econoline

The Alaska Road Trip Begins!

Well hello there!

A lot has happened since the last time I updated the blog on our roving whereabouts, wild shenanigans and general goings-on, and if I could, I’d catch you up completely on what we’ve been up to since I last reported. But as I sit here writing this post, I realize how long that could take, as we’ve been moving at breakneck Turtle speed for the last few months! (Of course I’m not referring to miles-per-hour speed, as that remains as slow as ever. I’m talking about how much ground we’ve covered, which for us has been a lot in an uncharacteristically short amount of time.)

Instead, I’ve decided to pick up where we are at this moment, which is the beginning of such a fun adventure that I think you’ll agree this is the best place to begin. Because we just crossed the border into Canada, which (in our minds at least) is the official beginning of the Overland Trek to Alaska!

The general plan is as follows:

The Timeframe: A month driving up to Alaska (July), a month exploring Alaska (August), and a month returning home (September). We’d stay longer, but we’d like to stay ahead of snowy road conditions and by October the roads can start to ice over.

The Route: We are going to loosely follow what some travel guides call the “Gold Rush Route” on the way up, and then follow the Alcan Highway which ends just north of Montana, so we can drop in to see family at the end of the journey.

Must See: Denali National Park, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, The Cook Family in Anchorage, Harding Ice Fields, Kenai Peninsula, and a moose. (It doesn’t matter which one.) Other than that we’ll play it by ear, as is our general travel style. There’s a lot of Alaska up there and we want to see as much as we can without moving so quickly that we forget to relax and enjoy the quiet moments that we’ve come to love most during our travels. I’ve been surprised to find my sweetest memories are the little surprise spots we stumble across between official destinations, and we try to make sure we leave room for improvisation for that reason.

Aaaaand, honestly, that’s as far as we’ve gotten. It’s tricky to make new travel plans while you’re in the midst of traveling and enjoying your current location! So we’ve become accustomed to making detailed itineraries a day or two in advance and then making more general plans where the upcoming weeks and months are concerned. It’s just no use trying to nail things down when we could see an interesting road and end up somewhere completely different than we’d anticipated!

We just arrived in Canada yesterday, and already we’re just charmed to pieces. It’s very familiar of course, but different enough that we’re excited to see what unexpected twists we’ll encounter as we go.

Unanswered questions include:

How different are the regulations regarding boondocking? Can you stay overnight at any turnout or viewpoint along the highway like you can in the states we’ve visited in the US?
What are “good” prices for fuel and propane? Our brains are already so tangled by conversions, and then by the time we work out what the prices are in US Dollars we realize that we don’t even know if the price is good or bad for the region we’re in!
We were surprised by the questions they asked us at the border, but they let us in so who are we to complain? They had a lot of questions regarding our lack of jobs, even though we explained we were living off of savings, and wanted to know what jobs we had before we left them for life on the road. The agent asked to see bank account balances to ensure we had enough money to cover our trip, which makes sense. He didn’t ask about pets, even though we did have all the documentation for Scout and Gracie including immunization records, etc. The one we’re still puzzled about though is that he asked how many guns we own. Not how many we were carrying with us, but how many do we own anywhere in the world. Interesting, right? The answer is none, so I’m not sure what the outcome would have been had we said we had an arsenal somewhere in the states. But again, we’re not here to tell the man how to do his job, especially since we crossed over in very little time.

Today we went to Vancouver, BC and had a great time at the Granville Island Market and VanDusen Botanical Gardens before hitting up a few points of interest including the steam clock, a “metaphysical supply store,” the Digital Orca, and the Marine Building. All awesome.

We love Vancouver!

And now that we’re all up-to-date on the current adventure, here is a sampler platter of the aforementioned shenanigans we’ve been into the last month or two, for those who like pictures of cute animals, lovely scenery, fun friends, and other general niceness.

Everything Rolls: Lessons From the Road

Living on the road full time has proven to be even more drastically different from “real life” than we’d anticipated when we began this adventure almost two years ago. We assert that it’s waaaaaay better (for us), but there definitely have been a whole lot of lessons we’ve gradually been learning along the way. These are all things that we’d never had to consider when our house didn’t move, and it’s funny when we find that our new behaviors are now so deeply ingrained that when visiting friends in their stationary houses, we still anticipate things falling out of cabinets whenever we open them, for example.

I thought I’d list a few of the funnier lessons we’ve learned in the last year and a half.

Never trust the flatness of any surface, no matter how level it may look. Everything rolls. Put that egg on the counter without hovering your hand above it for a second first, and you’ve got a cleanup job in between you and breakfast! It’s not a matter of will it roll, it’s what direction, and you better be ready.
Always open liquid containers slowly, because you’ve more than likely changed altitude since you last closed it. I mopped up a whole lot of wasted sunscreen, shampoo, and ketchup before learning this lesson. You can’t trust a bottle on the road.
You can’t take people’s recommendations for the “best food in town” unless you’re in your home state, or at least a neighboring state. Regional tastes vary so much that Yelp has been rendered useless to us. You just don’t know what the ideal flavor profile is. We’ve gotten tips from locals about where to go for dinner for the “most amazing Mexican food we’ll ever have” only to discover that in that state, sweet marinara-flavored salsa is the standard, among other atrocities.
If you see a sign for a free dump station and potable water that’s right on your way, it’s going to be a good day.
There are loads of great places to park when boondocking downtown. One of them is not the local newspaper office. At 3:30 a.m. the trucks pull up and idle while metal doors are flung open, and the workers chat loudly while tossing heavy piles of paper into their trucks. This all happens six feet away from your face. Newspaper offices may seem harmless, but they’re hazardous to your sleep.
Never assume that the mess you don’t feel like cleaning up right now is your secret. A house tour could happen at any time. We vandwellers just love to check out each other’s setups, and if you meet some fun fulltimers and you slacked on clean-up duty that day, you’d better just come to terms with them being in close quarters with your dirty dishes and sandy dog cushions, because you just can’t forfeit the tour swap!
Let yourself wake up enough in the morning to realize where you are before opening the back door and hopping out. Just because your back yard has been the woods for a week doesn’t mean that you won’t step out—in your pajamas and —into the middle of some town’s morning commute.
We also just recently learned that we are Napa Blue. You really do learn something new every day!

