arrival and staying late at Burning Man – is that you get to experience a more complete evolution of this temporary city.  Each day at Burning Man has a different energy as the population rises and falls.

Prior to gate open, you know that everyone around you at Black Rock City has spent time building the city in anticipation of gate open. Whether it be on art projects, setting up theme camps, building center camp, working gate & perimeter or building the infrastructure. We’re all city builders.  You arrive to your camp and you have open space around you – camps several blocks over seem just a quick stroll away. Our days and nights are spent building with occasional parties to share stories of the projects we’re involved on.

And then just before 12:01a on Monday morning, we gather at the edge of the city and look at the massive line of headlights leading in from Gerlach. The party rumbles as we wait for the flood gates to open. The anticipation builds with each minute, for not much longer will we be exclusive residents of the city, it becomes open to all. All night long the virgin bell tolls as each new citizen of Black Rock City is initiated. It’s beautiful music to the ears. We retreat to our theme camps, and await greeting our first arrivals and help them get settled in.  This can take all night long.

Early in the week the population is about half of what it will peak at. The residents of Black Rock City at this point are not here just for a party. They’re here to be part of building something up too. They assist with completing the build projects the early arrival crews started on. They help open the interactive theme camps. With each hour, the landscape of the city shifts and changes. Your block becomes more a part of your immediate world, and structures you saw only hours ago are no longer visible. Camps that yesterday were a quick stroll now seem distant and remote. The streets become more chaotic with bicycles, pedestrians, art cars and new arrivals trying to find their spot.

By Thursday and Friday evening, the majority of the population is through the gates. Theme camps are roaring with activity, music, dancing, mingling, water misting and more. Most art projects are open and interactive. The nightscape of lights on the open playa is full on.

Folks who arrive for the final weekend arrive to chaos and full on energy. They don’t ramp up with it like the rest of us, they just plop themselves right in.  Most build projects at this point are done, so late week arrivals don’t have the opportunity to bond and connect with their fellow citizens in this way. They must engage their social skills to come up to speed on connections that have been ramping up with the start of the city.  Some thrive on this, others might feel overwhelmed and a bit like an outsider to a community already built.

Over the next three nights the major burns happen – usually a massive art project on Friday evening that helps build up the energy for the weekend.   Much of the population only stays for the carnival like celebration of the Man burning on Saturday evening, for that is what is seemed to be the culmination of an event called ‘Burning Man’. But for those who stick out the heat, wind and dust another day – they will be treated to the tremendous emotional release of the Temple Burn on a somber Sunday night.

And then Monday morning, the city scape looks much like pre-gate opening – expansive open lands and only those staying who intend to help with the break down of the city.

I didn’t get it until yesterday.

In our camp of traveling nomads, we have a very high percentage of virgins. And a handful of them existing dear friends that we led out to the event with us this year.  Spending time with them and seeing their eyes widen with every day, seeing their souls expand and their spirits sore – has been my most rewarding experience thus far of my Burning Man experience. The art is great, but seeing people’s lives transform before your eyes is where the real magic is.

For example, a fellow technomad arrived early on in the event. For the first few days he wandered around in shorts, logo t-shirts and cheap sunglasses.  Yesterday he was adorned in a red sparkly shirt and a mohawk, thanking us for helping him break his own shells.

A group of six who joined us arrived Monday in street clothes. Yesterday we dressed them in more appropriate clothing and sent them out on a mission to explore the city during a mild dust storm.  They all came back to camp with grins and white playa hair.  When they come back and don’t immediately start dusting their shoes off, I’ll know they’ve fully arrived.

With each art car that passes our camp, it’s amazing to watch their expressions. Look. Blink. ‘Is that a…’.  Stutter.  ‘Jellyfish’?    Yes, I’ll reply. And it’s also a mobile bar.

Last night I took them all on an expedition to the Cubatron – possibly my all time favorite art on the playa.  I fondly remembered my first hours on the playa as I immersed myself in its geeky engaging artness.  I watched my virgin’s minds be blown wide open.   Life will never be the same for any of them.

