In which we write a novel about our prolonged absence...

Hey Questies,

It has recently been pointed out that the last update to the blog was back in May! This came as a shock for 2 reasons, the first was that that was a looooong time ago and a bunch of stuff has happened since then, the second was that people might actually be taking the time out of their busy lives to read about the misadventures of a couple of vagrants like us. With this rather uplifting surprise buoying our spirits we are going to attempt to engage with the site in a more proactive way. It will inevitably peter out after a couple of weeks and there will be the usual long periods of radio silence from us (you know how it goes; every once in a while you resolve to be better about communicating and writing a diary, and you do it for a couple of days and all of a sudden you are making vows to yourself that you will never let the tiniest screed of information be lost to the mists of memory without skewering it to the pinboard of your journals with precise, sharp witticisms and self reflective grandeur… and then it all gets to be a bit too much effort so you begin to forget/ignore it and play video games instead until the next time you start the cycle again (we’ve all done it)) but until that happens we should be writing a few more things on here. Oh also we’ll probably cut down on the number of photos included in the blogs, purely because it takes soooo long to upload them and format them on the website, so if you want to see stuff follow our instagram and facebook!

So the plan now is to update you about where we are and the shape of things over the past couple of months, then we will follow up with some catch up blogs for each state, and then we can get back to short little updates on a regular (read semi-regular) basis. Ok. Alright? Got it? Good, then I will begin.

We last left you with a bit of news about our goings on in New Orleans, we liked the place, it was very pretty, but we were there at a bad time and I don’t think we got everything we could out of the city itself. Maybe someday we will go back driving a smaller vehicle and appreciate it at a more leisurely pace.

From NOLA we began the grand Westerly migration. Taking a wide sweep South through some beautiful countryside (there is so much Spanish Moss down there), and spending a couple of days sitting at a truly remote spot near a boat ramp to recuperate from the crazy, we came up and rejoined the I-10 around Lafayette. We were pretty well done with Louisiana roads by this stage so decided not to dawdle. We had a night in a truck stop, which was fine but a note for all you future vanlifers out there; 18 wheelers nearly always leave their trucks idling overnight, so if you want some peace and quiet don’t stay near them! And a night in a casino parking lot, another note; if you go into the hotel/conference part of a casino they usually have random furniture lying around in the halls to fill up space. They are close to power outlets, so you can put on a clean shirt and go and relax on a comfy couch and steal some power without raising eyebrows! The best thing about this stretch was heading down to the gulf of Mexico and getting a little swim in at a place call Holly Beach. Well, I swam and Zora observed nature, and we both appreciated the pelicans. Then we got out of there and crossed into Texas.

Ah Texas, what a mixed bag you were! We had some really nice times. Doing the Enchanted Rock Quest was fantastic, appreciating the well maintained roads was nice as well, staying at a couple of wonderful campsites, watching bats fly out of their roost in Houston, appreciating your nature at a prairie chicken preserve, all good things. However you also kind of kicked our asses. We found ourselves getting lost in just how vast it is down there. Every leg takes hours and hours, and by the time you get there you want nothing more than to sleep. We also had a propane leak, and the place we found to ‘fix’ the problem on short notice didn’t really do a good job, and they ripped us off royally, so all of a sudden we were short on money, without propane for a day so no fridge, NO TEA, and high on fumes. Also we nearly got struck by lightning. By the end of our stay we were keen to move on to the next state, so we made an epic push up to the border of New Mexico.

Carlsbad Caverns, NM

This was another surprise state, like Arkansas, which we connected with more than we expected. It started with a beautiful, rough, barren campsite overlooking the Chihuahuan desert. And having a quick succession of amazing experiences at the Carlsbad Caverns and the Guadalupe Mountains. Seriously, I think Carlsbad may have spoiled all other caves for me, it was spectacular, and huge, AND pretty much the first cold place we had experienced in 3 weeks. Moving onwards and upwards we went through the Lincoln National Forest, where we met Verne, a very interesting person who we drank wine with and listened to road stories from. Then down out of the mountains and across the valley West of Alamogordo and into the White Sands National Monument. What a weird/amazing place! Hundreds of acres of violently white gypsum sand dunes, which roll off in every direction. It’s like a snowy landscape went on a summer holiday! And of course it is like standing in a furnace, with all the heat reflected back at you. Heading onwards we passed over the Organ mountains and through Las Cruces. The focus of the rest of the NM leg was reaching the Gila Cliff Dwellings North of Silver City. It was an amazing place, but getting there we had a crash course in how/why to use low gear when descending mountains, I nearly boiled the brake fluid!