Let’s Refurbish a Van – Part 8: Hood Scoops (By Andy)

A post by Andy

{Modified the title theme some. We think of ourselves much more as a big van than a small RV. I now want to start prefacing this and future posts to be more representative of our self-image.}

So, to the meat of the subject. I just finished our hood scoops! Why did I make hood scoops? Well, for one, they look pretty cool and I needed a prominent place to put my new go-fast emblems that I ordered from Amazon.

Mainly, we are trying to get as much power out of the engine so we can get our heavy old self up the high steep hills. In that vein, I have been playing with the spark timing, carb mixture, and intake airflow. By tweaking and adjusting these parameters we are working to get the most power and efficiency out of our old engine. Specifically, advancing the timing can get the engine to produce more power, but too much spark advance causes engine problems—pinging and preignition. If the engine is cooler, one can run with more advance. Another way to look at it is that with a given timing advance, if the engine and intake air get hotter, then the timing is too far advanced.

Maybe a side note about my “go-fast” emblems. Car companies try to sell cars. Sometime fancy cars come with racing stripes, cool graphics, and badges on the side about engine stuff. A joke among car people is the question “How much horsepower do the stripes add?” The answer is, of course, none. But… they do look cool. Look around, they are everywhere: M3, AMG, Hemi, 440, HiPo. The only thing the badge or stripes could actually do is add an immeasurably small increase in drag, or some unneeded paint weight. They are simply for the people in the car next to you. All the same, they look sporty, so I bought some that state the displacement of our engine and say it is “High Performance”. What I’m saying here is they do nothing, but they truly do look great!

So, I wanted more air to get in and out of the engine compartment to cool the engine, and have the air flowing into the air cleaner be as cool (and dense) as possible. To make sure I had an understanding of the pre-hood-scoop environment, I first taped the probe end of my digital temperature gauge to the air cleaner. Over a few weeks in different driving conditions and different altitudes, we took notes about the temperature measurements of the air cleaner and air filter. You can see the wire to the probe, and the tape holding it in one location.

Overall, we are in the 150º–160ºF range under the hood after the engine gets warmed up and when the ambient temperature is in the 70º–80ºF range. So, to get more outside air in and more inside air out we need some kind of venting. I looked online, and $50+ plastic vents and scoops can be found, but they were not really van-sized, and seem flimsy. Metal ones can also be found, but are more expensive, and again, really don’t fit. Apparently there is an untapped market of people who want to mod 1985 Ford vans! (Investors be wary—the market may be small.) I finally hit on the idea that rectangle cake pans are about the size I wanted, and they are inexpensive, and they are made of metal designed to withstand 500ºF+. Going with this thought, while we were camping in El Malpais National Monument, I made some cake pan-sized cardboard mockups and spray painted them with a blue that I had.

Test fitting…

I thought that looked good, so a few days later when we were in a town, we got some cake pans.

One morning, a few weeks later, when we where camping at the Great Salt Lake, I got out the pans, tin snips, sandpaper, and primer, and got to work remaking our sweet cake pans into even sweeter performance hood scoops (please note the word play).

Here they are.

Test fitting.

We stashed them away for a bit and traveled onward. Another week later we had a free day while visiting our friends the Higdems in Kimberly, ID. I measured, moved, marked, measured, and measured and marked again. Then I started drilling holes in the hood.

Lots of little holes now!

After fitting and drilling the mounting holes, I now knew what piece of the hood (bonnet, for any Brits out there) to cut out. Out with the jig saw.

Another side note here: When putting the Turtle together, we set ourselves up with a few DeWalt cordless tools and the battery charger that plugs into a 12V cigarette lighter. The tool charger is now wired to our solar-charged batteries, so we are using the sun’s energy to drill, cut, and modify our hood. It feels fun to know that when working on projects such as this!

For the final install, I put down a small bead of RTV sealant, aligned the scoops, and screwed in the 6 screws per scoop that I had already pre-drilled. After the RTV cured a bit, I got out our boat paint and went at it.

Included above is, obviously, a photo of what Scout and Gracie were doing at the time. A few days later, at Dave and Ryann’s place, I added more RTV to smooth the transition and put on more paint to finish it all off.

All finished now, after the last painting and with the great go-fast badges installed.

We should call this the conclusions section of the post, for you science people out there. Well, they have been on now for a week, and we don’t move fast, so we have only driven a few hundred miles. We will need to collect more data, but so far the maximum under-hood temperature we have seen in 135ºF, and most of the time it has been in the 100º-120ºF range (and we are actually in hotter weather than when we took our non-hood scoop measurements). We have also driven through crazy heavy rain and, as expected and hoped for, the small amount of water that enters through the scoops has no adverse effects on the engine. Generally, a pretty solid success, and I have since advanced the ignition timing just a bit with no pinging.

Oh, maybe a cost breakdown. The sum total of the cake pans, primer, quantity of screws, RTV, and paint used is less than $20. The go-fast badges were $11 each. Dave suggests I sell it as “The whole project was less than 45 dollars.” I think I shall adopt that tract!

All that for less than 45 dollars!!!

Let’s Refurbish a Van – Part 7: Our Batteries Phase 1 (By Andy)

A Post by Andy

{Note: The work detailed in this part of the post was completed over the summer of 2015, before we moved into the Turtle. I am just getting to writing the post now.}

So, we like to have our computers run, have lights, have the controls for our fridge work, have a charged Wi-Fi hotspot, and have our furnace fan powered to keep us warm. For all this we need electricity, and since we want to be off-grid, we need batteries. We started with this:

If you are familiar with the Turtle, this compartment is behind the largest access door on the passenger side- the door with the vent in it. In the following photo, I put in a dotted line where the plane of the floor on the inside intersects the compartment.

