Things I learned on my recent walkabout

Things I learned

• It's better to dig a hole than to use a drop toilet
• I never used my big burner
• It's hard to find others
• Bring a bigger tent than you think you need.the extra space is awesome. Rei tents rock. If you don't like REI then suckit.
• A rooftop tent is awesome. Cleaning the bugs off if the front of it is not.
• You have a max speed of 70 mph with a roof tent. Deal with it.
• A fridge and house battery is awesome. It's worth the money.
• My hair looks better after 4 days of not washing.
• I never cooked an egg.
• I don't like paying for camping.
• Your phone service provider sucks
• Spend at least an hour a day doing nothing. You will be happier, more creative, and more zen about the world.
• Hydrate, hydrate hydrate.
• Keep the bits clean. Wet wipes rule. So does a washcloth.
• Find your campsite early. Like 4 or 5 Early. You won't regret it.
• Nothing is like you remember it. There were a lot less people in the world when you were growing up.
• You can easily walk farther than you think.
• Get a good folding chair. You will use it daily.
• A pee bottle in the tent is awesome. Make sure it's a different color than your water bottle.
• You will get lonely.
• You will experience joy.

Return to Ouray

I hadn't been to the mountain town of Ouray in at least 10 year and was curious to see if it had changed. Cindy and I had spent an amazing time there while out and about on one of our many US travel adventures.

I found a campground on the map near Ouray, that said it was just in a spectacular setting outside of town. I drove a few miles up route 360 and turned into the Angel Creek campground. It had maybe 12 sites. At the at the beginning of the campground was a information booth that allows you to pay it also. It also said that if you wanted information about hiking drive a mile up to the next campsite and find the camp host.

His name was Steve. Steve'O he told me. I didn't ask what the "O" was for . "I'm Jeff. No nothing more just Jeff" I said back. I assumed you would just call me just Jeff after that but I don't think he was that quick. He was really, really blissfully stoned. I forgot that in Colorado pot is now legal and he was absolutely having a great time. I instantly loved the guy. I asked him about hiking even though I wondered if he had ever hiked a day in his life. He said "Oh, just go over to that cabinet over there, open up the back and you'll find all the information you want". I opened up the back and there was nothing other than basic brochures that had nothing to do with anything other than local eateries and tourist traps.

He came over and sat down next to me. And then handed me a giant rock that was sitting on the table. He looked at me, and beamed at the rock like it was something so special. I didn't really know what to do with it, but I was game to play along. Smiling, I asked "what is it?" He said "it's from around here". "Okay" I said "is it a some sort of crystal thing?". He said "yes I found it on my hikes". I looked around and saw the table that he was sitting at was littered with these crystals that he must have found on his many short forays into the woods. Pleased with himself, he looked me in the eye and said "this is the best place in the entire world. I love living here, I love doing this. I can't believe how lucky I am to be the camp host here". Earnestly he then said, "you need to stay here. You need to just hike here. You need to just be here". And stoned or not, he was so right. It's not just gorgeous here, it's amazing and like nothing that I can actually explain.

I asked him how he got his posting. He said "oh, I got it from a friend of a friend. It was a dream come true. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do in October when it's over. But I don't really care". Then he told me about a secret waterfall just up the road. "Well it's not really that secret, I tell everyone about it" he said. "It was secret to me because I'd never heard of it before". There was some logic in that idea. And then he gave me a set of instructions that I don't think anyone could actually follow to get there. But I may try doing it tomorrow. But just from talking to him. I decided to stay more than one night here. So I went back to my camp and paid for two nights and we'll see what happens.

Im so glad I did. The next day while doing a punishing uphill hike, I met a guy and his dog coming down the trail. He told me about some dinosaur footprints that I'd see along the route. If he had not told me about them, I would not have know what they were. So so so awesome!

Nomadic Encounters in Kansas

As the long days of driving from east to west dragged on I realized that my stress level increases the later it gets and if I had not found a place to sleep for the night. I stopped for a while when I had internet access and found a free campsite in the middle of what looked like nowhere Kansas. I drove through a small no name town wondering where the road was actually going. Through twists and turns and tiny country roads, I finally ended up at a "fishing lake". I wasn't really sure what a fishing lake was but it seems to be a state park that's free for anyone who wants to camp there for up to 14 days and just fish.

