Fish in the Desert

Despite the record storms hammering California we’ve been basking in 80 degree sunshine, which has made it quite hard to sit inside and look at a computer. But today it is raining so I’m taking advantage of the forced indoor time to update you on our last few weeks. We did indeed return for a third stay in Death Valley, bringing our total time in this park to just shy of four weeks. Our buddies were still there, and around campfires and picnic tables, the subject of Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge kept coming up. We’d driven past it twice and it didn’t look that promising from the road but our friends kept saying how beautiful it was so we decided to check it out.

Ash Meadows is the largest remaining oasis in the Mojave Desert. It was used for ranching for decades and by the 1980’s the area was slated to be developed into a city along the lines of Las Vegas, with hotels, condos and casinos. A public outcry and help from the Nature Conservancy shifted the tide and created the refuge. It is certainly a highly significant one in the refuge system as it is home to the largest number of endemic (found nowhere else on earth) species in the US. Plus, Ash Meadows has an awesome visitor's center, which is great for two nerds like us! 

Seasonally speaking, it was not the best time of year to see wildlife, though we kept our eyes peeled for bighorn sheep, to no avail. No matter though, because what we really wanted to see, were pupfish, and we were not disappointed. I had no clue pupfish existed until our first visit to Death Valley in November. We were disappointed not to see them on that trip, and when we heard from our buddies that we should have no problem spotting them in Ash Meadows, we were eager to hit the trail. 

There are three species of pupfish found in Ash Meadows, and all three are on the endangered species list. These are tiny fish, around an inch long, so spotting them can be a challenge, but fortunately for us they had donned their spring mating color, electric blue. Our first opportunity was at Crystal Spring, a Caribbean blue perennial spring. It took some time, but we were thrilled to finally spot the little dudes darting about the bottom.

Our next stop of the day took us to Devil's Hole, a fenced off area that is actually part of Death Valley NP even though it is surrounded on all sides by the refuge. Home to the Devil's Hole pupfish, this geothermal formation is heavily fenced because there are so few of these pupfish remaining. Plus, it's an ominous and deep cavern in which I can easily see some knuckleheads trying to swim or dive! Because of the distance and the wee size of the pupfish, we were not able to spot the Devil's Hole variety. Our last stop was Point of Rocks where we were able to see the pupfish feeding on algae just a few feet away from the shore! 

I suspect a few of you might be reading this and thinking those two have lost their minds out there in the desert, away from civilization all these months. Why the heck are they so enthralled with pupfish? Well, it's pretty simple, really. Pupfish are "living fossils” they evolved from fish that inhabited the massive lakes that covered the area tens of thousands of years ago. As the lakes disappeared so did most of the species in the region, but a small number of fish evolved to live in the salty, hot, seasonal waters of the desert. They are essential in terms of scientific study, and they are one more animal that we may lose forever if we don't continue to work hard to protect them and the places that they live.

In addition to being home to the wonderful pupfish, in the spring and fall Ash Meadows is also a stopping point on the Great Pacific Flyway. We were a bit early for good birding but the walks we took through the alkali meadows were filled with peace and contentment, and gratitude for the wonderful wild places that remain in our country. 

We wrapped up our stay in Death Valley by sharing a few campfires and an excellent dinner with new friends from Kansas City, Pete and Christine. Once the clouds rolled in and an unruly troop of Boy Scouts descended on the campground, we realized it was time to head south, back to the Fountain of Youth for one last soak.

We've been back in our favorite RV park for almost a week, catching up with friends here, enjoying the hot pools and basking in the sunshine. Last night we learned a new game, rummy sticks, which we played for hours with our friends from Alberta, Joanne and Tracy. Now, though, it's raining, which means Alanna is off to the craft room to work on her quilt and I write and read. Not a bad life.

Perennial pool at Crystal Spring

Alkali meadow at Ash Meadows NWR

Full moon rising above the badlands

Sunset over the Panamint Range

Winter Camping

Winter is a funny time to camp. Honestly, this was the time we were most worried about before the trip. The days are short, the weather erratic, and the destinations extremely limited, at least if you are as averse to cold as Alanna. 

Interestingly, while winter has meant a change of pace and a bit more time confined to the Minnie, we’ve bad a blast. We have books and loads of games to entertain us in bad weather, and we have spent as much time as possible at hot springs. Alanna has also been working on a quilt, but mostly we are enjoying all the slow, quiet time together. 

Winter also means sleep, and lots of it! The long dark nights, with limited artificial light, mean that we have been getting immense amounts of sleep, sometimes eleven hours or more. Once it gets dark out, and cold, we usually head indoors. That sometimes means that by 5pm, or earlier, we are in for the night. We don’t turn on many lights in the Minnie, so that we don’t run down the coach battery, so by 8pm we are usually sound asleep. 

The weather, what it is doing now and what it may do next, play a big part in our decision-making conversations regarding where to camp and whether or not we can or should drive to a new spot. In making plans, we think about rain/snow, elevation, wind, and the terrain we may camp on. We obsessively check the weather, though I found out the hard way that the NOAA app sucks up a lot of data—it may be fun to watch the weather radar for the entire country but it’s just not wise given our data package!

So where have we been this winter? After our second stay at the Fountain of Youth, we spent a week camping with with some SF friends, Heather and Jesse. Jesse is a geologist and was doing field work at the Mission Creek Preserve, north of Palm Springs. Our first few days were sunny and glorious and we did some great hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail, which wound through the mountains behind the preserve. Then we hunkered down for a few days as a series of storms battered Southern California. 

A much hoped for break in the weather allowed the dirt road into the preserve to dry out enough for us to make our escape, but the winds were too high for us to travel very far, so we ended up fifteen miles up the road in Joshua Tree National Park. The roads to the campground, through the town of Yucca Valley, were coated with sand and standing water, remnants of the flash floods caused by the storms. At 4000 feet, Joshua Tree is cold this time of year but we were grateful to be on paved roads again. Incidentally, Jesse let us know the next week that if we hadn’t left when we did, we would have been stuck for nearly a week since the road washed out when the next set of storms rolled through. 

After a very cold night in Joshua Tree, during which we learned what sleet sounds like on the RV roof, we awoke to the news that several more storms and high winds were due. A quick assessment led us to get on the road at 6:30am bound for the lower elevations of Tecopa Hot Springs. It rained throughout drive, but we made it safely and boy were we glad we left when we did. Several cold, wet and windy days in Tecopa followed, but the hot springs were a great diversion. 

After Tecopa, we headed back to Death Valley National Park, curious about winter in this beautiful place. It had only been seven weeks since we were last there, so we questioned such a quick return. Turns out, we really do love this park and were glad we went back for a week. It’s different in winter too: the watery blue winter light softens the stark hard edges of the mountains and badlands.  The high peaks are capped with snow while the Badwater salt flats, so dry when we were here in November, now hold a shallow lake. 

The weather finally took a turn for the better, with temperatures climbing into the 70s, so we took full advantage, going out for long hikes each day. Death Valley has only handful of developed trails, most of which we explored back in November, but so long as you have supplies and experience, you are welcome to wander anywhere in the backcountry. We did just that, walking deep into beautiful side canyons, and climbing the massive alluvial fans to the base of the mountains of the Amargosa Range. It felt good to be pushing our bodies again, and it was great to see new parts of this stunning park. 

Despite our desire to hang out in DVNP for the foreseeable future, the Minnie had an appointment to keep in Las Vegas. Her warranty expires in April, so off to Camping World she went to get a few things checked out. We’ve stayed in Las Vegas a couple extra days with our friends, Katie and David and their adorable children, who are always so welcoming. But DVNP beckons again, with its stillness and darkness and stars, so we will hit the road early Monday morning for one more week in this national treasure.