The walls of the compartment above the floor line are plywood, and bump up under the couch inside. The sides and bottom below the line are made of heavy steel. I have deduced the compartment was originally designed for a generator, as there was old 120V AC wiring running to it, an unconnected fuel line that ran into the back, and the door vent.

I had a hard time figuring out what all the wires were hooked to, as it was a bit haphazard in the compartment. In the above picture, (1) is a port that goes outside, below the floor of the Turtle. The wires there threaded out of the box, ran a short distance under the Turtle’s floor, then threaded up through the floor to the old inverter. There is a second hole (2) that the wires from the old 100W solar panel and the wires between the battery and main 12V distribution panel were run. (3) is the unused electrical box that had 120V AC wires run to the compartment where the shore power cable is housed.

Maybe I should back up a bit and throw out a few concepts and definitions and explanations for the terms we will be using.

Battery: A thing that stores electricity in chemical bonds. Here, we are just referring to 12V lead-acid batteries.
12V/12VDC/DC: 12 Volt Direct Current (DC). This is what cars use for their electricity for headlights, the radio, starting, etc. It is the kind of power all the batteries we talk about will produce.
120v: 120V Alternating Current (AC). This is what is in your house and in businesses you know, the typical wall plug Amy and I look for at restaurants to plug our computers into. It’s generally 120, 121, or whatever it takes.
Current: The flow rate of electricity.
Voltage: The force pushing the electricity through the wires.
Inverter: An electrical box that changes 12VDC to 120VAC. It changes car electricity to house-hold electricity. This is so we can plug our AC computer cords into our DC batteries.
Converter: An electrical box that changes 120VAC to 12VDC. The opposite of the above—pretty much a garage battery charger that you use to get your car started after you leave the lights on.
Charge Controller: An electrical box that changes the output of the solar panels into DC voltage, hopefully charging the house batteries.
House Battery: Now, I probably use this too freely. When I talk about house batteries, and I mean batteries dedicated to our living compartment. If I say house (or household) electricity, I mean 120 V AC. Got to figure this out… but, house batteries are 12V batteries separated from the car system, and dedicated to lights and heat and powering the inverter in the house part of a van. One should be able to run these dead flat, and the car will still start, as they are fully independent circuits.
Starting Battery: The batteries under the hood, used for starting the car, sparking the gas when the engine is running, running a radio (if you had a functional one), and lighting the headlights.
Shore power: Kind of a boat term, but a source of 120V AC electricity you can plug into. When you pull up at a friend’s house, and pull out your extension cord, and plug into their electricity, they are your “shore power”. (Thanks Alex and Julie, Kari and David, Connie, Mag and John, Dave and Ryanne, Mike and Becky, Blake and Martha, Roger and Mary, Chris, Dad…)

Now, back to the good stuff! To start the battery box rebuilt and modification, I first labeled the wires and removed the old battery. I then cleaned the compartment with baking soda and water to neutralize the sulfuric acid and prevent further corrosion. Lucky, the metal compartment is super stout, so it was still in great shape. As usual, after a final thorough cleaning, I caulked the seams and painted the compartment with black Rustoleum. I can’t find a picture of the completely empty, cleaned and freshly painted compartment, but trust me, it looked good!

After getting the compartment beautified, I cut and painted a plywood plate to fit into the bottom, bolted and glued it to the metal base of the box, and mounted battery trays to it. I painted up everything with oil-based paint and used stainless steel hardware to affix everything.

Since we had just gotten the Interlux blue boat paint, I practiced the painting technique on the top surface of the plywood base, so it is the same shiny blue as the Turtle exterior. In the following photos, you can see the two new Fullriver 115Ah 12V DC sealed AGM batteries that we started with in there, but just patched into the cleaned up existing wiring we are reusing at this point.

I decided to go with Absorbed Glass Matt (AGM) batteries. They cost a bit more than flooded batteries, but they do not spill, they will not develop corrosion at the terminals, and can be mounted sideways, if that configuration seems important. Additionally, they do not require venting, so they can be safely installed inside the living compartment, if that is necessary. Here is the site. We have been happy with this choice, and as you will find out in future posts, choosing AGM sealed batteries will allow us to make some future cold-weather modifications.

As to wiring, I was just starting to adopt the boat convention for new circuits and runs I would rewire. The convention is as follows: For 12VDC, yellow is ground, and red is positive. For 120V AC, the wires are white, black, and green for ground. Examples of the wires are here:

The reason behind adopting this convention is that at a glance, you can tell which circuit they are supposed to be wired to. Additionally, the boat 120V cable is stranded, as opposed to the household solid copper wire. Stranded wires should always be used in a vibration environment. Logically, then, a van should have no solid copper wires (though most RV builders do actually use cheaper solid copper for the 120V runs). As you might have observed, we have concluded that one should think of their van as a boat, and look to boat paints, wires, latches, and hardware for the upgrades and work. Though the boat cable is a little more expensive, it is paired and tinned for corrosion resistance, and gives a real nice finished look. Additionally, it can be purchased in any gauge.

So, at the end of our Phase 1 battery configuration we had our two new AGM batteries with a combined storage of 230Ah at 12V installed and secured, with the connections cleaned up. With this battery pack, we simply used the old converter to charge them when we were connected to shore power, and the old inverter to make our 120V for our computers when off-grid. At this point in our journey I also had just finished the install of our 300W of solar to charge the batteries (we will cover the panels and solar charging and solar controller in a different post).

That’s Phase 1 for you!

Our New Favorite Places: The Million Dollar Highway & Ouray, CO

We left Durango the next day and drove toward Silverton, CO which was a very exciting drive considering the elevation was greater than the Turtle had ever attempted.

We passed the 10,000′ elevation sign and cheered!

Then we got to the 10,640′ elevation sign and cheered!

Then we got to the 10,910′ elevation sign and cheered!

