Deep in the Heart of Texas

Chapter Four.

It has been a long, cold and wonderful winter. Living in the camper in the cold is infinitely more challenging than in the warmer months. We chose to run dry all winter, in other words we had no running water. This complicates everything, especially meal preparation. When faced with the prospect of having to boil what precious little water we had in order to then do our dishes in bus tubs, eating out seemed less of an extravagance. This is a big part of why winter camping proved to be much more expensive for us.


Last night's dinner, Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps.

The other big reason was heat or lack there of. Our camper has the winter package, extra insulation, a two-paned front window etc, additionally we covered all of the windows with silver bubble wrap-like insulation and big fluffy cushions designed to fit in the sky lights, all helped to keep the chill away. Even with all of this it got cold, sometimes really cold. Our forced air furnace heats the living area well but not the cab-over part where we sleep. We bought a small electric heater which solved this problem but required a campsite with a plug-in. This meant that we had to pay to stay in private campgrounds with hookups, forgoing our preferred BLM or boondocking sites, and increasing our costs substantially.

Not only did we lose all of our “outside space” for the winter but the insulation kept out all natural light, making the camper seem more like living in a shoebox. Everything was just a bit harder.

Even so, I am so glad that we got to travel to and ski all of the places we did, but I won’t live in the camper for a winter again, unless it is in Mexico or somewhere warm. I would easily go on a week-long ski trip in it, but everyday for 4 months of cold is no picnic. So here we are headed south, water tanks filled and thrilled to be able to brush our teeth indoors again.

Thus begins the fourth and potentially final leg of our trip. We will spend the next two and a half months traveling the southern U.S. and then following the eastern coast north until we reach Canada again. This marks a bunch of unexplored territory for us both and we are so excited to be really on the road again that we can hardly contain ourselves.

From Durango our first stopover was Sante Fe and a night with our friends Connie and Albert (incase you are actually able to keep track of all of the supporting roles, Connie is Colin and Bjorn’s mother and Brook’s Mother-in-law, making Albert their step father and father-in-law by association) . If you are ever near this area a detour to Chimayo is a must. Not only is Chimayo home to the sacred and much folklored Sanctuario de Penetantes, but it boasts the best chili anywhere. The hillsides around Chimayo produce some of the sweetest and most flavorful red chilies in the world. They are dried and ground to make chili powder that is worth making a special trip for.



The Sanctaurio is the holy center for the Penatente faith. You may have seen photos of the faithful on their pilgrimages, where they carry huge crucifixes and practice self-flagellation. The shrine is home to the pit of dirt considered holy and said to have miraculous healing powders. Legend has it the hole never empties of the dirt, the faithful come and take vials and film canisters full of it, but every morning it has replenished itself. The church and surrounding buildings look straight out of deep Mexico and Spanish is as readily heard as is English.



The hole of healing dirt.


Crutches of the cured.

Connie and Albert treated us to a movie at their favorite art gallery/ cinema. We saw “Born Into Brothels” which I recommend very highly. If you like our photos wait until you see what a group of red light district children in India can do when a foreigner gives them cameras and sets them loose among the prostitutes and poverty.

After the movie we returned to Connie and Albert’s house which is located right along the river in Sante Fe, we laughed so much my stomach hurts today. Our campsite was right next to the flooding river and we slept the deep sleep that only comes from lying next to the sound of moving water.


Connie and Albert's house.


The guest quarters.

Today we are speeding along I-40 headed for Amarillo and eventually to Dallas for the weekend. It feels so good to be making miles and to be on a road we are blissfully unfamiliar with.

Thursday

Last night we camped at Greenbelt Lake about an hour east of Amarillo. Texas’ parks all seem to offer water and electric hookups for about $10/ night, which is a deal by our standards. Greenbelt has such a park, right alongside the lake there are about 20 cement back-in sites. Once we parked we met the only other person around who was leaving his camper here overnight while he went back to retrieve his boat. We asked him who we should pay since all of the offices we sealed up tight, her said “you won’t find no’bdy round here, ain’t the season”. So we got a site with water, electricity and a lake view for free.