And it’s only Wednesday at sunrise.

This will be my 3rd Burning Man, and Chris’s 9th. Each time I have been to Burning Man, it has been a true temporary location to park my home. When people greet me with ‘Welcome Home!’ – it means something slightly different for me.  This year will be no different.

Except that we will be joined up with dozens of other like minded nomadic spirits.  We started Camp Nomadia last year, with the intentions of meeting and camping with others who are not just visiting the playa, but bringing their home there too.  Last year was a small camp.

This year, despite the challenge of being amongst the 20% of theme camps not placed due to the shrunk size of the city, our population has grown significantly and we’ve had to add an Annex. This time around, Camp Nomadia is primarily folks living a life of full time travel – or darn near it. I suppose it makes sense that not having an address is a natural beacon for nomads and vagabonds.

This year we’ll again be hosting a series of ‘Nomadic Happy Hours’ as well as a workshop on how to become technomadic. Click for our full schedule of events. If you’re attending Burning Man this year, stop on by at 6:00 & DNA and say hi!

While going to Burning Man is mostly like any other day for us – a new temporary location, new people, new experiences, living off grid, radical self reliance, leaving no trace – there is something different about it. It is the only event that is an anchor in our calendar.  I consider it my marinade for the year. The journey I soak up in one week at Burning Man has lasting seasoning throughout the year.

The journey doesn’t stop at the gate, it is meant to be shared with the world.  And the world I have experienced is meant to be shared with Burning Man.

Last year we came back from the ‘American Dream’ themed Burning Man inspired to volunteer on the Obama Campaign. We ended up in rural Nevada running a field office in Fallon. This morning we appropriately start our final leg to the playa from Fallon. Our host family from the campaign will take care of Kiki for us, while this year’s inspiration finds us.

With early arrival passes in hand, we’ll spend the weekend helping set up Pandora’s Fix-It Shoppe @ 6:00 & DNA (directly behind Center Camp), the camp that invited us in to place our main Camp Nomadia. We will be scouting out an ideal location nearby for our Camp Nomadia Annex for when the rest of our camp arrives at gate open on Monday morning.

See you on the dusty side!

One podcast that we regularly listen to is Chicken Lips from Salida, Colorado’s KHEN 106.9. Salida is a city we love to visit often.

It sits along the Arkansas River in the midst of the Rocky Mountains and is quite scenic. It has a wonderful quirky small town artistic feel, as well as a couple of microbrews. Salida is also, incidentally, the site of our second date (they haven’t installed the plaque yet). Our good friends Andrew & Teresa Koransky also settled there after their nomadic year on the road, which is our reason for coming back. They’re incidentally the host’s of Chicken Lips, which is only partly why we continue to listen.

Teresa and Andrew spin up an amazing collection of unique tunes that really keeps our driving days fueled. And they frequently feature locals on the show and highlight events and issues – so we get to stay in touch with one of our favorite cities as we travel.

We were recently visiting Salida, and upon our arrival we mentioned to TnA (as they affectionally refer to themselves) that we had listened to Chicken Lips on our drive into Colorado. We had learned, for instance, that the city decided to keep the RV trailer dump station free – a definite plus for us RV traveling technomads.

We asked if we could interview them for a video piece on local community radio. And they got an idea in their head and convinced us to get up early the next morning and join them on the air too!

You can catch our radio interview on being technomadic on their podcast #65, and meet Teresa & Andrew in our video interview.

So next time you’re traveling to a new city and want a bit more of a local feel – search out podcasts from local community radio. It’s a great way to get to know a city.

Just like its more famous cousin located downtown along the Washington D.C. Mall, the Udvar-Hazy center houses an incredible collection of aviation artifacts, including an SR-71 Blackbird, the Space Shuttle Enterprise (the one used for in-atmosphere flight testing), an Air France Concord, and you can even see the Enola Gay – the bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb.

There are literally hundreds of aircraft of all sorts on display – ranging in size from ultralights to airliners, and in time from the dawn of flight to prototypes paving the way for tomorrow.