We made it all the way up with no issues, but there were definitely some “Little Engine That Could” moments. Especially once it started to snow.

That’s right, everyone who doesn’t live in Montana—snow in May!

We were not prepared to see it, but it was very lovely up there in the mountains. As the road got more windy and the snow fell harder, I was glad Andy was in the driver’s seat. Especially considering the previous post about our break-downs! 🙂

We made it to Silverton, which I pronounced The Cutest Town I’ve Seen All Year, and then on to the Million Dollar Highway. Our friend Rob told us about this route, which is the reason we went this way. It’s a very twisty-turny road at high elevations and sheer drop-offs on the side with no guard rails. Rocks fall from the cliffs above regularly, and when it’s rainy, the road gets fully washed out. Andy was sold.

So we traversed the Million Dollar Highway, and toward the end of the trek we saw why this route got its nickname. Holy moly.

Oh, and we just upgraded the WordPress account, so now we can post videos! This just got twice as fun.

Our surprise to encounter snow and freezing temps is evidenced in this photo of Andy changing from flip flops to boots at the viewpoint.

At the end of the Million Dollar Highway sits the new title-holder for Cutest Town I’ve Seen All Year, and also my top pick for a town to live for a little while in the future. It’s Ouray, CO and it’s so charming that words can’t describe it. It reminds me of my other favorite little town, Wallace, ID, in that it’s a sweet little town tucked into the mountains, but the mountains surrounding Ouray are even closer on all sides and so dramatic. It was even cold, foggy and overcast and still I was fully in love.

And dirt roads downtown, you guys.

Also dramatic? The weather. As we sat at the brewery our first day there, we looked outside to see the snow storm had reached us down in Ouray! (If you’re wondering about pronunciation, all I can tell you is that we heard locals say both “yer-ay” and “oo-ray” and we landed on “yer-ay” as our favorite. I think I like it best because it rhymes with “hurray” and that’s how I felt the whole time we were there.)

We camped out for the next few days out a Forest Service road by a river. We found the spot with a new app recommended to us by our new friends Gary and Kiki, called iOverlander. A great new tool in our arsenal! Everyone had a lovely time. All our winterizing gear was up in the attic, so we buttoned up the Turtle against the cold the best we could and got cozy!

We also spent a fair amount of time working away on our computers at Mouse’s cafe and sweets shop downtown, which is how I finally got caught up on our adventures here on the blog.

We’d planned on staying just two days in Ouray, as we were waiting to have some ballots sent to us from Andy’s mom in Montana.

By the way, fellow full-time travelers, we’ve discovered how easy it is to receive mail on the road—just have the sender address it to Your Name, General Delivery, Town, State, Zipcode, and the mail will make it to the main branch of the Post Office in the town you’ll be in! You just go to the post office and tell them you have mail waiting in General Delivery and there it is! Andy’s mom has sent us mail twice now, and we’re pleased that we can receive important letters even while on the move.

The delivery was delayed this time, though we couldn’t have been more excited to have an excuse to stick around town. Ouray is so darling, and everyone we met was welcoming and friendly that we felt right at home there for four days.

The morning of our third day there, the sun came out in full force, and we played outside and then spent the day in town.

On the fourth day, our mail arrived and it was time to continue down the road. We would have loved to stay longer (and get jobs and become locals), but our goal to make it to see family in Portland in a few weeks and then make it to Alaska by July compels us to move a little more quickly than our usual Turtle Time dictates. So on to Salt Lake City.

But we’ll see you again soon, Ouray!

A Busy Few Weeks: The VLA, ABQ, Boise, The Bisti Badlands, Four Corners, & Mesa Verde NP

Our current location is generally a mystery to anyone trying to keep track of us—including us—mostly due to the fact that we’re so busy having fun that I forget how long it’s been since I last updated the blog or Instagram! I promise that by the end of the next post both you and I will be completely caught up.

As I type this, I’m sitting at an adorable cafe and sweets shop in a town that, I announced immediately before consulting anyone else in the Turtle, we will one day live, even if just for a season. This place is a dream. But we’ll get to that next time. We have so much to cover right now!

We left our last story outside the Very Large Array near Socorro, NM, having a delicious evening treat of a pie sampler from Pie Town. We found a great pull-out to stay the night just a few minutes from the VLA. That night before bed, we watched Contact with a view of the VLA right outside our window! It was awesome. In the movie, the VLA plays a prominent role in Jodie Foster’s research and makes a really dramatic background. And it’s just as impressive in person.

The VLA is an astronomical radio observatory made up of 27 antennas that are each 82′ in diameter. They’ve helped with the investigation of black holes, quasars, pulsars, planets, and loads more. It’s astonishing to see them up close.

(Not quite sure what I was up to in this photo, but it’s the only one I’ve got, so you’re stuck with my unexplainable dance number.)

After getting our science on, we made our way back to Albuquerque where I had a flight to catch in a few days to Boise to visit my girlfriends Beth and Lexie.

But first, Andy and I had a mission: to get poolside as soon as possible. I’m not sure how we got the idea in our heads, but suddenly we couldn’t live without a swim. So we headed to the only RV park in Albuquerque that had their pool open before Memorial Day—American RV Park.

We came for the pool and stayed for the lovely park, yummy continental breakfast, clean showers and laundromat, and beyond-friendly staff. We really did stay another day. It’s a great park that I can’t recommend highly enough! We realized that it had been over a year since we had stayed in an RV park, which was fun because we’ve really gotten the hang of boondocking and have saved lots of money by not going to parks unless we need to take advantage of their amenities. Turtle power!

We stayed two nights, and the next day I left this guy:

To hang out with these guys:

It was a bunch of fun. We painted the town red, and even got dressed up to go watch the Kentucky Derby.

After a whirlwind few days, I was back in Albuquerque and the four of us were back on the road. Andy and I went to a fantastic mining museum in Grants called the New Mexico Mining Museum, which has a replica uranium mine underground. The man at the front desk had worked in mining for about 35 years, and had worked his way up from the bottom to be the head of his mine and even got an award for safety, with the longest time without a death in the mine or serious injuries. He had lots of information, was adorable, and gave me a goldstone to remember the mine by.