Lake at the Badwater Salt Flats

Joshua Tree

Our Conservation President

Too often decisions about dams and mining and logging are made by people who have never been to the place they are set to destroy. They are simply blank spots on a map far from towns, seemingly of no value. 

We hear about these places on the news on the occasions where there are protests or when they are protected, but most of us will never see or understand what these blank spots truly are.  We certainly didn’t until a few years ago when be began to explore wilderness more earnestly.

These blank spots have been the places we seek. Miles from roads, towns, and lights, most are dry and stark, but if you stay a while you can’t help but find wonder and beauty in the stillness and isolation. The scale of these blank spots is humbling, eons of planetary history laid bare in cliffs, canyons and badlands. They are sanctuaries for species who eschew human intrusion and sacred spaces for the Native American tribes who have called these places home for thousands of years. 

Half of our national parks are under direct threat of oil development on their boundaries. Much of the National Forest and BLM land in the west is already leased by oil, timber and mining companies. We’ve seen the results: deserts and grasslands scraped bare for new oil rigs and roads carved into virgin wilderness. In the short term, these operations may provide some jobs to the local communities, but for the most part, the profits go elsewhere. When the claim dries up, the companies move on. The west is littered with these remnants of old mining claims—oil, gold, copper, uranium—all gone bust. Most spill toxic waste into the desert and surrounding watersheds. Their owners are long gone, the cleanup operations left to the government and its various entities to sort out, or not. 

We write this post for a very specific reason: to applaud President Obama’s conservation efforts. He created 34 new national monuments and protected 553 million acres of land and water; more acreage than any other president. Most of these places are remote and rugged, but some, like the new Sands to Snow National Monument that we’ve been camped near the last few days are close to major population centers.

The photo at the beginning of this entry is from the summer of 2015, taken near a place called the Bear’s Ears, in a remote corner of southern Utah. On that morning we hiked out an unmarked canyon and sat alone as the sun rose above the canyon walls and the sandstone began to glow. It was a powerful spiritual experience for both of us.

The Bear’s Ears is a special place harboring miles of rugged red rock canyons, the darkest skies and over 200,000 Ancestral Puebloan historic sites like this one. The wildlife, history and beauty held there are irreplaceable. It is scared land to the Native Americans of the region, particularly the Navajo and Southern Paiute. For decades these tribes, along with a number of environmental groups, have been fighting against oil development in the area. Their pleas to the executive branch were heard, thankfully. In late December President Obama created the Bear’s Ears National Monument, putting a halt to proposed commercial exploration and development of the area, and for that we are incredibly grateful.

However, the Bears Ears is but one place among many in the west that deserves a chance to be exactly what it is, a wild place of refuge. Unless you have seen these blank spots there is simply no way to understand the magnitude of what is being lost to rampant development. 

Driving the push for greater fossil fuel development is the myth of energy independence within the United States. All oil is sold on the open market, none of it belongs specifically to the US, unless it remains in the ground. And, while low gas prices are nice, the cost to the planet is not.  Globally, the last five years have been the hottest on record. Extreme natural disasters, like Hurricane Sandy, have cost the world economy billions of dollars.  As we ponder what we can do with regards to climate change, lowering our dependence on oil and products that rely on oil for production is one step. 

President Obama has used his tenure in office to put in place significant protections for our planet and our last remaining blank spots, but there is much work still to do. Our new administration thinks the planet is simply there for them to exploit for profit. We cannot let them undo the work of the greatest conservation president in US history. 

We will go back to the Bears Ears this spring to sit in silence and feel the sun and the wind and the expanse of history. We have truly loved seeing and sharing these remote places and hope that someday you can get out and have your own version of the Minnie Life, even if it’s only a week’s vacation. But these places won’t be around for you to see unless we all work to save them. Please volunteer or donate to conservation groups and reach out to your elected representatives to encourage them to stand up to the forces demanding development at all costs. The generations to come will thank us.

The work to dismantle federal public lands, including our national parks, has already begun. For more information please visit here. 

View from the PCT towards the Sands to Snow National Monument

A break in the storms

Mission Creek Preserve

Living Minnie: What's for Dinner?

This evening we are hosting our first Minnie dinner party! The other youngsters in residence at the Fountain of Youth will be gathering at our campsite for a potluck featuring spring rolls, spicy Korean noodles and other goodies, so in this third installment of Living Minnie, I thought it was time to bring you into our kitchen to give you insight on how we eat well and healthy on the road. It’s easier and less expensive than you might expect. 

Before we headed over the Golden Gate back in June, we agreed that for the first month we would consume no junk food. We are not big junk food eaters to begin with, so why bother with such a pact? When it comes to camping and road trips, we tended to find ourselves in the candy and chip aisle, especially at gas stations because you have to buy something when using the restroom! We knew that if we started this trip indulging in bad habits, the precedent would be set and we might struggle to regain our senses. 

Fortunately, we have done well in sticking with our plan of minimal junk food. We have also done very well in eating healthy, though it has taken some work. During the summer and early fall months, we expected to stock up at roadside stands that we envisioned dotting every rural corner in the west. It didn’t work out that way. While many communities do have farmer’s markets, which we seemed to miss by a day or two, there were very few roadside fruit and veggie vendors like we were used to seeing in California. We knew we were spoiled in California, but we had no idea just how spoiled until the dearth of truly fresh vegetables left us longing for the Alemany Farmer’s Market! 

We made due with frozen vegetables. Why frozen? Alanna explained to me that despite their larger carbon footprint, frozen vegetables were more nutritionally sound than canned or even “fresh” veggies in the produce aisle. After weeks or months in cold storage and transport, those veggies billed as fresh were really lacking in health benefits. One thing that really surprised us, though, as we perused the frozen vegetable aisle for the first time in our married life was the lack of product. In San Francisco, we shopped at The Good Life Grocery, a small, locally owned grocery store on Cortland, with just a couple of freezers. On the road, though, we hit some of the bigger chains which often contain three or four gigantic aisles of frozen foods. One wall is often reserved for pizzas, another for ice cream, and a third for fried potato products. We usually find the veggies in just a cabinet or two. Once located, the hunt begins for unadulterated vegetables, meaning those that are not coated in unhealthy, high sodium sauces that render them pointless from a nutritional point of view. Or a taste one. 

It’s been a real education for us, shopping in these stores, bypassing the football field long cookie aisle, the super-sized everything, the processed and sugar-laden treats strategically placed to entice the youngest shoppers. Bypassing the junk doesn’t mean we spend a fortune. Our food budget for the month is $400, which breaks down to a cost per meal of 2.22 per person; most months we’ve stayed under that. Eating out is a rare treat. 

Thankfully, Alanna is an excellent cook. She brought a massive collection of spices and an ample pantry, and has been putting together delicious and healthy meals routinely for the last six months.  After our two stretches in New Mexico, our freezer is half full with green chiles, which now make their way into most meals, thank goodness. She churns out all kinds of burritos, curries, stir-fries, and soups—in batches sizable enough to feed a small army, so we are often powered by leftovers, which are perfect after a long day on the trail.

We do our cooking outside, unless it is raining or too windy, and I’m blown away by what she is creating on the camp stove. There is an indoor stove in the Minnie but our space is so small that you can touch the stove and the smoke alarm at the same time, so we’ve yet to use a frying pan indoors without the smoke alarm going off. Instead, Alanna loads up a basin with ingredients and heads out to the picnic table to work her magic. The onions occasionally try to blow away as she chops them and vigilance is required to thwart the grey jays, ravens and other critters that try to snatch things directly off the cutting board, but cooking in the fresh air while the sun is setting is a relaxing way to end the day. 