Gila Cliff Dwellings, NM

We headed down and rejoined the I-10 corridor to cross from New Mexico into Arizona. I guess that one of the defining characteristics of the previous 3 states was that we were almost entirely alone, really getting used to long term habitation in the camper. Well that changed abruptly in Arizona, starting with a visit to the parents of our friend Cassie. Candy and David did an amazing job hosting us in Sierra Vista, right down on the Southern border. They fed us, they drove us around to some amazing places, they let us play with their adorable dogs, I borrowed tools to fix our camper door which spontaneously fell off, and they paid me good money to do some household chores whilst watching the Monaco Grand Prix. It was a wonderful stay! After a few days of getting used to the settled life we got back on the road and went to volunteer at the Appleton-Whittel Reseach Ranch, a grassland ecology research facility. Again we were made to feel incredibly welcome, and met some wonderful people, and could have stayed for much longer than we did. From there we had ANOTHER connection to visit with; Roy and Laurie, friends of my dad who live in Tucson. Again we got very spoiled, being taken out to dinner and sleeping in the biggest, softest bed in the world, and generally treating their home as our own for a few days. This stretch of the trip really was luxurious, and much needed after the weeks of roughing it. But we were aware that we had to pick the pace up, there was still so much ground to cover. We headed up to Sedona, where we joined the Top of Bell Rock Club on Zora’s birthday, and were generally impressed with the spectacular scenery and the beautiful desert.

Saguaro National Park, AZ

After visiting Jerome and Strawberry we moved further North, visiting the Petrified Forest and Canyon De Chelly, in the Navajo Nation, both of which were very cool. Our goal was to spend a couple of nights in Utah at a place called the Moki Dugway. Unfortunately when we got there the road up the 1000ft cliff just looked too dangerous/difficult for our rig to do (all the signs said we shouldn’t and for once we listened). We may have been able to make it, but why take the risk. Fortunately the ‘Valley of the Gods’ was right next to it, and that was, you know, a compromise. That’s the place you see in old timey Westerns when they want to set the mood with a bit of impressive geology. The ancient mountains have been eroded away over eons to form these amazing standing pillars, surrounded by boulders and scree. Our next little drama was that my seatbelt spontaneously decided to lock up and stop working, so we had a fun time driving to a NAPA, buying an appropriately sized wrench, and taking the driver’s seat apart in the parking lot. But we fixed it! From there we began heading West again. We got a little too ambitious with our off roading at one stage crossing a dry stream bed and digging the foot of one of the jacks into the ground. We dug it out without too much damage, but it was touch and go there for a bit and we did have to improvise. Thank goodness we brought a spade with us! West, West, West.

By this stage it was getting super hot and we had basically had enough of the desert. This was confirmed when we started crossing Nevada. We very nearly killed the rats just by leaving them in the camper as we travelled, which up until this point had been fine because as we drive the air blows through the camper and in combination with our hyper reflective roof, keeps everything cool. Except the air in Nevada is like 130 degrees, so when it is moving you are just getting heat pushed into your skin rather than nicely cooling you off. Thankfully a bit of trim decided to fly off the camper on the highway and we pulled over to sort it out and realized just how hellishly hot it was. We probably didn’t give that state enough of a shake, but the coast of California was within striking distance, so after a night on Lake Mead we noped on out of there. To be fair we tried to go to the Hoover Dam on our way past, but as it happened a nutter had parked his homemade armored car on top of it and was causing a national incident… Oh well.

