So what have you been up to since 2018?

November 2, 2023Leave a comment

I know. It’s been a while. Like five years. What can I say? We dropped the ball. In our defense, having a blog can get tedious. You have to take pictures of everything. And write stuff down. It’s a drag. However, it’s amazing to be able to look back at places you’ve been and things you’ve done. Plus it’s a good way to stay in touch with family and friends. And let’s be real, we’re not likely to start scrapbooking, are we? So we’re back.

Here, in no particular order, are the broadstrokes of our past five years:

These are some shots from the early days. This is basically what it looked like when we arrived back in St. John ready to move in. Air mattress was key.

Fall 2018. We escape the Travato life and move back to our not-at-all-finished home in St. John. We go as far as the insurance money takes us and call it a day. We are very, very, very finished with living in the van. We didn’t have any photos of the house reconstruction as it went along and we weren’t able to go check on it so we just trusted the builder guy. This is not a recommended practice. At all. But it works out for us. Super lucky. It helps that our bar for livablity is very low.
We spend the next two years living in various stages of construction and complacency until we have a fully finished rental cottage (Little Spice) and a good-enough-for-us and way-better-than-it-was main house (Sweet Spice). Things are ticking right along with the rentals, Jennifer travels back to Indianapolis every few weeks for work. We’re cruising.
2020. We get pandemic-ed like everyone else. St. John is not a terrible place to be. At all. We alternate being completely locked down and overrun with tourists. The big change is Jennifer goes to work at the hospital on St. Thomas (our neighbor island). Because she has to be available 24 hours a day during her work weeks and because the ferry doesn’t run 24hrs a day, we rent a place on St. Thomas to use when she’s working. After about a year of going back and forth, we decide we’re being ridiculous. We buckle down and finally get our house finished enough to rent to people on vacay and we settle into full-time life on St. Thomas.

This is what Sweet Spice looks like now. It is very nice now that we don’t live there anymore. It’s probably hosting some honeymooners right this second!

This is Little Spice. It’s come a long way.

Fall 2023. So that’s where we are. We’re renting a pretty nice little place on St. Thomas. Our landlord is awesome. He has a very nice place and we live in a little one-bedroom guesthouse on the property. It’s very Magnum PI-esque. Jennifer works at the hospital. Cj manages the two rentals on St. John.
But most importantly there are major changes in our family. Wembley passed away a couple of years ago. That guy was all hero, no zero. We are heartbroken. We swear that we are done with dogs. Frances is about five and still a terror. We decide that we are going to be a one-dog family for as long as she is around. Then we’ll become dogless and free-wheeling! We keep that up for about three months. Frances is sad. We are sad. We cave and get Agador Spartacus, World’s Greatest Basset Hound. He just turned two. No regrets

And here are the pups!

Somewhere along the way our siblings made more kids, bringing the total count to three nieces and a nephew. This shouldn’t really affect our lives but it does. We are now the type of people who have pictures of children on our phones. Who knew? Highly recommend aunt-hood.

Hope the past five years have been good to you guys, wherever you are. Feel free to drop us a comment (or give us a call, family and friends) to let us know what’s up with you. It’s probably been too long!

Hot Is The New Cold. July 2018.

July 31, 20182 Comments

We spent most of the winter trying to keep ourselves warm in the van. We did things like: drive to Mexico, drive to Florida seven hundred times, stay in ridiculous campgrounds with electricity (and meth labs) so we could run our heater. Well, those days are over, goddamn it. It’s summer. It’s our time, now. Or so we thought.

Turns out, not so much. We have the same problem, but in reverse. What had happened was…

We spent a week at the beach in Lewes, Delaware having fun with my family. Except for the part when our dog, Frances, basically maimed my brother’s dog, Herman. It was terrible. We feel awful. I can’t even talk about it. He’s ok-ish now, though, and we’re pulling for him.

This is Frances looking harmless. She’s not. Any tips on what to do about her dog aggression are greatly appreciated.

Despite the trauma of dog-on-dog violence, we had a great time with the family. This is where I would normally post some pictures, but we didn’t take any. This always happens. My family never takes pictures. Aside from my brother’s wedding pics, there are like 6 photos in the world of my immediate family. And we’re all wearing the same clothes because they were all taken on the same weird vacation. I’m smoking in one photo. I think my brother is playing a slot machine in another. Both of those pictures are displayed prominently at my mom’s house. Why? Slim pickings. That’s why.

Anyway, there was a ridiculous heatwave going on while we were in Delaware. This is a problem when you live in a van with a French Bulldog. French Bulldogs are very dramatic in the heat. Very. Especially Wembley. Yes, we have AC in the van when we’re plugged in, which is fantastic. But even with the AC running, we’re scared to leave them in the van unattended when it’s that hot. I mean, what if a fuse blows? Then they’re stuck in a sweltering metal box of death. So, yeah, now hot is our problem.

We (bravely) spent a day or two hosing Wembley down and pushing him around town in a stroller so we could visit as many of our friends in Lewes as possible. But with temps hovering around the 100 degreee mark, we had to call it.

We even camped for a night at the one and only CrossFIt Lewes. Thanks, Kris!!! We feel fitter already. And Tommy, I haven’t forgotten your infamous box jump move. I will pay you back someday.

