What Have We Been Up to? An Autumn Update

What have we been up to? A whole lot! I’m posting our Autumn newsletter here as the email app we use to send out our newsletters is closing its virtual doors this month. Once we find an alternative, we’ll resume sending email updates again. But for now, they’ve taken a new form, a long post/recap.

So settle in, here it goes.   

Today, we’re writing today from the dreaded I-10 corridor. Having crossed a good chunk of the country (ahem: Texas) we’re in the swampy (and delicious) state of Louisiana and heading toward a quiet Thanksgiving holiday with our family in Florida.

But let’s backtrack a bit…

Down the Coast

We started the season in Washington State, and after a few pricey repairs to our suspension system, a useless (and expensive) 170,000 mile check-up at a Ford dealer, and a new set of brakes and rotors, we headed south along the coast.

After a summer in Alaska and Northern Canada, it took us a while to get back in the swing of camping in the lower 48. The Pacific Coast is amazingly beautiful, but it felt a bit crowded. We really struggled to find campsites that afforded the kind of privacy we’d gotten used to up north.. 

But we did find a few beautiful spots. (Check out our current Google Camping Map for details.)

We tried (but failed) to meet up with the awesome van lifers, Steve and Audra, who we’d met briefly in Florida last winter. But we did manage to stop in Trinidad, California for a quick visit with our friend Caroline.

Then we scooted down to Half Moon Bay to hang out with Dan’s brother, Abby, and sister in-law, Susan.

It was a lovely, relaxing time. And the brothers replaced Stevan’s old, worn shocks, with fancy new “Bilstein” ones. Thanks for the help, Ab. We could never have done this without you!

East into the Sunrise

The Pacific Ocean is beautiful, and it was lovely to hang out with our family and friends on the coast. But we had another rendezvous planned… in New Mexico. So we said our goodbyes and headed into the sunrise.

We made short work of California. But we still managed to mosey. It took us about a week to cross Nevada. And what a week it was! We did quite a bit of rockhounding along the way (found lots of jasper and agate!) and we vegged out as far from civilization as possible. Which isn’t all that hard in big, empty, beautiful Nevada. (Check out our playlist from this leg of the journey)

The big empty desert was just what we needed…. And all the beautiful, free Nevada camping was a bonus! We always seem to be in a hurry across Nevada. But one of these days, we’re going to stay a long while and explore.

We crossed Southern Utah in a rush but took one wonderful breather: an overnight beside Paria Canyon in the beautiful Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Here, we hiked in Paria Canyon and recuperated a bit from all that zippy driving. 

A Little More Adventure Than Planned

THEN we rushed to Albuquerque to meet up with our three adult “kids” for a week of family-style adventures.

Turned out to be a bit more “adventure” than we planned. One of the kids  fainted soon after arrival and ended up in Urgent Care (Just a virus, sinus infection and dehydration–whew!)

And the government shut down meant that most of the places we planned to visit were closed (or semi-closed).

The virus that arrived with the kids worked its way through our ranks, and I ended up flat out for a couple of days with a headache, sinus trouble and fever.

Also, we caught the tail end of a pacific typhoon that drenched New Mexico and further limited our camping choices. When it rains, it really pours!

So, yeah. Things did not go as planned. But, despite it all, we had a great time with the kids and were so happy to share our rambling life with them, challenges and all.

A Whole Lot of New Mexico

Once the kids flew back home, we lay low. Like, really low. For over a week. We were well and truly exhausted.

We spent a few days at Cochiti Lake (a cushy COE campground not too far from Alburquerque). But it felt too busy. So we headed up to Abiquiu to boondock beside the lovely Chama River. This spot was so quiet and beautiful that we stayed almost a week… just chilling in this amazing landscape.

Eventually, though, we ran out of water and fresh food, and so we headed back to “civilization”. Lucky for us,  our van friend, Darren, happened to be passing through Santa Fe. We spent an afternoon chillin’ with him in a Panera. Then our little two van caravan spent the night in a brewery parking lot, where we caught some live music, and just enjoyed hanging with someone who shares our love of all things van life.

Before leaving Santa Fe, we got a Jiffy Lube oil change. And then we headed for Pie Town.

Pie Town and More

Pie town is a tiny, iconic New Mexico town set along the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). And, fascinated with all things ‘long trail”, I’d got it in my head to visit it. But, as usual, we took the round about way, staying over a few extra days at the lovely El Malpais Conservation Area. 

Dispersed camping at El Malpais was a surprise. Hiking this rugged area, we found pictoglyphs and many sherds of pottery from the ancestors of New Mexico’s Zuni people. (We took pictures and left these right where we found them.) We also found elk parts (it was hunting season), a lot of bullet casings and trash… Sadly, this is not all that unusual on US public lands 🙁

We hit Pie Town on a Sunday morning, along with a very large church group and maybe everyone else in town. No matter! We enjoyed the lively scene full of friendly people. And the pie was delicious!

From there, we bummed around the western western edge of New Mexico, free camping all the way. 

We hiked into the Blue Range Wilderness, along the iconic Whitewater Canyon Catwalk, and to some lovely hot springs along the San Francisco River. We reached Silver City just in time for Halloween… and the last few games of the World Series. Which made for a fun combination at Little Toad Creek Brewery.

Silver City Again!

Silver City, New Mexico is one of our favorites, a town where we can imagine settling down someday (though not anytime soon). And so we explored the area a little more, meeting artists and rockhounds, checking out the farmers’ market, coffee shops, take-out burritos joints, and a fabulous food co-op. We also caught the town’s tiny Day of the Dead parade. And, yep. We still like this place! 

