14. Driving the Baja Peninsula, Part II

March 26, 20162 Comments

Not that there’s anything wrong with it.

The very picture of a Mexican paradise, it’s true that Cabo San Lucas has it all: gentle waves, sloping white sand beaches, “Coco Locos”, and warm water.

It’s just that after a few weeks of almost solitary beauty, we knew that Cabo San Lucas would be a bit more, um, busy than we were used to. And, yes, we expected sun burnt tourists, beach hawkers, and banana boats. However, the juxtaposition of the natural beauty of Lands End in Cabo San Lucas, where the Pacific Ocean meets the Sea of Cortez, and the raucous pre-Spring Break scene unfolding in front of us made our foray into the Cabo beach scene short and sweet.

It also made us so very grateful for our next destination as we headed north to the artsy town of Todos Santos where we stayed close to the beauty of the desert and the ocean while also feeling far, far away from the all-inclusive vacationers.

When you think of Todos Santos, Hotel California, hippies, and surf breaks come to mind. Our journey led us to this pinpoint on the Baja California Sur map because of friends and turtles.

We should have also expected grandparents, surfing and boogie boarding, and continuing the search for the best taco stand on the peninsula.

Highlights of the trip:

**Volunteering for 10 days at Tortugueros Las Playitas

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We learned about Olive Ridley, Leatherback, and Black sea turtles, answered questions about why the nests were in the greenhouse (to maintain a constant temperature to ensure hatching) and other queries, drove the ATV up and down the coast, searching the beach for nesting turtles at night, watched the nests during the day for emerging turtles, and helped with the tiny turtles’ nightly release into the mighty Pacific.

All of this while also hanging out with our friends and family.

**Searching for the perfect wave

Our favorite beach for surfing, swimming, and boogie boarding was Los Cerritos

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Each day after volunteering at Tortugueros Las Playitas, we packed up with cooler and the car and set out for the beach.

Kiran, Kavi, and Indi are ready to go!

One of the few pictures out of the water

Grandpa and Grandma Snell

Grandma didn’t stay dry for long (in pink)

Relaxing after a tough day at the beach

**Daily brunch at our favorite restaurant, La Esquina

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

La Esquina is one of those gems you just happen to discover and don’t want to give up. Other than amazing breakfasts/lunches, every Wednesday, they host a market for local artisans to sell everything from jewelry to organic fruits and veggies.

La Paz, upwards and onwards!

After spending 10 glorious days with our friends in Todos Santos, and with too many belly laughs to count, we said au revoir and drove northeast to La Paz.

We booked the top floor at Las Gaviotas Bed & Breakfast and enjoyed homemade breakfast in the morning, had the pool to ourselves, caught up on laundry, and couldn’t beat the proximity to the beach and malecon, just a block away.

View from the Las Gaviotas balcony

Highlights:

**Swimming with the mighty whale sharks.

This was crazy fun. After spotting the tiny dorsal fin of these ginormous sharks, we jumped off a boat in our snorkeling gear and swam to meet up with for a swim alongside these amazing creatures. The first time was scary. We met the sharks head on and then started hyperventilating. By the time we got it together, the whales were gone. The next jumps were better and we were able to swim in-between two of the three sharks as they were leisurely basking for plankton. We would fly to La Paz in a heartbeat, just to have this experience again.

Photo Eco Tours Cabo

**Beach hopping

We browsed all of the beaches before settling on Puerto Balandra for one day and Playa Pichilinque for another. We snorkeled, paddleboarded and kayaked to sea lion colonies and to secret beaches, and floated like jellyfish in the clear waters of the Sea of Cortez.

Post Paddle @ Puerto Balandra

**Eating our way up and down the malecon

Street food at its best: Chocolate Clams

Your mother may have warned you to never try seafood from a street vendor. That’s why we had to take mom to try the chocolate clams. Although wary at the time, when the next day came around and she was intestinally healthy, she wanted more!

Tasting the IPA from Baja Brewery and a few pizzas from Harkerboard

After a month and a half of tacos, we had a hankering for pizza. Harkerboard, a SUP rental place by day and rooftop restaurant by night, hit the spot. A big bonus was trying the local microbrewery’s IPA.