San Diego Zoo, CA

So, California. California, you big, beautiful, expensive, overcrowded, tasty, fun, foggy, wonderful place. We have had a fantastic time in this state. We will tell you all about it in a future post, but the long and short is that we stayed with friends in the middle, went all the way down and stayed with family at the bottom, came back up and stayed with more friends in the middle, and are now heading up, seeing more friends at the top. We have seen wonderful things and beautiful places, and have had some pretty terrible luck with our truck and camper. But not enough to stop us. So this is where we are at now, on the 4th of July, the 4 year anniversary of my coming to this crazy country, parked next to a lake and waiting for the fireworks to begin later on.

It is not every year that you have so much to remember, and we are both very grateful that we get to live this life of ours, with all of its ups and downs and infinite interesting moments, and see so much of this beautiful land together.

Right, before I go over 2000 words and begin to feel like I am back in school I’m going to stop. Till the next time peeps!

Love T & Z.

Reyes Point Lighthouse, CA

Bumping along through our third state.

Well, it looks like we are pretty terrible about writing this blog, and with keeping the website up to date. I'd like to blame it all on bad internet, but honestly a lot of the times it's just because we're having too much fun! And we've both become obsessive knitters. We decided one of our projects on the road would be to salvage yarn from junk shops we visit (a favorite pastime of Zora's) and turn it into one big colorful, messy, knobbly blanket as a document of the trip. We're going to assemble all the randomly sized results and maybe put a back onto it over the winter. We'll see if we end up with a baby blanket or a full sized quilt at the end, but we're off to a good start! 

Our progress so far! Zora's is on the left.

We have now completed our trip through Louisiana and are somewhere in Texas! Louisiana was a mixed bag for us. We had a lot more trouble finding places to camp, so we've now added RV parks (one really nice, one right next to a busy railway yard, both expensive) and casino parking lots to our list of places we've tried (and usually succeeded) sleeping in. We have faced the challenge of driving our rig through an unfamiliar, busy city (New Orleans), and discovered that either NOLA drivers are blind/jerks, or that our turn signals are just too dim compared to modern vehicles to be comfortable changing lanes on highways. We also discovered that Louisiana roads are TERRIBLE. We did take the rig down some very sketchy gravel tracks in Arkansas, but by going really slowly (and not having to worry about anyone else on the road) we could get over some really challenging terrain without anything making terrible noises or rattling our teeth out. Louisiana didn't give us that option, not on their back roads, not on the streets of New Orleans, and not even on the freakin INTERSTATES! Most of the roads were made of concrete slabs instead of a continuous pave, which meant every time we hit a seam (every 10 ft or so) the whole rig would jump, no matter what speed we tried taking them at. Add in potholes and the usual assortment of neglected maintenance issues, and abundant traffic, and we were left carsick, worried that the whole thing was going to shake apart, and pretty much at our wits end. There's a reason we are looking especially happy under that Welcome to Texas sign, the roads on this side of the border are way better! 

I would like to take this opportunity to reveal that our beautiful, hitherto anonymous steed finally has a name! Ladies and Gentlefolk, may I introduce the steadfast, reliable, lovely, powerful VROOMHILDA! We've been agonizing over the name for a long time now (and still are struggling to name the camper), but we have finally identified her. Like her Shieldmaiden namesake, she is strong, competent, and super badass. 

Also I didn't mean to make our stay in LA sound like it was all stress and truck angst! We did find some beautiful places. Tris got to meet a 500 year old oak tree at St. John Cathedral in Lafayette, and we took a long walk on the swamp boardwalks in Jean Lafitte National Historic Park and Preserve. It was such a foreign landscape for the both of us, and we fell in love with it totally. So many neat trees and plants and abundant wildlife! We met a yellow crowned night heron, lizards, interesting insects, water snakes (Zora distrusts swimming snakes as a rule, but these guys were chill), and our first WILD ALLIGATOR! He was about four feet long, playing/hunting in the water, and not very fussed about our presence, pretty much the best way to encounter an alligator we think. We also discovered we have a penchant for photographing dragonflies, so enjoy the barrage below, we're pretty proud of them.