The best part of eating on the road these last six months is that we get to eat every meal together. We used to eat amazing dinners together every night, but when Alanna started training, eating dinner together became next to impossible on most nights because she was working. Same with breakfast. She was often gone before I even considered waking up. Now, though, we have had every meal together for 207 days!  What a gift, to share breakfast lunch and dinner with the one you love!

The kitchen.... Minnie-style

The Fountain of Youth

It’s been a while since we wrote—we lost ourselves at the Fountain of Youth, aka FOY. Before I give you the low down on FOY, I should probably let you know that the water pump is fine. Not sure what the problem was or why the leak—I’m going with a loose filter—but we ended up wrapping that issue up in half a day and heading to Bisbee, Arizona, the first stop on our trek back to California. 

We bypassed Bisbee to see the birds at Bosque del Apache, so we were excited to get back and check out this old mining town that is now home to artists and other creative types. We first learned of Bisbee from Sunset Magazine a few years ago, so we were primed to check out this tiny town with rave reviews near the border. Sadly, it did not live up to its billing. The art did not wow us and the people were hit or miss on friendly. The best part, actually, was stumbling on a Vietnamese restaurant with only three tables and massive bowls of pho. We love finding hidden gems like this one and though the town did not warm our hearts, the pho sure warmed our bellies.

After a lay over at a BLM campground 100 miles from Yuma, we headed off for California under cloudy skies and a less than ideal forecast. Like everyone else traveling I-8, we stopped in Yuma for gas, inexpensive gas, before returning to the land of high prices and taxes (which we gladly pay—we love you California!). Fields of green and red lettuce as far as the eye could see blanketed both sides of the highway until we hit Imperial Sand Dunes National Recreation Area. Then it was sand and more sand, never-ending sand, and ATVs everywhere. 

Our goal was to camp alongside the Salton Sea. It didn’t work out. Torrential rain the night before had turned the roads into the campgrounds to gumbo, so after a hair-raising K-turn in the mud, we backtracked to the Fountain of Youth, and checked in for two nights. We stayed a week. 

We heard about FOY from some folks we met in Death Valley. After checking in with the exuberant office staff and heading up to the dry camp, we immediately saw one friend’s VW camper, and then ran into another as she was walking down the road! While we might have been some of the youngest in residence that week, we were certainly not friendless. People are very curious about what in the heck we are doing out here, and we get lots of questions regarding why and how and how long.

FOY is billed as an RV resort. Most of the guests are snowbirds, either from Canada or the northern reaches of the US. One can stay plenty busy at such a place, and I can see the appeal for retirees. The hot mineral pools were the biggest draw for us, especially for Alanna, who can spend hours soaking. After a good morning soak, it’s easy to spend the entire day engaged in the host of activities offered: bocce, horseshoes, shuffleboard, hiking, bridge, stretching and fitness classes, square dancing—the list goes on. There’s a nice little gym, the produce guy comes twice a week, and there’s a sewing and crafts room, which turned out to be the perfect place for Alanna to begin hand quilting the quilt she brought with her to finish on this trip. 

After a week, though, we knew it was time to move on. We could get soft at FOY. Maybe in great shape with the gym and all, but we could see ourselves getting sucked in and not wanting to leave the warm pools and all of our new Canadian friends. So, with an empty laundry bag, we headed for Anza Borrego State Park.

The largest park by far in the California park system, Anza Borrego offers immense desert and mountains, and plenty of dispersed camping. Now that the new year has passed and the weekenders with their heavy duty fireworks have departed, we are settling in for a bit. Though the weather has not been great as of yet—fifty mph winds and rain on New Years Eve, which did not seem to deter the pyros with the fireworks—we are taking cloudy days and cooler temperatures as an opportunity to read, play games, quilt, nap and go for hikes when possible. It’s good for us, to be a bit more stationary, to let the last six months sink into our bones and rest up for what will surely be an epic spring. 

As 2016 came to a close, we marveled at the year we had and the monumental, life-changing decisions we made, and just how good it has been for us to push ourselves so far beyond our comfort zones. We enter 2017 quite curious as to what’s ahead, and grateful, ever grateful.

Six and Twelve

I'm sitting in the Camping World just north of El Paso, Texas. Our water pump--critical piece of equipment--is having some struggles. These folks have fit us in and our going to do their darnedest to get us on our way, but in the meantime, I thought I would let you know why December 20 is an important day to us. 

The six in the title of this post signifies six months on the road! The good news of this is that we have six months left, with much to see and do and experience. The other good news is that we have had an extraordinary time thus far, having logged somewhere near 16,000 miles on the Minnie, hiked well over 600 miles, visited over 80 federal land sites, and eaten every meal together! If there is any bad news, it's that the trip is half over, but when I think back on the last six months, it has been an incredible adventure. 

What have we learned in six months? We love living in a twenty-three foot motorhome! Thank goodness. This post would certainly have a different tone if that were not the case. Though we generally keep our life fairly simple, living in a small RV has pushed us to simplify even more, and we are already talking of how we will keep it very simple when we move to Cate. 

We have also learned that there is so much to see and do in this country. When we first started talking about the year, many people assumed we would be traveling internationally and were mystified that we were opting to live in a small RV and travel only in the western part of the US. If you have been a loyal reader you know that we have visited so many unique, off-the-beaten path spots along with the big ticket places like Glacier and Yellowstone. Every time we end up in places like San Antonio, New Mexico eating scrumptious green chile cheeseburgers at the Buckhorn Tavern, we laugh and acknowledge that if we had not given ourselves this year, we might never have found these heavenly burgers in this tiny little burg. Time has given us immense opportunity.

While we have learned so much more on the road than I can chronicle in this post, perhaps the most important thing that has been reinforced for us is this--when we let go of fear and trust in the outcome, we end up exactly where we are supposed to be and that is often somewhere completely unexpected. Even today, sitting in the waiting room of Camping World, we are meeting other travelers from different parts of the country, sharing travel tips and ideas. For whatever reason, this is where we are supposed to be today, so we are just rolling with it with optimism and curiosity. 

Twelve. Alanna and I have been together for twelve years today! We both find this to be quite extraordinarily. This is the day, after spending months getting to know each other primarily in the company of friends, that I asked Alanna if she wanted to take the next step and officially date. My good friend Marcy helped me muster the courage, so a big thank you to Marcy for giving me the push I needed. Of course, as those of you who know the story already know, Alanna tried to break up with me via text message on January 1--luckily, her attempt failed. 

For the last eleven years, we celebrated this day by going to dinner at Firefly. This is where I took Alanna on our first official date so we returned each year to celebrate and acknowledge our good fortune in finding each other. This year, we will probably celebrate by having a quiet dinner in the Minnie, hopefully with a working water pump. Pretty sure green chiles, which have thankfully taken over our freezer, will be a featured ingredient. In thinking about the future, we are excited to explore our new home when the time comes to find our celebration places. Suggestions welcome in the Carpinteria-Santa Barbara area! 

In twelve years, we have grown tremendously, as a couple as well as individually, and while some questioned our sanity in embarking on this trip, thinking it would be the ultimate test of our relationship, it has served to solidify our love and commitment to each other. We are two fortunate people, we know this, and we are grateful to embark on another year of adventure and growth together.

More of the 21,000 petroglyphs left by the Jornada Mogollon people between 1000 and 1400CE

There Once Were 17

Anyone who knows me knows my immense dislike of cold. What then could possibly motivate me to leave the 75 degree days of low elevation Arizona to climb several thousand feet into the path of a winter storm in San Antonio, New Mexico? 

Sandhill cranes! 15,000 of them to be exact. We have journeyed to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, the winter home for the cranes, 20,000 snow geese, and myriad other bird species. 

The refuge is on the banks of the Rio Grande, where for millennia seasonal floods created ponds and marshland where thousands upon thousands of birds would over-winter. However, the building of dams and the diversion of water to agricultural uses upstream led the wetlands and their migratory birds to disappear. In the early 1940’s, just 17 sandhill cranes were found here. 

