Road Trip: Michigan to Oregon

And we're back! After an isolated 2020 that lasted 84 long years, we're back on the travel train. Not literally a train, though, but a 2000 Ford Econoline Conversion Van!

Friends of ours (Guidebook and his wife, to whom Babs was flower girl in this post), moved to Oregon in the early pandemic days, then had a baby 8 months ago. Having not yet met our nephew, we scheduled a trip to visit them once we were all fully vaxxed up. 

With Babs being 7goingon13, she is a delightful road trip companion. We gave her the responsibility of packing her own backpack of books, activities and toys. She packed mostly books, then found out immediately that reading in the van made her motion sick. Luckily we were prepared with audiobooks (Notorious RBG is a bit too dry for a 7-year-old, but anything by Neil Gaiman is great-- preferably also read by him).

I was excited for this trip-- the last time we road tripped to the Gorge in George, WA, the scenery in Western Montana, Idaho and Washington absolutely took my breath away. 

We took a bit different route, looping down through Idaho to cut into Oregon and didn't quite get as much of the foresty, waterfally gorgeousness, but it was still nice to see mountains again.

We absolutely cranked the miles and blew past all of my pre-vetted rest areas, so I spent a lot of time using data to look up good places to sleep. One such place was the Silver Creek Campground in Idaho, essentially a dusty parking lot on the brushy banks of Silver Creek, a popular trout fishing destination. It just so happened to be trout fishing opening weekend on the day we stayed and so the lot was filled with fly fishermen. It was hot, dusty and also a bit buggy, we couldn't even see the creek, so we bedded down in the stifling van before the sun had set (driving West with the sun is the pits), and took off early in the morning.

I did a great job packing meals in the van, so we didn't have to stop for food a single time on the way there, which was part of our plan for keeping germ contamination low for baby.

Most of our 10 day stay consisted of playing with baby, as it should, though we did bike to a couple parks, walked around a volcano and drove into the mountains to Sparks Lake for a stunningly picturesque walk.

I brought my cake decorating supplies and made Guidebook a birthday cake, Mrs. Guidebook and I tag-teamed a paella dinner and I reveled in baby snuggles. It was a Very Good Time. 

I remembered, suddenly, all the new baby things we went through with Babs. The exhaustion, the slipperiness of time-- days sliding one into another like countless years without any time passing at all, the wheel-spinning seclusion (made so much worse mid-pandemic), the constant worry about if you're doing everything wrong. Also the joy and wonder of a new life growing and changing and all yours.

We took baby in early mornings and sent parents back to bed, put baby down for naps to let parents Go Outside by themselves (I'm now convinced every baby in the world is a better sleeper than Babs was-- that girl hated naps), and cooked meals at home for them. We were so sad to leave and missed that baby (and his parents of course! just not as much) as soon as we left.

On the drive home, we stayed at a rest area, then at Mabel Lake campground in Minnesota, where the mosquitoes were so thick they somehow found their way into the van to torment us into leaving at 4am. 

Six days of driving was a bit much on this trip. We only got crabby with each other once or twice, but I don't need to make that drive again. Minnesota, North Dakota and most of Montana is not real thrilling to drive through, especially when you're looking forward to playing with a baby, or getting home to harvest your garden, at the end of the road. It's a long time to take out of a trip, time we won't have as much of now that Babs is in higher school levels and won't be able to take quite as much time off. 

This, and many other reasons, are why this was our last road trip in the van. 😢More on that in a later post!

Summer Adventures: Phish, Colorado, Overnight Parking at Rest Areas, etc

Summer rushed by at an unrelentingly rapid pace. Since my last post, we camped for 4 nights at Swan Lake, the lake of my childhood, where all my family reunions have been held for my entire life. It's a beautiful lake and excellent for swimming. (Babs, once afraid of the water, now wants to do nothing else than swim.)

I was particularly proud to have beaten Mr. Go's smallmouth bass record with not only a 19" bass, but a 20" bass the very next day.

George, WA

We followed that up with a 9-day trip to George, WA. Babs and Flotsam were left with Grandparents while Mr. Go and I took the Subaru across the country.

I've told you about this before in this post, and while the core crew was smaller this year, we enfolded two of our camping neighbors into our group to round out the craziness and now our network has grown.

On the way out, Mr. Go and I spent some quality time in the car listening to Into the Wild by John Krakauer and camped in State Parks and campgrounds along the way. Since the Subaru was so packed full, sleeping in it was not an option, and we had to pitch a tent every night, which quickly became tiresome. But I did get this sweet shot of Mr. Go being zen by a waterfall in Minnesota:

RV Parks and campgrounds are seldom as nice as they sound, and State Parks (many of which require a vehicle day pass to enter) are more expensive than they're worth. The app RV Parky helped in finding campgrounds along the way.

More Camping

Three days after we got home, we were packing up the van for another week-long camping trip with one half of my family, during which we picked a prodigious amount of blueberries.

The next week we made an impromptu camping reservation at the most primitive site yet. Surprise, surprise: there wasn't even a toilet, a discovery which led to us digging cat-holes with Babs' plastic shovel. Good times were had by all.

