I’m standing on the beach north of San Diego, and I’m feeling a sense of completion, of contentment. I’m about as far west (and south) as I can physically get in this great country. And I’m toasty warm. But Paul wants more — he looks out at the ocean and wants to keep going, until he can’t see land on any side. I don’t get that. All I want to [...]
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We’re in San Diego and loving the Mexican food. This town is no Vermont, that’s for sure. We’ve been to Rubio’s, Mr. Taco, and a place call La Cocina in Ramona. Where else should we go? We don’t want to miss any gems, but we’re only here for a few more days. Share your favorite places in the comments or on Twitter. Current target for lunch today is a place [...]
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We’re on the coast of California and there are surfers everywhere — on the sidewalks, riding bikes with surfboard racks, driving around in VW vans and dirty old pickup trucks, and, of course, in the ocean. They’re fun to watch, but for every second I spend marveling at somebody actually surfing, I spend probably 1,000 seconds wondering about the surfing sub-culture. I want to learn to surf, but that’ll have [...]
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San Diego county seems to have gotten something right when it comes to its public services. Every library is nice, new-ish, well-designed, and provides free, unrestricted wifi and power. But the county park campgrounds are what we’re really appreciating right now — they’ve provided us with a comfy place to call home for a few weeks. Public camping in California is expensive — state parks charge $35-$50 for the privilege of occupying a [...]
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Julian(a), you almost had me. First you showed me your enticingly curvy roads and rolling, voluptuous countrysides. Then you revealed your small-town main street that’s so compact it’s only a three block walk to the neighboring farm fields and forests. Your trimmed hedges and endless pastures … va-va-va-voom, I said. You dilated my eyes. You were going to be my next Bisbee. A few days later, we met again, but [...]
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We get a lot of questions about what we do on a typical day, how we spend our time. It’s funny, because some days I still feel like we’re “wasting” time, but when I look back on how I spent my time in the past … we’re far from wasting anything right now. So the typical day, then. That’s tough. We’re always moving, heading to a new spot, exploring, searching [...]
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In case you can’t tell from our last few posts, we had been hitting a bit of a rough patch. “Confined” to the warm climate of southern California in January, we were kind of striking out at Joshua Tree National Park, Salton Sea, Yuma, AZ…we were not finding places that we liked, and we were craving a place where we could spend a few days relaxing. After a noisy night [...]
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After camping two nights next to the Salton Sea and enduring the horrific smell and the 24-hour freight train traffic past the park, we were ready for a new spot. As always, there were options. Circle the Salton Sea looking for a new campground. Stop at Slab City and try out life without laws (or toilets). Check out the Imperial Sand Dunes and camp on the sand (next to the [...]
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In New Mexico, people either lived in a ramshackle shanty or a modern(ish) trailer (located next to a bombed-out older model melting into the ground); in Bisbee, Arizona, you could stay in a vintage Airstream; in Apache Junction, entire neighborhoods were made up of trailers in varying states of permanence; in Lake Havasu, houses came equipped with an RV garage; in Yuma, snowbirds spend winters boondocking on the Bureau of Land Management land [...]
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It’s always a little awe-inspiring to come across a place where the conditions align perfectly to support a specific kind of plant. It’s a great example of the sensitivity and specificity of life on earth. One of these places is the Cholla Cactus Garden in JTNP (that’s Joshua Tree National Park). The soil is perfect, the slope is perfect, the amount of water is perfect. Perfect for a grove of [...]
Read moreWe sold, donated, and stored our possessions; quit our jobs; bought a van; and are driving around North America. We'll wander around, see what's happening, and write about it here.
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