We finally gave up on trying to keep Wembley alive. No, we didn’t kill him or sell him. Don’t be ridiculous. We got on the Cape May Lewes Ferry and headed North. We didn’t stop until we got to Newport, RI, where, by the way, the temperatures were so much more reasonable! Wembley perked right up. Plus, we ate these things called clamcakes (which are like big clam fritters fried in beef fat) that I think might only exist in Rhode Island. Amazing. I’m a fan.

Clamcakes from Aunt Carrie’s in Narragansett, RI. Jennifer has never looked so happy.

We picked Newport because I’ve always wanted to see the gilded age mansions they have there (you know we love house tours, no?). Newport did not disappoint. We toured The Breakers, Marble House, and Rose Cliff in the two days we were there and they were all phenomenal. Plus, we learned that we have a lot in common with the Vanderbilts and the Asters and all the other gilded age all-stars. They basically had homes all over the world and would just travel around constantly, following the seasons. They would build these outrageous homes all over the place and only spend a few weeks a year at each one. A peripatetic life is what they call it. That’s us, too! Peripatetic AF.

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Almost the exact same shot we took in front of the Vanderbilt’s other house.

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After Newport, we invited ourselves to driveway surf for a while at Jennifer’s mom’s house in Vermont. Very relaxing. Beautiful weather. Lots of hiking. Stellar wifi. A very necessary and fulfilling rest stop for us.

And, finally, we’re back in Maine. Posted up in Acadia National Park (again) where the temperatures are mostly in the high 70’s. We’re trying out all the different campgrounds in the park this time. Our new favorite is Schoodic, on the quiet side of the island. Very classy. Coincidentally, our friends from Cincinnatti were also visiting Acadia so we managed to intrude on their vacation in much the same way we’re always showing up at their house. Good times!

Great looking bunch. At Echo Lake Beach in Acadia.

Jennifer’s Game Face

So Maine.

Acadia. I think.

Moody Maine.

Happy Maine.

Wembley doing better. This little guy LOVES Maine.

Now, we’re hiking our butts off and trying to come up with a plan for how to spend the next few weeks. We’re thinking about heading up into Nova Scotia. We don’t really have anywhere to be until September. The only thing holding us back is that we need to be somewhere with really good wifi so we can stream the CrossFit games for like four days in a row during the first week of August. Because we’re dorks. Probably there is some technology that would allow us to do this (reliably, in Canada,) but we don’t know what that is. Because we’re not dorky enough. Anyone with ideas, please let us know.

Whiplash Eurobash June 2018

July 21, 2018July 21, 2018Leave a comment

So, summer is cruising right along. Our posting habits have not changed. Shocker. The plan is to catch you up with multiple posts. Here’s the first one.

We started things off in June with a trip to Europe. No silly, of course we didn’t take the van! We took a plane. Like normal people.

Day one.

It was a 12-day whirlwind trip with our young friend, Trace, who turned twenty somewhere in Athens. If you ever have the opportunity to travel with a twenty-year-old superstar, I highly recommend doing so. This kid was amazing. He kept us entertained, navigated for us with his space phone, and carried the backpack through Athens, Venice, Florence and Rome. (Trace, if you’re reading this, we sincerely hope you had a good enough time to come and check on us occasionally in our quickly-approaching, doddering and childless old age. This is sort of our retirement plan. Not even kidding. So, all the kids we know out there- get ready.)

Our young friend Trace. He’s the one in the hat.

We crammed as much as possible into twelve days and he never flagged. Here are some of the highlights: the Acropolis, The Acropolis Museum, a bus tour to some Mycenaen ruins and the Theater of Epidaurus, a walking food tour of Athens (featuring water-buffalo rice pudding), checking out the loot from Agamemnon’s tomb, a rooftop airbnb in a palazzo in Venice, a boat trip to Murano and Burano, a happy hour cicchetti walking tour in Venice (it was a blast, check out our host’s other services. Seriously. Elena rocks.), some bartender named Pepe (also in Venice), Doge’s Palace, St. Mark’s Basilica, vaporetto rides, Il Duomo di Firenze, aperitivo in Santo Spirito, a Tuscan wine tasting day trip, Pompeii, the Vatican, two Crossfits, Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum, so many trains, so many airbnbs, so much food, so much wine. We’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Psirri. Athens neighborhood.

Audio tour 5,673

Forum

Pompeii

Vatican

Colosseum

Florence

Florence. From Duomo.

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Venice Airbnb

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Venice

Tuscan Wine Tasting

We’ve been to Athens and Rome before, and we love them both. Based on the reports of pretty much everyone we know, we were prepared to tolerate Venice and fall in love with Florence. Not so much. Venice was the highlight of our trip, even though we were only there for a couple of days. Jennifer is talking seriously about moving there. (This is a not so uncommon phenomenon). I’m all for it. Theoretically. Ciao.

Jennifer. House hunting.

