rving

RTR: Our First Van Meetup!

I was writing a blog post in Yucca Valley, California a few months ago as part of our boring-but-more-fun-when-in-the-sun errands list mentioned in the previous post. At that point, our plan was to visit Slab City, NOT get stuck in any sand, and then head down to the Mexicali border and over into the Baja.

But as usual, our plans were no match for Greater Travel Forces.

Andy decided to use my blogging time to make a Home Depot run—don’t worry, he did ask if I would feel left out if he went alone, but I said I’d just go on tomorrow’s Home Depot run and skip this one.

While he stood on top of the Turtle in the Home Depot parking lot, a group of guys came over to find out what in the world the Turtle was, and asked if Andy was on his way to the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous. He was as confused as you may be right now at the perplexing name, but he asked for further information, and when he rejoined me at the coffee shop he had this information to share:

Rubber Tramp Rendezvous—or RTR for those in the know—is a yearly meet-up for vandwellers, RVers, and road travelers of all kinds held in Quartzite, Arizona out on a huge acreage of BLM land just outside of town. It’s been going on for seven years, and each year the attendance grows exponentially. The guy who organizes it has written books and has a popular YouTube channel aimed at helping people live the full-time van life. For the two week duration of the event he puts together a schedule of seminars, and people who specialize in certain aspects of van building, traveling, solar, or living in small spaces, for example, hold informal outdoor conversations about their area of expertise and answer questions. It’s also a place where a whole bunch of travelers come together to talk travel and give tours of their vans.

We decided instantly that we needed to go check this thing out.

After making our way out of the Slab City quicksand, we took the 2-hour detour east to Arizona and added the Turtle to the group of about 4,000 vehicles scattered around the desert in semi-organized clusters. We thought that before we tried find a place to park we should find the main camp so that we’d have a general sense of the lay of the land. We drove past countless vehicles and signs pointing down dirt roads for various sub-groups meeting one another until we saw a tiny yellow arrow pointing to the right that said “RTR”. We drove in, but the path directly to the main camp was lost among the braided roads created by the vans and RVs, so we just started driving, asking directions, and trying again.

Everyone looked like they were having such a great time, chatting with one another, setting up chairs in small circles, sharing food, riding bikes, and playing music. There were people of every imaginable walk of life and ages ranging from early 20’s to octogenarians. We kept driving and guessing at our route until we reached a dead end at a cul-de-sac created by a circle of vehicles around a huge campfire ring and a sign in front that said “Camp Slow Dust.” A cheerful group of people sat around a table and waved at us as we passed. We stopped and asked them where we’d gone wrong in our search for the main camp, and they pointed to the next path over but said not to bother; we could just camp with them!

We thought that sounded great and backed into a spot around the perimeter of the camp. (Photos below were taken on our last day when almost everyone had left. I’m not sure how I failed to take better camp photos. Living in the moment, I guess.)

Most of the group had met each other at a van build about a year ago and have been traveling together or meeting up periodically on the road with one another ever since. They were all so much fun, and Andy and I kept saying how happy we were to have landed in that camp. We’d originally thought we’d stay for a day or two, and ended up having so much fun that we stayed until the end of RTR six days later!

The beauty of meeting people in the context of a van meet-up is that no explanation is necessary regarding each person’s individual lifestyle rhythms. Everyone comes and goes as they please, spending time in small groups, sometimes the small groups becoming large groups, taking walks, taking naps, fixing vans, helping others fix vans, sitting outside to read, giving van tours, and on and on. It’s like summer camp.

During our stay with Camp Slow Dust we became friends with Wayne, Jeff, Cheryl, Gio, Greg, Jordan, Boom, Victor and Winter. Every night Wayne and Cheryl made a big family dinner for the camp, utilizing contributions from the group to add to the meal. We’d all sit around the fire on benches the guys made from huge planks they brought in, and as the week progressed the benches got shorter as the wood was tossed into the campfire.

On any given day you could find Andy next to someone’s van, so blissed out by the availability of people who wanted to talk about solar, wiring, engines, ProFlex, stainless steel hardware, tires . . . and everyone there loved to talk shop as much as we do. It was a lot of fun swapping ideas, and everyone there had a project going on. Greg has a Ford van just like the Turtle, but minus the shell, and after he and Andy had been chatting for a bit, Greg went to town and picked up a couple of cake pans just as Andy had done earlier this year. Soon his van looked like this:

On any given day you would find me enjoying standing in the sun and chatting up new friends in the camp while I threw the frisbee for Scout. I thought I’d go see more seminars and wander the desert more often, but all the fun seemed to happen in the small loop of Camp Slow Dust.

There was always something fun going down right outside our door!

I helped Wayne and Victor install power locks in Wayne’s van. (Wait, I was going to take full credit for that job. Oh well.) I loved hanging out with Wayne, who cares so much for the people in his tribe and welcomed everyone passing Camp Slow Dust to join us at the fire and share food, drinks, and stories. He leaves no one behind. We’ll definitely be meeting up with him down the road.

I also got to babysit Wayne’s little kittens, which was a position I was highly qualified for.

I spent a bunch of time chatting with Cheryl and mining her knowledge of plants and herbs and cooking on the road. That woman is a treasure trove of ideas! She wastes nothing, and one of my favorite tips is to cut up the green carrot tops to add to salads or dry for seasonings. They taste just like carrots and are good for you too. Cheryl gave us a tour of the main camp right when we arrived which made us feel very welcomed, and another day she walked me out to see the labyrinth someone had made.

We drove into town with Winter and wandered around the bustling town of Quartzite, admiring the myriad piles of rocks and minerals for sale under all the tents, as well as the weirdest/best grocery market.

Everyone at Camp Slow Dust made us feel so welcome and we were so happy we turned onto the wrong road on the way in. RTR was our first van meet-up, and it was eye-opening to see how many fellow travelers we’re surrounded by as we move around the continent.

Andy and Jordan talked extensively about solar, which was to come up later in our travels. In the meantime, you can start getting to know Jordan better through his charming and hilarious documentation of his travels from Seattle to the southern tip of South America.

Untitled Travel Project

I daily admired Greg’s lovely rock balancing and natural sculptures, which I’m told he does to beautify every campsite he stays in. He’s a world traveler full of love, and he has a YouTube channel and Instagram account documenting his travels, which you can follow here:

Yogi Van Life: YouTube

Yogi Van Life: Instagram

Jeff took Andy and I out for a ride in his side car, and he even got to ride in his own side car for the first time. Of course he made it look way cooler than we did.

On the last night of RTR, they had a campfire at main camp and a little ritual they call Burning Van. Afterwards, we had our own, much more impressive, sendoff—The Burning of the Benches!

Gio and I made sure the kittens weren’t left out of the fun.

When we turned in for the evening, Andy made sure Gracie got her fair share of snuggles too. I love these little buddies.

What a week. It was our first van meetup, and will definitely not be the last. We both felt so at home among the thousands of other travelers, surrounded by likeminded people who understand us and why we’ve chosen this crazy lifestyle. And just like summer camp, we said our goodbyes knowing that in one short year we’ll all be back sharing new stories around the Camp Slow Dust fire again.