As an aviation buff (and licensed pilot), I was like a kid in a candy store. I spent hours running around from plane to plane, and I thoroughly enjoyed the free docent guided tour.

You can also go up into the old Dulles control tower for an exhibit on air traffic control systems, and for an unparalleled view of airplanes taking off and landing at Dulles.

Check out this video featuring some highlights:

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.

Let’s start with the roof.. which has a praying mantis, ferris wheel and bus lurching over the corner.

And then there’s the MontroCity outdoor playscape sized for kids and adults which has a network of wrought iron slinkies and slides connecting two airplane fuselages, a fire engine and a castle turret.

And inside, you’ll be dazzled by whales, tunnels, slides, a circus, a skateless skate park and inner caverns with a 10 story circular staircase.. and slide!

Here’s a video we put together after two trips to the City Museum in the past month. I think it at least starts to capture just how awesome this place is.

Have I mentioned the City Museum is awesome yet?

Many thanks to our traveling friend, Matt Bell, who rendezvoused with us for one of our visits to the City Museum and allowed us to film him for this piece!

Located at the base of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, spending some time at the interactive center is well worth your time – and definitely check out the short movie that tells the story.

Enjoy the video we filmed on Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens!

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.

When we first got off the SEPTA train at the Suburban station, we weren’t overly impressed – as the screen was disguised as wood paneling. And then it came to life.  This thing is HUGE!  Like, really huge!   And the content that is played has been specially developed by a team dedicated to just this screen.  It’s a very impressive display of art and technology.

We struck gold when we stumbled into Kentucky’s Columbus Belmont State Park just before sunset. The view looking west from high up on the bluffs overlooking Mississippi River literally took our breath away.

We paid $2 extra per night to camp in one of the “premium” spots located right on the bluffs with a commanding view of the river. It was SO worth it to be able to watch the barges on the river right out our back window…

These bluffs have long been known for their domineering position on the river. During the Civil War the Confederate fort built on the bluffs was referred to as the “Gibraltar of the West”, and the Confederate army actually installed a massive chain across the entire Mississippi river to block Union supply lines and gunboats.

There remains a lot to do in the park for Civil War buffs. The remains of the fort are located a short walk from the campground, the giant chain is on display, there is an old cemetery to walk through, and there is even a small museum on site. Every October historic re-enactors swarm the park to recreate the 1861 Battle of Belmont, the start of the Union’s western campaign and General Ulysses S. Grant’s first active engagement in the Civil War.

But we weren’t here for the history – we just wanted a place to relax, enjoy the view, and get some work done.

The parklike lawn offered a beautiful environment for working outside. Until the lawn care crew showed up with their power tools, that is…

Unfortunately, our cell phone data signal was slow and intermittent, and our booster wasn’t much help.

Even worse (from the standpoint of relaxing and getting things done), a lawn care crew spent the entire day mowing and trimming and edging and buzzing about. The downside of a beautiful parklike setting is the work that goes into maintaining it, I guess…

We loved sitting and watching the giant barges plying the waters heading up and down the Mississippi.

But once the lawn crew dispersed, the view from the bluffs well worth the annoyance. Magical, tranquil, and serene.

I would definitely recommend staying here. But unless you are coming for the Civil War history, make sure that you get one of the bluff-side camp spots. The rest of the campground area is rather typical and generic, but the spots along the river will take your breath away.

Summary Details:

View: Barges on the Mississippi!

Sites: 38 sites. Only a few with views.

Facilities: Toilets, Showers.

Hookups: Sites have 30 amp electric. Water is available.

Cell & Data Coverage:

AT&T – Weak but usable.

Sprint - Marginal CDMA 1xRTT. (Dropped in and out…)

Cost: $20/night (no view) – $22/night (amazing view). $2/night surcharge on weekends.

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.

Once the sun set though, the road wasn’t nearly so scenic. We saw a road sign indicating a campground in the woods off to our left, so we headed down a dark dirt road in search of a place to stop for the night.

The sign hadn’t made any mention of how FAR it was to the campground, and at night in the dark the five miles seemed like thirty – particularly since there were many steep sections and there was no easy places to turn the trailer around should we decide to retreat.