---

---

We also spent a night in New Orleans! We unluckily arrived during Jazz Fest, so the RV parks had doubled their prices, which was a bit painful. But we did get to see all the festivities going on around the festival. Frenchman street was swarming with musicians and colorful characters. We had tons of recommendations from friends and friends of friends (thanks everyone!) and had way more to do/see/eat than could be crammed into our one night there. We had a nice walk next to the Mississippi and saw the touristy steam paddle boats, saw the Art Market and a touristy junk shop, ate beignets and drank coffee at Cafe du Monde, watched the busking across the street, and enjoyed the ability to wander around with a beer in hand (Abita Strawberry, yum!). We went into a couple of the bars and watched a huge brass band play on the streets. However, I think we've been too long in the wilderness. The chaotic excitement of the city drained us pretty fast, and instead of the full night out watching music and getting mildly drunk, after a cheeky feast of sweet potato fries and a daiquiri on the very edge of the quarter, we caught an uber back to our park and were passed out by midnight. I think if we had managed to meet up with a guide we would have had a better chance of holding up against the excitement, but there we are.

We rounded off our stay in Louisiana by heading down to the Gulf and dipping our toes in the water. We found a little place called Holly Beach. It was a cool, mellow town where all of the buildings were built atop stilts, and in the manner so common for coastal communities, they were all painted in vibrant colors. Tris swam very briefly, Zora waded in to her knees and looked skeptical about the water quality. We both sat and poked through an amazing tide strand of oyster shells, finding beautiful mother of pearl lined mementos, while flocks of pelicans beat their winds against the onshore breeze and plovers (pipers? should know the difference by now...) waged little wars against their neighbors in front of the small waves. It was a nice way to say goodbye to our third state.

Oh and one further question: Where are all the dogs in Louisiana!? I swear there can't be more than 30 in the whole state! We saw a grand total of 9. It was very disappointing...

Not leaving, but definitely moving forward

A long awaited hello questies!

Sorry we've been so absent on the blog! We have been working pretty full tilt on the camper and also seem to have a ton of friends who suddenly wanted to hang out with us and make it as difficult to leave as possible (in all the best ways). 

In the past while (almost a month, geeze), we have accomplished so much! We have also been frustrated repeatedly, despairing of ever getting on the road, snappy with each other and distracted with Saint Louis stuff. Here's the cliff notes version:

• We scrubbed down the roof and cleaned all the outside walls using bleach spray to encourage the fungal blooms to clear off.

• We stripped, and resealed all of the seams on the roof! So far so good and we've had a lot of rain to test it out (SO MUCH RAIN, UGGGH!!!). Please see Tristan's note at the end of this list.
• We have stripped and resealed the port side windows and the nose window and all the seams up there. Next we have to move on to fixing up the seams everywhere else, but luckily we can also work on them on the road.

• The awning has been tested, admired, damaged, repaired, and reinstalled. Hopefully the repair holds and we don't have to jettison it somewhere in Utah.
   
• The wall the awning demolished as it fell off the camper has been repaired!! We dug out the rotten stuff, and Dad did a great patch and even managed to find complimentary hideous 90's pastel wallpaper, our third different pattern! Remember the 90's? It was certainly the zenith of vinyl wallpaper design.
   
• We tried our first water test...The freshwater tank passed (sound, holds water, did not fall off the camper). The drainage valve (petcock *snicker) did not. Tristan whittled down a cork and stuck it in there with a bit of wire to hold it in place. It seems to be how it will have to be since we cannot figure out how to detach the old one to replace it (it had to be the ONE thing in the entire camper that isn't easily accessible/deconstructable. Seriously one of the previous owners screwed in and sealed a board over the access panel that was underneath). 
   
• Found out that the water pump works too and so do the cold water sides of the bathroom and kitchen sinks. We still haven't fired up the water heater though we forgot to put its plug in to great leaky hilarity. The shower is working too (weakly). Outside shower TBD.
   
• We failed to unwinterize properly so missed the fact that one of the pipes under the sink wasn’t fitted and that was a splattery panic. Hopefully it's all good now. Tris tightened everything up and fingers crossed it will work properly for the next test.
   