RV Roadtrip to Baja Post #5: The Return Trip, Big Blogging Dollar$, And A St. John Update

April 3, 2018April 3, 20181 Comment

As predicted it was technically very tough to post from Mexico. The cold, hard truth of the matter is we just totally dropped the ball on this whole blogging thing. We’re already back in the states and we’ve been back for quite a while. Weeks. Maybe months. I’d love to say that we’ll never disappear like this again but the fact is we make zero blogging dollars. As a result, there are very few consequences when we drop out like this. Our scholarships are not on the line. No endorsement deals are in jeopardy. I can honestly say that no one is more disappointed by our lackluster commitment to posting than we are. How’s that for chicken and egg? Let me tell you what happened anyway.

After Todos Santos, we started the long journey northward. We had about 1000 miles of rough road ahead of us to make it back to the border. Luckily, there were a few towns we skipped on the way down so we wouldn’t just be retracing our steps. In all honesty, our expectations were pretty low. Baja didn’t really seem to be panning out and we were ready to cut our losses. But, lo and behold, the return trip was full of hits! Our first stop was a town called La Ventana. It’s just outside of La Paz and we went because a server at the coffee shop in Todos Santos thought we’d like it. You know, because he knows us so well. And we pretty much always take travel trips from strangers. Turns out he was right. It was wall-to-wall kite-boarders. Literally. But they were all from Quebec and speaking French, which somehow made it way more interesting. Loved La Ventana. We ended up spending a couple of days there.

Next up was Loreto. Which we also liked. It’s a little town with a pretty impressive (and absurdly Jesuit-positive) mission. Also, there was a carnival going on the night we were there. It was charming and we had some of the best tacos ever. The carnival taco stands in Loreto have table service. Enough said.

Loreto

Carnival

Carnival Tacos

Carnival tacos

This lady is in every museum we visit. What exactly do curators do?

From there, we headed to Bahia Concepcion which is a big bay on the Sea of Cortez. It’s a fantastic destination for RVs because there are several beaches that you can camp on for just a few pesos. We chose Playa Requeson and it was stellar. We were literally parked right on the beach. Vendors come by selling vegetables and fish and tamales, so if you manage your water and dumping situation you can stay for a while. We were there for three or four nights, just chilling and giving ourselves a little rest. We also stopped in a few other cute towns like San Ignacio, Santa Rosalia, and we checked out some very cool cave paintings in Catavina.

This is so Baja. Beautiful. But also kinda oppressively depressing.

Beachside camping.

Yep, Santa Rosalia

Cave Painting Catanina

San Ignacio Mission Garden

San Ignacio

One of the many mission statues. Somewhere.

We were out of cell reception for several days in a row. When we finally got back on the road and the cell service kicked in, we had inboxes full of bad news. Jennifer’s grandfather passed away and she needed to get to New Jersey ASAP for the funeral. The best plan we could come up with was to make a bee-line for San Diego (which sounds so much easier than it actually was) and hope we could get her on a flight in time. And instead of spending a couple of weeks visiting friends and family out west, as planned, I would start driving from San Diego towards Indiana (with the dogs) and we would pick Jennifer up somewhere along the way.

It all worked out. She made it to the funeral. I got to spend one night with friends in LA. The pups and I listened to a bunch of Audio books, ate some Sonoran hot dogs and In-Out burgers, and picked Jennifer up at the El Paso airport. After that, we spent a few days at Guadalupe National park before driving to Indy for another work week. We spent a lot of that time processing our Baja trip. Here’s what we ended up with:

We’re glad we went, but it was tough. The desert almost beat us.
We definitely wouldn’t do it the same way again. If we did it again, we would only rv as far south as Bahia de Concepcion. If we wanted to go back to Todos or La Paz, we would fly. And the Valle de Guadalupe (wine country) is super accessible by plane, rv, or car and we will definitely be going back there.
There are no really great fish tacos in Baja. Get over it. The mariscos/ceviche is amazing, though. Go with that.
There are sooooo many Canadians. Prepare yourself. I think they might be responsible for the fish taco problem. Just a guess.

I mentioned we’ve been back from Mexico for a long time, right? I wasn’t joking. After that week in Indy, we drove down to Florida so that my mom (World’s Greatest Dog-Sitter) could watch the pups while we did a short trip to St. John to meet with contractors. It was our first time going back since the storms.

Here are some befores and afters. (If you’re reading this, stop what you’re doing and go out and take same nice pictures of your house. We never did this. We have lots of close ups of food and flowers, but this is at good as it gets for the house).

Before: That’s me in front of our house.

After: This is me in front of our used-to-be house. Same shirt! That’s my sad face.

Before: View up from pool/workout area.

After: New open concept.

Before: The Shack.

After: The Invisible Shack.

It’s weird. We’ve been traveling like crazy since the storms and even though we always thought we’d go back to St. John and rebuild, we’ve also been sorta open to the idea that we might find somewhere even better for us out there on the road. Have you ever seen that movie Away We Go? With John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph? It’s fabulous. You should see it. Anyway, it’s about this couple who are visiting friends in different places and trying to decide where they want to live and how they want to be. It’s probably about some other stuff, too. Who can remember? I see a lot of movies. Anyway, we’ve felt a little bit like we were in that movie this whole time. Like we’re constantly going on interviews and first dates with all these different places. Like, could we live here? But nothing has really clicked. We’ve spent a lot of time in super random places recently and when I look around I’m always wondering (sometimes aloud) how did these people get here? I mean, were their ancestors wagon-training-it to California and they just got distracted? Or they ran out of hardtack and salt pork? Did the wheels literally fall off the wagon? Are these the descendants of failed settlers?