On Top of the World: North on The Dalton Highway to Deadhorse, AK

Andy loves maps. So when we got our Milepost to plan our trip up to Alaska and it had a big Alaska map included, he was super excited. He unfolded it and we started pointing at places we would visit, and finding new places we didn’t know existed, like Chicken, Alaska. I noticed the Deadhorse dot way at the top of the state and said, “So are we going to the top of Alaska too, then?” Immediately I could see Andy’s wheels turning. We did a little quick research. And thus began our two-month-long back-and-forth decision/indecision about making the drive up the Dalton High to Deadhorse, Alaska.

The reason the decision wasn’t obvious is that the Dalton Highway has a bit of a reputation. It’s been featured on BBC’s World’s Most Dangerous Roads, America’s Toughest Jobs, and was the focus of four seasons of Ice Road Truckers. It’s a beast.

Here’s the rundown:

It’s a 414-mile road between Livengood and Deadhorse.
Nearly the whole route is dirt and gravel and in rough condition, with grades up to 12%.
It is one of the most isolated roads in the US, with only three towns along the route: Coldfoot (pop. 10), Wiseman (pop. 14), and Deadhorse (permanent pop. 25-50 but there are several thousand workers living there at any given time).
As the longest stretch of unserviced road on the North American continent, the Dalton is totally remote and has no cell service along the entire route until Deadhorse.
There is one gas station in Coldfoot and one in Deadhorse.
It gets cold up there. In 1971 it was the location of the coldest temperature ever recorded in North America at -82 degrees.
Atigun Pass through the Brooks Range is at elevation 4,739 feet and is considered quite treacherous, especially in unfavorable conditions.
It was built as a service road during the construction of the Alaska pipeline and is still used primarily by supply trucks—about 160 daily in the summer and 250 daily in winter and they’re all driving at top speed and have the right of way.
Travel tips on various sites include bringing two spare tires, plenty of extra fuel, survival gear, and your own surgical supplies.
The road ends at Deadhorse, which is not a town in the traditional sense but an industrial camp in the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. So there’s not much to do once you get there.

According to a NY Times article, “In addition to these numerous privations, there is also no good reason for a nonprofessional driver to drive the Dalton Highway.” When we asked around, most Alaskans and fellow travelers we talked to about making the drive told us emphatically that it was a bad idea and just don’t do it.

So there was that.

You’d think that would be enough to make the decision quick and easy. Buuuuuut. . . we were also feeling compelled by the other characteristics of that most remote wilderness. For example:

Just south of Coldfoot you pass into the Arctic Circle!
We’d get to see arctic tundra and (hopefully) arctic wildlife.
The Arctic Ocean is just beyond Deadhorse, and though the area is blocked by security, there is a tour company that will take you right to the ocean, after you pass a security check and pay them $70 a person.
Gates of the Arctic National Park sits on the west side of the highway, and though you can’t access the park by car, you can hike in on foot from a few parking areas.
The terminus at Deadhorse is the farthest north you can drive in North America. And we have plans to drive to Chile one day, so it would be pretty freakin’ cool to have driven the continents from top to bottom.
Apparently it’s really, really beautiful up there.
It’s almost completely wild.
Adventure calls!

I think by now you have a pretty good idea of where we landed on this one, especially if you read the title of this post. (We decided to go.) A few final pushes in that direction came from our friend Sam, who is a native Alaskan and knows all the information contained in both above lists and said that he wouldn’t recommend it to just anyone, but he knows the Turtle is capable and so are we, and that we should definitely do it. That’s all Andy needed to hear, so he was locked in. I was at 98% until my friend Lexie sent me a video by a pair of overlanders who had made the trip just a week earlier in their truck camper, and the scenery was more beautiful than I’d even imagined, and also they saw a baby grizzly bear. So I was locked in.

We got to Fairbanks, got all our supplies in order and bought a CB radio so we could communicate with the truckers as an added safety measure. We got up early the next morning and began our northward journey to the top of Alaska.

The first thing we noticed was the Alaska Pipeline, which was to be our one constant over the next few days, as it parallels the Dalton all the way to Deadhorse.

Also notable was how much more it felt like fall! It was much colder and the colors were gorgeous.

The pavement soon ended and we began the brain-rattling portion of the journey across the pitted, wash-boarded and pot-holed dirt road that would continue all the way to Deadhorse. It was a really beautiful drive, and we still felt pretty fresh when we saw the Arctic Circle sign and pulled over to take a few pictures.

The Turtle still looked blue at this point, too! We continued on to Coldfoot, watching the lovely scenery as well as the gas gauge.

We weren’t sure what to expect when we finally reached Coldfoot after 8 long hours, and were pleasantly surprised to discover the Arctic Interagency Visitor Center tucked away on the west side of the highway. The facility is a cozy spot to learn about the Northern Lights and the flora and fauna of the area, and they have maps available and flyers with information about Coldfoot, Wiseman, and Deadhorse since there’s no cell service all along the highway.

They also print out the weather forecast for the towns and the Atigun Pass, which on our visit showed snowflakes in the next day’s box. We’d already made it halfway there, so there was no turning back. We filled up with gas across the road and had a surprisingly top-notch dinner buffet at the restaurant/bar/gift shop/one building in the town that felt kind of like a church basement but really served up a mean meal. Then we drove just a bit north of town to a nice little turnout for the night.

As predicted, the next day was super cold and foggy and the snow loomed on the horizon.

We could barely see the scenery behind all that fog!

There were huge mountains on all sides but after a while we couldn’t see them even a little. It was just a blank white backdrop in every direction.

As we gained elevation approaching the Atigun Pass, the snow set in so suddenly that we were climbing the pass before we realized it and it was too late to chain up. If there were any turnouts we couldn’t see them at all, and there was barely enough room for two cars to pass one another, much less to pull off enough to not get hit by other passing vehicles.

We climbed and climbed, following the guard rails since that’s all we could see, and hoping against hope that the speedy ice road truckers wouldn’t blast by us.

At least we could read the road signs. . . what does that one say? Avalance Area? Oh good.

Andy handled that Turtle brilliantly, and I alternated between nervous picture taking and looking at the sky so I wouldn’t have to look over the dropoff into the white abyss. We finally made it through, and amazingly encountered no trucks. But even after the pass, the roads were so slippery that we pulled over on the road that leads to Galbraith Campground to chain up as a precaution.

On the return drive, we noted this spot was where we’d pulled over and were shocked to discover that there had been mountains surrounding us the whole time, but we had no idea.

Scout loved this stop. He’s a real snow hound, and he bounded through the snow and grazed on it and tried to get me to run with him, but it was too slippery. We did get an arctic frisbee session in though.

Soon the snow lessened, so we asked a driver on the CB if there was any more snow between us and Deadhorse. He said it was nothing but mud, so we removed the chains and bumped lurched down the road the rest of the way through the arctic tundra. It felt like being on another planet. It’s completely flat as far as the eye can see!

From the literature we took from the Visitor Center, I learned that because the ground is all permafrost beneath the top layer, there is a lot of standing water in the tundra because it has nowhere to go. Seeing little puddles and lakes everywhere wasn’t at all what I expected, but it was really interesting and beautiful.

After 10 exhausting, jarring hours, we made it to Deadhorse!

We really felt like we were on top of the world. I put on 10 layers and Andy put on his one extra layer so we could examine the Turtle and let the animals out. Gracie hopped out, felt the cold, and jumped right back in. Scout was unfazed and just wanted to play frisbee again.

We were thrilled and amazed that the only part that had come off the Turtle had been removed intentionally—as we drove with the chains on, they were slapping into the corner of the running board on Andy’s side, so he just took it off. Otherwise, we’d made it in one piece!