Curveball? More like Blueball

The week after THAT, we dumped Babs and Flotsam again, for another trip in good ole Subey, this time bound for Watkins Glen, NY, for the famed Phish Festival weekend, a bi-yearly event, this time called Curveball. We met up with two sets of friends, and as soon as all our camping gear was set up, we got a nasty surprise.

The entire week before, the Finger Lakes area had received monsoon-level amounts of rain, which led to the rising of the water table, which led to concerns regarding water potability, which led to the CANCELLING of the festival, not 10 minutes after the last tent stake was pounded into the soggy ground.

After making it through all stages of grief, all 20,000 of us campers consoled each other by getting drunk and running around the campground until the wee hours.

Colorado

A week (and a friends-with-kid visit) later, we packed up and left for Colorado, this time with the whole fam damily in tow.

The first leg of the adventure was to take Babs to her first (and second) Phish show! More on this in a later post...

Wedding

We travelled from Thornton, CO down to Colorado Springs so Mr. Go and GuideBook (remember him from our adventures in Mexico?) could reclaim some branches from trees around his house and make an arbor for he and Ms. GuideBook to get married under.

After this we spent a night with friends in Golden, then headed on up to the mountains to stake out the claim at Boreas Pass, where the Guidebooks would be wed three nights hence.

Sleeping at 11,300 feet elevation is no joke. After one night, I was done and Babs seconded that emotion. Luckily, our other friends (also of the Mexico & Spain adventures) had a house in the town of Breckenridge, where we were gratified to shower, nap and wash our clothes.

Wedding festivities abounded, culminating in a morning ceremony atop a mountain with a breathtaking skyline background.

Yes, Babs acted as Co-Flower Girl, with her "sister" C

After the fake paella lunch that followed, the Go family split. Babs' school had been in session for a week without her and Breckenridge, though closer to sea level than Boreas Pass, still sits at a pretty 9,600 feet elevation, and none of us were acclimated.

Life in The Van

We made tracks on the way home, stopping off at rest areas for two nights of sleep. Note: The rest area at Adair, Iowa is stellar. Did you know Iowa's rest areas offer WiFi? And they allow overnight parking.

Also, in the town proper of Adair, Iowa, there is a great little park not far off the highway where we stopped off to let Babs let out some energy.

I typically consult this list to determine whether overnight parking will be allowed. Wisconsin says it's a No, but we've parked overnight at the rest area in Dubuque twice now with no issues. If there aren't signs posted that specifically say "No overnight parking," I'd do it.

Next Up...

Between pickling and canning our home-grown veg (more on that in a later post), house projects (including but not limited to replacing one nasty window and the asbestos tile in the attic), and keeping up with personal hygiene, Fall promises to click by at an unrelenting pace as well.

And you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way.


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Traveling in a Van with a Child + 2 Dogs

Mr. Go finally did it. He bought a conversion van to fulfill his dream of living in a van down by the river. But, like, not in a creepy way.

The 2000 Ford monstrosity gets a whopping 16 mpg, 20 if you draft a semi on the highway.

We took 'Speed', as Babs dubbed the big blue boat, for a test trip in January, to try getting OUT of the cold. But alas, it was the coldest week on record in the South, the cold front dipping daytime temperatures to the mid 30s in FLORIDA. But at least the snow didn't tower outside our doors.

As many free campsites and even paid campgrounds were closed in the Midwest in the midst of winter, we spent a few nights in Walmart parking lots until we could get on a main highway and find some rest areas. A couple nights were spent at a friend's in Georgia, so Babs could play with their two kids. We brought the tent, thinking we'd camp further south, but we slept in the van the whole time.

We laid a 1/2" old eggshell foam piece over the electric lay-down bed, which proved wicked uncomfortable. Leading me to...

UPDATE 1: Foam mattress.
Sleep might be the most important component of having a good trip, so this was well worth it. Since we seldom use it as a seat on long-term trips anyway, we mostly leave the bed down. And if we need to, this short queen mattress topper lifts easily and we just haul it out.

The bed provided good storage underneath, but there were some things that needed to go in the "living room." Such as the potty. It was mostly for Babs but it came in real handy on cold nights in Walmart parking lots when you just don't want to have to walk across the lot to use the potty. Yeah I peed in a bucket, if you lived in a van you'd understand.

Keeping your living room tidy is also vitally important on long trips. You need room to move around. Thus:

UPDATE 2: Storage in Totes.
Since we didn't go all out and build in cabinets or anything, we needed somewhere to put our stuff. We brought our climbing gear, camp cooking equipment, cold weather AND warm weather clothing and other comfort accoutrements.

One tote in the back housed things we didn't need to get at very often, such as first aid kit, climbing gear, tools, etc. The other we stored cooking equipment and the like, which we were always getting at, and came inside with us when we stayed nights in friends houses.

As coffee-lovers, we had a small tote dedicated to coffee equipment, so first thing in the morning all we had to do was pull out this little tote instead of rifling around in the bigger one through pans and baby monitors to get our caffeine.