A woman in a campsite a bit down the shoreline from me wandered up to take a look at my rooftop camper. She was brown and creased from years in the sun. Her age was indeterminate. Her voice was ragged from too many cigarettes. I hated myself for noticing.

She was a free spirit. She said she had been living like this for 10 years. She started with a car. Then a van and then finally upgraded to a trailer. I looked at the trailer down the road, rusted and aged. I felt sad and also interested in what her life must be like. She told me she had never been to the West. She just keeps bouncing around in the middle of the country. North in the summer to places like wherever the hell we were. She had her routes noted on an atlas. Highlighted so she knew where to be at what time of year. I found her fascinating.

She also said that these months at the fishing lakes had been insanely hot this year. But strangely, you cant cool off in the lake. You're not allowed to swim in them. You can wade out in them like all the people do that are fishing, but if you actually get your shoulders below the water it's considered swimming. And you can be fined a hefty amount. She said something about her grand kids being able to splash about in the lake, but that they couldn't sit down in the shallows of the water. She said in a few days she was on her way to another lake where she could stay for 15 days. It's an interesting life.

Feeling Paralyzed

I was sitting in my car feeling paralyzed. My brain had stopped functioning, my arms and legs felt like noodles and I couldn’t do anything except just literally sit there and breath. I didn’t know what to do next.

I had finally made it to the Rockies. After months of thinking about it and making and executing plans, it was over. And suddenly I realized that I hadn’t made any more plans after that. So literally, I didn’t know what to do next. The buffer was empty and was getting no more new input. So I pulled the car over outside the the library in Colorado Springs, found a parking space and just stopped. And then I cried a little and then I just spent more time blankly sitting there. I texted Cindy. “I’m here, now what?”

I don’t know precisely when it was while I was in France that I decided that my European trip was over. Cindy was going to continue on with the dogs but I was going back to the US. I wanted something easy I thought. I wanted something familiar I thought. I wanted time to be alone and figure out what I wanted to do next with my life. And here it was. That journey was over and I didn’t have the foggiest idea about what to do next.

I think I took the words of Wayne Dyer too literally. Now that the dance was over, I was just idling about on the dance floor.

So I tried to do something familiar and went to a campsite that Cindy and I had been to years before. But they were full, and so was the next one. I thought OK, I'll get a hotel, get a shower, use the internet and regroup. But they were all far more shekels than I was willing to part with. Casting a wider net, I found a campground about an hour south and settled in for the night.

The next day I decided to stop moving. I stopped at a burrito joint with good wifi had a meal and found a place on the map that was close by to drive to. I would just let whatever was next come to me. I found a dispersed campsite just outside of Salida and let the forward momentum that had sustained me to this point bleed away. I put up my hammock, drank a beer, stared at the clouds and then finally went for a trail run to help clear my head. It's funny, when I thought about what my life would be like on the road, it comes surprisingly close to this exact moment. Sitting alone in the forest with everything I need to be self sustaining for a week on end, having trails to hike and run nearby, have shade for me and sun for my solar setup and to be able to listen to the wind flow through the aspen trees.

Once again, I've found that If I don’t try to force it, and be open to the day, it would provide all I needed. I stayed two days just soaking it up.

Go East young man

I had just squirmed into my rooftop tent and flopped like a fish on the mattress. The mosquitoes were dense tonight and I was trying like hell to not let any into the tent with me. Success! I said to myself and raised my fists in self congratulations. As I write this, I can see and hear the mosquitoes buzzing just outside the thin netting as they desperately try to get in and find no advancement.

I had waited what felt like an eternity for my shipment of various household goods to arrive back in the US before I left on this trip. It felt endlessly because its delivery kept being postponed. Every day I waited and every day I thought “it will be here tomorrow and I can finally put it its contents into a storage locker and finally get on the road.” That waiting lasted almost 2 weeks. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. It felt like forever.