We also taste-tested the local ice cream with two winners (after too many cups and cones to count) La Fuente (homemade, strange and delicious flavors) and Paletería Y neveria La Tropical (fresh fruit popsicles)

Yum.

**Walking the city to discover statues and sculptures, amazing graffiti artwork, “interesting” store displays, and the natural side of La Paz on the waterfront malecon

Grandma and Indi duking it up

Who wouldn’t want to look this good?

Beaches on the malecon

The pearl of La Paz

After four glorious days, the grandparents flew back to Oregon and we started our trek up to the United States. All in all, our time in Baja was magical and inspirational and we would wholeheartedly recommend driving the peninsula or flying into a major city and renting a car to get a better idea of how much this peninsula has to offer.

We all agree that Baja has now joined our top five favorite places in the world–no easy feat!

Next up: Spring Training in Arizona, white sands, missiles and a root canal in New Mexico, and caving in Texas.

Top 10: Very Best Gear (so far)

November 17, 2015November 17, 2015Leave a comment

After 70 days on the road, here’s the very best gear we packed or picked up along the way

MR. HEATER

Oh how we love you, Mr. Heater. You’ve brought warmth and comfort to us on the chilliest Autumn days in our very poorly insulated and increasingly holey Trailblazer. Although gassy at times, the stink is worth the heat.

2. Reading material

Our book bin is huge and heavy and we couldn’t help stopping by used book stores, garage and estate sales, and thrift stores to add a few titles to read. We also discovered Overdrive, through our local library, and have loved getting electronic check-outs for free! If you are still paying for the latest and greatest e- and audiobooks, you really need to check out (get it?) the offerings of your hometown library. You can even put books on hold and you will receive notifications when the books are available. Here’s a list of most of the books we’ve read or listened in the past three months on the road:

Undaunted Courage: The Pioneering First Mission to Explore America's Wild Frontier

Chicken Soup for the Teen Soul: Real-Life Stories by Real Teens

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Don't Suck, Don't Die: Giving Up Vic Chesnutt

Lost on Planet China: The Strange and True Story of One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation, or How He Became Comfortable Eating Live Squid

We also have Next Issue for the magazines we can’t live without–such as Jason’s growing love affair with Sunset Magazine.

3. Comfy campfire chairs

We couldn’t–comfortably–live without out very lovely chairs that transform from breakfast nook in the morning to fire and stargazing most nights. Indi chose a bungee cord chair while Jason and Wendy opted for the high-backed version.

4. Folding table

Transformer. Not only is this bad boy a sturdy 48″ table that doubles as a kitchen counter, but it also folds in half AND has a handle for easy carrying and storage.

5. Hiking Boots

Boots from left: Jason’s Lafuma, Wendy’s Lowa, Indi’s Vasque

We hike, on average, five times a week and solid boots are a must. To tell the truth, all of our other shoes–other than flip flops–could, should have been left at home. Jason and Indi got their boots second hand at Next Adventure in Portland and Wendy got her boots–new–at REI. So far, and although Indi doesn’t love hiking quite as much as her parents do, there have been no complaints from the knee down.

6. Water Container

This was a sweet little find in the Casper, Wyoming Salvation Army. As the season wound down and campgrounds whittled away the amenities, we used this container more and more since water was less and less available.

Coleman Two Gallon Party Stacker

7. Comfy and warm bedding

Sleeping on the stock Jayco mattresses for a night or two is just fine as the knots and kinks are resolved with time. However, the thought of months and months of sore backs and sleepless nights sent Wendy searching for a thin (so that we could actually close up Trailblazer) but effective mattress pad. Eureka! The Simmons Beautyrest BigSleep 3 Convoluted Foam Topper with memory foam.

8. National Park pass

Here’s the math: Each national park entry is–on average–25 USD. The park pass was 80 USD for all the national parks in the States for one whole year. So far, we have been to 13 parks with many more to visit this year. Money well-spent.

9. Headlamps

Flashlight, reading light, coyote spotter. Enough said.

10. jet boil

For a few years now, the Jet Boil has been a backpacking staple. Currently, we are equally devoted to it as caffeinated campers. A bonus is that it’s small enough to use inside Trailblazer on chilly mornings (even though the directions warn us not to).