Franklin D. Roosevelt created the refuge in 1939 and the Civilian Conservation Corps began working to restore the wetlands.  The refuge uses canals, locks, and gates to flood specific areas of the refuge and manage the soil moisture content. They also partner with local farmers to grow grains similar to those originally found in the wetlands so that the migrating birds have a veritable feast when they arrive and throughout the winter months. Because of this thoughtful stewardship of the land, the giant flocks of migratory birds have returned. And we couldn’t be happier! 

Within hours of arriving, we saw several thousand snow geese feeding in a pond just up the road from our campground, and then watched and listened to hundreds of sandhill cranes feeding and flying in to roost for the night. Just as the last rays of the sun were disappearing and we were about to head back to camp, black lines began filling the sky and wave after wave of snow geese circled overhead and landed on the pond in front of us and settled in for the night. It was awe-inspiring.

Our friends Peter and Antonio drove down from Santa Fe to join us and we had such a marvelous time.  The four of us perched on the roof of the RV before dawn to watch the fly-out and saw thousands of snow geese lift off at once with a roar unlike anything we’ve ever heard. None of us could stop smiling and there were lots of giggles of delight. The geese are acting a bit peculiar this year so we have been able to see them land and take off a number of times, sometimes often so close to us that it was like we were standing in a swirling white cloud. 

The sandhills are majestic, four feet tall, almost as tall as Lisa, with an even larger wingspan. They are unbelievably loud, sounding something like a cross between a kazoo and a French horn, and are an absolute delight to watch. While the snow geese take off en masse, the cranes leave the ponds in small groups. Their behavior is fascinating to observe. Once they are woken up by the abrupt exit of the geese, the cranes begin a slow march towards the north end of the pond. Then, small groups begin to fly out—it is as if somehow there is a flight deck somewhere giving the all clear to take off signal. It’s so fascinating and we are so curious to learn more about their migration and flight behavior. 

I believe that the heart of conservation is about creating places for wonder and reflection. Neither of us has ever seen this many birds, the quantity as well as the variety.  Being in this refuge, watching the geese take to the air, the cranes glide above, a bald eagle perched on a snag and buffleheads bobbing up and down in a pond—for us, it all falls under the auspices of a spiritual experience. The wild continues to restore us, to change us, to stretch us, and to move us. Thank goodness FDR had the foresight to set aside this land in particular, for spending ample time in the Bosque has been a tremendous gift as we count this as one of the most special places we have visited, ever.

A blue heron named ObiWan

Snow geese lift-off

Sandhill cranes landing at sunset

Morning fly-out

Dancing cranes

Lisa's favorite!

And Then There Were the Full-Timers

A funny thing happened since Thanksgiving… we lost the vacationers. Thus far on our trip we’ve mostly met folks traveling for just a short time. Now that winter is officially here, we are down to just the full-timers, which has been good for us as it feels like we are engaging in different ways with these folks. We can discuss destinations and share RV stories with people who understand.  We’ve also gotten significantly more limited geographically as the cold has settled in at elevation so we find ourselves running into our new friends in new spots from time to time. 

After Death Valley, and the wonderful news from Cate School, we took a few days to relax atTecopa Hot Springs, a lovely place for mineral baths that don’t smell like sulfur. Though a fierce wind kicked up the first night, Alanna was not deterred. She has an incredible ability to soak in mineral baths for hours on end. I last about twenty minutes. On our second day, the wind was so strong, there were practically white caps in the hot pool, which is not covered on the women's side. Did I mention that the pools are segregated by gender, and that full nudity is required. That's a first for us, the mandatory naked. Interestingly, it's a county ordinance, I guess to preserve the integrity of the water. 

Nudity aside, we met some really nice fellow travelers who invited us to meet up with them at the rather quirky Death Valley Brew Pub that evening. We got there at 6pm. Turns out they normally close at 6pm--it was a Friday night! Well, since they had customers, they stayed open and we shut the house down at 8pm, having had some great craft soda and a wonderful conversation with new friends.

After Tecopa, we made another stop in Las Vegas to see our friends Katie and David, and their adorable children. We loved holding the baby, and playing with Sienna. We restocked at Costco and Trader Joe's and drove away with clean clothes. They are very good to us. 

On the way to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, we passed through a wacky little town in Arizona. Quartzsite seems to exist solely to serve RVers avoiding the cold. Motorhomes are literally everywhere! We camped on BLM land just north of town and made a quick pass through town in the morning, where we were reminded that we were in Arizona when we saw a countdown clock for the end of the Obama presidency. 

Organ Pipe Cactus NM was a really different place to visit. Right on the border with Mexico, this is the one place in the US where you can see organ pipe cactuses as they are primarily found in Mexico. They are very interesting and fun, and mixed in with the saguaros and ocotillos and chollas, it is a unique and breathtaking landscape. They call it the green desert with good reason. 

Though we read plenty about the monument, and understood before we arrived that the proximity to the border meant potential safety concerns, it was unnerving when we were out for a good hike and came across evidence of smugglers. The park warns to be on the lookout for black water bottles--they actually look like the type of bottle from which you would fill your windshield wiper fluid. We saw a couple of those on the trail as well as some smugglers pouches under a bush. It's a really different thing, to have all of your senses on high alert for other humans versus bears. The ranger that we talked with afterwards said what we saw is pretty standard and though it is possible to run into migrants or smugglers, it does not happen often since they are working overtime to not be seen. 

On our way to Tucson, we crossed through two border checkpoints and passed over a dozen border patrol agents. It felt like another world entirely. I've been to Tucson a number of times, mostly back in the late 80s, and it was nothing like this, and this was unnerving in many ways. 

For the last two nights, we have been in Tucson Mountain Park, the closest Minnie-accessible camping to Saguaro National Park, enjoying stunning Arizona sunsets and sunrises, all shapes and sizes of the comical yet majestic saguaro cactus, and doing some loose planning for the weeks ahead. We've also been basking in 75 degree days with ample sunshine, soaking up as much vitamin D as possible. Tomorrow, we are off to explore the artist colonies of Tubac and Bisbee.

The resident ghost in a ghost town

The Green Desert

Home

The Minnie has a final destination. The last leg of our adventure will take us to Carpinteria, California. That’s where we will live next, on the campus of Cate School. Beginning July 1, I get to lead an incredible team as the next Director of Admission and Enrollment. Christmas came early this year! 

While we set out on this trip in part to find our new home, we knew when we visited Carpinteria and Cate in the fall of 2015 that it would be a hard spot to beat. I’d been to the campus quite a few times, always thinking about kids and for whom it would be the right fit. Last fall, we went to look for us, just to get a feel for whether or not a school such as Cate, or Cate specifically, would be right for us. In other words, could we see ourselves on a boarding school campus? Turns out, we walked away from that weekend excited about the possibility of transitioning to a boarding school, assuming the right job at the right school came along. It did, and we could not be happier. 

About a month ago we went to Cate for my on-campus interview. I was probably the first candidate to show up in a motorhome and to camp at the state beach instead of staying in a hotel. But that didn’t matter because at Cate, we feel at home. 

One of the strengths of the school is the community, a critical component for us in our search for home. While I have always felt the warmth and generosity of the students and the adults who work at the school, on our visits to the school as a family, we felt it even more so. It was easy for us to envision our life on campus, and we felt accepted and respected. 

The bonus in this move to Cate is Carpinteria. We love Carp! We get the sense that this is what all SoCal beach towns must have been like back in the day. When we visited in 2015, we were amazed at the quaint, small town feel. And, we could not believe how easy it was to find parking on a beautiful Sunday at the beach! We parked blocks away, because we were so excited to find a spot, and were then shocked to see so many available spaces just one block away from the rolling waves. This is not San Francisco parking, friends! 