We were worn out by the drive, so we hopped back in to cozy up for the evening and admire the view out our living room windows.

We’re all good at getting cozy, but Gracie is the professional. She zonked out so hard that when I jokingly put my hat on her head, she just slept right through it. We all could relate, and the whole gang slept like logs that night, excited to explore the northiest north the next day!

The Road to Alaska – Part 2: British Columbia, Eh?

Greetings from Beautiful British Columbia!

It’s been an exciting first few weeks in Canada as we make our way north to Alaska. We’ve covered some ground and have been really enjoying watching the landscape change and become less and less familiar. The road signs are more frequently featuring moose, and though we haven’t yet spotted one yet, we did see a sleek little silver fox slinking around a park as we pulled in for the evening in Prince George! So that will tide me over for quite some time.

Our first adventure over the border began in Vancouver, BC. I briefly mentioned our stay in Vancouver in my last post, but now that I have all the photos uploaded I thought I’d fill you in further on the fun we had while we were there. Especially since, despite the fact that both of us have lived in Seattle, neither had ever been to nearby Vancouver so we were really looking forward to seeing the city.

One of my favorite resources as we visit new cities has been the online Atlas Obscura site, which suggests interesting attractions that aren’t found on most other “Things To Do In _______” sites. This time I told Andy that I was going to take him on a surprise tour of Vancouver and lead him to all the spots I thought sounded fun without telling him what they would be. He’s a good sport and agreed!

Our first stop was the VanDusen Botanical Gardens, which was one of the loveliest botanical gardens I’ve ever visited. The grounds are enormous, and the circuitous layout lends itself to a full day of wandering through paths and gardens reminiscent of Alice’s Wonderland.

Check out this delphinium garden:

Ok so if I’m being honest, the gardens were lovely, but the real reason for going here was something that’s been on my to-do list for as long as I can remember:

A hedge maze!

It’s one of only six Elizabethan hedge mazes in North America, and it was so much fun and more challenging than we gave it credit for going in.

Afterwards we went to the Granville Island Market, which my uncles in Seattle had highly recommended to us. It took us some time to find a spot to park, and it came in handy that Andy is a wizard. Look at this park job!

We wandered around the market and were totally in love. It was a bustling throng of people and the wonderful smells of hot espresso, cooking meats, fresh flowers and herby soaps. After picking up some darling wood map pins, we had lunch at a tiny Chinese restaurant downtown and then hit the road for the next stop on the secret tour . . .

The Steam Clock in Gastown. It’s a working steam clock built in 1977, which you can look inside and see the gears and levers moving. We were even there to hear the hourly musical whistles blow. In honor of the clock, we popped into nearby Steamworks Brewing Company for a beer.

Next we walked a number of blocks to the Marine Building, a remarkable Art Deco building that was conceived to look like it had risen from the sea, and it truly does. I mean it looks like something from a movie . . . oh wait, it is! To my fellow nerds out there, it’s also been featured in a number of movies, as the Baxter Building in Fantastic Four and for The Daily Planet in Smallville. Fun!

Afterwards we walked to see the Digital Orca sculpture, which we weren’t able to see up close due to an event that had the terrace roped off. (If you look closely, you can see empty glassware at the tail.)

It was a full day in Vancouver, and we left very satisfied. But after over a month staying in cities, I’d been so looking forward to getting back outside, and was happy to arrive at our next campsite at Gillis Lake. We stayed two nights, and got plenty of reading and swimming done.

When we woke up the morning of third day, the entire forest was flooded with smoke, which we later found out was due to dozens of forest fires throughout BC. A handful of towns had been evacuated, and the road we’d planned to take was closed. So we rerouted and drove through Kamloops to Prince George, windows rolled up to minimize our smoke inhalation. It was so thick my eyes watered, and you couldn’t even see the mountains beyond the freeway through the grey. And in the areas that we could see a fair distance, we saw fires licking the mountainsides. It was unreal.

We spent a two days in Prince George, or “PG” as the locals call it. (Which is pretty cute for a city in Canada, where everything is sweet and friendly and very “rated PG”.) When we got to town, we went to one of the best Railway Museums we’ve been to so far, and that’s saying something! We go to a lot of railroad museums, apparently.

We rode the little train around the grounds, and got to go inside most of the cars and engines. Andy had more fun than all the other museum-goers combined.

We stayed until they closed, then walked right next door to Cottonwood Island Park. I’d read that a local artist sculpted little pieces right into the trees, and as you walk through you can treasure hunt for them.

It likely comes as a huge surprise to nobody that my favorite was the gnome houses.

We stayed the night at the park’s lot and that’s where we saw the silver fox!

It’s a poor picture, but it was the best I could do at twilight while squealing with joy.

Over the next few days, we found ourselves in more picture-perfect campsites, all of which are free! We stayed a few nights at Co-op Lake, where we noticed a strange bubbling at the shoreline. As we got nearer to investigate, we saw that it was a massive mob of tadpoles!

We all had a wonderful time there, reading, hammock-ing, swimming, fetching frisbees in the lake, pouncing on bugs, paddling out to the middle of the lake in our floaties and watching the clouds roll by.

We then moved to another great campsite at the Eagle Creek Opal Beds, where we went on a gorgeous hike, hunted for—and found!—raw opals, discovered and ate the huckleberries along the path, and then hiked up a hill at midnight where we saw the Northern Lights flickering on the horizon. It was a pretty magical spot.

Scout even remembered how to pick huckleberries!

I could have stayed in any one of those campsites for weeks, but there is much to see in these parts, so we pressed on. We wanted to see Prince Rupert, a darling coastal town in northwestern BC, even though it was a few hours out of the way. On our way there, other things happened and they looked like this:

When we got to Prince Rupert it was a brilliant sunny day, which—we were informed by the locals—is not usually the case. We walked all around town, in and out of cute little shops, through the Museum of Northern British Columbia, and ended up on a bright patio overlooking the ocean.

We looked down and noticed crabs walking along the ocean floor, and the next day’s plan was born. After all, we’ve been carrying our crab traps around for over a year!

The next day we got our licenses and some bait, and headed down to the docks, where we discovered the depth off the edge was around 80 feet! We spent the entire afternoon into the evening sitting on the dock, chatting with locals, fishing, and reading books. We caught three crabs, one was a keeper, and Andy caught a small flounder.

So all in all the day was a success, and as we packed up we were treated to a perfectly picturesque coastal sunset.

Today was our last day in Prince Rupert, and we visited the North Pacific Cannery Museum on our way out of town. We accidentally stayed three hours, and enjoyed every last minute.

We’re now back in Terrace, BC, heading north for some serious camping way-off-grid, so the next post will be on the other side of the wilderness when we have service again. And though the silver fox was a superior thrill, here’s hoping that next post will include some photos of a moose. 🙂

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!!!

Albuquerque to the Ojito Wilderness, New Mexico

Before a month ago, neither of us had ever been to New Mexico, and both of us were super excited to explore the state. It certainly never disappointed! (Except Taos; that city didn’t live up to the hype at all.) We loved Santa Fe and Diablo Canyon, and next on the list was a night in Albuquerque on the way to the Ojito Wilderness.

We went to Old Town in Albuquerque and walked around the shops, had tacos for lunch, chatted with some charming locals, and visited the historic church in the middle of Old Town.

