Remember the Alamo

The church at night - this church was part of the Alamo compound.

We drove from Austin to San Antonio to spend the night for two reasons – to shorten the drive to Laredo and the Mexican border and to visit the Alamo. We checked the Alamo off the bucket list this morning.

I’ve been excited by stories of the Old West since I saw the Brady Bunch episode where Bobby idolizes Jesse James as a hero only to have the grandson of one of his victims relate the story of how James shot his grandfather in the back as evidence that he was a lowdown, dirty, train-robbing, scoundrel. That did not have the desired effect on me, however, and I’ve always romanticized James and other Western characters like Cole Younger, Billy the Kid, Doc Holliday, and Wyatt Earp, not as heroes necessarily, but I admired their grit under pressure, their ability to thrive in harsh living conditions, and the fact that they probably never changed their underwear.

The Alamo, being from that same general era of history, holds the same appeal for me. Now, I’m not going to go so far as to say that visiting the Alamo was a dream come true for me, but one of the first things I thought of when we planned our route to Mexico was going through San Antonio to see the Alamo. You could say I was pretty jacked about it. Yet, everyone I know who had ever seen it was, shall we say, less than impressed.

Well, I say, pistachios to them! While it is true that most of the compound that existed during the battle is buried under the asphalt and concrete of modern day San Antonio, the façade of the church, perhaps the most recognizable feature, remains intact. I don’t know if I would have been satisfied if that was the only thing I saw, but fortunately I don’t have to say because there was a shrine and museum attached – both free, otherwise we might not have gone in – so we got to see important artifacts like James Bowie’s knife and Davy Crockett’s hair brush (they both died at the Alamo) and get a history lesson that allowed us to rate the experience two thumbs up.

All our pictures of the Alamo during the day came out crummy. Notice the Crockett hotel in the background.

I’m going to condense three centuries of Alamo history into a few sentences, and - spoiler alert! – I am going to reveal the ending. The Mission San Antonio de Valero, the original structure on the Alamo site, was a church and out buildings built by the Spanish in the early 1700’s as a means to convert Indians to Catholicism and thereby increase Spanish rule. It was eventually abandoned as the Spanish lost influence in North America and then re-established in the early 1800’s as a strategic military outpost because the town it was situated near, San Antonio de Bexar, was a crossroads and center of commerce. It was referred to as the Alamo starting from this time in honor of the hometown of the Mexican cavalry that was garrisoned there and the name stuck. In Texas’ fight for independence from Mexico in 1835-36, which ironically was brought on in part by Mexico’s restriction on further immigration of U.S. citizens into Texas, it was the scene of a famous battle where the greatly outnumbered Texans who were defending the compound made the decision to stay and fight rather than surrender. They were all killed, but their bravery in electing certain death gave rise to the rallying cry “Remember the Alamo” which inspired an outnumbered army led by Sam Houston to defeat the Mexicans at San Jacinto just a short time later and secure an independent Texas – which was admitted to the Union as the 28th state in 1845.

Surprisingly, Coconut and J were relatively interested in all this because when we stayed in North Carolina a few weeks ago with a sister of a college friend, Frank the husband let us know that his ancestor had been killed at the Alamo. Having this connection made it more bearable for Coconut and J to go through the exhibits looking for his name and reading about what an honorable guy he was. It turns out that James Butler Bonham was one of four commanders and had snuck through the Mexican siege line at one point to get help. Upon learning no help would be coming, Bonham snuck back through the lines, which the other couriers that had been sent out did not do, to let his compatriots know that they were on their own. He died with them on March 6, 1836. One has to wonder why, if it was so easy to sneak through the Mexican lines, the whole army didn’t sneak out and attack the Mexican rear, but I’m not a military strategist so I guess it didn’t make sense at the time.