When we strolled down Linden, people smiled at us, and the fresh smell of the Pacific Ocean permeated the air. Very, very different from what had become the norm for us in San Francisco. We are heading to the complete opposite of what we had been living, which is in fact, what we were seeking. Small town, cozy, friendly, accessible, but still closer to bigger towns and cities: Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.

In addition, we are grateful to stay in California. The abundance of fresh fruits and veggies and farmer’s markets, an interesting food scene in Santa Barbara, vibrant arts communities up and down the coast, camping for the Minnie at Carpinteria State Beach, and sunsets over the Pacific each night. There’s more, so much more, we know, and we are excited to land in Carp, explore our new surroundings, welcome new friends into our lives, and host our old friends who are already booking dates to visit!

So, we have a little over six months left on the road, the stress of the job search is over, and the Minnie has a final destination. Life is good!

A Billion Years Laid Bare

It’s one of those places you think about as desolate, hot and dry, deadly even. As we drove in the first time, I expected a soundtrack to be playing from a Clint Eastwood western, an eerie and foreboding tune. The reputation of Death Valley, plus the name itself, portends drama and mayhem. While some of that may be true, we are leaving after thirteen nights with a renewed respect for the desert and a deep fondness for a place we expect to be a regular stop for us in the future. 

The largest National Park in the lower 48, DVNP is home to the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere along with 11,000 foot mountains. It’s part of the basin and range region of the western U.S., in which a long series of parallel mountain ranges are separated by hot dry valleys. The mountains are deeply striped, and salt and sand swirl in geometric patterns through the valley. In the canyons, the light hits the volcanic badlands setting them aglow. Over a billion years of geologic history are on display here, not neatly ordered like in the canyons of the southwest, but in giant fractured swirls.  Massive alluvial fans sit at the base of the deep canyons that are carved into the mountains, a testament to the powerful flash floods that rake the park, sometimes catastrophically. 

We stuck to low elevation hiking on this visit, given how much colder it is at elevation, and had a grand time exploring canyons and craters and dunes. We barely scratched the surface of the places to explore since you are free to walk anywhere in the park; just pick a canyon and set off! In most places the hiking is difficult, deep gravel composed of rocks the size of fists, hikes we sometimes characterize as slogs. They are worth it, though, to see the shifting rock formations, to experience the depth of the canyons, and to be in silence. 

When we arrived here nearly two weeks ago, the campground was mostly empty, but as the week built towards Thanksgiving, more and more people arrived, huge caravans of families, sometimes taking over three or four campsites and setting up camps that looked as if they meant to stay through the winter, though they ended up leaving after three or four days. The crowds overwhelmed us a bit, and Thanksgiving sort of snuck up on us. We’ve been following warm weather for several months so it didn’t really feel like November. 

The only real sign for us of the changing season has been the shortening days. We’ve never been camping in the winter, so mostly we were concerned about staying warm. The dark, however, has been an interesting twist. The sun has been setting at 4:30pm and we cook mostly outdoors, so dinner has become a very early endeavor. These adjustments to the rhythm of our days are welcome, though, as we continue to learn more about what it means to live our Minnie life. 

After the holiday crowds cleared out, the campground got quiet again, and we got some lovely new neighbors who are fellow long term travelers; two down from British Columbia, and one from Nevada City, CA. They were loads of fun and invited us to join their campfires. It was nice to sit and laugh with new friends by a warm fire on the dark chilly nights, surrounded by more stars than we could possibly take in. 

Death Valley is another Dark Sky Park! We’ve spent every evening with our heads craned back staring at the three-dimensional display of stars in velvet black skies. In the two weeks we’ve been here, we’ve seen more shooting stars than the two of us have seen in our entire lives combined. We even got to attend a ranger-led star party and stare through their telescopes at nebulas and star clusters.

Our last night in the park, the barest sliver of a crescent moon rose above the mountains and then vanished as quickly as it appeared. A kit fox cried out not far from the Minnie, an elusive creature we have yet to lay eyes on though we have heard one on a number of occasions. Perhaps next time. There will be a next time in Death Valley, and a time after that and so on. We love this place and are excited to come back and explore more. 

Death Valley: A New Favorite

We ventured out of Death Valley today to visit the ghost town of Rhyolite and find milk that cost less than 5$ for a half-gallon. While we have some internet service in the park, it only works in the morning and runs at the speed of dial-up, so we decided to take advantage of our trek to civilization and load some slides of our adventures in this beautiful park. 

The Grime!

Happy Thanksgiving! We hope you all are having a restful, quiet day. Our celebration is pretty low key; we watched the sunrise on the Badwater Salt Flats, 282 feet below sea level, and then went for a hike out another beautiful canyon. We’ll throw dinner on the grill at some point, going with sausage scrounged from our freezer instead of turkey this year. As you kick back on the couch in your own food coma, we thought we’d amuse you with another fun fact of RV life: dirt and grime. 

When we lived in the world of indoor plumbing and pavement, life was pretty different. Like most of the US, we showered almost every day, and our apartment stayed pretty clean without us trying too hard. We didn’t have a washer/dryer the last four years, but fortunately in SF, wash & folds are ubiquitous and cost about the same as the laundromat, so our clothes were clean, too. 

Camping, however, has turned this cleanliness on its head. On trails we can now easily detect what we call “hotel people” simply because they smell freshly bathed. My oily skin has left me with fairly permanent lines of red dirt on the middle of my shins where my hiking socks end. And owing to Lisa’s infrequent haircuts, she regularly looks like an electrocuted clown as her shaggy unwashed curls sprout in twenty directions at once. 

Yes, the Minnie has a shower, but it’s very tiny. We don’t know if people much larger than us could use it, but it works. There is, however, one small catch: the shower can only be used when we have a guaranteed source of water and a place to dump our tanks. Seems simple enough, but only a handful of places we’ve camped have afforded us this luxury. Mostly, we have to make our 40 gallon water tank last multiple days, thus, showering is no longer a daily occurrence in in our world. Typically, we get to shower once a week, but occasionally circumstances are such that even that isn’t possible. Our current record is held by me: 11 days without a shower. We do occasionally resort to bucket baths as those we can take with just two liters of water, but mostly it’s baby wipes and copious quantities of deodorant that keep us smelling acceptable enough to be around other humans.

The laundry, oh the laundry. Most of the time we do it by hand and then hang it up to dry in the campground for all to see. The work involved definitely gives us pause about whether something is really dirty. With the exception of underwear (one use only) our present rules are that clothing is clean until you can smell it from five feet away or it can stand of its own accord. Fortunately, we have stayed with some very kind friends who have let us behave like college students home on break with overflowing laundry bags. Our socks will never be white again, but that’s ok by us; the joy and peace we have out here is way better than clean clothes.

Rock and sand and pine needles are pernicious creatures. Dirt is almost always directly outside our front door, so even though we were never huge cleaners before, we now sweep almost daily. We never thought that doormats would need to be purchased in bulk, but the persistent dirt also means it doesn’t take long before our doormats become unsalvageable. We are already on rugs four and five of our adventure.

Lest our general filth scare you into ruling out RV adventures entirely, know that lots of folks who live in RVs don’t make these kinds of compromises. They stay in RV parks with water and sewer lines, and go to laundromats frequently. We however, have grown used to the grime.  And, I for one, would so much rather be out in the desert under a cottonwood tree hanging clothes I washed by hand than sitting in a parking lot waiting for a dryer.