Outside of Grants, we stayed at the Joe Skeen campground near El Malpais.

I was happy to be reunited with this guy:

And this guy:

We drove to the Bisti Badlands wilderness, where you can stay overnight in the parking area for free! It was especially appreciated that we got to stay after we climbed for hours over the crazy hills that changed in appearance every few minutes. It felt like a walking tour of 10 different planets.

It was a hot day, and when we got back to the parking lot, we relaxed in our chairs and read books with Scout and Gracie. Gracie has become a real champ with her harness and leash these days. I think she’s figured out that sometimes it’s her only ticket outside, so she wears it without any problem, and even comes to my feet meowing when she hears me get it out.

The next day we made it to Four Corners with beautiful skies above us.

Then we drove on toward Mesa Verde National Park. The landscape on the way to the park was a destination unto itself. I swear this is not a painting.

In the last year, we’ve been to two other cliff dwellings sites: Bandelier NM and Gila Cliff Dwellings NM. We really enjoyed both, but agreed once we made it to Mesa Verde that this is our favorite site so far.

In the park are 600 beautifully preserved cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Pueblo people, many of which you can tour or see clearly from various vistas. Depending on the site, the tours are just $5 or $10 each, which gets you 1-2 hours of information and a walk right through the dwellings. You can see petroglyphs and pictographs, the different styles of construction each group used, and the actual tools they used to grind corn and make food. And the views are so vast and unreal that we both said more than once that we’d pay just to hike the trails on the mesa! There are also self-guided tours you can take, so we did all of those too.

Our second day there, as we parked at Balcony House for our tour we noticed another van that could be the Turtle’s long-lost cousin, so we parked by it as we often do when we see a van we like. After traveling around for the last year and a half, we’ve found that we can usually tell by someone’s van if they are kindred spirits, and our track record is pretty good so far. This time was no exception! We ran into Gary and Kiki as we returned from our tour, and found out that they’re just starting out on their full-time vandwelling adventure (though they’ve already been on many, many adventures of other sorts). We’d all already purchased tickets for the same tour the following day, so we got to hang out even more during the Long House tour.

We super enjoyed getting to know you guys, and I’m certain that our paths will cross down the road. (When they do, we’ll let you know what Turtle theme song we came up with; hopefully one as cool as Birdy’s.) You guys were a pleasure to hang out with. Stay in touch! 🙂

After the tour, we did a quick 6-mile loop on top of the mesa to check out the other cliff dwelling overlooks.

We would have loved to stay and visit (both the park and the new friends) longer, but the storm clouds were rolling in and the skies were getting darker. Our first rule of overlanding is “Never Drive at Night”, which is comparable to driving in terrible weather, so we hit the road to make it to Durango, CO to find a spot before the weather hit.

We hung out in Durango for the evening, a town that I already loved and knew Andy would too. The weather was unfortunate, with frigid winds and constant cloud cover, but we had a great time anyway. If you can involve pizza in the plans, Andy is a happy camper.

If you can also include a free trip to the coolest railroad museum ever, Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum, he will be even happier.

And if you really want to make his day, cap it all off with a little performance testing at the highest altitudes the Turtle has ever attempted. . .

Which, unbeknownst to us, was the next leg of the trip. And one that would bring us to where I sit now, in my new very favorite town of all time! But that’s up next.

A Broken Turtle Tale: Reserve, NM

In the last post, Andy itemized all our break-downs, according to the definition of breaking down that we’ve agreed upon. The final line item in that list was a break-down in Reserve, New Mexico which we mentioned we’d discuss further later. It’s not so much a story about what went wrong, though that’s exciting too, but about a lucky break in where we broke down and how wonderful it is to be reminded of how kind people are.

The story begins as we left Silver City from the Gila Cliff Dwellings. It was a stunning drive.

Andy had woken up that morning from delicious dreams of pizza, so we made it the daily goal to find ourselves a slice. As we passed through Reserve, NM we saw The Adobe Cafe had a flying banner advertising pizza, so we took it as a sign and went in. The pizza did not disappoint!

We wrapped up our remaining slices and got back in the Turtle, started it up. . . and that starter just kept starting and turning over and making crazy sounds, and continuing to start even after Andy pulled the keys out. It was probably three minutes we spent panicking and looking at each other with saucer eyes and running around trying to figure out what to do, but both of us agree it felt like twenty before the starter finally died. We got out, and I popped the hood and began investigating. (Yeah, just kidding of course—Andy did that.) My job was to chat with the friendly locals who came over to make sure everything was all right.

Andy here. What I suspected was happening, and what we finally concluded happened was this: When you turn the key to start, a little electrical current is fed to the started solenoid. The solenoid is a switch that then supplies a large current from fat wires from the battery to the starter (an electric motor), that then turns over the engine. The little solenoid switch got stuck in the connected position, so even after turning the key back, it was still making the connection to supply power to the starter. Starters are not designed to run for long, so the starter overheated, something important inside melted, and it died. To fix the problem, we then needed a new solenoid switch, and a new starter. Took less that 30 minutes to fix, once we got the right parts. We actually carry a spare starter and solenoid with us now…

And I’m telling you, the whole town of Reserve rallied together to help us out! People were driving home to see if they had spare starters, directing us to the auto shop down the road, checking back on us after attending the elementary school play their kids/grandkids were in that evening, and generally just offering any assistance they could. It was really encouraging. Because it was Friday, the shop wouldn’t be able to get parts in until Monday, so we thought we might be marooned for a few days. As a last resort, Andy did his best to revive the patient inside out of the rain, but the thing was D.O.A.

In the meantime, Gracie kept us apprised of the goings-on in the neighborhood.