IMG_0512

pointing to Bowie and Bonham's names

We didn't do anything else in San Antonio, except leave our iPad in the hotel lobby. After we reached Laredo and realized it was missing we called the hotel but it had not been turned in as lost and found. It's a bummer, but the only things that are irreplaceable on it are some photos that we took with the GoPro and potentially all of our personal banking information.

hotel in San Antonio

Greetings from Austin, Texas

They say 110 people move to Austin every day and 108 of them want to drive a food truck and the other two just want to eat at a food truck. R, Coconut, J, and I arrived on Thursday at the Pecan Grove RV park near downtown. Someone on the Vanagon Facebook group mentioned this park when R requested recommendations for places to stay and we were happy to get one of the few daily rental spots. The park is unique in that we could be in this large city with a population of over 700,000 people, staying in Wesley, and be walking distance from the one thing we planned to do - swim at Barton Spring in Zilker Park. The city does have one other tourist attraction besides the Spring, live music, food, and keep Austin weird vibe – bats! Since 1982 when the Congress Avenue Bridge was widened, it has been the migratory home to the largest urban population of Mexican free-tailed bats. Every evening at dusk -whenever that is, the bats get to decide - millions of bats make for the sky to feed in a black cloud reminiscent of the Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Birds" and large enough to blip on the Doppler radar. J and I witnessed the bats in flight on Thursday because we ignored our thirst and hunger to hang around for two hours until the bats decided to make their appearance while Coconut and R more sensibly opted to eat and drink and see the bats during Bat Fest, which was on Saturday and involves food trucks, music, $15 wristbands, and bats.

We arrived at Bat Fest after an afternoon of swimming, described below, at what we thought was dusk, only to have dusk turn into night, without the bats appearing. Then when the crowd started to thin out, we found out the bats did appear, but we couldn’t see them because it was too dark. So R and Coconut missed out on seeing the bats but I don't think Coconut will be in any hurry to return to Austin for this unique event because as we weaved our way through the crowds on the way out she asked, "What was so cool about that?"

About the swimming; Barton Spring has been a public attraction since sometime in the 1800’s when an enterprising Texan named A.J. Barton decided he could charge people to swim in it. Due to some geologic circumstance I read about but can’t remember, the Spring waters remain a consistent, chilly, 68 degrees, and are home to the endangered blind Austin salamander.

The 68 degree temperature might be fine on one of the 40 or so days when temperatures in Austin exceed 100 degrees, but the day we chose to visit the pond it was rainy and only in the mid-80’s – hardly ideal for a swim. Nevertheless, being the intrepid adventurers that we are, and also because we uncharacteristically paid to swim in the enclosed area rather than brave the waters of the free “dog park” area just outside the fences, we all donned our swim suits and succumbed to the numbing cold waters. How it is that allowing people to pay three dollars and swim in the spring benefits the salamander habitat is not stated anywhere, but J and I did get reprimanded by one of the lifeguards for picking up rocks from the bottom of the pond and throwing them back in to watch them sink, so I guess that, at least, is forbidden.

After the numbness left our bodies we felt hunger, so we walked the short distance to one of the many food truck parking lots we'd seen and sampled what Austin has to offer – which at this spot was BBQ, tacos, and hamburgers. R also had some sort of salad with Kimchi, which is a Korean cabbage which many cowboys used to eat on the trail once they found out horse meat wasn’t all that healthy.

Getting ready to attack the circled food trucks at Barton Springs Picnic near our RV park in Austin

To be true, Austin is apparently a change purse of liberalism inside the larger pocket of Texas conservatism, which explains the availability of Kimchi. It’s the headquarters of that yuppie hipster feeding trough called Whole Foods, and we saw more long hair, tattoos, and running shoes than we did cowboy hats, boots, and horses.

Since we arrived in Texas on Monday, we’ve had pretty good weather. Most days have been overcast and fairly mild temperatures for the season with the exception of Tuesday when we were chased out of Wesley by the heat and into a movie theater and hotel room. Even with hot days, the nights have cooled off enough to make sleeping in Wesley with the slider and hatch doors open quite comfortable.

Temperature reading from inside Wesley and outside temperature at 6:34 p.m. on Sunday evening on our drive to San Antonio from Austin. Hot!

When we arrived in Austin on Thursday we brought rain with us, something Austin hadn’t seen in forty odd days according to Bob, the guy who runs the RV Park and who has lived there for 18 years. Back in the days of the old West, when people relied on growing their own crops and raising livestock to get themselves through the winter rather than hitching up the wagon and rolling out to the local farmers market for supplies, we could have posed as rain makers and charged people for sticking around town with the promise we would make it rain again. As it turned out though, nobody cared that we brought the rain and milder temperatures, and since the RV park fills up on weekends and we only were able to stay at all because someone had cancelled the first days of their visit, we got kicked out and had to go looking for a place to stay on Saturday night.