Golden Canyon

The Other California

“What up dawg?” This was Kelsey's daily greeting to me as she rolled into my AP US History course. Pretty sure it was third period, so she’d had time to wake up, but she routinely turned up with a hang-dog look on her face and what appeared to be an eighty pound backpackthat, by all appearances, was crushing her soul. The pack would get tossed to the floor, Kelsey would slump into her seat with a look that said do we really have to do this again?  It was just a look though, which I thankfully understood. Kelsey was one of the hardest working kids in that class, and though her affect might lead one to believe she really was not that engaged, she most certainly was, actually deeply engaged. Kelsey wanted to be a rocket scientist. Kelsey became a rocket scientist. I was so proud and impressed by her work ethic and her eternal push to become the thing she wished, even though she had to work really, really hard at it at times. And lest one forget, this was not a typical path for a woman, even then, in the 90s. 

Ridgecrest, California. That’s why I am writing about Kelsey. We passed through there on the way to Death Valley. This is where Kelsey lived and where she died, at 32 years of age, in 2012. It hasn’t been that long, really, since my friend and former colleague Tammy called me on an October Saturday to tell me the news. She knew I’d be devastated. She was right. 

Kelsey and I had stayed in touch after she graduated from high school, more so during her college years, less so when she went to work for the Department of Defense. Her job as an aerospace engineer kept her busy. Who knows what she was working on at China Lake, but I had to wonder when we were buzzed by two F-something or others as we traveled on Highway 178 towards the park. 

Thinking about Kelsey grounds me in my career in education. I’ve been fortunate to form enduring bonds with many students over the years, and have had so many, like Kelsey, whose presence impacted me in untold ways. On this trip, we’ve actually visited with a number of my former students, all now grown with jobs and families of their own, some dating back to my student teaching days almost thirty years ago. I really wish we could have pulled up in Kelsey’s driveway in Ridgecrest. No doubt, she would have greeted me with, “What up dawg?” She never let that drop, even as she hit thirty. A kid at heart in many ways. 

As I’ve been thinking of Kelsey, I am reminded that my desire each day is to live in the day. This is all we have, the present and it is indeed a present, a gift, this one more day on the planet. Living in the moment can be a challenge, but I strive for it as much as possible all day every day. 

A friend asked us not long ago if there were still places in California that are dark and quiet. This week, we’ve found them. The journey that brought us through Ridgecrest is part of our exploration of “the other California,” those places far beyond the familiar paths of I-80, 101 and I-5. Carrizo Plain National Monument, Red Rock Canyon State Park and the expansive deserts of the Basin and Range on the back roads leading into Death Valley National Park, all places we would never have stopped on an ordinary vacation but all places we’d recommend now.

Carrizo Plain is not found on most maps. It’s stark and dry, hemmed in by two mountain ranges with the San Andreas Fault running through. The CPNM has incredible bird watching. Northern Harriers and American Kestrels plied the thermals, while Loggerhead Shrikes zipped back and forth around the Minnie.  But by far our most extraordinary treat was the Great-horned Owls. I was laboring over the dishes when Alanna quietly yelled at me to “be quiet”!! I looked at her, confused, and then I heard it. The back and forth between a male and female, both with distinct calls. WOW! How lucky were we, to be out here on a random night, listening to these owls? It went on for about fifteen minutes, and then they came back in the early morning hours, this time even closer to the Minnie.

Our journey out of Carrizo led us through mountains and oil fields and citrus groves to the Cesar Chavez National Monument. It is a newer monument with tons of potential—when you’re near Bakersfield we encourage you to stop by and learn more about the struggle for farm workers’ rights in this country. 

Evening found us camped in the badlands of Red Rock Canyon State Park. The drought has caused them to close the dump station so we were only able to stay one night, but the stars were epic and we enjoyed a short hike in the morning with a half moon hanging low over the cliffs. 

We leave you from the largest national park in the lower 48, Death Valley. The beauty here is shocking, but more on that later. 

Old Farms of Carrizo Plain

Soda Lake Salt Flats

Red Rock Canyon State Park

Ocean Solace

The events of the last week and what they mean for us as a family are still settling in. At some point we will be able to wrap our heads around things enough to write about them, but for now we are not there. 

We have spent the last week along the California coast. The ocean has always been a huge comfort to us both, but the NorCal coast is often inhospitable, shrouded in fog and ripped by biting winds. On those rare clear days, the rugged coastline and electric blue water provided us with a place to reflect and commune with nature.  From the beginning of our relationship, we’ve had some of our best talks walking along the beach (in parkas and ski hats mind you).

We’ve been away from the Pacific for five months, and while we know the importance of the ocean to us, it still came as a surprise when we both began crying as we hopped on 101 in Ventura and the Pacific came into view. Surfers were plying the waves, flocks of gulls screamed overhead, the smell of salt filled the air and the sparkling water stretched out to the Channel Islands and beyond. 

A week of amazing clear warm weather as we camped within earshot of the crashing waves has allowed us some solace and calm. Marbled godwits, snowy egrets, whimbrels, royal terns, sanderlings, harbor seals, elephant seals and porpoises flitted past or frolicked in the waves before us.  We’ve taken many walks along the beaches, holding hands and talking. It was even warm enough for a quick dip in the water. We’ve enjoyed epic sunsets over the water and the super moon rising above the Coast Range. 

Our dear friends Heather and Jesse came down from SF to camp with us for the weekend, providing a great test of the claim that the Minnie sleeps six. It does! We laughed, ate great food, wandered along the beach collecting rocks and sat around the campfire listening to the waves below. 

Neither Lisa or I had ever been to Hearst Castle, and no trip to the Central Coast is complete without it. The castle was beautiful and the art collection is fantastic, but the highlight for us was the California Condors soaring above us. Massive wildfires on the Central Coast this summer have disrupted their usual flying patterns so they now spend significant time gliding low over Hearst Castle, to our great amusement and joy. 

The food here has also made us incredibly happy. The first of the season’s citrus crop is arriving and there are stands of greens and strawberries lining the roads. Small roadside taquerias have beautiful fresh fish, and Santa Maria-style barbecue. We’ve missed the freshness of the fruits and veggies available in California, and we’vemissed having such great food readily available to us. 

The Minnie is now in need of a bath. She has a thick coating of salt and sand and myriad footprints of gulls all over the roof. We will head back to the desert soon, but for today we’ll take another walk by the waves with the shorebirds, feeling the sun on our face and the sand between our toes. Most importantly we will be together.

Elephant seals of Piedras Blancas

Hearst Castle

Living Minnie: Part 1

We thought today we’d provide a much needed distraction and hopefully a bit of levity on this all important election day. After living in the Minnie for just shy of four months, we thought it time to let you in, slowly, on how we make it work in twenty-three feet. While it’s not always easy, we love the challenge, and it has been an excellent exercise for us, to push our minds and bodies to live differently. You certainly don’t get into any ruts living Minnie. There are a plethora of topics to cover in this blog series, but we thought we would get down and dirty up front so as to get it out of the way. 

We talk about color a great deal in relationship to Alanna’s stunning photos, but when it comes to the Minnie, we talk about black and grey. These are the designations for the two tanks that hold waste water—black for the toilet and grey for the sinks. When they get to be about two-thirds full, we have to dump them. This, of course, requires a designated dump station, which we sometimes find in campgrounds and other times have to search high and low for. 

Our first few months out, we used to worry about the tanks, when to dump, where to dump, a heck of a lot more than we do now. It’s just become part of the rhythm of living Minnie at this point, though we did get a hard lesson recently on what happens when our tanks actually get full (fortunately with the grey tank) and after cleaning a shower and sink full of nasty dish water we vowed to go back to being a bit more attentive.

Luckily for us, I have plenty of experience handling dumping the tanks. When I was a kid, we had a motorhome that carted the six of us all around the country. I was like my dad’s little assistant, and I loved being so responsible, hooking up hoses and the electricity, donning the rubber gloves that were as long as my scrawny little arms, climbing to the roof to throw down bags. Alanna did not grow up this way, so needless to say, she is thrilled that I am reliving a part of my childhood each time we need to flush out the tanks. 