• We discovered further rotten bits of the camper we're just going to have to hope stay together. *sigh*. When we finally manage to dig out and reseal all of the seams on the sides and corners of the camper we should be entirely water tight. Then we can do some much needed patching en route. By the time our journey is over we will have dried her out!

• We now have a set of completely functional tail lights!!!!! WE ARE STREET LEGAL!!! Tom from Neibling's came over with tester kits and spludge and knowledge and Dad had replacement bulbs and suddenly everything is working!! Tristan also got under the truck and replaced her damaged plug.
   

• Yesterday's major milestone was rigging up our 12 volt power supply and ground directly from the truck battery. This has been a long time getting sorted, from ordering the part from Lance (they have to be different from everyone else), to working out where things are going to run, where to mount a 40 amp fuse, to drilling a hole in the wall of the truck bed, running the wires along the frame, deciding where to mount the ground. It might not sound like much but installing it all and actually having it work is a great feeling. At last our batteries will all be getting charged as we drive and our fridge will stay cold! Tris was very happy (in a screamy jumping around gleeful way, don't let him tell you otherwise).
   
• We have also started deep cleaning the inside of the truck cab. THERE WAS SO MUCH MUNG*! The steering wheel and handles were producing this black, cruddy combination of hand sweat and skin cells. It was nasty. We are only halfway through the clean, so plenty more mung to get, but the driver's side is looking nice. Next major clean will be on the seat belts. Such glamorous work!
   
• We stripped all the upholstery from the cushions and mattress in the camper and took it to the laundromat. It now smells a bit less musty. I think we are going to throw out the carpet squares on the floor and embrace the "beautiful" (again, 90s style), easily cleaned linoleum.
   
• Michael scraped and primed the rear bumper for painting, but we didn't get further than that yet (did we mention it's been either raining or cold nonstop?), we kind of want a nice deep red color to match the strip down the side. What do you think?

Now "all" that's left is to purify and recheck the water system, install the rat cage securing system (they'd be very upset if we forgot to mention them here, they are very particular about staying in the limelight, however they are way more popular on instagram than we are, so I don't know what their problem is), and continue the endless cleaning. I swear both the truck and camper looked very well maintained and clean when we bought them, but as soon as you dig down and start taking close looks at all the places the eyes usually skip over, you've got a lot of work to do. Definitely not a judgment against the previous owners, just a fact (I'm sure our previous landlords would say the same about us). And we still have to load the whole thing up with our growing pile of stuff in the living room (sorry Dad!) and see if it will fit as well as Zora predicts (but she is the tetris master).

We were hoping to get out on the shakedown cruise today, but alas it will be tomorrow (hopefully in a bit of sunshine, however weak and feeble). Still aiming to be getting on the road full time on April 2! 

Tristan's Note: I want to talk to you all about silicone, and how it has absolutely no place being used on the outside of a camper. If you are thinking about using it because it is a nice, solid, permanent solution to a problem that you don't want to deal with every few years, DON'T! The bloody stuff goes rock solid, and when it does that it can't expand and contract with changes in temperature, which means that it ends up pulling away from one side of the seam that it is sealing, which allows water in but not out, which is bad. Plus when the next poor sap that you sell the camper to tries to remove it they have to spend days, DAYS, using stone age tools to pry and scrape and gouge the stuff away. After that they have to use industrial solvents to melt all the remaining crud, mop up the resulting glue snot with an acre of rags and kitchen towels and all the old toothbrushes in the house, wash it down again and then dry it out before even thinking of replacing it with a suitable product! And all before the rain comes back and prevents the new sealant from setting properly.

Luckily it is very satisfying to have finished up there, but curse you previous owner (not you Brian, I know you didn't do it)!

*Mung: A term used on the ships of SEA (and others?) to describe the slurry of skin cells, dirt, dust, food particles, engine grease, shoe rubber, lint, and other detritus that collects absolutely everywhere, but especially in the sneaky places. A vessel owner (which I think our rig qualifies as) is in constant warfare with the mung. Not only because it is disgusting but because it is corrosive AF and will eat through just about everything if given enough time (seriously, I've seen it eat through stainless steel, it's potent). 

