Tag: California

Hit the Brakes!

We were riding our high from our time in the Utah National Parks, but were starting to feel a little like two year olds that were really overdue for naptime.  To get to Utah we had driven straight across the 40 with just overnighters then hit the ground running upon arrival in Moab with no lazy days, just go go go.

So, stopping in California wine country (Paso Robles and Carmel) was a welcome respite.  Not to mention we could restock!  BTW this is how you do wine storage in an RV…every nook and cranny:

Under the bed
Inside spare seating

Paso Robles was the first stop back in Cali and it was the first time we stayed in one location for a full week.  Plus, it was somewhere we had been several times before so we didn’t have a lot of “newness” to investigate.  This turned out to be very interesting…

After a couple of days of being low key a lot of feelings started bubbling up…oh crap!  We had been on the road for two months and this was the first time we slowed down.  The gravity of what we are doing started to sink in…we were outside the matrix and it felt uncomfortable.  The first two months we were like kids running around like school just let out for the summer.  We felt great!  However, with this downtime we had itchy feelings like what are we supposed to be doing every day if we didn’t have an epic hike to do?  Could it be that we were actually whining about being B-O-R-E-D?  We never thought we had time for hobbies before this.  We were always working or if we took a vacation it was a full steam ahead #teamtary style adventure.  It was time to work these feelings out!

So, we used this couple of weeks to learn how to chill.  We checked out fun and interesting neighborhoods, drove up and down PCH and just admired the spectacular views.

Learning who rules the roost in the town of Arroyo Grande
Figuring out the fuss about Santa Maria style BBQ in San Luis Obispo
Along PCH towards Big Sur

Gary even found himself a hobby and bought a guitar.

Lightning Joe’s Guitar Heaven

Best thing we did?

As we meandered from our Paso campground to our spot in Carmel, we stopped by Hahn Winery for an ATV tour.  We were super excited that they had RV parking even though we did have to go three miles down a bumpy dirt road to get there!  No, I am not bitter about having to rehang all of our clothes that got jolted off the hangers!

Whatever, bring on the wine!

Best thing we ate?

Our favorite restaurant in Paso Robles is Artisan.  We go there every time we visit.  This time, after having their brioche toast with a mushroom sauce and a poached egg on top, we decided to make a copycat version at home.  We added our own spin on it of course by topping it with bacon!   We must confess, below is the picture of the one we ate at the restaurant because ours wasn’t a looker, but was definitely tastier!

What we learned?

Time on the road can catch up with if you aren’t careful.  Since you are out there at new places all the time you can run yourself ragged feeling like you need to see and do everything.  We know now it is important for us to schedule some downtime at each stop moving forward.  Time for hobbies (or for discovering hobbies) and time for relaxing aka PUZZLE TIME!  For any of our RV peeps note the yellow felt under the puzzle.  It is an awesome puzzle roller upper so our dining table can do double duty as our game table in our tiny home.

Next Stop:  Point Reyes National Seashore

Taking the Red Pill…

Our adventure begins in San Clemente.  Not far from “home” in miles, but light-years away in lifestyle.  Our goal is to exit the matrix – take the red pill with gusto and never look back.

This idea started last year when we decided we needed to do something extraordinary while also making our day to day life simple – we first thought about moving to Italy and restoring a house (love) and we still may do this later.  However, the more we thought about it, we hadn’t even really seen the country we live in yet.  Also, at heart we wanted to find a place where we could eventually settle down (that wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg like so cal!), enjoy things we have always dreamed of doing when we had more time like gardening, woodworking, etc. and have a base to travel the world.

Gary, the researcher that he is, came across YouTube videos, blogs and all sorts of information on people in RVs traveling the country and living full time. Some favs are The More We Explore, Mortons On The Move, and Gone With The Wynns  We didn’t even know this was a thing, but it checked so many boxes for us…

√ adventure

√ travel

√ eas(ier) than figuring out the visa situation for traveling out of country

√ a way to figure out where we wanted to settle down (eventually)

For some reason this living full time in an RV didn’t sound crazy to us…it sounded amazing.  The lifestyle seemed to fit us…we don’t have a lot of material things (we tend to buy houses vs household stuff).  Also, since we have worked together from a home office over the last five or so years we knew we could be together for a crazy amount of hours and not drive each other (too) crazy.  It was a quick decision because it just felt right.

So, we spent a few months prepping:  finding an airstream and truck to pull it with as well as paring down everything we had and moving into storage what we wanted to keep.  We (mostly Gary) worked on planning the route we were going to start out taking (West Coast first, then East Coast) and come February 6th of this year we kicked off our journey.

First Stop: San Clemente State Beach, California

This stop was more strategic than anything else.  We needed to be close enough to load everything into the airstream and finish up anything else we needed to do in the OC.  The first feeling we had was relief…finally after months of planning and what felt like we were waiting for so long, we were finally out of our boring apartment and living in the airstream for real!  This initial week was very exciting because we actually did it, but it was also still stressful at times as we were running around trying to get everything done before leaving this place forever (or at least until we come back to move our storage stuff to our forever home).

Our intent on this adventure is to learn and grow through our experiences.  We will use a few questions at each stop to take a breath and reflect so we can document our travels to be able to look back and remember what we did and how we felt.

Best thing we did?

Saying goodbye to friends.  We spent time having dinner and catching up with friends before we left.  During our time in Southern California we learned and grew so much and we appreciate the friends we met along the way.  Even though we were saying our goodbyes knowing that we wouldn’t see them anytime soon, we know we are lucky to have technology to keep connected along the way.

Best thing we ate?

This is easy – our first night full time living in the airstream we of course had to have a celebratory toast with something fizzy.  Queue the Prosecco and charcuterie.  Somehow it tasted better in our 200 sq ft space than in a fancy restaurant.  Plus we had an ocean view from our spot! We hope to bring out our inner foodies as we go through different towns and get a chance to try local specialties.

What we learned?

First of all, we learned we were still in the matrix.  Even though we were physically living in the airstream, we were still packing in every minute of every day driving in traffic, doing errands, and basically stuffing a week’s worth of tasks into every day.  Slowing down will be a process and we have to recognize that and set the intention to do so.

Some more practical tidbits we learned:

  • While rain is soothing to sleep to, it creates wet sand and mud which tracks everywhere in this small space.  A good doormat and swiffer wipes will be key!
  • We thought we were making great decisions about paring down and what we were taking…we tried to utilize space the best we could with collapsible bowls and spices in magnetic jars, but how did we end up with a 5 lb bag of rice and an espresso machine that takes up the entire kitchen counter??? We were able to let go of the rice (otherwise I was going to have to use it as a pillow), but the espresso machine stayed.  We will either make new friends with it by offering coffee shop quality espresso in the remote national parks or make enemies by frothing milk at 6 am and waking everyone up!

Next Stop: Joshua Tree