Vanamos family poses with our very cool and generous host family in Austin.

Before we came into town, R put out a call on one of her VW camper van forums for a good tire place because we wanted to get Wesley some new wheels before we hit the bumpy tarmac in old Mexico. One of the folks who responded also offered us his driveway if we needed a place to stay and I am currently sitting in my underwear in said driveway at 3:43 on Sunday morning typing this because it is too dang hot to sleep – although, R, Coconut, and J don’t seem to be having any problems.

Coconut and J are just probably plum wore out from the days events and R can sleep on a highway overpass, and that’s without the ear plugs and eye mask which she is currently hiding behind and which are perhaps her most cherished piece of gear she brought for herself on this trip.

Because Saturday was about 100 degrees, we decided the best way to spend it would be to get back to our bargain-way roots and enjoy some free Barton Spring water at the dog park. This turned out to be a great idea because Coconut and J really had a bang up time playing together in the water fall and rapids and with some friends that J made by impressing them with his daredevil ways of sliding down the algae-slick rock and throwing himself headfirst into the waters – something he noticed a twenty-something year old guy doing and soon had perfected himself.

Even the dogs were impressed by J's fearless contortions

R and I have noticed over the last few days that the kids really are getting along – and Coconut is the catalyst for this. She can react to J’s overtures to play or converse in two ways – she can ignore him, which is the path she often chooses at home in Alexandria – or she can respond to him and engage him. For whatever reason, lately she has chosen to engage him and it’s sweet to see them holding hands while trying to help each other through the churning water to the dam overflow or laughing together when the water pushes them back.

Coconut lends J a helping hand at Barton Spring

My own attempts to play in the water ended up with me crashing to the algae-slick rocks on my elbow, stubbing my big toe on some strategically placed underwater concrete slabs, and cutting my knees while trying to drag myself, half-drowned, back to land. It was a hell of a time – I wouldn’t have missed it.

In the morning, our hosts Nathan, Tina, and 2-year old Liam put out a spread of breakfast tacos and fruit, provided showers and WiFi, and lots of information on where to visit in Mexico. With all the responsibilities of making camp, packing camp, changing clothes, and finding something to eat and drink, R and I have been deficient on actually making plans beyond what we are going to do the next day so talking with Nathan who spent three months living in Mexico with his family when he was fourteen and has been back several times since was especially helpful.

We had hard time pulling ourselves away from the hospitality, and didn't hit the road for San Antonio until four p.m.. We quickly questioned our decision to leave when about twenty miles into our 150 mile trip the engine started to overheat, which isn't a problem according to the owners manual unless the radiator light starts blinking, which is what drew my attention to the overheating problem in the first place. We pulled over, ate some breakfast burritos, and hoped the problem would resolve itself with some rest in the shade - at this point, we were all overheating.  However, once we were back on the road the light started to flash even more insistently than before. I, of course, blamed the technician who had given Wesley an oil change on Saturday morning and who had thoughtfully topped off the coolant levels. R, being a more practical person than me, pulled up a forum thread that suggested a couple of explanations for the frantically blinking red light that did not involve the tech. So while R and the kids enjoyed smoothies in the convenience store of the gas station, I read the thread and actually figured out that a sensor to the overflow coolant tank did not have a good connection and the wire was rubbing against the engine block. I deftly took a wire brush from my tool box to the important parts, used electrical tape on the wire where it was slightly chafed, and put the thing back together. When a test run up the highway did not trigger any flashing warning, I deduced that I was correct after all - our good-hearted oil man had loosened the wire so as to cause the short while he was topping off our coolant level.  Of course, I give R all the credit for finding the explanation that proved me right.