Honorable Mentions:

Ziploc Slider Bags in Quart and Gallon Sizes. So useful when your refrigerator is a cooler

Bath in a bag. Not only have these wipes helped us to feel okay about a lack of real showers + close living but, we will keep these little babies in mind for multi-day races, too.

The small, but mighty hatchet

Over the last three months, we have found that we have too much of just about everything and will narrow down our packing lists for the next leg of our journey, starting in January. It does feel like the beginning of something transformative, something that will stick.

Stay tuned for the next post in “tiny living”: the top 10 things we didn’t actually end up needing, or will revise/upgrade to better suit our needs. . .

8. The Grand Canyon National Park (South Rim)

November 6, 2015November 14, 2015Leave a comment

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-arizona/FlagstaffAZ-66Postcard.jpg

Our last night in Monument Valley had been our 13^th in a row in our tent trailer Trailblazer. The original plans had us heading straight to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, but civilization was beckoning. One of the best things about our year so far has been a lack of reservations and definite plans. Although at times this has been a challenge for those of us type A personalities (i.e. Jason), it’s been great to be able to change plans on a whim. So, we rented a place on Airbnb in Flagstaff, Arizona and spent two wonderful days lounging around, getting our tech fix, going to thrift stores to piece together Indi’s Halloween costume, and (Jason) getting to soak in two full football games–unfortunately they were both Oregon State and Dallas Cowboy losses, quite a common theme this year. We were also pleasantly surprised by the cool town of Flagstaff with the same great vibe we’ve found in other college towns and much greener than what we ever expected to find in Arizona. We spent a ridiculous amount of time in Bookmans Exchange, finding amazing deals on secondhand books. It was like a smaller version of Powell’s City of Books, a favorite destination in Portland, Oregon. If you find yourself in this town, also be sure to check out Beaver Street Brewery and Whistle Stop Cafe for lunch. Windust stamp of approval!

The downtime also allowed us to reach a couple of big decisions. First, we withdrew Indi from her online school. We were finding access to the internet a challenge, and more importantly, we felt like we didn’t have the time to incorporate what we were seeing and doing on the road into her education, a huge reason we went on this trip. Check out “Parks as Classrooms” for more information on what/how we’ve been teaching Indi (and learning ourselves!) through experiences in these beautiful and diverse environments.

Secondly, as much of a trooper as Trailblazer has been, we’ve decided to upgrade to a small, hard-sided trailer for the second half of our journey. The thought of a non-leaking roof, no drafty gaps, and being able to cut down the time we spend packing and unpacking are proving to be too alluring. We’ll miss the ease at which we can pull a tent trailer, but if we get something small enough we hope that it will still be A-Okay behind the truck. We’ll most likely buy something used when we are home for the holidays and then resell it at the end of the year.

That’s a mighty grand canyon

Onto our 10th national park, The Grand Canyon. We’d heard the Grand Canyon is hard to describe, and with my limited writing skills (Wendy would probably have better luck), I won’t even try and express the scale and majesty of the place. Needless to say, we weren’t the least bit disappointed. I don’t now if our first glimpse of the canyon from the South Rim was the best I’d ever seen, but it’s definitely in the top five. We camped in the park at the Mather Campground on the South Rim, a sprawling but well laid out campground. You never felt too close to your neighbor, and it helped that it was mostly empty. We continued to be blessed with great weather. The nights were chilly, as is to be expected when you are 7000’ (2130 m) above sea level, but the days were sunny and beautiful. Our best memory from Mather was finding us surrounded by a harem of Elk, and the large buck that wandered up to us.

During our three nights in the Grand Canyon, we did a short hike to the aptly named “Ooh Ahh Point”, walked the Rim Trail, visited the impressive “Desert View Watchtower”, and listened to a great ranger lecture on the history of the California Condor.

Ooh Ahh Point

Indi at Ooh Ahh Point

The hike down was a lot easier than the hike up

Desert View Lookout

During our last evening, we decided to have a sunset picnic on the rim. Despite being on the road together for the past 50 days, I guess Wendy and I still need to work on our communication. We got a late start, and I drove us to a part of the park she wasn’t expecting. On top of all this the clouds rolled in and hid the sunset that we were too late for anyway. But all was not lost. We set up on some rocks in front of one of the lodge’s restaurants, enjoying our 99 cent cup-a-soups while feeling sorry for all of the people behind us spending 10 times the amount on their soups… without nearly as good of a view. To Indi, these “campers” have become known as the “fancy people”.