But in the end, we found Erbie – a beautiful remote campground located right along the Buffalo National River.

Not surprisingly considering how remote it is, Erbie has no hookups. The campground is clean and well maintained though, and the spots are fairly widely separated along a large gravel loop. Even though there were two other sites occupied, we felt like we had the whole place to ourselves.

Kiki here – I loved camping at Erbie. The river was swollen and scary, but there were trails to explore, trees to climb, and even bunnies to chase. I did get wet paws though from all the morning dew – be warned!

Erbie is often used as a base camp for people venturing out via canoe or kayak to explore the pristine Buffalo National River. Recent flooding had closed the river, but there were extensive trails to explore nearby.

One of the trails leads from Erbie Campground to the nearby Parker Hickman Farmstead – a glimpse back in time at turn-of-the-century rural life. I thoroughly enjoyed an early morning hike upstream to explore this place.

Down the road from the Parker Hickman Farmstead I came across this sign. And as you can see, it wasn’t lying! I am sure glad that the campground was on the near side of the river, or our late-night arrival might have turned into a slow five mile backwards retreat!

The most significant thing lacking at Erbie was wireless network access of any sort. They did have this museum quality ancient communication device on display however…

Overall, Erbie was a wonderfully tranquil place to spend the night and get away from it all. If only there were at least some network access, I would love to return and explore the area further.

Summary Details:

View: Woods & hills!

Sites: 30+ sites, several large group areas.

Facilities: Pit toilets, boat launch.

Hookups: None.

Cell & Data Coverage:

AT&T – Nope.

Sprint - Did I mention how far down a dirt road this place is?!?

Cost: $10/night

The folks at the Oliver factory told us about the nearby free campground located along the Natchez Trace Parkway – so we decided to check it out before venturing further afield to find check out a few promising state parks.

We were blown away.

This place is free?!? Wow!

The 444 mile Natchez Trace Parkway runs from just south of Nashville to Natchez, Mississippi. It is administered by the National Park Service, and it is one long interrupted greenbelt that completely isolates you from modern buildings, commercialism, advertising, and even trucking. This route has been in use by travelers and animals for hundreds of years, and the only indication of what century you are in is the ribbon of asphalt cutting through the trees instead of a dirt trail. The Natchez Trace is one of the most beautiful scenic drives in the country.

The forest is beautiful and quiet. Even over Memorial Day weekend the campground did not fill up.

There are three free campgrounds located along the Natchez Trace, and the one located at the Meriwether Lewis Park near Hohenwald is a beautiful wooded oasis. We found the sort of tranquility we were looking for, and we even had a workable cell signal to get some work online handled too!

The Meriwether Lewis National Monument is located within the park, and it marks the grave of the famous explorer. Lewis (most likely) committed suicide in 1809 while spending a night at an inn while traveling along the Natchez Trace. He was journeying from St. Louis to Washington D.C. to handle some problems with reimbursement of his expense reports for the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Clearly frustration with bureaucracy is not a new invention…

The park offers no hookups (not even a dump station), but fresh water is available from centrally located faucets and there are very clean bathrooms with flush toilets.

All of the sites are in the trees, which is great for shade but which limited the effectiveness of our solar system. We ran the generator for an hour or two every other day to keep our batteries topped off.

Despite being free, the Meriwether Lewis Park campground is beautifully maintained, and it is even staffed with a campground host to keep an eye on things. The bathrooms lacked showers, but flush toilets and running water are available.

Meriwether Lewis Park is a gem, and we thoroughly enjoyed a chill week catching up with ourselves there.

In the future we will certainly return, perhaps while journeying the full length of the Natchez Trace southward.

Summary Details:

View: Beautiful forrest.

Sites: 31 well separated sites.

Facilities: Toilets, Fresh Water.

Hookups: None.

Cell & Data Coverage:

AT&T – Weak, but usable.