While we were in one of the touristy shops, I noticed a whole wall full of Breaking Bad paraphernalia. We remembered that the show was set in Albuquerque, and as we walked through Old Town, I saw a flier for a Breaking Bad tour that takes you to a dozen or so places from the show. Andy wasn’t a fan of the series, so he watched me curiously as I frantically found a post from Lonely Planet with a map of a do-it-yourself Breaking Bad tour and ran for the Turtle.

I didn’t want to take over Andy’s day with my Breaking Bad fandom, so I picked a few of the locations I most wanted to see, and luckily (for Andy) they happened to be fairly close to one another.

First, we went to the park where Mike always went with his granddaughter.

And of course we had to go to Walt and Skyler’s house, which has been painted and gated.

And the A1A Car Wash!

In the far end of the car wash parking lot, we ran into a familiar-looking RV. It’s not the same one, but close, and we guessed that it’s part of the $75 tour we saw advertised, which was arriving at the car wash as we were pulling out.

We also ran by Gus’ Laundromat, but the sun had almost set so we just looked and then went and grabbed a beer at the Red Door Brewery, just a few doors down.

The next day, we got supplies and drove to the Ojito Wilderness, about 45 minutes outside of Albuquerque.

It’s a gorgeous desert spot on BLM land just west of San Ysidro. Lots of people go there to ride bikes on the White Mesa Bike Trails outside of the wilderness area, and to shoot guns various places just inside the entrance.

We kept driving in until we got to the Hoodoo trailhead, on the west side of the wilderness, where we made camp—a.k.a. parked the Turtle and opened the door.

Ojito is a great spot because you have access to over 11,000 acres of wilderness! You have to park on the edge of the actual wilderness area, but it’s all BLM land so you can hike in and camp anywhere you like. There are two marked hiking trails that get you out into the wilderness, or you can just blaze your own trail. We did both, and loved both equally.

The rocks and formations out there are diverse and lovely. There is an abundance of sandstone, gypsum, quartz, volcanic rock, and even fossils, which of course you can’t take but are really fun to find!

I’m beginning to suspect that the desert is Andy’s natural habitat.

Gracie loves it because she gets to run and roll in the dirt all day, nap in the sun when we leave for hikes, and ever since she learned to climb the ladder at Diablo Canyon, she’s made the top of the Turtle her personal patio.

Check out this enormous sliced cucumber rock!

Both animals were so happy here that they were even more sweet with each other than usual. This is what I woke up to on my stomach one morning:

Gracie was so pleased that we finally found sunshine that she did her best to soak it all up, and I think she succeeded.

On our last day there, we got a day without wind, which was exciting because the previous two days we were hit so hard that Gracie and I opted to stay inside and read all day! We celebrated the sunny day by taking our favorite four-hour hike for a final picnic and rock-collecting mission.

We left this idyllic site only because we saw rain in the forecast, and the dirt roads would be nearly impossible to drive on for a Turtle if we were caught in wet weather! So we began our journey south to Roswell, not knowing that halfway there we’d decide to make a last-minute detour to Oklahoma City to see our friends Beth and Jonathan!

Which is why as I write this, we are in Elk City, Oklahoma. We found a great free spot for RV’s just south of town on a lake, and it even has water, electric, and lot of nice red dirt for Gracie to roll in! So everyone’s happy.

Two Weeks in Diablo Canyon, New Mexico

One of our favorite places to “live” is on BLM land, and if they didn’t have a rule that you can only stay a maximum of 14 days, we would likely still be in Diablo Canyon right now.

We were looking for some sunshine, and we got it! This spot is great. It has four primitive camp sites, which is our favorite since we come equipped with everything we need, and we get far fewer neighbors.

We did see loads of people, though, as it’s a really popular spot for climbers. The edge of the canyon is a really clean vertical, and we saw climbers up there every day.

The weather was warm and sunny, and we all got to do our favorite things outside.

Andy got to work on the Turtle.

Scout got to go for 3-hour walks and hikes almost every day.

Gracie got to roll in the dirt, climb things, and explore outside. She just learned how to climb the ladder to get on top of the Turtle, and now we’ve gotten used to hearing the thumping of paws on the roof!

And I was in rock-collecting heaven. Everywhere we walked there was an endless array of beautiful rocks, and my pockets were constantly full. I couldn’t help it!

Over the course of our time there, we hiked to the top of the canyon, around the opposite edge of it and up and over, and all the way through to the Rio Grande.

We played all day, and earned our naps.

After a day of exploring, we were happy to put our feet up and watch the desert sunsets, around the fire or under the awning wrapped in blankets.

We also met our neighbors, full-time travelers Eric and his darling dog Willow, and spent some time with them swapping travel stories. They’ve been all around, and also blog about their time on the road here. Go say hello! 🙂

They even gifted a squeaky stuffed worm to Scout, which he loves and has been dropped into our lap many, many, many times. Thanks guys!

On our last day there, we woke up to a bizarre surprise:

Snow!

We thought that was pretty well timed, since we’d reached our 14-day limit! So we traveled back into Santa Fe to plan our next desert destination.

Great Sand Dunes National Park: Climbing Up & Sliding Down

With our compass pointed south we continued our quest for some sunshine, and found it as we neared Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. Andy was happy to channel The Dude with his sweet Lebowski shades as we pursued the sunny weather.

We were a little surprised to see how much snow was covering the ground, but it made for some dramatic views of the Greenhorn Mountains as we approached the entrance.

We found a little pullout along the road into the park, and stopped to admire the view. We noted that it would make a great spot to stay the night, in case the campground was closed for the season. We had found conflicting information about whether or not any campsites would be available this time of year, so we had our feelers out in search of potential real estate in the event that we couldn’t stay in the park.

As we drove on, the snow-covered dunes came into view, and every direction we looked was just stunning.

A quick stop at the Visitor’s Center saw our water filled and our questions answered about where we could stay the night in the park (nowhere). We had to assuage the concerns of the rangers who told us it was going to get “reeeal cold” that night if we were staying in our “car,” and we felt pretty pleased with our setup as we reassured him that we had heat, a warm bed, and a stove to cook a hot meal for the night. Ah, Turtle life.

We decided we’d return to our pullout to spend the night, but in the meantime we had an hour to two to run around on the dunes! Dogs are even invited, and Scout was so happy. His two favorite landscapes are sand and snow, and he couldn’t believe his luck in getting to play on both at once. A great day for everyone! (Gracie was sleeping in a sunbeam back in the Turtle, so she was happy too.)

I think Scout inherited my posture.

That’s better.

Pictures could never quite capture it, but as the sun shone on the snow it created an explosion of rainbow fragments flickering across the surface as we walked along. I’ve never seen anything like it.

We parked near the amphitheater to explore a bit, then had to head back to our overnight spot as the sun was beginning to set. (We have a list of rules we’ve compiled for successful overlanding, and the first rule is Never Drive At Night. We break it now and then, but life is much easier when we don’t.) One obvious benefit to traveling only during daylight is that we don’t miss the scenery, and I was very pleased we made it in time for sunset so we could admire the view.

The next morning we woke up and drove right back to the parking lot outside the dunes for a long hike to the top. We packed a lunch and set out, and as we walked across the snowy dunes, Andy reminded me of a conversation we’d had earlier this year. . .

When we were visiting the Badlands, I was in such awe as we walked across Door Trail; I’d never been in such an incredible place before. It seemed so otherworldly and dreamlike, aside from the distraction of those other humans roaming around. I told Andy that I wished I could have the Badlands all to myself, for my birthday or some special day—just once. Always the voice of reason, Andy responded, “Well. . . I think that restricting public use would kind of defeat the whole point of the National Park System.”

