Finally made it up to Sedona for a hike on Sunday, and we definitely got our money’s worth. I picked the one that ended up a three hour hike, and we forgot to bring food. Soooooooo… hey, at least we had water this time.
We started at Soldier Pass Trailheadabout half a mile away from Soldier Pass Trailhead because the parking lot at the trailhead holds like four cars and we showed up at 1:30pm. Soldier Pass Trail takes you about two miles north, then we made a right onto Brin Mesa Trail basically loops back to take Cibola Pass Trail which cuts you back over to the start. 5.2 miles altogether.
Later in the trip we found an “off-road” path that took us to a place labeled on the map as Hole In The Sky, which I would officially describe as “a big ass rock you can climb on top of and see everything.” They say there are spiritual vortexes around Sedona that are supposed to be forces of positive energy. I’m not sure if this spot is one of them, but there is obviously something to sitting up on a rock and looking at this ridiculous scenery that just makes you feel good. Hard to explain, but I’d go back there alone just to sit and get lost for a while. And probably will to be honest.
More left to accomplish in Sedona, but as it warms up a bit out here we’re eyeing Flagstaff for our next trip out. Probably not until later in the week though. My legs f**king hurt.
We had been planning on recording a nice video message, but our laziness took over, and we chose sitting in front of our fake fireplace, drinking local beer and watching Forensic Files II. We’re exhausted, honestly, and this post will most definitely reflect that fact.
After a lot of debate, Jenny and I have decided to lock it up for a bit and hunker down in the mountains around Sedona for the next few weeks. We had planned on driving back east towards the end of this coming week, driving up and the coast from before spending a month in New York. However, the current state of the universe told us this was just not the responsible decision. Especially considering most of our stops were city settings (Memphis, Nashville, Savannah, Charleston, Myrtle Beach… etc.) and traveling into New York right now is probably ill-advised, we decided to leave these for another time.
We’ve been here since Wednesday, and we’ll be camped out here and laying low for the next few weeks. At some point we’ll assess how everything is going and figure out what we want our next step to be. In the meantime, we’ll be getting out and exploring.
Today we decided to drive down to Phoenix as up here in the mountains was a little colder than desired. We ended up at Mormon Trailhead south of the city that took us up a mountain and around a loop through some awesomeness. Some photos below.
Tomorrow we’ll be sticking around the area since it will be warmer, so probably some more photos of wherever we end up. Also, Jenny just found a pie place, so… pie. Pie is in our near future.
There’s a weird number of people who have no idea where Big Bend National Park is, and we were some of them until about a month ago. When we told an older couple who saw us packing up in San Antonio where we were headed, they thought it was in California. I responded, “no, the… ::hand gesture making a “U” shape:: …droopy part of Texas.” And she knew what I meant. I guess I speak the older couple full-time RVers’ language fluently now. Bawn-jor-no.
We were actually able to get our asses out of bed and into the park by 9am-ish. Our first goal was Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive which takes you down to the Mexican border. It was early enough that the fog hadn’t burned through yet.
You take this down about 30 miles until you get to Santa Elena Canyon Trail which basically is a giant natural version of Trump’s border wall. You literally stand on one side of the Rio Grande River, and the other side is a giant cliff that lives in Mexico.
The river cuts through this wall of rock and creates a valley that you walk down a bit into it. The giant walls of the cliffs surround you and it’s pretty awesome. They even let you get that pensive, “looking off into the distance” shot.
Then we made the 30 mile drive back and took the turn headed to the visitor’s center where we got some lunch and hit the next trailhead.
We ended up on the Window Trail, about a 5 mile roundtrip hike to a narrow gap in the rock that overlooks this crazy valley.
Unfortunately for those of us less aerobically gifted, it’s completely downhill the whole way out to the edge, so coming back was amaaaaazing. I think I made it back without passing out. Pretty sure. Probably. Not.
Once we got back to the truck we called it a day and met this sunset over our camper.
So look at that, Jenny and I took pictures! All on our own!
Headed out tomorrow morning to El Paso for a couple of days where we’ll be mostly laying low again. We’re reaching the part of the country where cities are mostly transit stops to the more interesting stuff, especially now that there’s not much we could do in a city anyways.
Later in the week we were doing an overnight in a casino parking lot. (Yes, it’s a thing.) I forgot about it, and went “oh, that’s right, I forgot I can play poker this week.” Then I immediately went “oh, that’s right, I forgot I CAN’T play poker this week.”
Then I saw the casino was closed altogether, and we probably can’t even stay there anyways. We also had our first campsite cancellation for mid-April. So some more adventure thrown in with all the adventure. We’ll figure it out.
As promised, we are very unexciting at the moment.