Sprint - Very slow but still usable CDMA 1xRTT. (D: 115Kb/s, U: 56Kb/s, 669ms) (Sprint indicates roaming – probably on Verizon)

Cost: Free!!! (14 day limit)

First of all, the Gulpha Gorge Campground was amazing, right along a babbling creek and very affordable.  While there, we read up on what was avialable at Hot Springs National Park.  The park is unusual in that it’s not necessarily a preservation of a natural feature – like other national parks around the country. But rather, its focus was a historic row of bathhouses in a downtown setting that were previously a medicinal tourist draw.

One of the bathhouses, Buckstaff Bathhouse, is still run as part of the National Park. So in the morning we decided to indulge hot baths and massages. At $52/person, it was quite a value and very refreshing. But unlike any other spa service we’d ever encountered – it was more institutional like, but very memorable.

The video below captures our reactions to it right after our treatments.

Direct link to the video

We had an awesome lunch at the Salt Lick in Round Rock. The Salt Lick is some of the best BBQ in Austin, however their location south of Austin is their original and gives a fuller experience.

Afterwards, he told us about the Dell Diamond – a minor league baseball stadium that offers a lot more.

Direct link to the video

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!

My brother still lives in Austin, so it’s a frequent destination for us.  My brother is also a pretty extreme adventure junkie and has introduced me to lots of activities I wouldn’t have considered before, like skydiving.   His latest hobby has been rock climbing, which brings him often back to the Barton Creek Greenbelt we grew up by.

I couldn’t bring myself to being excited about this one, but Chris wanted to give it a try.  So on one of the rare non-rainy days during our time in Austin, up a rock face my brother took Chris.

I filmed.

Direct link to the video

Direct link for the video

We were both blown away by how awesome it was.

But once you get in the middle of hundreds of acres of white gypsum sand dunes that are towering over you, your car and anything else in site – and realize they’re moving several inches a month. Let’s just say, it comes overwhelming!

Be sure to take your sunglasses when you go! We regret that we didn’t plan to stick around through sunset.

Direct link to the video

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.

There is also camping available at the site – including two pull through RV spots with full hook-ups for only $10/night, or dry camping included with the $2 use fee. Since this is BLM land, if you have a National Interagency Park Pass, all standard discounts apply.

Direct link to the video”

After grabbing a bite, we enjoyed wandering around the ruins and imaging what life might have been like here before plague and environmental conditions ushered both the Native Americans and missionary Spaniards out of the area.

Direct Link to Video

Direct Video Link

First off, it is the smallest National Park, by far. And secondly – rather than the usual focus on preserving natural features – most of the hot springs here have been thoroughly developed, and the primary attraction is actually the row of preserved historic bath houses lining the main street through downtown.

There is however one campground to be found in the park, and Gulpha Gorge is a beauty indeed!

Gulpha Gorge is located in a lush and shaded valley, with a creek and rapids running right alongside many of the campsites.

The Gulpha Gorge campground is located on the other side of Hot Springs Mountain from the bustle of bath house row and the rest of the city, but it is only a short drive or a few miles of hiking to get to the main attractions.

We absolutely loved camping right along the creek. The sound of the rapids was wonderful to fall asleep to.

The Gulpha Gorge campground is currently being renovated and “upgraded”, and most of the 44 sites are being converted to offer full hookups. The price for these sites is going up from $10 to $24, a very steep increase. The hookups will also mean that the beautiful creek noises will likely soon be complimented by the hum of RV air conditioners. Fortunately, the remaining non-hookup sites are the best of the bunch – right along the creek and the rapids.

All of the campsites at Gulpha Gorge are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Another of the renovations is that instead of using a typical ‘iron ranger’ honor system to pay for your spot, they have a computerized self check-in kiosk that accepts cash and credit cards. We really like this trend, and have dubbed this system the ‘Digital Ranger.’.  It gets the technomad seal of approval!

If you visit Hot Springs National Park, be sure to treat yourself to a bath. Look for our video report on our bathing experience to be posted soon!

Overall, Gulpha Gorge is a beautiful oasis – and I would love to return again for a longer visit. I only hope that the campground is not diminished too much by the new focus on larger RV’s.

Summary Details:

View: Creek and rapids!