We met a local who coincidentally is from my hometown of Billings, MT. He offered to take Andy to the nearest town the following day to pick up a starter in Springerville, about an hour away. We were saved! We joined him at the local tavern for a beer and had a great time. Everyone there expressed concern for our stranded state and offered whatever help they could provide for us. But luckily, we had Craig. The next day he arrived to pick up Andy, and the two of them got the part, Andy installed it, and we were all set to go. Thanks Craig! You really saved the day!

We’d also like to thank the entire town of Reserve who made us feel welcome and not at all up that proverbial creek. At any given moment we had a handful of people on call, doing whatever they could to help us out. We had a lovely stay, and if we’re ever in the area we’ll definitely be back!

A Postscript Involving Pie:

Due to the delay, we knew we were cutting it close if we were going to make it to the destination I’d pinned on our calendar three months ago and had been talking about ever since: an actual town called Pie Town, NM. Can you believe it? It’s a tiny little town with just a few shops, three of the four of them pie shops. And if you’ve met me you know how much I looooooove pie. I couldn’t wait.

Unfortunately by the time we reached Pie Town, all the shops had just closed. I was pretty bummed out. As we drove through town, we noticed that Pie-O-Neer Pies had cars parked out front, so we pulled in, but the Closed sign was in the door and I was re-bummed. Then just as we began to back out, a petite smiling woman in a stylish hat popped out of the door and shouted to us, “Do you want pie?” We said YES! She said they only had three slices left, but we could come take a look. We said we’d take the lot, and they even threw in an extra slice for us. It was a very glorious day for me. We took them to go, and I waited impatiently for us to reach our evening destination outside of the Very Large Array. We found a perfect spot at a turn-out right by the entrance road.

If you look in this picture, you can barely make out the VLA on the horizon. (It looked much closer in person.)

Then we ate pie!

We ate them sampler-style, and loved all three. We had enough leftovers to enjoy two more dessert occasions as well. We’ll definitely drive out of our way to return to Pie-O-Neer Pies in the future. What a treat!

So although reading the list that Andy put together may seem like a series of unfortunate events, they all make for great stories, and some of those stories even end in pie.

We Love NPS: Carlsbad Caverns, Guadalupe Mountains, White Sands & Gila Cliff Dwellings

It’s no secret that we love the National Parks System. In fact, part of our five-year plan (or as close as full-time wanderers get to a plan) involves taking occasional breaks from the road to work at National Parks and Monuments as we travel around. Not only will it be soooo fun to live at a park, but we can also make a little extra travel money while giving back to the Parks System that has basically been our landlord for a good portion of the last year and a half. We’ve boondocked on NPS land at National Parks, campgrounds, and dispersed camping areas. And not only to we get access to astonishingly beautiful and unique gems around the United States, we’ve also been provided at many sites with potable water, RV dump stations, showers, bathrooms, and garbage services. Oh, and a surprise favorite—ranger talks around campfires under the stars! At Wind Cave the fireflies were flying around us as we walked to the amphitheater to hear a ranger tell us all about the history of bison in South Dakota, and another ranger sang us a song on her ukulele that she wrote about Native American folklore. Pretty fancy, right?

Immediately after hitting the road, we got our NPS annual Interagency Pass and it’s no surprise that we’ve gotten our $80 worth and feel pretty happy about it! The last few weeks have been especially National Parks-y.

We began the streak at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, hiking down to the Big Room from the Natural Entrance.

There were some beautiful intricate formations on the way down, but the real thrill was the 1.25 mile loop around the Big Room at the bottom. We’ve been in a bunch of caves, but never anything like this! The photos do it no justice, but the scale of these stalactites and stalagmites is staggering.

We were thankful for the railings along the path, which made it possible to just stare upward with our mouths hanging open, pinballing our way down the walkway. It’s Andy’s Favorite Cave To Date, and for me it’s Tied For First with all the other caves I’ve explored. (I just really like being in caves.)

We stayed the night somewhere outside the park, and then the following day—Easter Sunday!—we arrived at Guadalupe Mountains National Park for a holiday hike.

Of course we had to investigate the potable water situation, and they had a nice spigot near the RV camping area, so we made a note of it and hiked on into the hills. This park is home to El Capitan, which is a celebrity rock, and Guadalupe Peak, which is the highest mountain in Texas. We didn’t hike either of them; it was 90 degrees with full sunshine, so neither of us felt bad about choosing a less strenuous trail.

After the hike and a water fill, we proceeded to El Paso for a Costco run and then on to Alamogordo and saw. . . well, look.

That’s right; it’s the World’s Largest Pistachio! It’s a sculpture at the McGinn’s Pistachio Tree Ranch, which is a really fun stop if you’re in the area. There’s a lot to see and eat there. We sampled dozens of flavored pistachios and pistachio candy, bought some bags to take home, and got some pistachio ice cream to eat under a pistachio tree by the huge pistachio sculpture.

I’ve never written the word “pistachio” so many times in my life combined.

Then another stop in Alamogordo at the Alameda Park Zoo, recommended to me by my buddy Daren who used to live in the area. And I’m so glad he did; we wouldn’t have thought to stop by this tiny zoo in a park in the middle of town, but it was one of the coolest zoos either of us has ever visited! It’s only $2.50 to get in, the grounds are lovely and nicely manicured, and the animals are happy and well-cared for in their clean and green enclosures.

We left the zoo while we still had plenty of light so that we could make the big climb up to Cloudcroft, an adorable town 19 miles outside of and 4,000 feet higher than Alamogordo. And our little Turtle made it! We may have been going 2 mph, but we made it! We stopped at the scenic train trestle outside of Cloudcroft, and then found a cool dispersed campsite nearby to stay for the night.

We stayed two days, and drove back down.

. . .Don’t get me wrong, lots of fun things happened in Cloudcroft, but I promised you a National Parks post so I’m going to try to stay on topic here. 🙂

A lot of National Parks that we go to feel like being on another planet, which is a shared characteristic of all the parks I’ve liked best. So you can probably guess my approval rating for White Sands National Monument! This place was bizarre in the very best way.