In the final days of waiting, I decided to head out for another quick camping trial run to the North Carolina, Outer Banks in my newly outfitted camp mobile. For some reason, in the 4 years that I lived in Asheville, I never made the trek out to the eastern edge of the state. In my head, I had a romantic vision of what it would be like. A home to writers, pirates, the wright brothers and wild horses. I was sorely disappointed.

As I waited in mind numbing traffic and wound my way up to Kitty Hawk, I started laughing maniacally. This was just one long tourist strip mall, filled with fried fish joints, tourist traps and drive through “beverage” stores. I'm still not sure what was served there.

Where was the pristine sand dune beaches of my Wright Brothers internal film? Where were the open expanses where the boys could test and test and test again each new version of their flying machine? Why was their sisters involvement in all of this hidden from taught history? I digress….

I found the Wright Brothers Memorial right next to the Lowes home center. Not a celebration of their achievement but a memorial. WTF? I didn’t get it. It was surrounded by a large expanse of manicured lawn. No beach. No open windswept sand dunes. Just lawn.

I drove into the entrance and turned around before paying my $10 entry fee to enter the building and be underwhelmed. I had seen the real first flying airplane in the Smithsonian Museum of aviation and did not need to see a replica. I had also read a pretty thorough account of the events that led up to that first flight and the subsequent aviation company that was created by the brothers in the ensuing years. I didn’t need to ruin my internal vision of the events any more than the current state of tourist encroachment already had.

Searching for the pristine beaches I had in my head, I drove endlessly south. Past the giant Jurassic park themed putt putt, past the pizza shops, the 3 t-shirts for $10 stores and the rest of the diatribe of human existence. Finally I found the outer banks of the romantic movies. Houses sitting on stilts at the open edge of endless beaches. Ahhh, this was what I was looking for. This was what the outer banks was supposed to be. This was incredibly boring….

So I drove as far as I could and turned around. I had too because there was no ferry running from the last island to the mainland. Back I went up past the beautifully crafted beach houses, the realtor signs enticing me to plop down a small fortune to own a small piece of paradise and I drove back toward Asheville. And I drove. And I drove.

Now that my world was settled I needed to decide where to go. Maine! It must be beautiful this time of year. So I set my sites on it. It took me 3 days of driving and finally, there I was, In Bar Harbor at Acadia national park. One of America's must see National Parks. It was right there, just down the road and all I had to do was pay my $25 and I could see it.

The problem was yet again people. Too many people. They were everywhere. Like ants looking for their next meal. Mindless, crawling ants. I couldn’t take it. I turned around. I left and drove south.

After consoling myself with a $30 beer, the world's saltiest fries and a genuine Maine lobster Roll (market price of course), I headed west. I didn’t know where I was going just west. I used various apps that I had downloaded onto my phone to find a free campsite just on the main border. I plugged it into my phone and I was off. And of course I got lost.

My cell phone completely no help I entered the convenience store doing the one thing I hate doing asking for directions. The girl behind the plastic panel was completely draped over the counter staring at her cell phone. Her hair was like a curtain across the front of the phone blocking my view of whatever she was watching. "Hello" I said "do you have a map?" Startled she jumped up and looked at me wide-eyed like she was surprised that there was a customer in the store even though one had just left 30 seconds earlier. "What?" she said. "Do You have a state map?" I asked again. We have this she said hauling a giant state atlas out from behind the counter. She scanned it she fumbled a scan it and pronounced it worth $26.95. " That's too rich for my blood and " I said fascinated by her accent.

"I just want to know which way New Hampshire is." That seemed to catch her off guard again. "Well'" she said "The one time I went to New Hampshire I went that way" and she pointed in the opposite direction I was sure I needed to go. It was strange to think that this person had never left her home state except for maybe one for a into New Hampshire to the south. But I was in rural Maine so maybe this was normal? I got back in my car and drove the opposite direction from where she had pointed me. I figured the odds were in my favor. Soon I was on the road I expected to be on and my mapping software was finally pointing me at the right direction.

An hour later, I found my campsite and settled in for the night.

Didn't see this coming. I'm living in my car.

Thoughts on living out of my car for my next adventure

I think today is Wednesday. I left Asheville for a trial run of the new car camper setup. I'm still waiting for the cargo shipment from Brussels to arrive, but the shipping agent said that I will be unloaded in Charleston today and that it might be ready to be trucked to Asheville as soon as Thursday.