Sites: 44 sites. Only 12 remain without hookups.

Facilities: Toilets, NO showers. Dump station.

Hookups: Most sites have water, electric, and sewer.

Cell & Data Coverage:

AT&T – Strong EDGE – no 3G.

Sprint - Two bars EVDO rev A. (D: 722Kb/s, U: 286Kb/s, 118ms)

Cost: $10/night ($24/night with hookups)  - Paid by a self check-in computerized kiosk (aka ‘Digital Ranger’) with credit card and cash only, no checks.

The campground at Martin Creek Lake reminded us of the fabulous McKinney Falls State Park we had stayed at near Austin. The Texas State Park systems knows how to do campgrounds right, and like McKinney Falls, Martin Creek Lake has beautifully wooded widely dispersed sites with water and electric hookups.

We paid $15/night for a lakefront (sort of) site. We could have saved $2 by camping across the street, but it was a worthwhile upgrade.

We had our own private trail down to Martin Lake, right behind our campsite.

At some campgrounds the drone of RV generators can spoil the tranquility. At Martin Creek Lake, the drone you hear isn’t from other RV’s, but from the giant power plant located right across the lake.

It is not too loud, but it IS omnipresent. The power plant lit up at night is an impressive site for fans of civil engineering, but the light pollution does drown out the night sky too.

Even though we were only parked overnight, when we were packing up in the morning we discovered a large intricate BIRD NEST in our bumper storage compartment! A wannabe hitchhiker, perhaps?

Overall we found Martin Creek to be a worthwhile stop for the night. I was concerned that the power plant would be a bother, but the constant hum was faint enough that it quickly blended into the background.

I wouldn’t go out of my way to return, but if we were ever passing by again I would certainly spend another night on the shores of Martin Lake.

Summary Details:

View: Woods, lake, and a giant power plant!

Sites: 80+ sites, several dozen rental cabins.

Facilities: Toilets, Showers. Fishing pier.

Hookups: Water & Electric. Dump station provided.

Cell & Data Coverage:

AT&T – Moderate.

Sprint - Strong EVDO. (D: 390Kb/s, U: 101Kb/s, 179ms) (Sprint indicates roaming – probably on Verizon)

Cost: Lakefront: $15/night, Regular: $13 (plus $2/pp without Texas State Park pass)

Landa RV had been recommended to us by folks in the NuRVers community, some of whom had spent over a month making Landa RV home. With affordable full-hookup campsites literally right on the riverbank, we heard that Landa RV was a great place for an extended stay. In our case though, all we had time for was a weekend mostly spent out in San Antonio.

You will literally have tubers right out your window if you choose one of the riverside campsites…

Landa RV has three types of sites – the “non river” area is a traditional (and rather run down) RV parking lot up on top of the hill and costs $30/night, the hillside sites with river views are $35/night, and the riverfront sites are $40/night.

We’re not entirely sure if our spot was considered the “hillside” area (sites 520 – 524), which were little more than a narrow area to pull off the road, lacking in privacy, space and even a picnic table. We weren’t particularly pleased with our spot.  There were other very large spots coming down the hill in the 600 range that may or may not be considered ‘hillside’.

Some of the riverside sites on the other hand are particularly unique and worth the extra charge for a short visit. The ones further upstream are particularly secluded and worth checking out, but these sites lack hookups. There’s also a row of riverside sides all lumped together that have little space between them, but would be great for a group gathering or for those who don’t mind closeness.

The time to visit Landa RV is apparently the off season. From mid-September to mid-April, all the sites are just $15, and monthly rates start at $225 (plus electricity).

The upper area of Landa RV is a generic slightly run-down RV parking lot. The “hillside” sites offer river views, but they are not right on the water.

New Braunfels is known for its German heritage and its amazing water recreation. The nearby Schlitterbahn park has been voted “the world’s best waterpark” ten years running, and features acres of water slides that are more akin to roller coasters than not. Another highlight of New Braunfels is the crystal clear Comal river, known as the “world’s shortest” and a mecca for float-tripping tubers.

