Well, that’s it folks! Almost 10 years to the day that I bought Jonas (aka Big Blue), he was handed off to the new owners at Phoenix International Airport. From there we then rented a mini-van (a Dodge too), packed it full of all our belongings, and took off on a three day trek to get ourselves back to our boat in Washington state. We am no longer van-tramps, but Kerri and I will continue traveling on the sailboat. If you care to follow those travels, we blog about the sailboat-life at www.roadtothesea.com During my time in the old van, which would have been ten years on March 3rd, we have don ..read more

Well, that’s it. The couple that flew out from Texas to look at possibly purchasing Big Blue did leave us a deposit on the purchase. Since they were unable to drive Big Blue back to Texas that very weekend, they allowed us to hang out in the old fella one more week. This then allowed us to get a final week with friends boondocking on the other side of Tucson now. At least it would not be more time at Snyder Hill. A lot of ‘lasts’ took place over the course of the week. The last water fill for us in a van. The last days boondocking. The final days seeing most of these people (again). The list w ..read more

Our return to Arizona was simply to meetup with even more nomad friends. We have done little camping by ourselves this whole winter, and even less was in our future. That was okay, as it may very well be the last time we get to see most of these people. So off towards Tucson again… but first, a quick overnight stop in Bisbee as Kerri has really wanted to hang around in that old town a little more since our last visit, not 11 months ago. Now, I’m no huge fan of Bisbee (although I admit I liked it a lot more last year) but I went along for the ride anyway. We walked the strip, visiting stores at ..read more

I froze when Kerri said she wanted to drive into Las Cruces to see friends.I reminded her of my track record with Las Cruces and van breakdowns (specifically brakes) in the most blunt way I could – I’ve never made it to or through Las Cruces without some form of repair. It’s both a curse (always a breakdown) and a blessing (always a parts store nearby). Did we really want to poke this bear so soon after the whole Las Vegas ordeal? And with that question, Kerri pulled out her favorite poking stick We arrived at the designated boondocking spot to meet up with said friends for the night; Adam and ..read more

We move East at a good clip. Through and past Phoenix, and up the mountains on the other side as we wanted to take a route other than Interstate to our next destination. It wasn’t even a new area we were traveling – we did it last year – but at least it wasn’t Interstate for 10 hours. We drove until just before sunset, settling on a dirt road that came to or rescue last year. Nothing out of the ordinary happened the rest of the night, or through the following morning as we departed to continue East a few more hours to meet up with Silver City, then South to Faywood Hotsprings… our ultimate des ..read more

If there is one thing an experienced group of full-timing nomads understand is that your neighbor always moves away, and you do not always get to say goodbye when they do.  Whether it is someone leaving super early one day, or you are out on a walk, or that person just never returning from a shopping trip to Yuma (such is our case), it is widely understood as just part of the package with us shifty nomads. It just happened, that one Saturday we did not return to the group after a trip to town to restock. Instead, our goodbyes had to be done through the cell-waves. Kerri and I followed Leigh an ..read more

LTVA stands for Long Term Visitor Area (I think… sounds good enough). These are areas within BLM lands in which someone can pay a one time fee to be able to stay for an entire season, as opposed to having to move every two weeks. As you can imagine, they can be quite popular among the snowbirds that come to Arizona to ride out the cold temperatures from up north. Imperial Dam, not far out of Yuma, Arizona, is one of these places and the location for a small get together of a few long lost nomadic friends, us included. Honestly, for us it was just good to get some serious miles away from Las V ..read more

We have spent this past work week just trying to get back into the routine of van living on public lands. Lake Mead has been nice to us. We found a dirt road rough enough to keep most people from passing by and set down it. It then provided us a nice secluded spot with a view. Big Blue was parked to face the sun, put up on some blocks to level out, and then did not move for the rest of the week. The stresses of the past month has already begun to fall away. Each evening we would take our chairs out and take time to enjoy the sunset as best we can. I will admit that we appreciated it a fair am ..read more

It took another full week, and weekend, for the issue with Big Blue to finally get resolved. That makes three full weeks we lived in an AAMCO parking lot in the greater Las Vegas area which included Xmas, new years, and our five year anniversary. Before anything I say about this shop gets taken as negative, the guys at this shop were amazing to us. They were locked into a particular path with the national warranty, and in the end lost a lot of money getting us back on the road. In the end, we they replaced the entire rear end with one found from a salvage yard (at additional cost to them), som ..read more

The latest news on Big Blue’s breakdown isn’t very interesting. It is still broken. Repairs are still ongoing, yet we will be stuck in the repair shop parking lot for another week – at least. I’m not going to continue ranting on about this because that horse has already gone to the glue factory. Instead, I’d like to mention a couple things that happened this past week worth mentioning. January 5th marked our five-year anniversary. Five years ago I gathered the courage to knock on her door. Five years ago she said “yes” to a movie date that night in the desert. That started a few months of us t ..read more