A Year in a Car For No Apparent Reason

I’ve been looking forward to having it rain while on the road for quite awhile and so far all I’ve gotten are a few drops in the afternoon. Tonight is a bit better. Not a proper rain yet, but a steady sprinkle that shows some promise. I only wish that I were spending the night at a campground or some place with more romance where I could curl up under my covers and listen to the pattering on the roof. Instead I’ll be in a Walmart parking lot for the night in a small town in Utah. I have been putting off getting my oil changed and it can wait no longer since this is the last town of any size I’ll be going through for at least another hundred miles and the oil light’s been on for the last 50 miles into town. Unfortunately I arrived here Saturday night and all the shops are closed on Sunday.

ahh well. It’s not as if I had any particlar plans for today beyond reading and reorganizing the car anyway. I even began sorting through some of the hundreds of pictures I’ve taken in the last week. Though I’m typing this on my phone so posting those will have to wait.

I spent the last two days at Dinosaur National Monument. Two days was enough for now but I already want to go back sometime and do more exploring on the Green River. Preferably sometime when the mosquitos aren’t so bad. I got eaten alive by them, a red ant and something else I never sawM but must have been a spider because it left a bite mark 3 or 4 times the size of a mosquito’s that still itches today.

As a side note before I begin, it turns out the problem with the install was not my fault, but a problem with the server.  That makes me feel a bit better even if it is still 7 hours of my life that I’ll never get back.

As a side note, I just wanted to mention that I’m finally reading Blue Highways.  Only just started it, but enjoying it so far.

Perhaps I should start a book page.  What are people suggestions for travel related books?  Currently on my list to finish/start:

• Blue Highways - William Least Heat-Moon
• Travels with Charley - John Steinbeck (Also, I’ve still never read Grapes of Wrath)
• American Nomads - Richard Grant
• Doing Nothing - Tom Lutz   (not about travel exactly)
• Travel in the Ancient World - Lionel Casson (One of my favorite authors.  I read this a long time ago and finally getting back to it.)

I’m sure there’s a couple more about travel in the shopping bag of books I’ve got in the van, but that’s all I can think of at the moment.

Any suggestions?

Yeah, I know.  I’ve just skipped a bunch to get from Spokane to Death Valley.  I’ll explain later.

Tomorrow, I’m going to be visiting the lowest elevation in the continental US.  I’m certain that while there I’ll be tempted to dig a hole and make it even lower.

I’m in Spokane at the moment for the tatting conference. Today was a very fun first day, and I know that when tomorrow night rolls around I’ll be very sad there’s only two days.

I’ll probably post a bit more about the conference later, but I make no promises. I may be too busy playing with my new thread.

For nearly the first time this trip I passed by a truck stop, (been doing most of my traveling on smaller highways), and I had a chance to take a look at some of the 12 volt cooking appliances. I have been feeling a definite lack of hot foods this trip. Or perhaps I should say ‘cheap’ hot foods since I’ve been visiting with a lot of old friends this trip and we usually end up going out to eat.

That’s fine with me, of course. I think that’s part of the fun of travel, but as time goes on I’ll definitely be wanting to do some more of my own cooking here in the van.

Which is why I will probably end up getting the RoadPro cooking pot. (Sorry, no links right now. I’m posting this with my phone and can’t do them).

They have a couple different appliances, including a skillet which also looks pretty sweet, but knowing what types of things I’d actually cook on a regular basis the pot would be better.

There’s a crockpot, which Tara, from Hobostripper.com, says is not very good and a little oven which is also tempting, even if only to say I have an oven in the van and can make fresh cookies when I want. As neat as it is though, I’m not sure I’d use it enough to justify the space.

There’s a small electric water heater which I like the idea of, but might not be necessary if I get the electric pot. Still, when I was traveling in the winter I constantly had tea heating in my, -now broken-, SmartMug. Maybe that’s something to consider for the winter.

Now that my curtains are finished, (at least they’re up and working and I’m unlikely to put anymore time into them even though they’re less than elegant), my next little project of the van is figuring out the cooking stuff. Anyone tried any of these?

Warning: I’m having a hard time concentrating today so it’s a very scatterbrained post you’re about to read.

After about ten days driving up the CA coast without the internet and very little phone reception I’m spending a couple hours here in Crescent City getting, (sort of), caught up.

It has become clear to me that I need to start up a page on this website dedicated to the places I’ve found to eat on the road. That will take some time though, and I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for it.

Pictures also will have to wait. I need to buy a new card reader since I’ve been planning on getting one anyway and my computer and camera aren’t talking to each other anymore. But honestly I haven’t been taking a lot of pictures like normal. Pictures simply don’t do justice to what I’ve been seeing the last week along the coast.

The last time I left San Diego it took me a couple days to really settle into the attitude of traveling with no real worry as to plans. This time it’s taken longer, possibly because I already had something of a route planned out already since I’m heading to Spokane for a tatting conference. It’s hardly much of a confining commitment, but between that and coordinating with friends I’ve been driving nearby I hadn’t really felt like I was getting into the travel attitude I strive for until just this last week.

It really sunk in yesterday when I was on way down to the Tall Trees Grove in Redwoods National Park. Skipping down the trail surrounded by these huge trees in a part of the park you need a permit to visit, (it’s free, just ask at the visitor’s center, definitely worthwhile). It’d been raining and cold earlier and was still cloudy, but you wouldn’t be able to see a blue sky through the canopy anyway.

Part of what made it nice also was that I recently read “The Wild Trees” by Richard Preston. One of the things I’d like to do more of as I’m traveling is to actually do some more research into the places I’m going before I actually get there. I’m a bit lazy with that and I don’t find out until after I’ve left a place some of the things I’ve missed.

Still, seen a lot. Is it really possible that I left LA only about three weeks ago?

This is what I love about travel. How is it possible that only a week ago I was in Point Reyes, two weeks ago I was hanging out with friends in the Bay Area and exactly three weeks ago I was sitting on the side of the road taking pictures of buffalo.

There is so much more I’d like to talk about here, many more things I’d like to do with this website, but right now I’m having trouble sitting still here, I’m ready to get back out there and I still need to do laundry before I leave town.