To several friends our tanks have seemed barbaric; for us though, the Minnie has better “plumbing” than our SF apartments. Our last place had a busted sewer line for the last three months of our tenancy, so all of our waste drained into the backyard as though we were living in a developing country rather than a major US city. Compared to that, hooking up a hose to dump our grey and black tanks seems positively civilized. And when we look at the lines for and smell the vault toilets in various trailhead parking lots and campgrounds, we are forever grateful to always have our own toilet. This summer the number of visitors to Yellowstone was so high that even daily pumping of the toilets couldn’t keep up and they would overflow. Nasty!

Our “plumbing” has also taught us an interesting thing—there is a very important reason toilets are made of porcelain. RV toilets are plastic and plastic is absorbent, thus, much cleaning is required.

Last thoughts on driving our toilet around…the west has a dearth of rest areas so we often drive hundreds of miles and never see services.  Thankfully, we have been relieved of the desperate, often futile, search for restrooms.  We simply get off at the next exit, pull over safely, and pee! Major time saver! In the middle of the night, it still feels luxurious to crawl out of bed, walk one step and take care of business on the toilet that travels. Gone are the internal debates from my tenting days about how long can I hold it, or will there be a grizzly or scorpion waiting outside the tent door for me, I just go. One ply toilet paper and the digesting chemicals the tank requires can be difficult to locate, but ultimately the pros of the traveling toilet far outweigh the cons. Lastly, and lovingly, it’s the first toilet we’ve actually owned together!

Finding Darkness

A funny thing has happened to us on this journey... we rediscovered darkness. Living in an urban area for as long as we did, we had almost no awareness that it was never truly dark. Light pollution is a growing problem in the industrial world, where 3/4 of the population never experiences true night.  We were among that group and had no idea what we were missing. 

We started thinking about this as we were camped in the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area a scant few miles out of Las Vegas. We've lived in the dark, experiencing stars and moonlight for over four months, but as night fell in the RRC the hills and sky still glowed with the lights of the city. The beam from atop the Luxor was clearly visible but there were no stars to be found. 

Las Vegas in NASA photographs is the brightest pixel in the world! Though in camp we may have been surrounded by the Mojave Desert with its Joshua trees and sage, we were most certainly back in the urban world of perpetual light. 

Night connects us to the natural world and its rhythms. Without stars, without the land glowing on a full moon night, we lose much: awe, wonder, peace, and a sense of place in the larger universe.

You may wonder what does it matter, it's just a streetlight here and a neon sign there, but an absence of dark has been closely tied to a whole host of health problems, from sleep disorders to cancer to obesity and the research has only just begun.  We as a species evolved for millennia experiencing night and day, but it is only within the last century that we have been able to forestall nightfall. A century is but a mere blip on the human evolutionary timescale so it is no wonder that we as a species are struggling with the light. And its not just us, myriad plant and animal species rely on the dark for feeding, camouflage, and reproduction. 

There is hope though. There are towns that have taken steps to return to night. Borrego Springs in California dims all its lights each night so as not to pollute the sky of the neighboring state park. National Parks employ individuals who chronicle light pollution in the parks in an attempt to mitigate it. The International Dark-Sky Association works with communities and parks around the world to bring back night.

We now have a much greater awareness.  As the darkness closes in on us each night and we begin to wind down, we use the Minnie’s external artificial light sparingly, mostly to avoid scorpions and rattlesnakes as we put things away after sunset. We find we sleep better in the dark and we now hold fast to a clock more normal for humans, going to bed early in the evening and rising with the sun. 

Though we can name only a few constellations, that doesn't stop us from standing outside the Minnie on moonless nights with our heads craned back in awe at the bands of the Milky Way stretched above us. We notice small things like shooting stars and the crescent moon hanging low on the hills in the middle of the night. Far from being afraid, we are held by the universe.

The light of modern society was fine for a week—we got to spend time with dear friends, meet their darling new baby, do laundry and run the zillion errands we’d avoided for weeks. Last night though found us back in the dark and we were grateful for it. We made camp in the Mojave National Preserve and watched the stars slowly come out. The mountains here block out most of the light so we could see the Milky Way once again, but also, astonishingly, Vegas’ glow in the northeastern sky one hundred miles away.

Mukuntuweap

The Southern Paiute call this place Mukuntuweap, meaning straight up land, but you probably know it as Zion Canyon National Park. Alanna and I think of it as the beginning. It was here in the summer of 2015 that we began our month long trek in the wilds of southern Utah. Our start was less than promising. The park was crowded, really overrun with visitors, and the campgrounds were full so we ended up in a dusty RV park in the town of Springdale, but an afternoon jaunt along the Emerald Pools trail in the baking heat won us over. From that trip came the seeds for this one and for that we are grateful. 

Alanna, never much of a hiker or camper, was won over by the glowing rocks and the cobalt sky that summer of 2015, so the tone was set in Zion for what would turn out to be a life-altering adventure for us. As that month was winding down, we vowed to have our own vehicle, probably a converted van of some sort by spring break. As you already know, when the idea of leaving San Francisco altogether took hold and we decided to make the trip a year-long one rather than a month, we realized that a converted van would not suffice. Thus, our dear Minnie.  

This fall, we returned to Zion on their busiest week of the season. Utah’s schoolchildren were off for the week and the park was swarming with people, though at least we were not all bogged down by excessive heat. The 80s now feel balmy! 

In the year plus that has passed since our maiden voyage to ZNP, we have learned a great deal about how to secure camping when you have no reservations. Alanna reads reviews as well as RV websites to get background information and tips. ZNP has one no reservation campground, and we understood that the line to get in forms very early, sometimes by two in the morning. Camped outside of Kanab, we knew we had a decision to make. Get up at before the crack of dawn and drive around the park to enter through Springdale, or, wait for the east entrance tunnel to open to us at 8am. Nervous about the camping situation, we were on the road by 5am. On arriving at 7am, a line of 30 cars was already waiting in the campground lot! And the line just kept growing by the minute! The volunteer campground hosts were kind and patient. Saints, really. Folks slowly trickled out of the campground only to be quickly replaced by those in line. We were happy to get a site and settle in for four days. When you are lucky enough to get a site in campgrounds as crowded as Zion’s, the compulsion is to stay forever. 

Towering Navajo sandstone cliffs painted with streaks of desert varnish a thousand feet tall above the Virgin River sparkling green in the sunlight. This is Zion. We absolutely love this park, though the crowds can really challenge us. Zion is truly a hiking park and we loved sitting and watching folks getting off the shuttle busses and trudging back to their campsites at the end of each day. We so appreciate parks where people really get out and hike. This is a place where you just don’t want to stop, though if not careful, the heat and dehydration will end your fun prematurely. 

During our four days here, we hiked new trails with brilliant views as well as some familiar ones, but even familiar places in this canyon can never get old. Each morning, intense winds came whipping out of the canyon, tearing the golden leaves from the Fremont cottonwoods causing everyone to hunker down till the sun crested the canyon walls. No one complained, Zion is too beautiful to complain. 

After Zion, we stopped at another favorite, Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. This was our last stop last summer and we loved it then, though the 108℉ temperatures severely curtailed our explorations. We were thrilled to be back in less extreme conditions. You simply must visit this place. Words can do no justice. I’ll let you get a sense from Alanna’s photos. Suffice it to say that a one mile hike took us an hour and a half and she took over 500 pictures! Her arms ached afterwards, but she was so happy. I loved watching her work and seeing her joy. I didn’t even mind that she stopped every third step, we had the time and beautiful weather. I love this trek we are on! 