Next time we visit we will make sure we have time to enjoy both.

There is actually a “toob” rental kiosk right at Landa RV. After your float down the the 2.5 mile long river, a shuttle bus will bring you right back to the park.

A few concerns with Landa RV…

There are train tracks that literally pass right through the park, and several times a day (and sometimes at night) a train will pass through. Personally I love the sound of trains and it was quite novel for our short stay, but Jim & Rene of Live. Work. Dream. were traumatized after living by the tracks at Landa for a month at the extended NuRVers rally.

Also – we were not overly impressed with the management at Landa. They pressured us to “Please book asap as sites go fast .” But the weekend we spent there the park was over half empty. High-pressure sales tactics never leave a lasting good impression.  Also, when we inquired about a site we were quoted $30/night for spot 520, but were charged us $35/night without explanation for the change in pricing – and we honestly never brought it up either.

Despite our issues, I think we would give Landa RV another chance and stay there again. Next time, we would make certain to get a riverfront site though. I am looking forward returning either in the summer to play on the river and at Schlitterbahn, or in the winter for an extended cheap stay right on the riverside.

Summary Details:

View: Tubers on the Comal river!

Sites: 90+ sites. (Less than 20 on the riverbank…)

Facilities: Toilets, Showers. Tube rentals.

Hookups: Most sites have water, electric, and sewer.

Cell & Data Coverage:

AT&T – Strong signal.

Sprint - Strong fast EVDO rev A. (D: 1479Kb/s, U: 476Kb/s, 167ms)

Cost: $30-$40/night. ($15/night in off season)

A check of our GPS confirmed we were still on Old Route 66. At some spots, we could still see the lane striping left over.

There was something very emotional about actually driving on the old road literally decaying beneath our tires.

In case the video above doesn’t come in, a direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12wSoZRmhOI

Here’s our video of our drive through – we’re also experimenting with hosting this video on TripFilms, to see if we might want to switch to them instead of YouTube. So please comment if you have any thing to say about the quality of this video as compared to others we’ve posted. I’m not convinced yet its the right tool for us.

If you’d prefer to see the YouTube version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCENZKXLv6k

Our video post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6FgvBOSyeM

The door was unlocked, so we stepped inside to learn more about it..

The Grand Canyon is just one of those things that defies words, and you just have to see to experience it.

Link to video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpYGuC5UsAE

Camping near a major urban area is always a challenge, but in McKinney Falls State Park we have discovered a great place to stay that is at once both secluded and accessible.

The campsites at McKinney Falls all are equipped with power and water hookups, essential for running air conditioning to battle the South Texas humidity. But the spots are also huge, beautifully wooded, and well separated.

During the mid-week, the campground was also mostly empty. We felt like we had the entire forest to ourselves on some nights!

The falls that the park is named for are nearby, though when we were there they consisted of little more than a trickle of water spilling over a limestone ledge. But the swimming hole at the base of the falls is a wonderful place to cool down.

There are several miles of beautiful trails nearby, and some well-regarded cliffs for bouldering.

Overall, we found McKinney Falls State Park to be a fabulous place to stay – and fabulously close to the bustle of Austin too! I am certain that we will return – it is harder to imagine a better place to park our home when we visit Austin.

Summary Details:

View: Woods!

Sites: 80+ sites. Tents welcome.

Facilities: Toilets, Showers, Hiking Trails.

Hookups: Water & Electric – some 50A too. Dump station available.

Cell & Data Coverage:

AT&T – Strong 3G signal.

Sprint - Strong fast EVDO rev A. (D: 1254Kb/s, U: 178Kb/s, 123ms)

Cost: $16/night (plus $5/pp without Texas State Park pass)

Note: In addition to the $16/night camping fee, McKinney Falls charges $5 per person per night for admission to the park. Since we were staying for nearly a week, it made sense for us to buy a Texas State Parks annual pass for $60 to be able to waive this fee.

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.

Ash Fork had been bypassed by both the interstate and railway, leaving it mighty high and dry. Even two of our travel road trip books skipped over mentioning the town at all in their guides to Route 66. But undaunted, Ash Fork has gone on to become “the flagstone capitol of the world”.