It hasn't all been hard work

Swings and Ratabouts

Today we set an alarm to get up "early." Tris woke up in a great mood and I woke up anxious about health insurance and if we're going to find a camper in time and will we actually have enough money to buy the truck we need. This is pretty typical of us I think. My brain is always filled to the brim with lists and worries, Tris' just plays some sort of pleasant hold music until it's actually required for operations... at which point it can be useful...Unfortunately this morning, my brain won. 

It was one of those mornings where everything goes wrong and you start to doubt your sanity of packing up a comfortable life in paradise to move to a state that does not want to give you health insurance and where you can see your breath. We struggled through an ACA application, came up with very few options that were all bad and crazy expensive. The truck camper that seemed perfect and the right price just a few miles away was already sold. Another one has a price that seems too good to be true is a two hour drive away to find out if it actually is. Crickets from everyone else we contacted. Tris spent a long time on hold with his student loan company. He spilled rat medicine all over himself. When I went to hang out with the rats they were all disinterested and grumpy. We descended into one of those funks where no one is actually upset with each other but is also not equipped to make the other feel better. 

Eventually Tris took himself off for a walk. I napped, trimmed rats claws, caught up on laundry. And then we had to face getting ourselves out of the funk and off to dinner at our friends' house. There was amazing food, great company, and board games. Impossible to stay meh for very long. And when we got home there were cuddles with all six of us in an arm chair with the boys on our shoulders taking a bath and the girls fast asleep in my lap (this never happens).

All the issues of the morning remain, but I think we're feeling a bit better equipped to try and tackle them again tomorrow. I'm sure this will be the first of many struggle days of the trip, but as long as they end as well as today did, we'll be just fine.

We have reached base camp!

Hey Questies,

Well after months of planning, weeks of selling, shifting, lifting, pulling our hair out and tying ourselves in knots, days of recuperating after the madness, and now minutes of wolfing down good St. Louis Chinese food, we can finally say that we have officially completed our move! It has been a stress tornado but the storm has passed without too much damage to our mental health and it is almost entirely thanks to the amazing help we received from our fantastic friends. You know who you are, and how much you helped us, and we are eternally grateful!

So, as reluctant as we are to put Hawaii in the rear view mirror, we did move back for a reason and there is, as usual, precious little time to prepare for the road ahead. So far we have been concentrating on the truck camper, and not just what we are going to call it (obviously we have to meet it first, but Tristan has been working on a couple of puns). Today we went to see the second truck camper on our list, out in the county to the west around O'Fallon. It was a beautiful spot nestled in some open farmland, and the people were very nice, but unfortunately the camper itself did not suit us properly. It was a little too small and a little short on bells and whistles. We like the idea of travelling light, but we would at least like an oven and space to take a few steps. There is definitely a compromise to be made between price, age and weight. The camper we saw yesterday was a great old thing, but with 26 years of perishing on the plastic components will our head spring a leak in the middle of the desert? Also it weighs a bloody ton, so we will have to get a bigger truck, and that is going to increase our costs on gas. There is definitely a sweet spot, and it seems to be around the late 90's age wise, the high 1900's lbs wise, and the cheap as we can get it price wise.

We have put out some feelers to sellers in Indiana and Illinois, so hopefully the search can continue in the next week. If any of you guys know of a lead that we can follow please put it in the comments!

Other things that we have been extremely happy about are the weather, which has not been reminiscent of a scene from The Day After Tomorrow much to Zora's relief, and the massive surge in website views! Thanks everyone for checking out our project, following along on Instagram and Facebook, and submitting quests and suggestions! We have had some seriously good quests set in the past couple of days, and we will get around to updating them on the challenges page and map very soon. Also we got our first quest aimed specifically at helping a charity. Thanks to Bromogida for their creativity and for absolutely nailing the spirit of TGQ. If anyone can think of some quests or charities to help in Arkansas or Louisiana then hit us up! We need to get some in for the start of the journey.

As always it seems like life is going too quickly to keep up, but the ride is fun, and there are adventures out there!