We are currently outside of San Antonio in the middle of f**king nowhere, where it will be raining all day tomorrow. And that sounds like a bad thing, but given the world right now we think some day drinking sitting under the awning and watching the rain sounds pretty good. We’re thinking of just mainlining a speedball of vodka, rum, beer, and wine. At this point? F**k it.
When in Rome…
We’ve been wanting to try and put harnesses on the cats so we can leash them up outside… mostly just for our own sadistic amusement. So maybe some stupid cat videos tomorrow, we’ll see.
Like this… but better.
And I also haven’t shaved in like… two months? Whereas most men would have a full ass beard and be looking f**king lumberjack by this point, my stupid half Puerto Rican face just looks… sad. It makes me look sad, and it makes the people who look at me sad and I don’t want to make people sad anymore. So I’ll maybe figure that out tomorrow as well.
Our time in Houston was purposefully non-eventful. We got carry-out BBQ and went for a hike.
Aaaaaand that’s it.
We probably interacted with about three people, and we’re okay with that. For two über introverts like us, this social distancing thing is a piece of cake.
(Hell yeah dropping umlauts like whaaaaaaa!?!?!?!?!?)
It’s just absolutely crazy the timing of all of this. This all blew up after we left, so trying to gauge what our normal life would have been in CO just hurts our heads. We watch the news when we have it in the camper, and we can read the stories online, but we honestly have no idea what’s happening in the real world. Like, are there tumbleweeds rolling down the streets and stuff? Outside of truck stops and RV parks, we haven’t seen much this week.
We’re just slowly watching this exponential graph get taller and taller along with all of you, and we can’t help but worry about… well everyone. The worst that could happen to us (outside of us or someone close to us getting sick, obviously) is having to cancel our travel and just hunker down in one place. Oh the horror, having to stay in a beautiful location going on hikes and outdoor adventures on a daily basis with the person you love. Gross.
But a lot of the people we care about are going to have much harder times ahead. Slowly but surely, this thing is creeping beyond small nuisances to “OH S**T” territory. And it’s this pervasive thought no matter where we go or what we’re doing.
Point is… we think about you guys every day, and we just hope you’re all okay. Honestly. And not even just friends and family reading this. All of you. Please be okay, please be safe. You’ll get through this.
Okay, so I guess we’ll start with the elephant in the room. It’s been a crazy few weeks for us, and I don’t think we really understood or appreciated what was going on with this thing. It wasn’t until we got back to the trailer Sunday evening and finally started reading and catching up that we realized how bad the shit was hitting the fan.
For starters, it was absolutely jarring walking around New Orleans for a weekend, listening to people make jokes about it and pack into tiny bars, and then come back and watch the news. I’m sure the bars weren’t as full as they would normally be, and we did what we could to find places we could grab a corner away from people. But holy s**t, I didn’t hear one person talk about it like it wasn’t some big joke. Or even a thing to be concerned about, really.
And I’ve been trying to figure out if this is the best or worst time to be doing what we’re doing, and I can only settle on… it’s a little of both. We went to Universal the week before it shut down. We went to New Orleans before it will inevitably be shut down (I sit outside Houston as I write this, and they have shut down all bars and clubs starting tomorrow morning… and if Jenny and I want some good restaurant food it’ll be carry out of delivery… which honestly I’m pretty okay with). The truth is after New Orleans, we’re mostly headed west with the main goal of getting as far away from people as possible. So in that case… good.
But we’re the healthy young adults who could have it, spread it and not even be showing symptoms. And we’re rolling into RV parks with a mostly older clientele. So in that case… bad.
So I guess the point is… this blog will probably be pretty boring for the next few weeks. We’ll be mostly hidden away in our trailer enjoying the scenery and maintaining our distance from the people around us. We hit our irresponsible and selfish quota for this pandemic. And I still owe Jenny a po’ boy.
Friday
First stop was the Garden District for po’ boys at a place called Parasol’s. Met a lovely older couple who struck up a conversation with Jenny, and proceeded to give their life story when they found out what we were doing. It included swimming with sharks and renting a car and driving through Africa. Something like that.
Then a dog ran in from the street right up to Jenny, stuck around for some pets, and was gone again. He was so quick we couldn’t even get a picture. WE DON’T EVEN KNOW HIS NAME. I dream about him sometimes…
I told Jenny we should get the food sooner rather than later. She disagreed. So we waited after a few drinks. Then I went to get the food, and they were closed. I came back and told Jenny. She cried. We cried together. It was sad.
After that letdown, we walked around the Garden District a little bit more, I took a picture of a gas station, we ate Mexican food and then we went home.
Saturday
See? On the take out line like meh Americans. The space at those tables is not so roomy.
Woke up super early, like 11:30am or something, and went to Cafe Du Monde because OF COURSE WE DID. Guess what we got?