Double Arch Alcove, Kolob Canyons

Desert Varnish above Upper Emerald Pool

East Rim Trail

View from Observation Point

View from camp in Zion

Valley of Fire

Aztec sandstone (real colors)

Kaolin Wash

White Domes Trail

A Grand Time

As you may have gathered from our posts thus far, Lisa and I seek out the quieter less traveled places. We prefer silence and solitude over selfie sticks and double decker tour buses. For this reason, we were incredibly skeptical about visiting Grand Canyon National Park, but it turned out to be a magical place. Sure there was way too much pavement for our liking, and it was definitely incredibly busy, but nothing like it is during the summer. 

We arrived on Sunday and had a very early 3pm dinner so we could take a long walk on the Rim Trail at sunset. We loved watching the light shift on the walls of the canyon and even found a quiet spot where we could sit, just the two of us, and enjoy the view. 

On Monday I woke Lisa up before dawn and made her a deal, if she would drive up to the visitors center she could stay in the Minnie while I went out and took photographs. There were only a handful of us standing out at Mather Point in the biting wind and cold but it was spectacularly beautiful. As the sun grew higher and the tour buses began to unload, I beat a hasty retreat to the Minnie to thaw and have breakfast before our hike down the South Kaibab Trail.

The Grand Canyon has a fair number of warning signs about the difficulty of hiking in the canyon, including a special note to “the young strong and invincible” that included information on the temperature at which your brain boils (105℉).  We appreciated the park’s approach given the lack of preparedness we have seen in so many parks this summer.  A park ranger on even hiked by on our descent and stopped us to check on our plan and supplies (water, food, electrolytes, etc.).  Apparently, there are rangers at the Grand Canyon whose job it is to hike the canyon daily in an effort to head off problems or catastrophes before they occur. What a welcome relief!

We made it to Skeleton Point, three miles and several thousand feet down into the canyon. There we sat alone in the brilliant sunshine staring at the Colorado River several thousand feet below, with only the sound of the wind. Our hike up felt easy and we surprised ourselves by doing it in the same amount of time as our descent. We were quite proud of this given that the NPS says to estimate 2-3 times longer on the way up. As night fell, we still couldn’t stop smiling. It was a remarkable day in a remarkable place and we are grateful we got to visit. 

The drive out on Highway 89 was stunning, sheer cliffs of Wingate sandstone atop the striped badlands of the Chinle formation leading us back to southern Utah. Once in Utah, the highway cuts between Vermillion Cliffs National Monument and the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Its a place of stark and stunning beauty, but it is rugged.  Most of the roads to the trailheads are sandy 4WD tracks requiring high clearance, definitely not suitable for the Minnie. We hiked around some of the more accessible areas last summer and explored the Toadstools trail this time through, but will save deeper explorations for other trips.

After all the hiking and driving, we enjoyed a low key day around camp, venturing out briefly to explore Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, where a notch in the Moquith Mountains enables the accumulation of 100 foot tall dunes of orange sand, all of it eroded from the towering cliffs of Navajo sandstone that ring the area.  Pretty spectacular stuff!

We sign off tonight from Zion National Park, the place where the seeds for this adventure were planted, but that my friends is a story for another day.

Sunrise Mather Point

The Toadstools

Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument

Coral Pink Sand Dunes SP

Battle of the Towns! Winner: Jerome, AZ

We don’t love Sedona. We really wanted to love Sedona, but it didn’t work out. We’d heard great things and the weather is ideal, so we were very excited to see for ourselves, but we were less than impressed. It felt like Fisherman’s Wharf in the Red Rocks. 

Maybe it was a set up from the outset—the night before we drove to town, we stayed at a campground where the smell of vault toilet was overwhelming. Maybe it was the fact that we hit Sedona the same week that kids across Arizona were out of school for fall break, so it was overrun with tourists. Though from what we understand, Sedona is a town of 10,000 people that gets four million visitors a year, so it’s always a busy place made to feel even busier by the traffic circles that seem to be everywhere! Definitely not our next home. 

On the plus side we really enjoyed the scenery and the hiking—both of those were exceptional. There are trails everywhere leading to amazing rock formations and stunning vistas. We had perfect weather and went on three wonderful long hikes during our visit. Once we left Oak Creek Canyon and its pervasive smell, we found some nice dispersed camp spots off of forest road 525 with pretty views and no vault toilets! We’d actually come back to the area for the hiking, especially since we now know where to find decent camping, but we’ll skip the town next time.

We stopped by Montezuma Castle National Monument on our way out of the area to see the best preserved Ancient Pueblo dwelling in the entire southwest. It’s set into a limestone cliff face and is five stories tall. It was built and inhabited by the Sinagua for several hundred years before they dispersed to other parts of the region. Pretty spectacular. On our way to our campsite we found a roadside farmstand manned by a very friendly gentleman and loaded up on chilies. We had hoped before we left San Francisco that we would find lots of farmstands, but we haven’t, even though we almost always take the backroads. This was only the second stand we’ve come across, so we were really excited.  

Our friend Tweedie tipped us off to a little town not far from Sedona—Jerome. We loved it! Jerome is an old mining town precariously perched on the side of a mountain. Parts of it have slid down the mountain over the years but it has retained much of its quaint architecture and twisty streets. Like many old mining towns, today Jerome is essentially an artist’s colony. We spent hours strolling the streets, poking around galleries, and eating good food! It was such a hit, I thought Alanna was going to try to buy a lot on which to park the Minnie and declare our search over! Which might not have been a bad thing since streets were so narrow and windy, I was afraid we wouldn’t actually be able to physically make it out of town. 

We did make it out though, and down to Prescott. It’s better than Sedona, for sure, but still not where we want to live. Great hiking around this town as well; we enjoyed a six mile jaunt around the Granite Dells on Saturday. It ended up being more bouldering than hiking, so both of our legs were tired and I opted to nap in the hammock. Perfect! 

For our last night in Prescott, we cooked those farmstand fresh chiles on the fire and grilled off bratwurst. For me, it was a nod to the Cubbies since brats are excellent ballpark food, in my estimation. With the Cubs-Dodgers series starting tonight, it’s the one time I have regretted taking the TVs out of the Minnie. 

Today, we are going to the Grand Canyon, South Rim. We were not sure whether or not we would get there because of how busy it is and the fact that they require reservations for the campground through November and we hate having to worry about reservations.  But on Thursday night, we checked availability and the weather, and surprisingly we were able to get the last site big enough for the Minnie. Its’ our first reservation of the trip. We’ll let you know how it goes—we are excited to see this wonder!

Montezuma Castle

Devil's Bridge

A house slowly sliding down the mountain, Jerome, AZ

Granite Dells

Bouldering into the sun

Petrified Trees & Parasitic Wasps!

Just some slides today of our wanderings in Northern Arizona and the story of very exciting wildlife. Last night as the sun was setting, we watched a tarantula hawk dragging her newly paralyzed tarantula back to her brood den. Tarantula hawks are a species of parasitic wasp, and I love parasitic wasps, so this was a real treat for me, not so sure about Lisa though. The tarantula was about three times her size and it was simply fascinating to watch her drag it backwards over grasses and shrubs. It was much too dark for pictures since Arizona doesn’t believe in daylight savings and the sun sets at 6:15 pm, so Google tarantula hawk and you’ll get to see a fantastic insect and learn more about parasitic wasps. And you should because there are more species of parasitic wasps than there are vertebrates in the world; well that and they are just cool.

Painted Desert

Never seen badlands this purple before

Petrified wood on the Blue Mesa trail

Long Logs trail

800 year-old pueblo built of petrified wood

Wukoki Pueblo

Wupatki Pueblo

View from the Little Horse Trail

Cathedral Rock, Sedona