David Norris
May 1, 2018
Week 3 – New Mexico & Texas
A Visit to Show Low and the Only Trees in Arizona
Like so many places we visited, we were only able to get a sip of what the Grand Canyon had to offer.
I guess we’ll just have to keep coming back. Next up, we took a 7 hour drive to Show Low, Arizona. It was a fun drive. Most of Arizona is a fairly high scrub desert… for a while we would see nothing but bushes no more than a foot or two tall, then it would gradually get into an area with larger bushes, and eventually trees. The area around Show Low is beautiful, with lots of trees. We stayed at a state park on a nice lake called Fool’s Hollow. At the bottom of the lake is what’s left of the town that a man tried to start by bringing agriculture to Arizona. It didn’t go well.
How Show Low Got Its Name
On the way, we stopped by meteor crater, the largest/best preserved intact impact crater from a meteor in the world. It was pretty awesome. At over 6k elevation, we found ourselves breathing more heavily as we climbed the stairs to the overview. They had a pretty cool little visitor center with guided tours and such. Highly recommended for people like us (basically nerds who like cosmology and geology and nerdy things).
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Meteor Crater – Arizona
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Meteor Crater – Arizona
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Meteor Crater – Arizona
Our camping spot in the park was lovely, 40′ from the water’s edge. I got a couple of paddles in on the lake, got to see some egrets and various waterfowl. The mallards were beautiful. It was far too windy our first full day to paddle, and I learned at Lake Isabella not to try to paddle into a hard wind. The rest of the week was low winds luckily. We had some fantastic mexican food in town at Sal & Teresa’s, and even brought some chips & salsa home.
The $975 Oil Change
One of our matras for the trip is ‘RV Life’. Unavoidably, if you’re out on the road long enough, something annoying or inconvenient will happen – and we’ll shrug, saying ‘RV life!’. [click to continue…]
David Norris
April 5, 2018
The nomadic life is treating as well; everything has gone pretty smoothly to our surprise. The more I think about it, the more this trip seems to be the inevitable result of a bunch of conservative decisions. We’ve had the truck and trailer for almost 2 years, and have taken it out on quite a few trips up to a week or so in length. We didn’t have any concerns about driving, hooking up, or any of the systems in the trailer. It’s pretty well broken in now, and we have found a few mechanical and electrical problems that we got fixed before we left. It would be crazy NOT to go! We love exploring and can work fine from the trailer, and I can finally meet my clients face to face (they’re spread out).
Leg 4: Lake Isabella in Weldon, CA
This was a beautiful drive, through rolling California hillsas we headed southeast towards Lake Isabella. The last 90 minutes or so of the drive were through a fantastic canyon along highway 178. Huge rock outcroppings were inches from the white line on the right as we drove, and it was unnerving at times. We started out following a gas tanker, so we figured we should be fine, and we were.
The lake itself was beautiful and huge, although pretty low.I pumped up my paddleboard and tried to sup the thing, but the winds were about 35 mph and apparently I can’t paddle that fast.
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David Norris
March 24, 2018
Over the Hump and Out the Door
It’s been almost 2 years since we bought our Arctic Fox 22g travel trailer and 2012 Ford F250 Diesel, and we’ve been having a great time. Camping trips about twice a month or so, in all kinds of weather. It’s a great combo for me (David) to drive (One of my exclusive jobs (sorry for all the parentheticals)), the truck is powerful and weighs more than the trailer, and is comfortable for long drives. Our longest camp was about a week camping by Yellowstone and seeing the Norris clan for a reunion in 2016. Now it’s time to take things to another level.
It was all Robin’s idea. We used to go camping regularly in a tent, and had been all around Oregon but not too far from home. Over the years we were less thrilled with putting up a tent in the rain, but we still have a lot of love for being in the wilderness. She found all these bloggers who had been living full time in various types of RVs, some for more than a decade.
The ultimate goal has always been to dip our toes in longer term trips, spending weeks or months on the road. One day we might even sell/rent the house (RVers call them sticks & bricks) and go full time. One big thing holding us back was the lack of reliable internet, which I need to keep up my consulting business. The ultimate would be to boondock or dry camp, staying in the middle of nowhere on BLM or other public land, without anyone around for miles. We probably won’t be able to do that until we can get satellite or some other global internet connection. Current offerings are mostly spot-beam for satellite or pretty expensive. Google & Elon Musk (Good Ol’ Musky) are both working on it, but there’s no schedule for when it’ll be available for us normals.
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dnr@fourthwc.com
November 1, 2016
Better get this first post out of the way.
My wife & I have always loved nature, and enjoyed camping for a long time. Eventually sleeping on the ground got less fun, and we started to think bigger. We’re big fans of other travel-lifestyle-blogger types like Gone with the Wynns, who spent years living full time in a class A RV, and are now on to even more awesome adventures. It’s our eventual dream to be nomads like they are.
David & Smooch, Who Steals Every Scene
For various reasons, the full time RV’ing is a lot to bite off, so we are starting out a bit simpler. Instead of selling the house and committing like salmon leaping up a waterfall, we went more conservative. We bought a travel trailer & a big pickup to drag it around, for a few days or weeks at a time.
We started this blog so our family & friends could keep up on our latest travels, and maybe share some of the stuff we learn along the way. I completely believe that nature has the power to heal so many of the downsides of modern life… I wholly encourage everyone to get out there and breathe some truly fresh air – and give us a wave.