The rest of the day, in absolutely particular order:
Drank alcoholic beverages (Purple Drank at Lafitte’s… not the cough syrup one)
Went BACK to Parasol’s and got the po’ boys
Drank alcoholic beverages
Saw some bands on Frenchmen street
Drank alcoholic beverages
Almost got a tattoo
Drank alcoholic beverages
Ate fried chicken
Check the Instagram for some highlights. I host my own website so videos go elsewhere. And “drank alcoholic beverages” towards the end of the night roughly translates to “Chris had to order two beers to meet the $10 minimum for the credit card since he never carries cash, so he double fisted those AND finished Jenny’s drinks because we couldn’t bring them into the next place and Chris got f**king wasted.”
Roughly translated.
Sunday
Sunday turned into a much more relaxed day. Mostly out of pure hangover necessity, and partly out of sheer laziness.
Started the day with brunch and mimosas at Court of Two Sisters which was super expensive and super worth every goddamn penny.
Then we spent about an hour looking for an ATM and a valid place to break a $5 bill that wouldn’t be a waste so we had change for the St. Charles streetcar.
Long story short, I own a pack of gum now.
Ended up down at Audubon Park, where I deeply regretted wearing jeans instead of shorts in the 80 degree weather. The path is one big loop around a golf course and a lake, and is full of awesome looking trees like above that have probably been there for LITERALLY a million years. Literally.
After that, we walked through the neighborhood and by some ridiculous houses, and ended up at Superior Seafood & Oyster Bar where some oysters and frozen French 75’s rounded out our New Orleans adventure.
Once we got back to the trailer I realized I still owed Jenny a po’ boy she wanted from earlier in the afternoon because she wasn’t thrilled with the one she had at Parasol’s. (Not busting her chops… I agreed with her.) But I definitely was not getting out of the trailer to go find one again. So after alllllll of that, we left New Orleans two po’ boys short of a completed hand.
So we’re outside of Houston now, and the plan tomorrow is to buy some hazmat suits and get some po’ boy goodness in our lives.
Everyone be smart out there. Smarter than we’ve been so far. Please?
And big thank you to our buddy Frank for hooking us up with some killer NOLA spots. See you in Cali in a few months.
So we left Colorado at the end of February and came down to Florida with the cats and a Ford F-250 full of our life to throw in an RV and drive aimlessly around the country. Some accomplishments of our Florida existence so far:
1) Yankees Spring Training game
Especially glad we got this in considering everything going on right now. Yankees lost bad to the Orioles, Sanchez literally couldn’t catch a ball (and that’s basically his entire job description), and my dad confused everyone by wearing a Yankee hat and a Showalter Orioles jersey (the man who built the late 90’s Yankees dynasty… PROVE ME WRONG!)
Experienced Orlando traffic
Got a hot dog and a beer
Watched my dad drink a White Claw
Listened as the guy next to us did everything he could to NOT talk to his girlfriend (by talking to mine non-stop)
All in all, a good night. 25 year goal achieved!
2) Harry Potter World/Land/Universe
We went to Harry Potter… Land The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and we’ll let you know if we wake up Saturday with coronavirus. (This blog will take a very different turn if we do)
Bought Jenny’s official wand
Escaped Gringotts
Rode the Hogwart’s Express
Drank butterbeer
Got ice cream at Florean Fortescue’s
Realized Chris was a Slytherin (basically because I’m super smart and SUPER lazy)
Took a forbidden journey to a quidditch game
Ate at Three Broomsticks and the Leaky Cauldron
Tried pumpkin juice, pumpkin pasty, and an insulin inducing vanilla caramel fudge
3) Pure panhandle behavior
Officially embarked on our journey and ended up in bumblef**k Florida panhandle for a couple of nights. A nice laid back adjustment period before we get to New Orleans and beyond. Upon our arrival here we immediately realized we have some work to do to get into the routine. Backing up into the spot wasn’t terrible… but not great. Work in progress. We’re like Tom Hanks at the beginning of Castaway when we’re all white and fat and pasty and cutting ourselves trying to start a fire. Give us a few weeks and we’ll be lean and tan Tom Hanks killing animals with our bare hands for sustenance.
So far one of the best perks is the over-the-air cable we get in the camper, so we can watch a lot of local basic cable channels everywhere we go. TIL that a former college football coach named Tommy Tuberville (TOMMY F**KING TUBERVILLE??!?!?! I couldn’t think of a better name) is running in a special election against Jeff Sessions for Alabama senate seat Republican runoff. And could very possibly win. And is endorsed by Trump. YES… Trump is picking a former college football coach over his own former ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES.
The world is in such an amazing ridiculous place right now. Stay safe out there everyone. Wash your f**king hands.