Campsite at Greenbelt lake.


Prairie Dogs.


Lake Arrowhead.


Behind our campsite.

This evening we are at Arrowhead Lake outside of Wichita Falls. The ranger here informed us that in Texas you do not need a license to fish from the shore, and even better they have a “lend a rod” program. So I gave him my driver’s license number and he gave me a lure chucker and a tackle box full of hooks to go fish for crappie with, for FREE, for up to seven days! Camping costs $16 once you pay the day use fee, but again we have electric and water and this park even has hot showers. Who knew Texas was so camping friendly.


Bobber fishing.


Fish measurer.

Costa Rica

This was a true vacation. I realize the humor in my talking about vacationing, but hear me out here. We are constantly planning, where to go, how to get there, how to afford it and so on. This trip was put together by our friends; all we had to do was provide a credit card and next thing we knew we were whisking away for Central America.





We landed in San Jose around 9pm Sunday night. We got a taxi and found a cheap hotel. Our taxi driver was named Wilson and he turned out to be our personal valet throughout Costa Rica. The next morning Wilson picked us up and drove us the four hours to Manuel Antonio, stopping along the way to point out crocodiles and to help us rent surf boards in Jaco.


See all the crocs in the river?

We stayed at Costa Verde a very nice and small resort in Manuel Antonio just south of Quepos on the Pacific side. Wilson returned to San Jose and promised to fetch us at 5pm the following Saturday. It was still the afternoon so we threw down our bags and headed for the beach. The walk from the hotel to the beach is only 1km but is all downhill there and seemingly up a mountain on the return. We must have walked that hill 50 times during our stay.




There are giant Iguanas at every turn.

We had been warned repeatedly about the theft problem in the area and so we brought nothing of value with us, leaving only our flip flops on the beach. After an hour or so of frolicking in the waves we got back to the beach to learn that apparently flip flops are of value, and someone had stolen Dan’s brand new ones that I had given him for his birthday. Lesson learned.



The next few days were filled with beach/surf sessions, pool sessions and alcohol consumption, punctuated with huge meals of casada. Casada, also known as comida tipica, is the traditional Costa Rican dish which consists of rice and beans (gallo pinto) fried plantains a meat of your choice (always pescado for us) and often a green bean and ground beef casserole of sorts. We ate casada for almost every meal.




On our first full day in Manuel Antonio Dan and I woke up early to catch some good waves. Note to self: learn to read tide charts. The tide was very low and as such the waves were shore break. None the less we gave it the old school try. Not a good idea, the first wave I caught I went over the falls and got cold cocked in the cheekbone by the board. Within minutes I was smuggling a golf ball under my eye that would slowly spread down my cheek and, as I was told by a local fellow, produced a nice green/black bruise which really set off my eyes. For the remainder of the week Dan got some nasty looks from anyone who noticed, I do look a bit battered.


Me with a super-sized cheek, and shamelessly plugging our friend's restaurant. When in Durango eat at Nini's :)



The next day we hiked through the National park which is the big tourist draw in the area. The park is home to some truly stunning beaches and tons of wildlife. Everywhere you turn there are dozens of these super colorful crabs. Monkeys, Tucans and Sloths abound and we were treated to a particularly spry sloth at the end of our hike, in ten minutes he progressed at least five feet.


Crab in the park.


Three-toed Sloth.


Squirel Monkey at the restaurant in our hotel.


White-faced monkey.

Since surfing early was not good we opted for fishing instead. This is how Dan, Travis Zac and I ended up on the gay nude beach. We started fishing along the coast and worked our way around a few rock bars until we came upon a beautiful and deserted beach, the boys left me alone to go try their luck further down the shore. Slowly other people started to arrive on the beach; eventually I started to notice a trend. All of the other people were men, in Speedos and they were all in pairs. Apparently at about ten a.m. there is a signal, that I missed, which causes every one to hang up their Speedos and head into the water. I should have known, after all this was the prettiest beach in the safest neighborhood, of course it was the gay beach. The boys were equally as surprised when they came back to find me flanked by dozen of naked men, paying absolutely no attention to me, but they were largely distracted by the two fish they managed to land themselves.