It was magical. Hills and hills as far as the eye can see of gypsum sand.

It played tricks on our minds, as hills of white usually mean snow and winter, but it was 85 degrees and we were roasting! I made a sand angel anyway. Also strange was the sensation that we were walking on sand in that heat, but it wasn’t hot on our feet at all.

Before we began walking back to the Turtle, Andy joked that we should fill our bucket with water and make a white sand castle. We both got quiet and looked at each other, and then went to get the bucket.

The next day we went to Hatch, NM to get ourselves the epic green chile cheeseburger at Sparky’s that some hot springs friends had told us about a few months ago.

It was legitimately one of the best burgers I’ve ever had. Thanks for the recommendation, guys! On our way out of Hatch, we got some green chiles from a roadside market, Andy hassled one of the locals, and then we hit the road for Spaceport America.

Spaceport America is incredible to see, even though it’s not open to the public right now. We’d read that there was a visitor’s center, but it’s in nearby Truth or Consequences (actual town name) so we just got a long-distance view of “the world’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport” and some really neat info from the hospitable guard at the gate. The sci-fi nerd in me was already picturing the next time I drive out there, this time with my flight ticket in hand. To infinity and beyond!

That night and the next we stayed at Elephant Butte Dam in Truth or Consequences. We swam, read by the water, got some sun, and threw Scout’s frisbee into the water a thousand times before continuing onto the next leg of our journey.

Which was Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument! Another new favorite, and another great NPS spot to visit at the top of a very windy road that tops out at about 8,300 ft. The Turtle was wheezing, but we made it up this one too! And the reward was worth it.

There are free campsites all around the monument, as well as an oasis just right outside—a privately-owned hot springs with three pools and camping available. If they hadn’t been booked up, we would have gladly stayed the night too!

But we already had a site we’d found the night before that we loved, so we were happy to return to our little house by the river.

It was a great place to relax and catch our breath before moving on to the next National Park! It was also a great place for catching other things too.

After returning our new friend to his home by the river, we returned to the road—the Turtle’s natural habitat! And on to the next National Park—the Turtle’s second home.

A Good Place to Crash—Outside Roswell, NM

We’re back in New Mexico and we couldn’t be happier about it! We never imagined we’d stay in a single state for multiple months during our travels, but we can’t seem to rush through anything here. We always plan a general outline of our route a few weeks out and estimate how much time we’ll spend in each spot, but it’s always subject to change and sometimes we trip over a great spot and end up staying much longer than anticipated. The reasons for the extension vary each time, but more often than not it’s because we find a great quiet spot where the weather is clear and we can get some work done on the Turtle!

Considering how limited our storage capabilities are, we keep a surprising amount of project materials on hand in case we find a good spot to do a little maintenance and housekeeping. Of course this was Andy’s idea, and the additional paint, brushes, wood, and tools for which he prioritized space has made Turtle life much more comfortable and manageable. It helps that he’s a wizard with problem solving, woodworking, electric jobs, and wordplay. (That last one has less to do with this topic, but it’s worth noting.) Anyway, we’ve got a pretty customized Turtle these days!

We never know when the work space is going to present itself. Thanks to our arsenal of travel apps, we can tell if a spot seems to be a good place to stay the night, but we can never know exactly what we’re going to get when it comes to the view, the size of the site, the crowds, etc. So we left stormy Lake Meredith on our way to sunny Roswell, NM thinking we’d just travel through Roswell on our way to some great National Parks.

First we stopped in Borger, TX and this happened:

Don’t worry; he’s fine.

After we got him back on his feet, we stopped in Portales, NM to catch up on some computer work, journaling, and letter-writing at the Roosevelt Brewery, where we happened upon some new friends who are also really into the vandwelling lifestyle and have some plans of their own on the horizon. It’s so much fun to meet people who understand the impulse to make life simpler and more fulfilling and adventurous by traveling full time in a tiny house on wheels. So we decided to stick around and spend the evening with them, and had a great time. It was so much fun meeting you, David and Robyn! And thanks for the stickers; we really wanted Roosevelt for the brewery sticker book. You guys are the best! Keep in touch! 🙂

The next morning we were ahead of schedule daylight-wise, since we hadn’t anticipated a stop in Portales, and we were super close to our next stop in Roswell. But since I’d bookmarked an interesting OHV site (Off-Highway Vehicle) for the previous night, we thought we’d just swing by as we drove past to see what it was like.

Aaaaaaand, we loved it.

It was like being on a Star Trek set.

And because this spot is made for toy-haulers, each of the sites is huge, and even has a covered picnic table, grill, garbage, and bathrooms. Not to mention a great view.

The weather was perfect, the space was ample, and the nightly fee was minimal, so we decided to settle in for a bit. Because when you live in a Turtle, there’s always a project waiting to be done!

So while the animals enjoyed their enormous new back yard, Andy and I got to work.

Jobs that needed to be done included:

(Andy’s notes)

– Toilet started running continuously. We got a new valve for $45 in Amarillo, TX, and installed it here. Needed to remove the toilet, remove old parts, install the new parts (took the time to thoroughly clean the toilet), and then reinstall it.

– Rotated the tires. Kept them all on the same side, and moved front to inner rear, inner rear to outer rear, and outer rear to front. We had a slow valve stem leak some time ago, and when we did, I rotated the spare into the front at that time.

– With the tires off, took time to clean the rims and brakes, and inspect the brakes with the wheels off.

– Made, painted and installed the Nalgene holder for behind the stove.

– Installed the D-ring recovery points onto the rear bumper where it is welded to the frame.

– Installed an ammo box under the spare tire in the back. They make a nice waterproof container, and inside I have replacement ignition parts and other electrical parts we what to have on hand and keep dry.

Some notes: We travel with all our tools, including a 50-ton bottle jack and two 3-ton jack stands. cordless drill and jigsaw (that charges from the solar). They came in useful here!

Gracie helped.