I am currently in Georgia near the border of Tennessee in a wildlife management area. Whatever that is. Getting here was driving through some really rural parts of Georgia. There were some pretty extreme differences in income along the way. Huge glowing white mansions and then trash surrounded mobile homes all within a few miles of each other. It was a fascinating drive. The inequality of wealth and quality of living was staggering.

I'm using an App called TheDyrt to help me find free places to camp. For some reason it's called boondocking. I have yet to figure out why. After crawling along about 6 miles of a pretty rocky dirt road I landed at an area with 6 primitive campsites. At one end is the party crowd with lots of muscle vehicles and yappy dogs. They graced me with shitty loud rock music that played late into the night. Next to them was an old woman who spent the day shuffling around in a hair net and house dress. Again, kind of surreal in the difference between people out here.

But I'm right next to a beautiful babbling stream and it's been really enjoyable. I found myself just sitting and looking at the trees. Later, unable to move, I did nothing but watch a Beatle wander throug

h my field of vision. It just felt so nice not to have to really do anything and just let time just wash over and through me.

The car camping is going to take a bit of fine tuning but it's a good start. The rooftop tent is the coolest thing since sliced bread. It super roomy inside. Think like a twin bed. There are mesh windows on 3 sides and the top so it feels open and airy. When I got a little cold at night it was super easy to button everything up by closing the mesh panels and it quickly got cozy inside.

When the shipment arrives, I'll grab a bit more of my camping gear and probably another table. There never seems to be enough room to put stuff down on when you're cooking. It's a weird thought that hasn’t quite settled in yet. That I live in my car. No home. Just my car. I know lots of people do it. Some because they have no other option. But for my privileged self, it's still very strange. Strange that I've made the choice to do so and and strange because until recently, the idea of it never crossed my mind.

In the final months of living in Europe, I had decided that I was going to come back to the US, buy a van, build it out for living in, and then hit the road. I researched extensively what it takes to do this and spent way too much idle time watching van build videos. I narrowed down the van type to a Ram ProMaster or the smaller Ram ProMaster city. When I bought a ticket back to the US, it only went as far as Washington, DC. It's a big enough metropolis that should have been able to find the van I wanted and then drive it down to a friends house south of Asheville, buy some tools and start the build. I had an airbnb rented nearby and estimated that I could start living in it within two weeks. I assumed that I would still be working on it for the next 2 weeks to a month, but had planned to park it near my friends shed and just keep working from there once I had the bed built.

Maybe it was because I was so used to driving small cars in Europe or maybe it was because I realized that it would take forever to get on the road, but after driving multiple vans I gave up on the idea of van life. 3:00 AM Geoff had different ideas. 3:00 Am Geoff decided that what I really wanted was a vehicle that could take me into the backcountry. 3:00 AM Geoff wanted a Jeep, or a 4runner, or gasp, an even smaller Subaru.

I had come across the glorious idea of a rooftop car tent. Think of it. At tent that lives on top of your car. You can park anywhere, pop the top, pull out the ladder and crawl into your own personal car cave. No searching for the perfect piece of land to put your tent down on. Just find a relatively level piece of earth and bingo, you're in business. So I set out to find the perfect car tent to fit on a car. Then I found the perfect small Subaru to put it on. Ladies and Gents, I was in business.

But then I realized that I needed to figure out how to store my gear in the car. There would be no slapdash throwing my gear into the back of my car. I needed a custom built kitchen box and shelving unit. So luckily, my amazing and generous neighbors of old, offered to put me up in their basement for a few days and more importantly, lend me their tools. It took me the better part of 3 days, but in the end, I had a custom made system in the back of the car with drawer slides for the cooler and the stove, ample storage space, a splashy coat of terra cotta paint and a compass in the stock. Wait there isn’t a compass. Damn, I need to fix that.

So now I sit in the forest in the eastern edge of North Carolina drinking tall boys of PBR and I wait. Starting tomorrow, hopefully the rest of the pieces like shipment arrival will start to come together, and I can truly start this new adventure.

Iceland - Feb 2015

Here are a few videos from our recent trip to Iceland.