The four of us stopped for breakfast at very empty beach side restaurant. We came to find out that it was deserted because the hotel had been rented out for a movie which was being filmed there. We enjoyed our breakfast, got to watch a trained Chimp parade around in a dress (he’s in the movie) and generally reveled in what an odd morning it had been. The movie is titled Surf Camp and stars a bunch of pre-pubescent kids who star on various WB shows. Just then three drop dead gorgeous models walked past (also in the movie), laid out their towels and stripped off all but their bikini bottoms; then they ran past us Baywatch style into the surf. Conversation immediately stopped, and I became invisible to them all. Ahh yes what a day indeed.





On Friday we opted to use our February ad revenue to enjoy our second Reader/Clicker Appreciation Day. This time we went on a zip line canopy tour through the rainforest. Thanks again to all of you. This was an exhilarating tour and a real challenge for me since I don’t like heights. Waiting my turn to zip, atop a platform suspended 90’ off of the ground was not something I would normally do. Once it was all done though I was thrilled to have done it.


This was a 65' rappel.


Morgan zipping along.


View from the zip line.

Mostly though we just made laps between the beach and one of the three pools at Costa Verde. It was a relaxing and fantastic vacation and a true departure from what has become our routine in the camper. Wilson, true to his word showed up Saturday and delivered us back to San Jose. Sunday we spent 19 hours traveling back to Colorado.


From left to right. Jeremy and Steve, Eric and Jamie, Dan and me, Travis, and Zac and Morgan.

Today we leave Durango for the first time with no set return date. This weekend we will be in Dallas and from there we are off to the land of mudbugs, gators and swamp buggies.

Thanks to all who wrote in response to our last posting, unfortunately all of the correspondence was complimentary so there will be no rebuttals this time ;)

Snoop, Cottonwood, Dunes, Fishing and Hate Mail

Vail proved to be exciting and exhausting. The concert was huge, over 10,000 people attended and the aftermath was daunting. We worked from 7am to 3:30am (yes am) on Saturday alone.


This is our friend and co-worker Gina, aka Cookie, filling 90 water jugs to anchor tents for the show.


We think of ourselves as carnies, here is a circus tent we erected.

We stayed in Vail through Monday finishing up the event and putting everything back into the warehouse. This should be our last work for a bit. As difficult and challenging as working a giant event can be we are very thankful for the opportunities we have been presented with through this job. Once we figured out Canada was a no-go for us this winter we were at a loss for how to afford a winter of storm chasing and skiing at many different resorts. A big heartfelt thanks goes out to Highline, for the emplyment and the good times.


Here's the view from our room in Vail, they were having a street concert right below our balcony.


These folks are Peggy and O.C., our bosses.

Working these events is really tiring and we have come to identify the way we feel the day after as the Highline Hangover. Tuesday we had a doosey of a hangover so we decided a day at the hot springs was needed. There is a highway from Summit County and Denver back down to Durango that we must have driven a hundred times. Somehow, though we had never managed to stop at any of the various hot springs along rt. 285. Per a local’s advice we chose to visit Cottonwood Springs. A very rustic “resort”, the pools are beautiful and they seem to be making lots of improvements currently.





After our soak we felt better albeit very sun burnt, kids always wear sunscreen. Dan wanted to spend the night in the Sand Dunes, so we detoured a bit and enjoyed a night in our newest National Park (at least I think it is the newest.) The money that came along with the Park’s status upgrade is immediately noticeable. This is the nicest N.P. campground we have stayed in yet.






From there we headed over to Creede, Colorado to visit our friends Jason and Julie. Jason is a fly fishing guide and he decided to break in his new drift boat by taking us fishing. The stretch of the Rio Grande that runs through there is beautiful and fun fishing.




Dan and Jason.

