Browsing Category2015

A Year of Notes to Our Pre-Nomadic Selves

Year 1: ‘Go see the world. Let it change you.’ So, it’s been a year. Yep. Today (7/1/2015) is our 1 year anniversary with Dyna. (I’m going to go ahead and get the elephant out of this virtual room now- I don’t remember the anniversary of Jake and I becoming a couple.)  I’d say things with Dyna and us are going pretty well; I mean, I haven’t taken her home to meet my mom yet, but I’ve shown both mom & dad pictures, and I write this blog about living in her for my mom. So, you could say it’s pretty serious.…

Ditching Dyna: ‘Home for Christmas’

‘Home.’ It has become a word that needs a footnote in both writing and discussion. ‘Home’ as a location is now transient for us. We call ‘Dyna’ home, but we keep moving her. In this sense, home has been a dusty RV park in Utah. A paved 50x30ft spot crammed between travel trailers in Texas. A plot of BLM land without other human life forms for miles in New Mexico. That form of ‘home’ keeps changing.  We all know ‘home’ as a feeling too; in my heart, I know much of ‘home’ for me is still at ‘home.’ That ‘home’ is Western…

Tomball, TX

Tomball, TX. A town with a German Christmas Festival, few sidewalks, and a fountain in the shape of an oil platform. And also, free RV camping with full hook-ups. H2O, sewer, 50A. FREE. So, if you were wondering “why the heck did Jake & Liz choose to stay in a town called Tomball that is lacking in the sidewalk department” (sidewalks are important for running safety), well, there it is. Free RV parking.  Tomball has a cute little town area sporting ‘The Depot Plaza’ (which proudly boasts ‘the oil fountain’ as well as some train related stuff), a sculpture of a…

Austin, TX

Promises of weirdness. Promises of amazing food. Promises of unparalleled people watching. Promises of… disappointment? Austin gave us a rough start. Although, to be honest, it wasn’t exactly Austin’s fault.  Our first 2 days in the greater Austin area: #1: we chose a subpar RV park* in Dripping Springs that was a full 50minutes outside of Austin. This park, which will now be known as ‘the situation’ had no reviews online; it is ‘brand new’.  The owner sounded nice over the phone. ‘The situation’ has a really nice website, especially for an RV park. We paid for a month sight unseen. Rookie mistake. After cruising (as…

Ditching Dyna: Disney World

Back before we became nomads on wheels, we got an invite from a good friend to hit up Disney World for a week.  He just had ‘too much timeshare’ for one person. He wanted some friends to share the magic with. Sounds terrible right?  Jake had never been to the magical mouse house before, so we were in from the get-go (even with all the terribleness of a ‘free place to stay in Disney World’ offer). This post won’t be long. Lets be honest; you’ve either been to Disney World and have seen/done what we did, or you will go…

San Antonio, TX

I’m fixin’ to start this post off with a list of things we’ve noted/learned about Texas thus far. We’ve been here less than a month and have only parked the rig in 3 locations, but DANG. This place is wild. In all sorts of ways. I’m pretty sure Texans actually believe that Texas is the largest continent on Earth. It is also the biggest country in the United States. And also the largest planet in the solar system. I have a lot of respect for this belief. And, being the main driver in our expeditions, I can attest to that…

Marathon, TX

We had plans. Big plans. To go to Big Bend National Park. Because its the ‘playground of Texas.’ And we like playgrounds.  So we booked a spot at the Marathon Motel & RV Park. Because we need internet. And Texas’ playground does not come with internet (its old fashioned or something).  We also needed groceries. Because we’re hungry people. The town of Marathon, TX has exactly one grocery store. And its about the size of our RV.  Regardless, it was an excellent little grocery store.  It had all the things we needed, like ice cream and chorizo. And a flyer…

Carlsbad, NM

After surviving the alien infested city of Roswell, we decided to spend a weekend checking out the bats near Carlsbad, NM.  We also decided that it would be a great opportunity to test out our ‘wildcamping’ or ‘boondocking’ skills (which typically involves finding some public/friendly land, parking your rig, and living out of it) since there didn’t appear to be too many great RV Park options nearby.  Plus, we really like the word ‘free’.  We’re finally getting the hang of the whole ‘not run your engine battery/house battery down’ when not plugged in deal (Jake is still playing with the…

Roswell, NM

Welcome to the city of believers! From October 9th-16th, we were surrounded by conspiracy theorists, a ton of bugs, and possibly aliens.  We decided to stay a bit outside of the city of Roswell in a State Park called Bottomless Lakes.  We chose to stay there because it was pretty cheap for full hook-ups, it touted FREE wifi (so much uploading happened during our stay!), and we tend to like the State Park scene better than the RV park scene. We got lucky because this particular State Park also happens to be one of the two things to do in…

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

The last 3 months (& first 3 months!) of our travels have been geared towards slowly, but surely, driving Dyna towards Albuquerque, New Mexico.  We took the ‘long way’ around Utah and Colorado to get here and now, we are HERE!  Here’s a fun fact: Jake reserved camping spaces at the Fiesta two months before we had found or bought Dyna.  We had been told that spaces are limited and popular and thankfully, my ‘always on top of things’ partner, Jake, was cognisant that Fiesta was not something we could miss.  Thank heavens for him!   We arrived at ‘Balloon Fiesta Park’…