Ok, ok, I know. But it would be SO COOL, right?

Well as we ascended the first rise at Sand Dunes National Park, Andy pointed out that there had been no cars in the parking lot, and that there was not a soul anywhere. My birthday was a just a few days away, and he asked, “Is this close enough?” Yes, it was.

For over an hour, we were the only people on the dunes. It’s pretty exciting to accidentally have a wish granted.

I’d like to point out here that these pictures give no sense of depth; I was actually so high up on this dune that I was a little nervous to be standing that close to the edge!

We hiked up, up up, at an elevation of about 8,000 feet. I’m telling you, that air is thin. And the last dune was a real doozy! There was some vertical hands-and-knees climbing there at the last ascent.

So we were thrilled to reach the top!

There we ate our well-earned cheese and crackers, with olives for me and onions for Andy.

After our picnic, I had a surprise waiting for Andy: a trick up my sleeve that I borrowed from my dad, who was endlessly creative when it came to having fun. When I was a kid, on a family outing in the mountains of Montana, we happened upon a steep valley covered in snow. My dad grabbed some trash bags out of the car, and we had instant makeshift sleds to fly down that mountainside. So when I saw the dunes covered in snow, I squirreled a few black garbage backs into my pack before we left the Turtle, and once we were at the top, I handed one to Andy.

After a few trials, we learned that they worked brilliantly on the snow, and when we’d hit the sand it would slow us down quickly and stop us. So we stuck to the good patches of snow, and rode those garbage bags all the way down the dunes.

It was a short two days at Great Sand Dunes, but by the time we left we felt like we had really made the most of it. As we travel from one National Park to another, it never fails to amaze me how diverse and beautiful this country is. We can’t wait to see more!

Andy Wears Shorts in the Snow: Christmas In South Dakota

Happy New Year, everyone! Woo hoo!

2016 was a super exciting year in the Turtle, and the coming year should be equally full of challenges, victories, and vistas (and frisbee sessions for Scouty).

Before I get into our plans for the upcoming months, let’s catch up with some photos of what we’ve been up to since we left Yellowstone National Park last month! Since that very chilly week living in single-digit temps, we’ve learned a bunch about what we needed to do in order to better winterize the Turtle. So before we left Montana, we headed back to Mom’s house in Bozeman and got busy buttoning everything up with layers of insulation over the windows, extra curtains to divide the colder cab and loft from the warmer living portions of the Turtle, and some modifications under the hood.

Naturally Andy was in charge of the under-the-hood tasks, and he spent the week in Mom’s garage finalizing work on the second alternator. With that new addition we can charge our house batteries while we drive, as the solar panels aren’t getting a lot of sun in these winter months. Not surprisingly, this guy took the opportunity for a wiring project and really brought it to the next level. Give an engineer an electrical mission, and he’ll buy all the toggle switches Home Depot has in stock and create a panel worthy of the dashboard of a UFO. I still need to take a photo of the installed panel, but the process picture gives you a pretty good idea of the extent to which this guy takes on a project!

Meanwhile, in between my winterizing duties, I got an extra week to hang out with my mom, sister, brother-in-law, nieces and nephews. We crafted, played video games, and I took on a request for a Photoshop job: Clive wanted to see himself in his “boat” on the water. . . “with a beard!” Turns out that kid could totally pull off a beard.

Even Gracie appreciates how awesome these kids are.

The snow continued during our stay, much to Scout’s delight. This border collie LOVES snow! He leaps through the drifts with abandon, and runs back and forth between us, trying to encourage us to run along with him.

Gracie, on the other hand, finds the warmest covered spot and settles in.

After getting used to living as locals, it was hard to leave all my favorite people. It was such a treat that we were able to spend so much time with them though. In the Pre-Turtle days, we were typically limited to a week each year at most for visiting family. So I can’t get too greedy when I just got to hang around for a whole couple of months!

Once the improvements were complete, and I felt confident that the kids were ready to love The Legend of Zelda without further encouragement from their auntie, we left Bozeman. After a quick stop in Billings to see Blake, Martha, Harper, and Grant, we then made our way toward South Dakota. We drove by Little Bighorn Battlefield right before it closed for the day, and took a brief walk through the grounds as the chilly winter sun set.

Then with the heater on full blast, we moved on to Gillette, WY for the night where I got so unbelievably sick. (I’ll only include this because I promised in a previous post that I wouldn’t overlook the portions of full-time vandwelling that are challenging, and this was just AWFUL.) I’ve gotten sick a few times since we moved into the Turtle, but they were mostly mild illnesses that were inconvenient but tolerable. I’ve never gotten violently ill while living in the Turtle until that night in Gillette, and it definitely was more challenging than getting sick in a house.

I thought I had food poisoning, as I got sick so abruptly, but in retrospect I think it was likely a severe flu. I was vomiting so much all night (essentially into a pit toilet) that I got massively dehydrated, and unfortunately since we were in freezing temperatures our water tank had frozen and cracked and we had been carrying water around in jugs. As luck would have it we were low on water that night, so I was rationing water and sucking on ice cubes and trying not to step on Andy on the pull-out couch as I got up every 20 minutes to vomit. And the next day we had to move along, so I was sleeping fitfully on a bed rocking and bumping at 65 mph on the freeway. Glamorous!

So, there you go. Full-time vandwelling is not all roses. But for the record, I’m not trading it for anything!

At any rate, while I was in my sicky fog Andy got us to Spearfish in time for Christmas with his family. Much to Scout’s delight, the ground was covered in snow, with a whole bunch more in the forecast.

And much to Andy’s delight, there were plans to assemble a Lego train which would travel around the Christmas tree! I’m not sure how many total man hours were spent around the table between Will, Ellie, Andy and myself, but Andy outshone us all with his dedication to the cause, as well as his impressive Lego skills.

Between the four of us we created quite a spectacular Christmas train, if I do say so myself.

Ellie and I worked on Rudolph’s Christmas Car which led the way, and created bunches of Lego presents. Will put together the engine, the middle cars, the flatbeds, and made a magnificent cubist Christmas tree. Andy made a tippable car that he’d originally intended for imaginary molten metal, but that Ellie and I filled with our gifts instead. He also made a caboose equipped with a crane to hoist and deliver the packages, and it really works, and it’s awesome.

Each day we were surprised by the dramatic change in weather. One day: blizzard. (Andy wore shorts all day.)

The next day: sun.

The next day: more snow.

The next day: more sun!

Snow.

Sun.

You get the idea.

Highlights of our time in South Dakota also included:

Testing out the newly-wired Hella lights. . .

Learning about the difficulties of dumping tanks in winter when all the RV sites for miles around are closed for the season. . . (For those interested parties, it includes making friends with the on-site owner of a closed RV site and graciously being given permission to use the facilities if you can find it and not break anything, digging through the snow until you find the port, boiling hot water, filling a container with hot water, pouring it over the frozen cap until you can open it, taking a photo while your significant other waits for your assistance.)

Being co-planner for a stuffed animal beach wedding. . .

Waiting to see how Andy will alter the “LOVE” Valentine’s decorations his sister put on the mantle. . .

Towing stranded passengers out of a snow drift. . .

Finding Gracie tucked into cozy spots on the coldest days. . .

Scout just driving around town. . .

And knowing Christmas is officially over when you see the Christmas tree ablaze.

Coming up: We’re done with snow and are going to Mexico!