Well, that’s the old me. After all of this time on the road I’m starting to get it. I see how you could end up saying, “Yeah, this is good enough. Forget about where we were headed, let’s just stay here. There’s probably no gold in them thar hills anyway.” Going back to St. John was a great reminder of where we want to be. Yes, the house is still gone. Our neighborhood is insane. But we can’t wait to rebuild. We like it way better than Mexico. Or anywhere else.

Plus, we still have the terrible house sign. Our neighbors found it. It’s tucked away in a closet at my mother’s house. For now.

Happy Easter/Passover, everyone. Until next time.

RV Roadtrip to Baja Post #4:

February 21, 2018February 21, 2018Leave a comment

Hello again. Our internet access (and our attitude) has been extremely spotty. I’m not sure when we’ll actually be able to upload anything…possibly not until after this whole trip is over. But, for what it’s worth, I’m writing this almost two weeks after our last post, you know, the whales (some video below).. Let me catch you up.

Two weeks ago, even before the whale watching, we started feeling a little oppressed by the miles and miles and kilometers and kilometers of harsh desert landscape, zombie towns, and semi-sketchy RV parks we were leaving in our wake. The landscape really is beautiful, some of the best (and frequently most treacherous) scenic driving ever. But enough is enough. Keep in mind, when we saw the whales we were barely halfway down the peninsula and we knew we’d still have to drive back again. We were kind of losing it. We were ready for some picture-perfect-seaside camping, interrupted only by life-changing fish tacos and/or local fisherman offering up some of their catch as they wearily returned in their cute little boats.* So we decided to skip some stops in order to reach the more promising destinations in the south. 20180213_123510

We had to hole up somewhere along the way, and we’d heard good things about a town called Mulege. So we went. Mulege is indeed a cute little town. There are stores there that are open regularly. There’s a very nice RV camp along the river that is walking distance to the town and the beach. It’s well-run and welcoming with shaded private sites and actual people instead of zombies. The whole town is kind of like an oasis. Parts of it are lush and green because there is a river that runs through it to the ocean. And there’s a mission. Very nice. Mulege is becoming a popular retirement spot for ex-pats, but despite the recent activity it does manage to retain some of the characteristics of other Baja desert towns: an overall feeling of desolation, a gauntlet of dogs in the streets, almost everyone speaking Spanish. This is the kind of place that many people who know us would expect us to move to. Not quite, guys. Not quite. We moved on after a couple of days.

The river

Beach night

The mission

Look at this lush, amazing RV camp. Top notch.

Home sweet home

Our next big push put us solidly in the south. We passed through La Paz, the capital of the Baja Peninsula, but decided not to stop. Once you get to La Paz, the highway basically does a loop hat will take you through a few popular spots including Los Barriles, Cabo San Lucas, and Todos Santos. We were planning to skip Cabo (we’ve heard it’s very touristy and not that rv friendly). We opted to start with Los Barriles, not only because our book recommended it but also because we got an email from someone who actually reads this blog and who’s spending the winter there. Done.

There’s the loop. Under La Paz.

Pulling into Los Barriles was a shocker. It was like falling out of Mexico into a regional American beachtown, but with dirt roads and everyone on 4-wheelers. Or ATVs. Or quads. Whatever they’re called. Compared to everywhere else we’d been, the place was packed. And everything was in English again. We were tooling up and down the main street looking for the RV place, kind of freaking out. It was like culture shock. Suddenly, Jennifer tells me that some lady was trying to wave us down. What? Did I inadvertently run over an ATV? Possible. Happily, it turns out that it was the woman, Colleen, who emailed us! She recognized us. Madness. We made plans to meet up later.

Packed.

Everywhere.

Where we stayed on the beach

Really. Everywhere.

Apparently, one of the big draws for Los Barriles is the kiteboarding. And the cheap retirement. It’s an interesting place. Lots and lots of Canadians and Americans either retire or spend every winter there. I’m not sure we got to speak any Spanish there at all. Also, there’s this huge trend of people buying RV sites and building permanent structures on them. Like on top of the RV. Los Barriles has a lot to offer in terms of kiteboarding, ATVing, SUPing, kayaking, and charter fishing. We used to live in the World’s Greatest Small Beachtown (in Delaware) and this really was not that different. It was nice, but not enough of a payoff for all the desert driving. Without question, the highlight of this part of the trip was going out to dinner with Colleen and Betsy. If you ever have the opportunity to go out to dinner with someone who voluntarily reads about your life (unlike many, many people we actually know), do it. You will love them. I hope we get to see them again, even if they try to talk me into kiteboarding.

Wembley remains extremely skeptical about kiteboarding.

Kiteboarding seems to be a lot of this.

And just a little of this.