When the weekend arrived, we decided to leave the spot available for the real OHV riders and see if we could find some aliens in Roswell.

We saw a bunch, but sadly none of them took us with them for a universe tour. Which worked out for us, because a couple of other strange creatures were waiting for us to take them back to our desert landscape for a few more days of work—and even more play—before hitting the road again for further adventure on planet Earth.

The galaxy can wait for now.

A Month-Long Detour: Oklahoma City, OK

In our last post, I alluded to a detour we were embarking upon to visit some friends in OKC. I couldn’t have imagined that when I finally had time to write about it, we’d have also moved the party to Texas and extended the trip by two weeks! But with old friends, it’s hard not to want the good times to keep rolling, and by the end of it both Beth and I were convinced that we’d talked the other into prolonging the fun. So it was a win-win.

A quick history: Beth and I were randomly-assigned roommates our freshman year of college at University of Montana in Missoula. Because all of our pictures are in storage right now, the best I can give you is this little gem that I found slipped between the pages of a sketch book while organizing the Turtle one day. Please note the high-res quality of a photo taken on a first generation web cam and printed on a 90’s era printer. Also, that we were as cheesy then as we are now.

After moving into that tiny shoebox together, Beth and I gradually became friends, cracked each other up, invented games, stayed up until the sun came up, moved to Juneau, and caused some trouble together in the years to follow. Now, just a few short years later (Right? That’s what it’s been, right?) we still see each other every year, but still that’s not enough. So when Beth pointed out to me that we were only 7 hours from Oklahoma City, much closer than I’d realized, we put a pin in the New Mexico plans and turned that steering wheel east to go hang out with her and her family for a week or two.

Needless to say, we had all the fun. Unfortunately Beth and Johnny still had to do real life in the meantime, so we hung out with them while we could and then explored the city on our own while they worked.

Highlights of the trip included:

The Thunder game! They were playing the Portland Trailblazers, coincidentally. So after living over a decade in Portland, I saw my second Blazers game in OKC. I’m a baseball fan, all right? 😉

The Horse Thief show at the newly-renovated and super-cool Tower Theater.

Taking Scout to the field near their house to play frisbee in the middle of the city.

Taking our picture in front of the wall of their building, which Beth says everybody does, so we had to do it too. We like to fit in with the locals. 🙂

Playing with Asher, then continuing to play with his toys long after he lost interest.

Beth’s top-tier crown-making skills.

Going to the Oklahoma City bombing memorial and museum. (If you’re in town, GO to this remarkably well-curated museum, but be prepared to be emotionally fried afterward. It was extremely moving and we were spent by the time we left.)

Exploring Brick Town, Deep Deuce, Midtown, the Plaza District, and Automobile Alley on our bikes. Again, we like to feel like locals so I’m showing off our OKC knowledge here.

Riding our bikes by the baseball field and seeing that there was a free high school baseball game going on! We’d admired the stadium from outside a few days prior, so we were thrilled to get to see it inside.

Taking a walking tour of all of Beth and Johnny’s favorite spots with their friends Mike and Sandy (taking the pictures).

Watching Andy reach peak stress levels playing PacMan.

This.

We had SO MUCH FUN. Beth and Johnny were great hosts, and great sports. 🙂 Oklahoma City has changed a lot since the last time I visited about 5 years ago. We were going nonstop and still didn’t see everything!

One weekend, we decided to go camping at a wildlife refuge a few hours outside of town. We saw bison and wild turkeys.

Scout and Gracie had to be leashed, but were just happy to be outside smelling all those great animal smells.

Gracie’s a pro at tangling that leash up.

One day it was so windy that we drove into a little town nearby to go get huge hamburgers at a place that Beth and Johnny often frequent when they’re in the area, and still don’t know whether they love the spot or despise it. On this trip, we all agreed it was awesome, but we could also see that it had the potential to swing wildly from charming to exasperating.

Beth and I attempted a Boxcar Children photo.

Here is Asher’s recreation of the trip, including the Turtle, him in his tent, the fire, and the lines on the top left show the howling of the coyotes we heard in the distance. It’s perfect.

When our planned two weeks were up, we still weren’t ready to stop having fun. So we decided to get a week’s head start on Beth and Johnny while they worked through the week, and then we’d all meet up at Lake Meredith, north of Amarillo. It’s a free NPS site with lots of fishing, boat and swimming access, plus spectacular views of the lake from the camp sites perched on top of the cliffs.

The first night, Andy and I stayed on the Cedar Canyon beach.

The next day, we scouted out the myriad sites surrounding the lake. Many of them have bathrooms, potable water, and even hot clean showers. We still can’t believe this place is free! It’s better maintained than some sites where we’ve paid to stay.

We decided on a site at the Sanford-Yake campground.

Because we had no neighbors and the sites were so far apart, the animals got some freedom. Scout still loves his stuffed worm, so thank you again Eric and Willow! 🙂

Beth and Johnny arrived a few days later, and we continued the fun! We had a few gorgeous days and a few windy/chilly days.

There aren’t enough superlatives to express how much fun it was to spend so much time with Beth and her family, for the boys to get to know each other better, and to create new memories and inside jokes like we did in the old days.

After they left, I sat by the fire for a little bit and tried not to mourn too hard.

We went back down to the beach to lift our spirits, and the weather was so perfect we both got a little bit tan. Scout swam while Gracie watched Scout swim, perplexed.

We had another fire that evening and cooked up some hot dogs, knowing that the forecast was going to change drastically the next day!

Aaaaaaaaand, it did. We woke up to blasting wind rocking the Turtle and rain pounding the roof. When I opened the door to let Scout out, he jumped down into a river rushing under us!

After all the fun we had over the last month, we decided that we were ok with a stormy day and that it would actually be quite cozy to cuddle up in the turtle, have some coffee, read some books, write this post. . .

But first, we had to take advantage of the rainfall and give the Turtle a bath! (When you live on the road, you’ve got to take advantage of opportunities when they arise.)

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