We noticed one other cool Ash Fork claim to fame… All the new Burma Shave replica signs we had been seeing along Route 66? They seem to lead into the Route 66 Museum in this sleepy little town.

First, we talked with Miles Elam about the Henry Cowell Redwood State Park:

And then Ben Jaffe about the University of Santa Cruz campus:

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Tales from Technomadia:Talking with Locals is a series of interviews with locals that Chris & Cherie encounter as they travel about.  If you’d like to be part of the tales, please shout out if you see we’ll be anywhere near you.

We spent the day there walking on the beach, watching surfers and sucking up bandwidth as we worked.    Enjoy our tour of Morro Rock via video:

Sample Day: March 28, 2009, transitioning from San Leandro to San Simeon, California

7am – Wake up and freshen up. Tidy up the house and get things locked down to be in motion. Including securing the swing arm on the monitor, taking down the suction cupped pictures from the walls, locking all of the windows, turning off the inverter, locking the bathroom and closet doors, making sure nothing is likely to slide around and securing the kitten in her carrier in the Jeep.

7:30a – Hit the road, leaving our host’s curbside in San Leandro. We stop for diesel, and then head southward down the twisty mountain road into Santa Cruz.

9:00a – We pull in across the street from the KUSP studio in Santa Cruz, and a fella on an electric scooter stops and is fascinated by the trailer. We give him a tour, being reminded – ‘Oh yeah, we have one helluva cool trailer – we must remember to keep it showable while we’re in motion, people like to see it!’. We have a great chat with him about nomadism and sustainability, and learn he owns Seabright Brewery in town. We exchange contact info. We get Kiki set up in the trailer for a comfortable stay while we’re away for a bit, she seems fascinated by watching cars and bicyclist go by her window.

9:30a – We arrive to the ready room at the KUSP studio and meet up with today’s geeks who will be on GeekSpeak. We catch them up with what we’re up to, and discuss the mornings tech news to decide what will be highlighted on the show. At 10am, the show starts and we’re highlighted during it as mobile correspondents for GeekSpeak.

11:30a – After the show, we invite the Geeks to come see the trailer. And then some of us head off to the brewery of our new friend for lunch. We’re treated to a sampling of microbrews. Afterwards, we capture some video clips for a yet announced project we’re working on.

2:00p – We re-arrange the Jeep so we can take some geeks to a bus stop. We’re now past all near term obligations looming on our schedule, for the first time in months. The feeling of freedom is refreshing, and we treat ourselves to some ice cream at Mariannes’s to mark the occasion.

3:00p – We then decide to start our journey south, taking Route 1 down the California Coast. Knowing that on a Saturday night it might be difficult to score campspace, we decide to risk it anyway. We’re itching to get on the open road and see where nomadic serendipity takes us.

4:00p – We pass through Big Sur, and not to our surprise – all campgrounds are full. And most notably the big state park in town is closed for control burns, which reduces the number of available spaces in the area by around 200. So we head southward to continue enjoying the amazing coastal views.

Late Afternoon – We stop at various vista points to take in the views, stretch our legs and take obligatory pictures of ourselves. Even Kiki enjoys the coastline. And several folks ask us about our trailer along the way.

7:30p – No luck finding campspace in Las Padres National Forest, we drive further south with the beautiful light of the setting sun. We keep our eyes open for a nice pull off that would be suitable for boondocking overnight, but when we pull into San Simeon all pull offs are clearly marked ‘No Camping’.

9:00p – Before taking a chance by being scofflaws, we checkout the nearby San Simeon State Park and are greeted by a delightful park ranger who tells us there are spaces available. For $11 we have a nice primitive camp spot for overnight. We put Kiki out on her new harness and leash and she enjoys running around while we prepare a bite to eat. We’re getting a variable cellular signal, so we turn on the amplifier system which stabilizes it out nicely so we can check e-mail and such. We settle in for the evening, load up the final two episodes of Battlestar Galactica on our media center and snuggle up.