Next, we set our sights on Todos Santos, a much-lauded, boho chic destination for those in the know. Or, anyone who reads Vogue. Or, anyone who might be staying at an amazing boutique hotel or renting a house. It’s a very cool place. The beaches are, in fact, stunning. Mostly freezing and unswimmable, but stunning. It’s on the Pacific and you get all the dramatic, cliffy coastline action. There are tons of different beaches and they seem mostly deserted, in a good way. The whole area is popular with surfers. The town itself is largely bent towards tourism. Lots of silver shops and leather-goods stores, art galleries, like that. There are apparently many fine restaurants in the area, with an emphasis on farm-to-tableness because of the presence of several organic farms nearby. And we found amazing mariscos, coffee, and a good natural food store, because we are predictable.

Natural Food Store

Beach

Coffee

Unfortunately, we were not staying in a boutique hotel. We were staying at the only RV park in town, because we are idiots. It was far and away the most depressing place we’ve stayed so far. We picked it because we wanted to be able to walk into town, which we did, through dusty streets, dodging the ubiquitous free-range dogs. What was different in Todos was that the RV park manager actually warned us that some of the neighborhood dogs were biters and that we for sure should not walk around with our own dogs. She also helpfully showed us how to pretend-throw rocks at the aggressive dogs should they bother us. Thanks, Sylvia.

Welcome.

Our home in Todos

Our neighborhood in Todos Santos

Would I go to Todos Santos again? Absolutely. Would I drive 1000 miles through the desert to get there? Probably not. It’s just not the best way to visit. If you want to go to Cabo or Todos or La Paz or Los Barriles, buy a plane ticket and rent a car. We actually considered renting a house and parking the RV for a week or so, but that’s not really the point of this trip, so we didn’t do it.

We’re kinda bummed, guys. It’s like when you’re all excited for Olympic gymnastics and your favorite gymnast comes out and does great on the first event, absolutely kills it, and then has a tiny little wobble on the balance beam. Big deal, lots of events to go, right? And then…she doesn’t quite stick the landing on the vault. Okaaay. If she absolutely crushes the parallel bars and the floor routine she still has a shot at the podium. That’s what this trip feels like. We’re running out of opportunities to pick up enough points to make it onto the Roadtrip Podium. Gold is almost certainly off the table. We still haven’t found that fantastic place that would make this trip make sense. I’m very tempted to rename this blog “Jennifer and Cj: Driving the Entire Transpeninsular Hwy, So You Don’t Have To.” Really. But that’s in my darker moments. And it’s not over yet. We still have to drive back.

*These were our expectations because our pre-trip knowledge of Baja pretty much consisted of long-ago references in Beverly Hills 90210 and reports from friends who fly into Todos Santos (probably first-class), spend a week in what I’m willing to bet is a stunningly quaint rental house, and fly home. We love you, guys.

RV Roadtrip to Baja Post #3: Whale Watching in Guerrero Negro

February 13, 20184 Comments

Greetings, amigos. We made it from Bahia de Los Angeles to Guerrero Negro, back on track on the main route. We stopped at Guerrero Negro for one thing: whale watching. In the winter, gray whales migrate from Alaska to Guerrero Negro to have their baby whales. According to our books, it’s an amazing experience and you sometimes get to see the whales up close and possibly even touch them in a non-Seaworld scenario. We all know Seaworld sucks. Thank you, Blackfish.

Sea lion sighting while whale watching. No extra charge. Nature’s bounty.

Seeing the whales is really the only reason to go to Guerrero Negro. It’s not a tourist town. It’s a company town. The company is an open-air salt mine. One of the biggest in the world. Not kidding. It’s actually kind of fascinating, but I’ll spare you the details. Anyway, we spent the night at an RV Park that’s basically just a parking lot with a restaurant. It’s also the place from which the whale tours depart, which was great, because you just hop on the tour bus at 8 and they drop you back-off at 12:00. Check-out time is at 1 so we were able to leave the pups in the RV for the tour and not have to worry about Wembley attacking a whale and disrupting an ecosystem.

This is the restaurant at the place where we stayed. It was actually fabulous. It was exactly how I imagine a nice steak house dinner in Mexico would be in 1974. We got a seafood platter, otherwise I would have ordered a Brandy Alexander.

This is the guy who sat in front of me in the boat. This was my view for a lot of the trip. Also, that’s the tour company we used. Fantastic.

The tour company drives you out to the preserve and then they load you into these little boats with a captain. Our captain was Juan and we had a total of six people in our boat, including us and Juan. There are two tours per day and there are never more than six boats allowed on the bay at a time. Once we were all life-jacketed, we motored out into the bay and…bam. Whales. Very, very cool. The whales were feeling good and playing with the boats and, yes, we all got to touch them. The whole operation was stellar. Everyone was super-professional and knowledgeable. I cannot recommend this trip highly enough. And as soon as you’re done, do everyone a favor and get out of Guerrero Negro. We have some video, but there is little to no chance we’ll be able to upload it right now. Here are the whales:

It is much easier to photograph whales playing with other boats. I imagine Jennifer and I feature prominently in that family’s photos. Sweet.

Up close and personal.

Disclosure: We wrote this weeks ago. We just haven’t had enough service to post it. Posts may be appearing wily-nilly, as wifi access permits.

Next stop: Mulege.

