Road food, diner kitsch, and cooking on the road
(by Ruth) Thursday was a road food day. We started with a late breakfast (lunch?) at Red House BBQ in Tehachapi, CA, about 100 miles from our stockup point in Bakersfield. While Ben took Gyp…
Joshua Tree National Park
You pull through Twentynine Palms, California, just before your entry into Joshua Tree National Park, where the Mojave and Colorado Deserts join in approximately 800,000 acres of stunning landscape. This region is one of earthly…
Meandering with the muse of music
Being on the road naturally lends itself to rhythm, the throb of the engine, the thrush and thrum of air pushed aside, vibration of wheels in the contours and cracks of the pavement. I’m reminded…
We all live in a silver submarine, silver submarine, silver submarine…
We are now approaching four months of on-road travel; still novices, but patterns are developing. Science does require long term analysis so further study and reporting will be ongoing. What are our fellow wayfarers driving…
Dog noses make “scents,” and you make the road by walking it
Part 1: Our Border Collie, Gyp, takes out her herding frustration with us by bringing us sticks to throw, and her impulsiveness led me to look up the definition and explanation of OCD in the…
Iron Chef Airstream: Part Two (by Ruth)
Part Two: Cooking Challenge There’s a hush in Kitchen Stadium this morning, as Chef Macri and Chef Dunmire suit up to face the Airstream Thanksgiving Cooking Challenge. Chef Macri dons his traditional uniform—important that your…
Iron Chef Airstream (by Ruth)
Part One: Ingredients challenge It started when Ben said, “Let’s have a real Thanksgiving in the Airstream!” Um, okay. With three burners on the stove (only two of which can, realistically, be used at the…
Back on the road: musings in metaphysics of the wandering kind
Three summer months traversing the western US, three months prepping our house for friendly renters/caretakers, and now we are off again on a journey with no concrete destination or time constraints. We’ve taken one week…
Cleaning house!
By Ruth Going through my closet and dresser drawers today felt like clearing out someone’s house after they’ve died. Thankfully, the only thing that has died here are those old size 10s I can no…
Why I Prefer Life on the Road
by Ruth People ask me what I love about being on the road. Perhaps this will answer that question. I should have known what kind of day it would be when, first thing, I broke my…
Ventura, San Luis Obispo, and North
We attempted to pass through Los Angeles untouched, hell bent for leather, but her inter-city highway madness entangled us in her web. The southern California DMV driving test varies somewhat from that in the northern…
If you read this, we’ll have to kill you
Ruth here, finally chiming in, because this place is just too magical not to share. Tell no one. We’ve spent the past three nights at Emma Wood State Beach, just outside Ventura, CA. That doesn’t…
Washing the traces of the world away…and away
I’m sitting 20 feet off the beach on the coast, just north of Ventura, California, listening to the hypnotic whoosh of wave breaks on the shore. Glancing to my right, the silver rear end of…
Joaquin Miller: “Poet of the Sierras,” Wild West Adventurer, and Raconteur
Born Cincinnatus Heine Miller in September 8, 1837, and known by his pen name, Joaquin Miller, he poetically professed to “having been born in a covered wagon pointed west”; though in reality his parents set…
Viva Oasis Las Vegas
If you wanna go big, go Oasis Las Vegas. 46 acres with spaces for 935 RVs, a “Centurion” posted at the front gate for the security of the guests, separate family and adult pools with…
Killing an American Icon
Two days in Ely, Nevada, over a mile high and founded as a stage stop and Pony Express waypoint, was a stop on our journey; we’ve passed through several times before in earlier travels. The…
Backtracking in time, through waypoints
Leaving Angel Creek National Forest Campground, which was high above Wells, Nevada at 8500 feet, we drove south along Highway 93, a long lonely highway much like Highway 50. Up a rise, down a valley,…
Nomads, Hobos, and Bohos
At a very early age, going on vacation had a special place in my psyche. The force of wanderlust was compelling. I remember seeing a mysterious trail or an unknown road, and just going, with…
The old man across the tracks, and the double yellow line
In the evenings at Goose Lake, Gyp was pleased to take a walk with me to the far end of the park across the Southern Pacific railroad tracks that carry weekly lumber mill runs from…
Lessons learning and other musings
Looking out our Airstream’s panoramic windows and pondering on this languorously hot July day how life experiences diverge so quickly from their moment of creation. We often ask ourselves how things would have been so…
Images along the road-Part 1
Old downtown Susanville, California classic signage Ben’s blog and travel note taking on the fly.
Morning Encounters, Part 2: Dogs, deer, cows, and crack dealers
(by Ruth, Honey Lake, CA) Remember when I told you that border collies get up at daybreak? Well, this particular morning, Gyp decided that we needed to get up before daybreak. As we walked down…
“I always have relied on the kindness of strangers.”
– Blanche Du Bois, A Streetcar Named Desire Seven days into to our stay at Goose Lake has been like Eden after Adam and Eve ate the apple, still Paradise; but shadows of background irritation…
Morning Encounters
(by Ruth, from Goose Lake, OR) The thing about summer is, it gets light around 5am. The thing about border collies is, they get up at daybreak. And want to do five miles. On my…
Open Door and Confessional Whore
We all complain about the foibles of humanity as is incessantly announced in our daily news, and upon which rests the roots of all that is failure of the “others” in our society. Here’s a…
Highway 395: Trackway (Part 2)
As the eastern Sierra and approximate Highway 395 route was a major bird flyway, so too it was a trackway for animals and the Native Americans who depended upon them for their sustenance. As…
Highway 395- Flyway, Track-way, Gateway, Highway (Part 1)
Nestled along the eastern Sierra range from southern California near the Mojave Desert, crossing into and out of Nevada, skirting the eastern edge of California, into the high desert of Oregon, and crossing the Columbia…
Traveling through Terroir
Merriam-Webster: “The combination of factors including soil, climate, and sunlight that gives wine grapes their distinctive character.” How do we identify and relate to others? The microcosm of our personal world is wrapped up in…
Declaration of “Independents”
Switching from a noun: exemption from reliance on, or control by others; to an adjective: not dependent; not contingent or depending on something else; a free thinker. Ruth: My favorite word has always been Go.…