IMG_7324 - Copy

IMG_7334 - Copy

IMG_7338 - Copy

Texas ain't so hot

My plan was to take the Indian Natch Scenic Freeway south out of Tulsa and into Texas, however, Cousin Anthony and his younger eyes were able to read the small print on the map better than me and my old eyes and informed me that it was actually the Indian National Scenic Freeway that we wanted. Before Oklahoma was admitted as the 46th state in 1907 it was called Indian Territory and the freeway honors the proud Creek Indian heritage of casino gambling, poverty, and bad teeth. I think the white man offered these to the Creek in exchange for their land, livelihood, and dignity in one of the treaties that we broke. Hugo Lake State Park, just outside Hugo, Oklahoma, which is on the border with Texas, was our destination for the evening. By coincidence, we picked up a newspaper, The Tulsa Word, at the bagel place that Cousin Anthony took us for lunch and it had an article about the section of the Hugo Cemetery dedicated to circus performers which had over the big top monuments and gravestones and the ranch where former circus elephants go to retire. Apparently Hugo was once base camp for a number of moderately successful circuses and even the town manager was a former circus performer. We put both of these places of our short list of sites to visit in Hugo, along with the local ice cream parlor.

Hugo needs to do a better job of advertising these sites, however, as there was not a single sign directing us which way to go. And the two people we asked in Hugo didn't even seem to know where the hell they were themselves. The ice cream lady managed to say something that sounded like yes when we asked her for directions, and the guy at the gas station responded to my question by asking if we were ready for the rain that was coming.

Coconut took this shot of the cotton fields along Route 79 on our way into Austin

We had no luck at the campsite either, which was like a ghost town - not another soul around, the distant clanging of metal on metal, and cabin doors swinging free in the wind. Heavy rains had washed out the facilities and hopefully short circuited the electricity because when I peed off the dock, J informed me I was standing directly in front of the security camera.

It was only a short drive to Pat Mayse Dam and State Park in Texas, so we saddled up Wesley and crossed the border. Everyone we had talked to about Texas went on and on about how hot it was going to be and we came here expecting to be baked like potatoes. But our first night was nice - Texas wasn't so hot. Swimming in the lake was good. People from the West and South might know this, but it seems that most rivers in this part of the country are dammed, creating lakes upriver that allow the Army Corps of Engineers to control the flow of water downriver to avoid flooding. This was the case at Bull Shoals as well - one of the videos we watched about the making of the dam quoted a local as saying, they created a permanent flood upriver to avoid an occasional flood downriver. Though, that jab seemed mostly tongue in cheek as the dam has created great fishing conditions as well as other river activity thereby bringing tourists, jobsand prosperity to the region. Pat Mayse Dam and lake may not have been as successful in that regard, but we had fun.

For sleeping we kept the slider door and hatch open to catch the very substantial lakeside breeze. Coconut had pitched her tent by the lake and, concerned parent that I am, I was afraid the tent would blow away with her in it during the night. But the most I could muster was lifting my head to make sure the tent was still there, we had done a good job staking it, so I was confident she was alright.

R couldn't get enough of the Texas shaped waffles in Palestine

Texas does come with a giant reputation, however, and at some point during the night while I was laying safe and snug in Wesley and listening to a bullfrog croak it made a sound like it was strangling. Then there was just silence. It scared the shit out of me and I thought that Coconut was the bravest of us all out there in her tent with the wind whipping and the Texas Bull Frog Strangler on the prowl.

We woke to very overcast skies and quickly packed camp and took off without even eating breakfast. It didn't take long for the sun to come back with a vengeance though, which was a good thing because after we breakfasted at a roadside picnic spot protected from the deluge by a pavilion (something our campground lacked), our wipers stopped working. By mid-afternoon though, with the sun blazing a hazy trail across the sky, we surrendered and stopped in Palestine, TX, to watch a movie where we all got cold because the AC was set for the ice ages. And because Palestine lacks good camping options and Austin is still three hours away, we ended up in a hotel room where the Wifi sucked, we had all seen the Modern Family rerun, and none of us had our allotment of fun.

Everything is bigger in Texas, even the swans on the Colorado River in Austin

Week in Review

We left Atlanta last Monday after spending four nights with R's cousins. We were getting too comfortable with the air conditioning and pillow top mattress and I am sure they were getting tired of us using their laundry detergent to wash our clothes - I actually changed my shirt every day because I knew it would not be weeks before it saw the inside of a washing machine. We have have driven almost 800 miles in the week since then through Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas to camp on the White River in Arkansas with my cousin Anthony who drove from Tulsa to meet us. He must think we look thin in pictures because he was accompanied on the trip by twenty brautwurst sausages which met their fate on the grill.