Baja Post #2: Ensenada to Bahia de Los Angeles via Puertecitos

February 1, 20184 Comments

Buenos Dias! Everything is still OK. Dogs, people, and van. After Ensenada, we decided to check out the hot springs in Puertecitos. The thing is, there’s one main highway that runs North/South down the whole Baja Peninsula and our plan is to drive the whole thing. But to get to Puertecitos you have to take a little detour over to the west coast. No big deal. There’s a road from Puertecitos that heads south and eventually picks up the North/South highway, saving a ton of time. The problem is that road is unfinished. The passability of that road is the topic of much discussion among RVers. We talked to a bunch of people and decided that it was not worth risking a broken axle. But since we heard good things about Puertecitos we decided it would be worth it to drive four hours there and four hours back to Ensenada even though it was out of our way. Plus, I was dying to get my first look at the Sea of Cortez.

Because driving at night here is highly not recommended, we spent the night in San Felipe along the way. I’m sorry if your mom’s from there and you have warm and happy childhood memories of the place, but San Felipe is now firmly in my top ten of worst towns ever. It’s unbelievably weird in an ominous way. Lots of abandoned RV parks, roaming dogs, terrible tacos, and retired Canadians who should dream bigger. None of these things are unusual in Baja, but for some reason in San Felipe it all adds up to no bueno. If you’ve ever seen that movie Quick Change with Bill Murray and Geena Davis where they rob a bank and spend the rest of the movie just trying to get out of NYC, you may remember the scene where the old lady with a cart is wailing “ Flores! Flores para los muertos!” over and over again. In San Felipe I kept thinking I was going to run into that lady at any minute. We moved on pretty quickly.

Look how quickly we were moving.

It turns out Puertecitos is a scruffy little village with a campground that has a handful of palapas (which are like little shaded beach huts) right on the water. It was completely deserted when we got there, but we found a young guy named Luis who took our camping fee and explained to us that the gate to the village is locked at 10 pm and no one can go in or out after that. Obviously. Where would you go? He also led us to the springs…which were fantastic. Basically, there are these hot springs that fill little rock pools with steaming hot water. Then, when the tide comes in, the cold water floods into the pools and cools them down. So you end up with a patchwork of pools ranging from scalding hot to mildly warm, depending on how close to the waterline you go. Fabulous.

Bustling downtown Puertecitos.

After soaking in the springs for a while, we settled into the empty campground in our almost totally unpopulated town. Locked. In. We got a little spooked in the middle of the night when we were awakened by crazy howling noises that we did not investigate. Eventually we had a discussion about zombies and went back to sleep. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Trick photos at our Puertecitos palapa…before lockdown.

The next morning we met these two young dudes who were bicycling down the baja. Uh-huh. Yup. Michael and Ben. We got to chatting and it turns out they’d heard the next bay down the road, Bahia Gonzaga, was really amazing. It was just a little bit down the road and it was before the notorious unfinished road. It seemed a shame to miss out on that so we pressed onward, agreeing to meet up with our new biking friends if possible. Which we did. And it was great. The landscape and the drive were amazing. Like otherworldly amazing. Bahia Gonzaga itself was pretty cool. We spent two nights there. We had a beach bbq with our new friends and a very cool couple from Utah. After extensive discussion we realized if we were to push onwards there were really only 24 miles of the unfinished road. And it would be insanity to backtrack almost 6 hours in the wrong direction. And if we combined forces with Michael and Ben we would have four sets of eyes on the road and two bikes on which to go looking for help if need be. Sold. We stuck their bikes in the back of the Travato and took off.

Michael and Ben. At the Bahia Gonzaga BBQ.

Road to Bahia Gonzaga

That 24 miles wasn’t so much a road as a path through a totally stunning desert landscape. In my head, despite the warnings, I was imagining a road that was in really bad shape. You know, big potholes, broken pavement. That’s not what this is. Think about it: an unfinished road is a normal road that completely stops at some point and then is just an idea. That’s what this was. There was a nice road and then there were big barricades and then, off to the side, were the tracks of the total idiots who came before us, following an idea into the desert. If you’re imagining some kind of raucous, devil-may-care, beer commercial adventure, you are sadly mistaken. It’s jaw-droppingly beautiful, ass-clenching tedium. It took us three hours to make it through that section. That means we averaged 8 miles an hour, which seems extremely generous. We’re so happy to have had Ben and Michael with us. They hopped out at several points to scope the “road” ahead because, in addition to the gnarly terrain, there are all of these off-shoot paths and nothing is labeled. All hail the Travato. Totally unscathed. You can do anything if you do it slow enough.

Along the unfinished road.

Michael, Frances, and Wembley. Ass clenching.

We kept our new Mexi-family together all the way to Bahia de Los Angeles, another beautiful beach community on the Sea of Cortez. Which is where we are now. Resting and taking care of some essentials. Like getting the propane tank filled and getting some laundry done. Our new buddies took off on their bikes today. Hopefully we’ll see them further along the route. Next stop: Guerrero Negro for some whale watching. Thanks for tuning in.

Good times.

Sidenotes: we’ve been through numerous military checkpoints and still haven’t shown any paperwork. If we end up missing, maybe follow up with Michael and Ben. Last names unknown. Also Michael-we have your alligator!

RV Roadtrip to Baja. Post #1: San Diego to Ensenada.

January 24, 2018January 24, 20182 Comments

Hola! We’re fine. Just wanted to get that out of the way in case anyone was worried. We’re actually way better than fine. We’re having a blast.