Now we are once again in Durango, (does anyone else think that we are making woefully little progress leaving here?) We have completed the winter/summer gear swap, I have done some shopping for Eastern guide books and we are ready to hit the road once again as soon as we return from Costa Rica. I am really looking forward to heading south and east, this is new territory for us both.

We leave tomorrow for Costa Rica. I will not be posting from there so I would guess that our next post will be sometime around May 3rd. Until then feel free to send us any questions or comments, we’ll respond when we get back.



Warning below is a lengthy rant, some useful insight may be gained by reading it, but really you won’t miss out on too much if you just look at the pretty pictures

The day before yesterday we received our first bit of hate mail. Personally I feel this means we have really arrived. I think the definition of a successful blog is over 35,000 hits and at least one piece of hate mail, so congrats to us. Here is the “comment” we received:

I am tired of coming across your site when I am looking for real info in regards to travelling on a budget (RV). YOu two are a couple of posers - you are the must yuppie gypsies I have ever read about... lets review... telluride spas, vail condos, sno cat skiing, trips to Costa Rica, what a bunch of horses***!!!! - and the fact that you are begging your readers to click on your ads so you can get more money is frosting on your pathetic cake. Get a life, else quit posting your consumer promoting travels on the blog!

A couple quick phone calls to our more sarcastic friends convinced us this guy's for real. (If in fact the writer is female, please note I mean no disrespect when using the term guy, I am using it in its colloquial non-gender specific manner.)

I shall address this note phrase by phrase. First, we are the UNDERAGED RVers, not the Budget RVers. However, we do travel on a budget of sorts. We did budget for the better part of three years to be able to afford our trip, this was not easy, we are not wealthy, just frugal and goal oriented. Aside from the money part we saved up all the fun tickets and brownie points we could muster in order to redeem them along the way. Case in point we skied over 50 days this winter and paid for three. This was due to the generosity of friends, the work we picked up along the way and one well written letter that offered a review of an area in exchange for ½ priced lift ticket (which I believe I noted in the post and review of that area- see Snowbird, Utah).

Second, “YOu two are a couple of posers - you are the must yuppie gypsies I have ever read about...” . This too I have addressed in past posts, I believe I called us the Yuppie Clampets. Now are we yuppies, or posing as yuppies?? As to the examples listed…telluride spas, free thanks to our friend Pete Woods past marketing VP of Telluride Ski Resort. Vail condos, actually we stayed in condos in Park City and Breckenridge, as part of our employment with HighLine, in Vail our friend Dale hooked us up with a hotel room which six of us crammed into. Sno(w) Cat Skiing, we paid half price because we know the owner and our guide was Marc, our friend who visited us in Mexico, we used the money that our readers have helped us earn by clicking on the ads to pay for this. Costa Rica, admittedly a lavish excursion. The money for this trip was earned by picking up extra work see the 20.5 hour work day referenced above. As a side note we got a screaming deal airfare and hotel for our trip was less than$550 per person.

Begging our readers to click our ads…. Ahh yes. Well let’s see here. First off let me preface this by saying that I love maintaining this blog. I am amazed and overjoyed at the life it has taken on. Originally I never expected anyone but my Dad to read it, and if you all didn’t write me from time to time I might still believe that he was responsible for all 35,000 clicks. For many months I never earned a cent from the site, if the ads went away today I would still continue posting.

As of this post I have posted 45 times. On average it takes me two hours per post, this time is used writing, editing/ correcting and uploading the pictures. I am not counting the research involved previous to our various excursions or the time it takes me to take the pictures, etc. So a bit of simple math, a conservative estimate of two hours per post, times 45 posts, gets us 90 hours. To date we have earned almost $400 from the ads, this divided by just the hours put into the site gets me about $4.44 per hour. Camera cost $600, computer $2000, monthly Internet connection $30 and so on....