We also had a separate tote for "important things" which mostly housed our toiletry bags, passports and kindles. The idea being: the van is on fire, we can only take one thing, grab the 'toiletry tote'.

For things I needed to access while the van was in motion, such as snacks, we got a dishwashing bin from Dollar General. But I just do my dishes in the pan I cooked in anyway, so its use has morphed. It seems to accrue other things as well, such as sunscreen, extra mayonnaise packets swiped from Subway and Mr. Go's headband, but it's a great easy-access catch-all.

WATER

This is important, as most free campsites and even many pay sites (especially in off-season) do not have water pumps. Our 5 gallon, hard-shell water jug sits on the running board just inside the side door (at the far left of the above picture) so we can fill up our bottles at pit stops. And of course, I never pass up an opportunity to refill my Nalgene from a water fountain or at any restaurants we chance to stop at.

GOAL ZERO

To charge our devices (phones, Kindles, cooler, etc) we were using an AC adapter plugged into the van cigarette lighter but the ports were limited and it slid around on the dash. The Goal Zero has two USB and two AC ports so we can stay charged on the fly.

ICELESS COOLER

We have a love/hate relationship with this Igloo cooler. It's great to not have to buy ice, but unless it's plugged in, it's pretty poor at keeping things cold. While the van is on, our snacks stay chilled, but at night it drains the Goal Zero pretty quickly, leaving us without charge for other devices unless we turn the van on again.

Trip #2

In April, we took Speed to Colorado to test our improvements, with great success. On the way out, we slept at rest areas, which are actually very comfortable. Most of them allow 24-hour parking, but select ones will have signs posted otherwise. Do some research if you can beforehand, check Google Maps for reviews, photos of the place or even the state transportation website might have some info on overnight parking.

You can't throw down your chairs and cook breakfast in the morning, but it's infinitely more comfortable to go in and brush your teeth or use the potty late at night instead of having to go inside a WalMart (more on sleeping at Wally World here).

On the homeward journey we stayed at real campsites, and even paid for them, just to see what that was like. Usually we use FreeCampsites.Net to scope out free places to stay. We've found some great spots, many with vault toilets, picnic tables and fire rings. Some are just a grassy spot on the side of the road in BLM lands (Bureau of Land Management.) FreshOffTheGrid has some good info on free camping here.

During the trip we camped free at Red Canyon Park near Shelf Road one night, where Speed ran over a rattlesnake--and it lived. The Park was beautiful, though the dirt road was wicked bumpy and would not be friendly for a trailer, and there seemed to be some homeless camping there too.

But paid campsites have their advantages. Such as: running water (sometimes). We took a shower at the Dakota Campground in Mitchell, South Dakota and it was actually very comfortable. Another perk: Being around other people. Sometimes I'm just creeped out by being alone in the middle of nowhere. Some campgrounds will also have play equipment, a huge perk for a cooped up 4-year-old and her weary parents.

Sometimes, paying for camping is not worth it. The village of Wilton, WI has a campground that is probably very nice if the weather was better, but it was rainy, soggy and cold when we stayed and $7 per adult and $4 per child was way too much for what we got. C'est la vie.

The Elk Mountain Campground in the Wind Cave National Park was very pretty. We hit off season pricing at $9/night and they provided firewood (for a donation) and had water spigots, though their indoor bathrooms were closed and there was 1 vault toilet for the campground to share (and it was quite busy too).

Many pay sites charge like this: Posted on the board with the rules and such, there will be a box of envelopes. You fill out the info, tear off the slip, put money in the envelope and put the envelope in the drop box. The slip you clip to a post at your chosen site or put on the dash of your vehicle. The village of Wilton had a person who just drove in and knocked on your door to take your cash. Dakota Campground just had a box for you to put cash in and no slip to prove you had already paid.

Other Suggestions:

Carbon Monoxide Detector - You're sleeping in a small, enclosed space. You've cracked some windows, but just to be safe, get a battery CO2 detector so no one wakes up dead.
Hanging Light - Headlamps are the bare minimum but either a fancy battery lantern or some sort of light bungeed up somewhere improves the ambiance of your home on wheels.
Audiobooks for our 4-year-old were the savior of the trip. We had some long days driving and she got bored of coloring and scribbling pretty quickly. The City of Ember by Jeanne Duprau was a winner.

Van updates aside, during our trip, two of our friends were moving, so I packed up a couple of kitchens and Mr. Go hauled a lot of boxes in exchange for a place to stay and a dinner. Babs visited all her Colorado friends, acquired and used a climbing harness and helmet.

We traversed the front range, bopping in and out to visit with all of our friends. Another Update: I need to consolidate my necessary overnight items for easier in/out. Things tend to get spread out over the course of van living and I was forever making trips back out to the van for something I forgot to bring in.

It was not a typical trip, in that we did a lot of in/out of the van for visiting friends. I'd have liked to have done more camping, more staying put in one spot for longer lengths. It would have cut down on the stress of constant motion but it was an excellent trip regardless.

Next time we take Speed out, we'll be camping at home in Michigan, then we've got several more road trips on the dockett. But we're enjoying the down time at home between trips, too. With gardening, garage sales and family all around us, it's always an adventure.

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