This is us. Having a blast….at an rv park in Mexico.

Yes, it is true that we didn’t get off to the most auspicious start. Both the books we bought about traveling into Baja with an RV and two dogs clearly stated that we would sail straight through the border as long as we had the necessary paperwork. So we spent some time in San Diego getting all of that paperwork in order. I know, I can hardly believe it either. When we got to the border crossing in Tijuana our whole plan kind of devolved. There were 6 million people and 217 lanes of traffic, all conveniently labeled in Spanish, which makes a lot of sense because it’s Mexico. Whatever lane we ended up in was staffed by a really nice and extremely intimidating woman in a black tactical vest. She opened the back of our van, took a look, spoke some rapid-fire spanish at us and strenuously pointed us to another checkpoint area. This was a little disturbing because approximately 95% of the other cars passing through the border didn’t even really slow down.

It turns out we’d been selected for some kind of high-tech scanning. We finally grasped that passengers and pets were not allowed to stay in the car, so under the scrutiny of another friendly border patrol officer, Jennifer tried to exit the van gracefully while both our dogs went completely ape-shit. There was barking. There was snapping. Wembley took a head-dive out the door. Jennifer was not looking happy dragging those two morons off to wherever they were being sent. I definitely would not have let either of them into my country. We don’t have any pictures of this because when I tried to pull out the camera Jennifer had a meltdown. She thought the Mexican authorities would think we were spies. We’re not.

Here’s a picture of a fish market in Ensenada instead.

I had to stay in the van. By myself. And then I just kept smiling and nodding until I figured out I was supposed to drive the van onto this special ramp with like 6 other suspicious vehicles. Then I had to get out of the van and go wait behind a concrete bunker with the other drivers while all of our vehicles were subjected to what looked like the World’s Biggest MRI. Then there was a really loud siren. And then we were all allowed back into our duly irradiated rides and ushered to another little parking lot area where I saw Jennifer and the pups sitting and chatting with some lady in some kind of tent building. So I figured we’d have to wait for the results of the scan, maybe do an interview, and get our paperwork checked. Not so much. Basically, the guy in the parking lot just let me pick up my passengers and take off. No ID’s checked, no passports stamped. Not a glance at our International Pet Health Certificates, Mexican auto insurance, or our pre-paid tourist visas. Nada. And the next thing we knew we were cruising through Tijuana on the highway and it definitely felt like we missed a checkpoint or did something very wrong. So we were in a bit of a panic, trying to figure out if we needed to hunt down some sort of immigration office. Ultimately we just kept driving. Shocking, I know.

(Turns out we didn’t do anything wrong. This is standard operating procedure. Because Mexico is a nice country and they want us to come visit).

Over the border!

Our first stop was supposed to be at a campground in Baja’s wine country. We had no idea Mexico even had a wine country until a few days ago when we met some lady in a state park in Arizona. She’s from Belarus and she told us all about it. Anyway, it’s called Valle de Guadalupe. We looked it up, found a campground that looked promising and headed over. It’s only about an hour and a half from the border so we thought it would be a good place to spend the night and collect ourselves. The drive was beautiful and amazing, skirting the pacific ocean at first and then climbing up into the mountains. We made a few wrong turns but finally made it down a winding dirt road through acres and acres of grapevines to our destination, at which point I turned into what I thought was the driveway and promptly sank the front tires deep into a mud puddle. First day. Out in the sticks. Super-heavy RV stuck in the mud. See? Not auspicious.

Only puddle in ten acres and we found it.

Lucky for us, the campground owner, Cesar, hooked us up to his pick up truck and pulled us out. Hero. This is where our luck turned back around. The campground, called Glamping Ruta de Arte y VIno, is basically 10 acres of open land dotted with restored vintage Airstream trailers that they rent out, plus a little communal area with showers and a bar and a little kitchen. Sometimes they show movies. Winter is their low-season so there was hardly anyone else there. It was amazing. Cesar told us all the great places to go. We ended up staying 3 nights. Villa de Guadalupe is basically like Napa-South. Tons and tons of wineries, beautiful scenery, some of the best food I’ve had in a long time. There are lots of little hole-in-the-wall places, but also a ton of more upscale eateries some of which are attached to the vineyards. The recognition of the strong wine game attracted the attention of some amazing chefs. Everything is kind of campestre, which I think means country-style. Everything local. Lots of grilling over wood and eating outside. Suckling pig. Smoky beef cheek tacos. Handmade tortillas and shredded lamb. Fresh cheese. Oh, and the ocean is only about 30 minutes away. You know what? You should look it up!

Glamping

Toby. The dog we wanted to steal.

Communal area

We stayed in our rv, surrounded by airstreams!

We did a few great wine tastings. Turns out the reason you don’t hear a lot about Mexican wine is that like 95% of it goes to restaurants in Mexico city. You’re only allowed to bring back 1L per person, so the best way to enjoy Mexican wine is to drink it in Mexico. Which is what we’re going to do. The van is stocked.

Wine country.

Vein of happiness at Finca Altozano

Tres cantos winery

Cool sign at El Mogor. Another amazing winery.