When I visit sites that I enjoy, I click their ads, it takes me but a moment, from those ads I have learned about RVing, about places we have visited along the way and various other useful info. From clicking I get the satisfaction of helping the person whose blog I find enjoyable or educational. When I had the opportunity to place similar ads on our site I did it. I appreciate that so many of you take the time to visit our sponsors; it helps us out and seems to me a win-win situation for all. If it feels in any way smarmy to any of you then please continue to read our site and ignore the ads. In an attempt to thank those who click we decided not to use the money for just gas, or for something mundane, but since it was money we never counted on we use it to do things we didn’t plan to do. I intend to continue placing the ads and using any profits to further add excitement to our trip and hopefully to your reading experience.

And finally “Get a life, else quit posting your consumer promoting travels on the blog!” This is my blog (well ours but everyone knows Dan just drives ;) I chose to write about our travels, the places and things, or even products that have enhanced our trip. I try very hard to show my appreciation for each of our experiences and above all for the chance we have been given, and have provided for ourselves, to take this leap of faith and go out on this adventure. I acknowledge that we are just about the luckiest people in the world to be able to do this.

I thank you, anonymous angry reader, for affording me the opportunity to further explain the way we do things and what our motivations are. I hope that I have addressed all of your issues here, and I am sure that our readers look forward to your next comment as much as I do. Que le vaya bien.


One last shot, Dan and I have an admittedly annoying habit of calling each other Bunny. So we couldn't resist this one.

Reader Appreciation Day

Thanks again to all of you who read and click. Saturday we enjoyed a challenging day of cat skiing with some of our closest friends. We had never managed to make it out with San Juan Ski Co. which is sad since they are based in our hometown of Durango. In February you all clicked away and we made almost $250 from the ads on our site. A day cat skiing cost us $240 after tip and the other $10 bought us beers afterwards. If you are ever planning a ski trip to SW Colorado than a trip with Bob Rule is a must. The terrain he can access is some of the most amazing I have ever seen and can challenge any ability of skier.


This is where we skied for most of the day.


Everyone picking thier lines.


Our crew, note that Brother Pat is the one with his back turned.


The ski terrain.


This van takes you up to where you meet the snow cat. It is a pretty fun ride.

Fruita
While our day of cat skiing was fun, it was not ideal. It had been hot all week and then on Saturday a storm moved in freezing everything and making the terrain really challenging. So we have decided that we are done skiing for now and wanted to be warm again. This lead us to Fruita, Colorado, a Mecca for mountain biking. We have been blessed with two warm and sunny days of excellent single track riding. Our friend Eric Wienk has joined us and we have had a ball.


Dang and Eric




Rachel atop Joe's Ridge


Me smiling through the pain.


Eric brought his other "bikes" and the boys enjoyed a two-sport day, riding the dirt bike trails that lead up to the mountain biking area.

From here we are off for our last bought of employment for the foreseeable future. This one ought to be a blast. We are going to Vail to work a Snoop Dogg concert. Some of our Durango friends are working it too so we should be able to get ourselves into all kinds of trouble.

From Vail we return to Durango to begin the gear swapping process. You see in three weeks we are heading south and east and from there we do not know when we will be returning to Durango. It is time to trade snowboards for surf boards, skis for bikes and pants for shorts. But, before we head out east we are heading south, very south. To Central America in fact.

We have "earned" a vacation we think. Actually we had a few too many beers and Eric convinced us that we deserved a vacation, next thing I knew I had put two tickets to Costa Rica on the debit card and was searching online for a new bathing suit. So on April 23rd we, along with seven of our friends, are going to Costa Rica for an eight-day vacation. No camper, no budget, no ski pants or snowboard boots. I am so excited to be on a beach, surfing and sipping frou-frou drinks that I can hardly stand it. But I am getting ahead of myself. For now on to Vail.


As many of you know our plan for the winter was to live in Rossland, B.C. and settle into one town and one ski area for three months. Alas there was no snow there this year and Red Mountain was forced to close down in mid-March. Ironically enough all of the snow was hitting our home turf so we tucked tail and made circles around Colorado for most of the winter. Instead of one ski area, we got to travel the west and ski some of the great ski hills along the way, 20 in all. This photo shows what we did on our winter vacation.