The time went by quickly and before we knew it, it was time to leave. Both Wendy and I felt the pull of the Colorado River and were disappointed that we weren’t able to hike to the bottom of the canyon on this trip. At the same time we’re confident we’ll return.

Tiny Living

October 31, 2015October 31, 20156 Comments

Trip Statistics thus far…

Days on the road – 51
Miles Driven – 5231
States Visited – 8 National Parks Visited – 10
Breweries Visited – 7

Be forewarned, this will not be a glamorous blog post. No photographs of stunning natural beauty or attempts to describe wildlife sightings. This post is about real life on the road. Just like your life, there are some good things, and some not so good.

Showers… apparently you can go days without bathing and not have any serious health problems. However, we do go through a lot of baby wipes. This just might fall on the “con” list for Wendy, I guess its just a matter of perspective.

Also hair experimentation…

80’s hair (albeit much thinner) and full beard… yes please

Blue semi-permanent die job, why not?

Mt. Rainier

Then there is our “tiny home” A few years ago we purchased a used tent trailer, a 2000 Jayco, dubbed “Trailblazer”. Originally we had planned on using it for a few camping trips each summer, not as home base for close to a year. With a little more foresight we might have gotten something a wee bit newer/bigger/nicer. Regardless, so far we have been happy in our little home, but are debating an upgrade for the second half of our year on the road as some small problems start to rear their ugly heads.

Everything looks so nice and organized, doesn’t it (Indi did a great job labeling for us)? Well this is what it looks like right after we set up camp. After a couple of days of living in it, Trailblazer looks more like someone threw a grenade into a gypsy wagon, with clothes and all of Indi’s sparkly fabric (she has taken up sewing) strewn about. And yes, even with Indi’s curtain, “privacy” can be an issue. I would put this firmly in the challenge category, but this can be overcome with a bit of creativity (definitely in the positive category).

Probably my least favorite part of our new life is the constant packing and unpacking. When camping, we try to stay at least two or three nights to minimize this. Here, you can see our supplies in the back of the truck:

We are discovering how little you really need to still be comfortable and are looking forward to our holidays back home in Oregon were we can shed some of the items we thought were so necessary before we left.

While in bear country, not only did we have to set up and break down camp when we arrived and left, but after each meal all of our food, dishes, and stove had to be packed away in the truck or in the bear box.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We try to break up our camping with stays in real houses, either relying on the generosity of friends and family, or Airbnb short-term rentals. This allows us a little time to get caught up on laundry, clean our trailer and supplies, and get some much needed grown up alone time.

Anyone know what this is?

Anyone know what this is? A sink? A toilet? Nope, in bear country this is where the second class citizens (those of us not in RV’s with running water) do dishes since you aren’t suppose to have any traces of food anywhere in your camp.

Dishwashers

And what about entertainment? Thus far, our days have been filled with hiking and exploring whatever town we might be in. And once we settle back into camp… naturally, we have all been reading a lot more. Indi has taken up sewing and continues to enjoy her arts and crafts (mainly bracelet making and duct tape “stuff”), when Wendy feels like I need to be humbled, we play Scrabble (if my fragile ego can’t take another game of Scrabble, we’ll play Cribbage). One of my favorite pastimes is staring into the campfire.

Indi’s new hobby

Getting humbled once again playing Scrabble

If you like to camp you understand

So hopefully that gives you a little taste as to life on the road. Don’t get me wrong, we do love it, and if you enjoy lots of quality time with your family I’d recommend it to anyone. I’m sure we’ll get better at it as the year goes on, too. More posts to come on cooking, setting up camp, and home schooling.

Collecting Moments

“Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.” – Francis Bacon

Category: Tiny Living

14. Driving the Baja Peninsula, Part II

Highlights of the trip:

La Paz, upwards and onwards!

Highlights:

Top 10: Very Best Gear (so far)