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.
Well it’s been about a month and HOLY $%^& it’s been about a month.
Since last we spoke, I lived in the camper in my parents’ backyard for a little under three weeks. Got a chance to press all the buttons and turn all the knobs, and there’s already a whole bunch of stuff that falls under the category of “WHOA, LET’S NOT DO THAT AGAIN.” So today I present:
Tips that none of you will ever use ever because none of you will ever be ridiculous and live in an RV for any extended amount of time because WTF of course not you like having things and space and forget this see the world BS OMG AMIRITE?!?
by Chris & Jenny
(Got it? Cool, I’ll start…)
#1 – Don’t smash the back window of your truck.
So when you have a short bed pickup truck and a fifth wheel hitch you have to get one that slides. (Think DJ Casper. I’ll wait while you Google it…)
In short, if you have to make a sharp turn to back into a spot or whatever you have to stop, unlock the hitch, hold the brake of the trailer (there’s a controller in the truck), and pull the truck forward until the hitch locks into “maneuver mode.” This gives you an extra foot between the front of the trailer and the cab of the truck. Then when you’re all done, you straighten out and roll the truck back to get it back into “tow mode” so the pin of the trailer is back over the rear axle.
So me in my ultimate genius (and being the modern pinnacle of laziness) I eyeballed it and decided I could clear the back of my truck’s cab with the front of the trailer without that extra clearance, even if I went to 90 degrees. Like this:
You know, I had been doing this for like 23 minutes straight, so obviously knew what I was talking about. (This isn’t my stuff btw.)
So I start backing out of my parents’ backyard when the neighbor next door (who had been hanging out watching me struggle with this thing) starts yelling at me to stop. Not only was I about to rip the cord that supplies the power to the trailer for running lights and stuff clean off the trailer ($$$), but the corner was about a couple of millimeters away from smashing through the back window of my truck ($$$$$$$$$$$).
LESSON: Maneuver mode is your friend. So are old men from Central Florida who save you thousands of dollars in repairs. Florida Man does some good every now and again.
#2 – Don’t kill yourself.
Apparently, electricity can make you dead. Uh huh, seriously.
And also apparently, if you touch a piece of metal that is also touching electricity, said electricity can come touch you and make you dead.
EVEN MOST APPARENTLY, if said electricity is a 50 amp service, you are even deader than you would normally be dead. The deadest. Imagine dead, and then add some dead.
LESSON: Don’t wrap up your trailer’s power cord when it’s still plugged in. Oops.
#3 – Forwards good. Backwards bad.
I was twice surprised when I started hooking up the trailer to the truck and moving it around the world.
Driving forward is weirdly easy. Though I guess I shouldn’t say easy, but waaaaay easier than I had imagined. Especially when you only go 60-65mph on the highway because a) you’ve watched too many trailer highway accident videos, and b) you like pissing people off. Once you get the dynamics of the size of the trailer and where it is in relation to things it can destroy / things that can destroy it, you can almost forget it’s even there. Almost.
Driving backwards, though? One of the worst learning experiences I’ve ever had. I’m not exaggerating. And I’ve studied for a test that is 8 hours long and you have to fly to California to take. (Twice)
Remember how to back up a vehicle? Yeah? Well forget it, it’s completely opposite from everything you’ve been doing since 16 years old. If you want to go right, you have to turn the wheel of the truck left. And vice versa. Because why not.
Backup camera on the trailer you say? Absolutely no help.
My biggest problem is that it’s still almost impossible for me to know when the truck is actually straight with the trailer. I can eyeball it (see above for how good I am at that) but if I’m just a tad off I’ll find the rear end of the trailer is headed into a tree within a few seconds. And unless you have a good amount of width to turn the truck back and get around to the opposite angle to get it back to straight, you’re toast. (Did that make any sense at all?!? It’s so annoying I can’t even explain it properly. Let’s try this…)
Normal human being backing up a fifth wheel in a straight line:
Chris backing up a fifth wheel in a straight line:
LESSON: No lesson here. It’s going to be the bane of my existence for the next six months and I just have to do it. Or I end up having to back it out of somewhere and I just give up and walk away. Free trailer!
#4 – Don’t trust your locks.
If you bought a car and someone told you “by the way, the key that opens your trunk is held by everyone” you’d probably, I don’t know, not buy that car probably. And not “everyone who own that specific type of car” or even “everyone who owns A CAR,” literally everyone can walk into a store and buy the key to your trunk for like $1.03 plus tax.
If you’re ever feeling down, just come back and look at this worthless thing.
There are keys out there labeled “CH751” that are exactly this situation. AND GUESS WHAT! Close to all RV storage areas use that type of lock. RV dealers don’t want to have a million keys for each individual trailer, so manufacturers use this generic lock and key for pretty much everything. So I could literally take this key, walk over to my neighbor (regardless of what type of trailer they have) and unlock their RV compartments. And if I was a bad guy without a trailer, I could just go to my local hardware store and have the key also.
The actual door into the RV apparently isn’t this lock, but from what I’ve read the number of different keys for a generic RV door lock is not nearly as high as one would probably would like.
LESSON: Replace the locks on your RV with something, I don’t know, LITERALLY EVERYONE CAN OPEN. Just sayin.
There’s more, but I’m just gonna stick to the property damage / loss of life near-misses for now. Stay tuned…
Hello friends and family. Jenny and I have started this website to keep all our loved ones (and possibly complete strangers) in the loop on the shenanigans of our life.
For those who don’t know, we have decided to explore the country in a camper this summer. The lease on our apartment ends beginning of April and we will be hitting the road shortly thereafter. Possibly even before that if I get restless enough.
They even match color schemes!
I’ve spent the past few weeks down in Florida with my parents getting the hardware in order; we are the proud new owners of a 2019 Ford F-250 and a 2020 Grand Design 29RS fifth wheel. I will be spending the next few weeks practicing driving this beast around, collecting supplies and necessities for the road, and generally getting through the learning curve and breaking it in so I can be prepared to get Jenny through it next.
After that I’ll be heading back to Colorado to sell two cars and pack up a two bedroom apartment into storage. Jenny ends her job end of February / early March and then we hit the road as soon as possible after that. The only plan at the moment is New York in May for the birth of Jenny’s nephew. Outside of that, Jenny’s making a list of stops to try and schedule out and we’ll be generally winging it.
So stay tuned for updates. This space will be all sorts of yet to be determined things. Or maybe the next post is saying we’re all done six months from now. We’ll see!