Cruising

After 3 nights in the Valle we headed down to Ensenada, which is probably the biggest city we’ll see for a while. We’re in shockingly pleasant RV park called Ramona Beach right on the Ocean. We took the local bus into town today where we had some top notch ceviche tostadas from a semi-famous street cart called Guerrerense, changed some money, and bought some toilet paper.

Plaza de Patria in Ensenada

Where we stayed. Kicking it like retired Canadians.

Mariscos tostadas on the Street!

We were planning on having some fish tacos and trying a Margarita at the bar where they were invented, but apparently Monday is the day that everything in Ensenada is closed. Oh well. Maybe on the way back. Now we’ll either head south or possibly detour to the east to check out San Felipe and some hot springs we heard about. Stay tuned.

$4.98 Walmart chairs looking good!

We’re Making a Run For the Border

January 18, 2018January 18, 20187 Comments

Happy New Year, everyone. Let’s hope that 2018 really fucking delivers. We just finished up our winter round of Indianapolis work weeks and East Coast holiday visits. It was like 17 degrees below zero when we made it back to Indianapolis just in time for another NYE in nobody’s favorite hotel.

This is what negative 17 degrees looks like.

Life in a campervan is a huge hassle in cold weather so we decided to blow this pop stand (America) for a while. Did you know you can drive to Mexico from Indianapolis? You can. So that’s what we’re doing. It’s going to be amazing. I know because I bought a book about it.

Actually, I bought two. We left Indy about 8 days ago and now we’re in San Diego, CA. We should be crossing the border in a couple of hours to start our not-very-well-researched tour of the Baja Peninsula before heading back. We’ve got about a month for this trip. We have to be back in Indy by the end of February and we have a date with the World’s Greatest Siblings in Memphis just before that. We’re going to be better about posting and taking pictures on this trip.* Adios.

Somewhere along the way. Possibly New Mexico.

*empty promise alert

Greetings, Turkeys. Thanksgiving 2017.

November 28, 2017November 28, 20171 Comment

Hello. Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We spent ours in Indianapolis at our very favorite extended stay hotel because it’s a work week. This is our second Thanksgiving in a row at this hotel. Not that we’re counting. It’s actually kind of awesome being here around the holidays. Everything is pre-decorated. We roll in from wherever and, BAM, it’s a winter wonderland in the lobby.

Gift Wrapping Station.

Wintery punch table.

Festive Fitness.

As an added bonus, my birthday was just a few days ago and my mother sent me a holiday package which included a big Happy Birthday balloon. This tipped off the staff and they created a birthday surprise for me. At 7 am.

It really pays to be a regular.

We spent the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving tooling around Florida. Spent some quality time in Gulfport and hit up a truly stunning mid-century modern architecture tour in Sarasota. For people without a house, we love a good house tour.

Jennifer trying to imagine the sunken living room as a hurricane bunker. We’re still wearing the booties. They’re very comfortable.

That amazing bar was shipped piece by piece from…Stockholm, maybe? In case you’re still bar shopping, Wills. And, yes, we are frequently the youngest people in the room. By decades.

Our plan was to work our way back to Indianapolis via Tallahassee so we could visit Jennifer’s dad. We ended up stopping along Florida’s Forgotten Coast. It’s a stretch of Florida between the Gulf of Mexico and something called the Apalachee Bay. We only went there because we read about a chill campground on a barrier island. It was crazy amazing. White sand beaches. Beautiful campsites. Pet friendly. Not freezing. We ended up staying for a few days.

Trail warriors

Beach time

Back in the sun!

Also, we love food but we’ve decided we can’t eat at one more restaurant with artisanal ice cubes. Not for a while, at least. Because of this, we’ve been hitting up some more out-of-the-way spots. This part of Florida is very well known for it’s oysters but a little research (an article titled “Deadly Harvest) revealed that eating those oysters can result in death if they’re not properly handled. After tons of discussion, we decided we’d only eat the cooked oysters. Then we came to our senses.

Seriously some of the best oysters ever. At a place without a hand-crafted cocktail menu, but WITH an honor system beer cooler. We’re moving in the right direction.

This is another solid establishment. FYI: smoked fish is staple in Florida. Lots of these places had smokers outside and super delicious smoked fish spread on the menu.

We also entertained our first dinner guest. In the van. Jennifer’s dad is a trooper. Plus, he’s a flight instructor and we got to spend the night basically on the runway. Our Travato fit right in.

That’s about it. Right now we’re packing up to get back on the road. We’ve got about two weeks to amuse ourselves. We’re going to point the van south until the temperatures become acceptable and figure it out from there. We may go back for more oysters and we might end up in New Orleans. We’ll let you know.

detached and amused

we are the adults of us

So what have you been up to since 2018?

Hot Is The New Cold. July 2018.

Whiplash Eurobash June 2018

RV Roadtrip to Baja Post #5: The Return Trip, Big Blogging Dollar$, And A St. John Update

RV Roadtrip to Baja Post #4:

RV Roadtrip to Baja Post #3: Whale Watching in Guerrero Negro

Baja Post #2: Ensenada to Bahia de Los Angeles via Puertecitos

RV Roadtrip to Baja. Post #1: San Diego to Ensenada.

We’re Making a Run For the Border

Greetings, Turkeys. Thanksgiving 2017.