P.S. If you enjoy following along with our blog, don’t forget to click the “Follow” button, and you’ll get an email whenever we post! 🙂

Winter Camping in Yellowstone National Park

Have you ever heard of a Chesapeake Start?

Well I can’t find anything on the internet to support that this is a thing, but here’s what I can tell you. Somewhere along our travels, someone told us about a “Chesapeake Start.” He said that when Lewis and Clark would leave for a long journey, everyone who was going on the trip would pack everything up and travel a mile down the road, then stop and stay the night. Once they had set up camp, they would quickly discover what necessary items they’d left at home, so the next day they could easily return to their home base and get what they needed for the long trek ahead. We love this idea in the context of Turtle travels. . . especially since in the scenario we get to be Lewis and Clark. 🙂

On our exit from Bozeman into our first wild winter weather in the Turtle, we’re especially happy that we opted for the Chesapeake Start. During our stay in Bozeman, Andy did a whole bunch to prepare us to be a Turtle For All Seasons, but there’s so much you can’t know to prepare for until you’re into it. So knowing that all Andy’s tools were only an hour and a half away, we left Bozeman on Sunday and drove to Yellowstone National Park!

We arrived in Yellowstone mid-day, and it didn’t take long for the temperature to drop. Of course this time of year in Yellowstone is cold and icy, and this is the longest amount of time we’ve been completely off-grid in freezing temperatures! We’re still working out the finer points of living entirely from solar, so boondocking proved more challenging than ever before. Especially since we get so few hours of sun in these winter months and the sun we do get is weak, we had to really conserve our light and heat usage, as both are powered with the house batteries charged by the solar panels.

We were happy to have lots of blankets that evening. . .

And to see sunshine in the morning!

This isn’t the first time that I’ve been thankful that Andy is an engineer, and a motivated one at that. At the campsite, out in the wind and snow, he wired up a second alternator that he’d been working on and hadn’t yet completed, and got us extra power using wizardry and magic, and I think a little power from the engine.

We knew it would be cold in the park in November, and also that we’d be a little more limited in how much of the park we’d have access to. I’d done some research before we visited Yellowstone about its off-season, and here’s what I found:

The majority of the park is considered “closed” from early November to mid-April. That means that all the roads are closed except for the road from Gardiner to Cooke City. (And during the winter season, all roads out of Cooke City are closed save that same road back to Gardiner.)
In mid-December the park opens up to “oversnow” travel, which means you can only access the park by snowmobile or snowcoach.
In November and the beginning of December, the northern portion of the park is still open to visitors, and since it’s the off-est of the off-season, you have the place pretty much to yourself!

We’ll definitely return to check out the rest of the park when it warms up, but in the meantime, we found November to be an awesome time to visit the park!

Here’s what you can do in the park in November:

Mammoth Campground is open year-round, and much easier to get a spot this time of year. We only had two neighbors the whole time we were there!

Mammoth Hot Springs and the Albright Visitor Center are right next door to one another and both are also open year round.

The animals are out in droves and grazing so close to the main road! We saw hundreds of bison, antelope, elk, deer, bighorn sheep, a few coyotes, and the sweetest little light-footed fox you can imagine. (My favorite, but don’t tell the other wildlife.)

The Boiling River is also open year-round, and in my opinion, it’s best in winter. . . since that’s when I went, and it was awesome. I can’t imagine a more surreal and magical time to be submerged in a river than a snowy November. The Boiling River is a swimming spot at the confluence of the Gardiner River—which is of course frigid this time of year—and the Boiling River, a hot springs which reaches up to 140 degrees. You wade down to where the two begin to mix comfortably, and you’re in an outdoor hot tub in the middle of the snow and mountains! The steam pours and curls off the water, and the Boiling River gushes over the rocks and iced plants in a bubbling hot waterfall tumbling into the cold river. You’re sitting in the middle of it all, in one of the man-made terraces, adjusting your position to accommodate the sometimes burning, sometimes freezing, mostly perfectly-cozy warm water flowing past your body. We splashed and floated, counted the dozens of elk grazing on the mountainside, avoided staring at the high school couple making out near us, watched the shadows the sun cut through the steam, and laughed at how crazy it was to be swimming in a river in the mountains of Wyoming in December. We stayed for hours and hours, the final hour a procrastination knowing how cold we were going to be once we stood up and waded up the river back to our clothes! (I’m not going to lie; the walk back out was brutal. But it was so so worth it!)
- If you’re planning to go, it’s not marked on the main road, so park at the lot just north of the 45th parallel, near the Montana/Wyoming border. It’s a straight, level hike along the Gardiner River, just 1/2 mile to the spot where the Boiling River converges. It’s all well-marked. My main recommendation is to bring water sandals. . . as you get in, you’re so cold and then so hot, trying to figure out where the separate currents are, that the slippery rocks are just another inconvenience that could be avoided with good footwear.

Lots of hiking. While we were there the snow wasn’t deep, so we were able to hike around without our snowshoes to lots of nice spots. If we’d spent more time in the park (a week when Andy wasn’t working so much), there were portions of the park we would have loved to have snowshoed through. Next time!

We spent so long in the Boiling River the day before we left that we didn’t have as much time as we would have liked to see the east side of the park. We decided to drive the distance up to Cooke City, stay the night and then make the drive back the next day to see the landscape and animals from the east gate back to the north entrance. We got to Cooke City right at dusk, and at almost 8,000 ft. elevation, the snowy mountain town was a twinkling haven in the middle of the frozen wilderness. We parked on the street, and woke up the next morning to find the streets bustling with people, all preparing to ride their snow machines, or zipping down the street on them! It was so much fun! Apparently when they close all the other roads into town for the winter, the snow machines (I guess they call them”sleds” now) can go nearly anywhere they want, and they do.

Everyone was having such a great time! And super duper nice.

We had coffee and hot breakfast at a friendly bakery that was also half snowmobile shop, and drove back through the park in the snow. We saw almost every animal on our wish list, and even after we left the park we saw a bald eagle and a moose!

The week was packed full of adventure, and that was just on the North road! Lewis and Clark would have approved. And they would have been especially pleased that, since we utilized their Chesapeake Start, we were able to take our frozen tanks and campsite-rigged alternator the short trip back to Bozeman where we can make the necessary updates. And then we’ll be ready for whatever weather we feel like driving into! Woohoo!

A Year of Vandwelling!

Guess what?

This Halloween marked our one year anniversary of being full-time vandwellers! It hardly seems possible that 12 whole months ago we were starting off with no idea what we were doing, not to mention where we’d be a year later. (Spoiler: It’s not as far away as we thought we’d be!)

It has been an incredible year—the best of my life so far—and we have loads of lessons to show for it. We get a lot of questions about the less glamorous side of our lives on the road, and sometimes while writing about our days I forget to include both the highs and the lows of the vandwelling lifestyle. I know it’s interesting to read about the difficult aspects, because I love reading about the obstacles other full-timers face too, but it’s never my first instinct to complain about the rough bits when we’re enjoying our dream life! But life is still life, and it’s not always perfect. And the people want to know the dirt!

So in honor of our one-year Turtleversary, here’s a list of both the easy and fun aspects of Turtle Life, and the stuff we didn’t realize was going to be hard.