Everything is Broken!

We dispersed camped on public land on all sides of “Silver” which was nice as well, and then spent a few days in the wide open desert near Deming.

Somewhere in all that wild camping and bumpy-road driving, my computer screen cracked… and its wifi connection stopped working. Which is my excuse for taking so long to update the blog, website and YouTube channel. We could only shrug and plan to fix/replace it when we reached more populated spots with big box stores. And I quickly got out of the habit of computer-based social media (sorry).

By now, our time in New Mexico was growing short. So we headed across the rugged Gila Mountains toward Truth or Consequences (ToC) for one last hot spring soak on our way east. 

And here is where our good luck– or good CARma, anyway– ran out. 

Stevan, our trusty vanlife companion, had an “issue”. By “issue” I mean, on the way up the pass, the transmission stopped shifting, ugly black smoke billowed behind us, and a sizzling red fluid stained the ground under our wheels.

We stopped immediately, and set up our Starlink so that we could call AAA. (No cell service here!) It took a while to get help. While we were, thankfully, on pavement, this area was a towing no man’s land, far from both Silver and ToC… and in a squiggly, steep, mountainous area to boot! I had to send a photo of the van to the tow truck driver before he’d agree to come help us. And it took a couple of tense hours on the side of the road before he drove the 30 slow, twisty miles to get there. 

The tow truck driver arrived at dusk, and he loaded Stevan onto the flat bed truck and zigzagged down the steep, tilty, narrow mountain road. It was kind of terrifying.

Stevan was a heavy load, and the tow truck revved and revved with effort. And there were deer, cows, and foxes in the road.

And it was a  looooong way down on the right side. With no guardrails. Later, we found out that there was a wrecked van down there, left for over a year because no one can figure out how to get it out. Yikes!

On the flipside, we were happy to get off the mountain and really appreciated the tow.

A Long, Worried Wait

The tow truck dropped us off in front of the closed Rio Grande Automotive in ToC. And, rather than stay in the van beside a busy road with no bathroom options, we walked the mile or so to Motel 6. It was a bargain at $54 and in pretty good shape, too. Thank you, woman behind the front desk, for giving us a discounted price, and a lot of empathy. However scary this whole experience was, it would have been a lot worse without the kindness of strangers.

At Motel 6, we tried to distract ourselves with TV, a rare “treat” in our van life. But “Hot Tub Time Machine” on HBO did not do it for us.

I resorted to doom scrolling, and Dan resorted to doom researching. My general response to stressful situations like this is to try to avoid thinking about the thing until something can be done. Dan’s is to learn as much as he can about all the possible whats and ifs. Unfortunately, there were a lot of whats and ifs. And most pointed to a blown transmission. So, yeah. We spent a sleepless night tossing and turning and worrying about Stevan, and about money, and about getting to Florida to be with family for Thanksgiving.

We woke at dawn, drank some lousy lobby coffee, ate a great big breakfast across the street at Johnny B’s Diner, and called the mechanics as soon as they opened. Of course, it’d take a few hours to get to us. So we packed up and walked a few miles to the ToC library to try to get some work done. Not sure how productive we were. 

Many stressful hours later, we got a surprising verdict: The transmission fluid had been overfilled. And when the van was working hard chugging up the mountain passes, the fluid heated up and expanded. Because there was no room in the transmission, it splurted all over the place, including onto the exhaust system, which is where the smoke came from. We think the culprit was the Jiffy Lube back in Santa fe. (Thanks for topping off the fluids, guys :/ ) The diagnosis and replacement fluids cost just $89 a whole lot of worry and a Motel 6! Woohoo!

We were relieved by this verdict. …But we stuck around ToC a few more days, testing the “overfilled transmission theory”. We had our hot spring soak, did some rockhounding, and remote working. And all systems seemed go. 

Now, we really had to get a move on if we were going to reach Florida before Thanksgiving. So we headed for Las Cruces… where we caught a teeny whiff of trouble (maybe) in the form of a possible teeny bit of smoke. We checked all the fluids, and all were as they should be. Maybe this was just the last bit of transmission fluid burning off the exhaust? We drove and tested and drove a bit more and everything seemed fine.

Is there a word for an automotive hypochondriac? Autochondriac? HypoCARdriac? Anyway, that’s me.

We did our best to enjoy our brief stay in Las Cruces, hiking the Organ Mountains and eating our last authentic New Mexico food… in the form of a Green Chile Sundae(?) I got a new computer too. The “Black Friday” sales were in full swing at Staples and Best Buy.

A Long, Hot, Boring Drive

So, with slight trepidation and the need to put some miles behind us, we set off across the dreary driving state of Texas. We stuck to I-10 because help and services would be readily available. And so far, so good.

We’ve been on I-10 for the last six days now, and things seem okay with Stevan.

And we’re almost there! How’s that for speedy travel?

Once settled into the sunshine state with family, we plan to get a second opinion about Stevan’s transmission. And also maybe fix our flattened leaf springs and overhaul some of the internal electric systems (again). We’ll let you know how it goes.

Feeling Thankful

At any rate, Thanksgiving is coming up. And we’re thankful for so many things… including all you wonderful folks who’ve joined our little crazy brave van-life community. We truly appreciate your comments, encouragement, and advice, and are so happy to have you along on our adventures.

We’ll be slowing down for the next few months as we try to be supportive of our family here. But we’ll keep the blog (and videos and instagram photo diary) up and running just the same.

See you down the road!

Perri (and Dan)