THE EASY:

Freedom & Adventure
- Let’s be honest; this is the whole reason we hatched this plan in the first place! We were tired of working for an income that just went to pay rent and bills in our house in Portland that we loved but didn’t get to enjoy as much as we’d have liked, since we were always at work! Andy was working days and I was working evenings and nights, and in the slivers of time we did have together, all we wanted to do was get out, go camping, float the river, and explore the outdoors. We had the desire for adventure, but no freedom to truly embrace it. Now we go wherever we want as our whims dictate, and every day is an adventure. It’s delicious.
Seeing Friends and Family
- This has been an incredible side effect to our new life. In the last year, we’ve been around for more birthdays, moving days, celebration days, and regular days in the lives of our families and good friends than in the last 5 years combined!
Getting to Know Each Other
- I don’t care how long you’ve been with someone, when you move into a 100 square foot box with them full-time, you get to know them on a whole new level! And seriously you guys, this has been so much fun. (We’ll get to the “Time Alone” portion on the next list shortly, so you can take this all at face value, knowing I’m not trying to convince you that it’s all roses.)
- But if you like your significant other, then this can be the adult equivalent of your 3rd grade best friend! All your shared experiences are new to both of you, and the world is your playground to explore together. You learn so much about each other as you try new things, learn how to compromise when there are unlimited options, and create new stories and inside jokes that are just yours. These days, our conversations are less about the day-to-day experiences we’ve had, and more about ideas, dreams and plans. Now we craft our days together, and the best-friend-ness that develops is super duper fun.
Getting to Know Ourselves
- I only realized how significant this one was after writing the last paragraph, so I added it in. This lifestyle is so outside the norm that as we learn more about each other and our surroundings, we are also reassessing who we are and discovering more about ourselves. We’ve had more time to try out new ideas and challenge ourselves and to be creative, and being outdoors is a great place to let your mind wander and see where it takes you.
The Stuff We Get To See!
- This one seems obvious, since we’re always moving and seeing new things. And as we anticipated, it’s been awesome! What’s surprised us about this, though, is that so much of what delights us lies in between the highlight reels of our travels. We meet incredible and intriguing people, we stumble across charming small-town spots, we pull off the road to let the dog out and find such a gorgeous chunk of public land that we decide to stay for the night and end up watching a storm roll in as we drink a beer under the awning, cuddled up under blankets in our camp chairs watching the animals run around together. Our happiest memories include both the destinations and the journey. We’ve got stories, you guys. 🙂
Our Time Is Valuable
- What I’ve really appreciated in this last year is the ability to determine how I spend the majority of my time, since we’re no longer going through the motions 40 or more hours a week. Andy’s favorite thing these days is to take on a project and make it absolutely perfect. Instead of just wiring the solar up for functionality, he gets to think it through from start to finish and has the time to make it not only functional but attractive. He adds that it’s also really fun that when you do have projects, it’s a lot easier to do a more detailed and professional job because everything is so much smaller. (Right now he’s building a new vanity in the bathroom, and it’s a much smaller project than a full-size bathroom vanity! So he can put a lot of care into it.) We get to nurture our hobbies while discovering new ones! The funny thing is how we still don’t have time to get everything done. . . some things don’t change no matter where you live.
Learning New Things
- Since we’re only a year into this life, we still have a bunch to learn. Slowly but surely we’re adding to our “life education,” both practical and just for fun. We’re learning more about the Turtle, about the U.S., about sweet hot-dog stick carving techniques, Andy’s learning to make fishing lures, I’m learning about edible wild plants, we’re learning to identify bird calls, I’m brushing up on my Spanish, and we now know all the state nicknames, just to name a few new skills. That last one is mostly worthless, but interesting to know that Arkansas is The Natural State, for example. The more you know, right?
Our Animals Are So Happy
- You’ve seen the pictures. They’re living the life! We’ve fielded some concerns about whether or not the animals are happy in such a small space, especially since we have a curious, active cat and the “Energetic Border Collie” poster-boy. And I agree that if we spent most of our time indoors, they’d go bonkers. Luckily, in Turtle life we spend a tiny fraction of our days indoors and are mostly busy playing outside! Nothing but mountains to climb, fields to race through, trees to climb, friends to meet, things to sniff, and rivers to swim in or sit cautiously by, depending on which animal we’re talking about on that one. When we worked full-time, the animals were home alone for multiple hours, whereas now they’re with us nearly all the time and are enjoying the open door policy giving them access to their enormous back yard.
Amazon Delivers
- We once ordered an inverter for the Turtle at a tent camping site near Wheeler, Oregon, and two days later the UPS truck came bumping down the dirt road with our package. We still crack up about it! We’re generally always able to get what we need, even without a permanent mailing address! Amazon rocks, and makes all our projects possible, even fairly of the grid.
Simplicity
- When we decide that we’ve done all we wanted to do and seen all we wanted to see, eventually we’ll settle down somewhere. (Luckily we’re test driving cities ahead of time, so we’ll know right away where that somewhere will be!) And when we do, I know the biggest take-away for me will be the joy of simplicity that we’ve discovered in this process.
- We didn’t have much of a choice regarding how much “stuff” we could bring with us, and we decided right away that we didn’t want a huge storage unit full of miscellaneous junk waiting for us to deal with after our travels. So we sold and got rid of just about everything that we had stored up in our house. All that stuff we’d been carrying around for years and years and hauled in boxes from one house to the next, finding places to store in the house, and digging through when we were looking for something. The process was intense and looooong, but now that we’ve pared down to the barest of essentials, I can’t imagine going back to the piles of stuff. Right now, we know where everything is, and all our belongings are essential and valuable to us. It’s liberating, and I wish I had done it years ago.

THE HARD:

The Mess
- We didn’t see this one coming. It’s not something many people talk about in blogs, or share in the beautifully-staged Instagram shots of feet poking out the back doors of spotless van interiors. But I’m here to tell you that full-time vandwelling is messy! I just asked Andy what his first line item would be on this list, and after thinking for a minute he said “Well, it is quite a bit messier than we’d anticipated. . . ” Yep. We have to stay on top of clean-up nonstop, or we’d go nuts. Neither of us is fussy about cleanliness, but we certainly appreciate a tidy home. And since our space is so small, even a little clutter can feel oppressive, and a muddy dog can wreak havoc on every square inch of furniture in three happy bounds through the door. I vacuum or sweep at least twice a day, and we’re on constant pet hair duty. Happily, we’ve established systems that work for us to combat the mess over this last year, but for a while it seemed like we’d never stop cleaning. I mean, we never will, but we’re used to it now. 🙂
Laundry, Showers, Dishes
- After the mess comes the clean-up, and this part is a challenge as well. The chores that we used to do at home without a thought must now be thoughtfully planned out well in advance, and they can dictate a whole day. The Turtle had a built-in shower when we bought it, but it was in the tiny bathroom and—aside from moisture damage issues—the awkwardness of showering while hovering over a toilet gave us the heebie-jeebies. Not to mention that since we have limited water on board, both showering and washing dishes can deplete our resources in a flash. And you know we’ve got no laundry room! So this aspect of our lives that used to be so simple is now quite a time consuming ordeal. When the weather is nice, we’re fine to bathe and wash clothes in the lake, but during colder weather we’ve had to coordinate our trips into town with visits to public pools, gyms, and laundromats. We discovered far too long into Turtle-life that many towns have free RV dumps that also supply potable water, so that’s been a lifesaver for washing dishes. Just wash and refill!
Working Remotely
- It definitely has been a challenge to balance the off-grid life with being places we get wi-fi. Of course if we had our way, we’d just stay off grid for months at a time and become the postmodern Swiss Family Robinson. We’re fortunate to work in fields where we can work on the road, and the income is helping prolong our travels, but if we’re talking about unforeseen obstacles this definitely is on the list.
Boondocking
- I’m way overdue for a full blog post on this topic. There is so much to say about boondocking! We feel much more prepared and comfortable living off the grid these days, but this first year has been a real crash course and it was challenging at times to figure it all out. We didn’t find a ton of information on it that applied to our specific situation, so we’ve really just been learning on the job. We originally pictured boondocking by rivers and tucked into trees somewhere, which is definitely part of it, but not always the case! We’ve stayed in parking lots, rest stops, on the side of the road in the middle of town, at scenic overlooks off the freeway, in public parks. . . you name it. This was hard at first because we always want to be parked legally and safely, and it took us a while to figure out how to find those places, especially without having to drive around for an hour or two looking for a place that suited us. This aspect is easy and awesome now, and it’s one of my favorite parts of Turtle life—not knowing where we’re going to sleep from one day to the next! But it definitely falls into the “Hard” list for how long it took us to nail it.
Alone Time
- Remember that time I talked about how much fun it is getting to know each other? Well the other side of the best friend coin is trying to find time for yourself. It can be difficult to admit to your buddy that you need a break from their face! After we moved in, because everything was so new and we were busy learning the ropes together, it took a long time to even get to the point where living in a van was regular life and we started wanting some time to ourselves. But it happens. When the weather is nice, it’s easy to split up and do our own thing outside, walking the dog, collecting firewood, going fishing. But when we’re stuck in the Turtle for long periods of time, we’ve learned to not take it personally when the other person just decides to put in headphones.
Being In Other People’s Space
- We really love that when visiting our friends and family, we’re able to “live next door” to them, as opposed to staying in their home and making them feel obligated to entertain. We love how much time we’re getting to spend with our people! The challenging part with the time we spend in people’s towns is that we’re living our daily life but also in visiting mode, and even though we have our own house and space, we’re still living on someone else’s schedule. And while the time together a treat and loads of fun, sometimes we visit people back to back to back, and it’s hard to explain to the friend at the end of the party train that while I’m excited to spend time together, I’ve been visiting for weeks straight with no personal time and I really just want to watch Project Runway on my couch with my pets for a bit.
- P.S. This must be said. Just because we come out of the Turtle at noon, doesn’t mean we slept until noon! We sometimes get raised eyebrows for our “late start to the day.” Never in my old life would I wake up and race right over to a friend’s house first thing. We’re still in our house, and like to make coffee and hang out together and cuddle the animals and get ready and finish the chapter in the book that we fell asleep reading the night before. Yes, we like to sleep in. No, not until noon. Just to clarify. 😉
Pets’ Limitations
- Despite the fact that Gracie and Scout are living their dream life, there are, of course, complications involved in traveling with your pets. There are some places we go that aren’t as pet friendly, such as the National Parks where they have to stay on their leashes and don’t get as much exercise. When we’re at less pet-friendly spots, such as friend’s houses or areas outdoors where we have safety concerns, they get a little stir crazy because they’ve gotten so used to having the run of the place, and don’t understand why we’re closing the door on them. If anyone speaks cat, please tell me the translation for “Stop yowling and clawing at the door! There are coyotes howling in the distance and I don’t care how high you climbed that tree yesterday, you’re not tougher than a coyote, dummy!” We’d appreciate it.
People’s Expectations
- It never occurred to me how much we’d have to explain our lifestyle until we were living it! Full-time vandwelling is very polarizing. I told Andy while we were building the Turtle that the best part about making such a quirky vehicle is that it will more quickly make apparent the people we have the most in common with. And that’s been 100% true; we make friends on the road just getting out of the Turtle. People who appreciate what we’ve made always turn out to be people we’d love to spend time with, and often they have their own adventure-mobiles that we can check out and be excited about too.
- Our supporters are the strong majority, however there are also a handful of people who can’t wrap their heads around it and have bunches of questions for us. We love answering questions, because we know it’s an uncommon lifestyle choice and hard to comprehend, but we’ve found we have to address many of the same questions from people who aren’t so sure about our decision and who are unwilling to alter their preconceptions about the right way to live. Here’s a short list of answers to these questions.
  - The Turtle is a conversion van, and we live in the Turtle.
  - Yes, we have a house. The Turtle is our house.
  - No, we don’t have a back-up house somewhere. Do you?
  - Yes, it’s a small space. We love living in our simple, cozy little space.
  - No, we don’t wish we lived in a bigger space. We gave up a bigger space for this.
  - Yes, when we’re done with Turtle living we will eventually live in a house again.
  - No, we don’t have plans for where we’ll live after this is all over.
  - No, we don’t know when that will be.
  - No, we’re definitely not ready to come back to regular life yet.
  - No, we don’t want to rent your cousin’s guest house.
  - Yes, I do appreciate your concern. But we have a house. The Turtle is our house.
Finding Time, At Times
- There are a few things that don’t change, no matter what lifestyle you’re working with. They always come as a surprise to me, because it seems like a huge shift in environment would bring a huge shift in lots of other areas of life too.
- One that hasn’t changed is that there’s just never enough time! Between getting improvements on the Turtle done, Andy’s work, my freelancing work, writing blog posts, cleaning, cooking, travel time, planning upcoming travels, cleaning, staying in touch with friends, grooming the animals, exploring the surroundings, and cleaning, it’s hard to establish a routine. Additionally, these things also have to be coordinated with the weather, access to tools, the time between destinations, and availability of stores or facilities from place to place. We’re still working on finding the balance between work and play, just as we always were when we lived in Portland.
Missing Friends
- ACK, this one is tricky! It’s funny because we’re getting to spend so much more time with our friends and family who are all spread out, but we miss our Portland friends SO much! We had a great bunch of strange and awesome people there, and it’s hard to be away from all the fun we had. Two of my sisters live right outside Portland too, so I’m also mourning the loss of sister and auntie time. Every choice comes with some sort of sacrifice, and we are regularly aware of how much we miss everyone.
- It’s also worth noting that the more we see of our long-distance friends and reconnect, the more we miss them as the Turtle pulls away. So there’s that too.

Last but not least, we have an honorable mention! A list item that belonged in both lists:

Breaking Down
- Con: The Turtle was made in 1985, so it’s no spring chicken. It has loads of quirks and issues, and we frequently break down. Sometimes it’s while we’re traveling down a snowy highway and we have to coast across 70 mph traffic to get to the only available pull-off before we roll to a complete stop, white-knuckled on the steering wheel. Sometimes it’s in front of our friends’ house, and we have to impose ourselves upon their lives for extra days (that one was actually a pro for us but you see what I’m getting at). Sometimes we pull off I90 to see why we’re losing power and there are burning flamedrops falling from under the hood, or “little hot spots” as Andy refers to them. All those hypothetical scenarios aside, though it’s annoying, it comes with one awesome. . .
- Pro: If we are ever stranded somewhere, we’re stranded in our house! It’s like being snowed in. We don’t go anywhere for a bit, but we’ve got food and heat, our bed and blankets, and wine and games. So it’s not the panic that usually comes with breaking down. We make a lot of jokes about our house breaking down. 🙂

Well, there you have it! We’re still learning as we go, and finding new positive and negative aspects to Turtle life all the time. I’ll be sure to mention both sides in future blog posts. That is, if I can find the time. . .

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