Despite what you all may know about me, it has not been aimless travels. Although Coconut and J will not be forcibly schooled through the Alexandria public school system, thus missing out on recess, standardized testing, and half-day screenings of Frozen, they will be educated. R came up with a very ambitious curriculum that includes learning Spanish, studying the migration patterns of animals (including humans), dancing under the stars (also known as astronomy), learning how man has ruined various ecosystems, and of course, auto mechanics.

Although their "school year" won't formally start until September 1, R and I could not drive through the South without planning a civil rights lesson for the kids - mostly because we don't know anything else about the South that we think they should know. The learning started in Atlanta at Martin Luther King's birthplace, which area now is also home to the national civil rights museum, the Ebeneezer Baptist Church where the King family ruled the pulpit, as well as MLK and Coretta King's graves. There is also a nearby playground where R completed an obstacle course in a family record 46 seconds.

From Atlanta we drove to Birmingham, Alabama, where we visited the 16th Street Baptist Church. The religious leaders that organized many of the protest marches used this church as a meeting place and it was the site of the murder of four young girls in a dynamite blast for which the perpetrators were only recently tried and convicted. There were a number of walking tours originating in the Kelly Ingram Park across the street from the church that led off here and there and documented different events that people undertook to protest the white supremacist attitude of the time. J was very affected by the snarling dog and water cannon replica statues showing how Birmingham police combated the non-violent demonstrations and he asked an appropriate number of questions about this and that to demonstrate he was actually absorbing some of the learning. Coconut was more affected by the heat, but apparently paid attention in her own way because she also made some comments after we had left that indicated she knew what was going on.

After eating lunch in the street by our van like the homeless people we are, we drove an hour or so northwest out of Birmingham and camped at Clear Creek on the Lewis Smith Lake. We were the only campers in our loop and had our pick of sites so of course we grabbed one right on the river. J always comes up with some game or contest to play so we compared fancy tricks we performed on the boogie boards in the river until thunder and lightning chased us out. We ended up with a wicked storm that washed out any hopes of a campfire and soaked all the gear in Coconut's tent - she slept in the van that night. In the morning we had another swim while things dried out and then drove into Mississippi.

While we were gassing up I noticed a puddle under Wesley that I was hoping was pre-existing. No such luck, as a quick look revealed a hose near the front drivers side tire that was saturated and dripping gasoline - which is weird since the gas tank is on the passenger side and the fuel line runs down that side to the engine in the rear of the vehicle. Since there was nothing I could do about it at the moment and likely nothing I could do about it even if I had ten moments, I said nothing, started the engine and kept an eye on the gas gauge as we drove along. I figured if it was going to be a real problem, our gas tank would soon be empty.

We ended up driving for about twenty miles and then pulled off to visit Natural Bridge, which is the longest natural land bridge east of Colorado. There's probably a more geologic way to describe a natural bridge, but basically it's when soft stone - in this case, sandstone - is eroded by running water - in this case, the sea - but a portion of the stone is not eroded so Point A and Point B remain connected. Arches National Park in Utah is full of this kind of stuff.

As a testament to how old I am getting, when Coconut and J went scrambling over rocks and climbing up walls to get to the top of the cliff and walk the bridge, I wasn't interested in that path to the top so went looking for the trail the woman we purchased the tickets from described. I could not find it so turned around and waited for the kids to come back. I was perfectly content to do that though now I am somewhat regretful that I didn't climb with the kids because I've never been on top of a natural bridge before that I can remember. As we were leaving the woman we purchased the tickets from asked us to come back and visit again but I see that as an unlikely occurrence so now I'm not sure if I'll ever get to the top of a natural bridge. It's a lesson to take advantage of the chances we have when they present themselves.

After we got back to the van, I checked the leaky hose and it wasn't leaking. There was no pool of gasoline in the parking lot. We've filled Wesley with gas a few times since then and there has been no leak. It's a lesson that sometimes, if you do nothing, it will all work out alright. So now I don't know whether to act when presented a situation or do nothing.

The camp in Mississippi where we spent Tuesday night wasn't great, but we did have a good time there. We swam and J made up a game where he went underwater and I tried to push the boogie board so when he surfaced it would be directly over his head. R and I had a nice chat with Todd from the Army Corps of Engineers. The sunset was also nice and we grilled some chicken on the campfire that was pretty tasty. We picked this campground on the Tennessee River/Tombigbee Waterway because it was going to make for a short drive to Memphis on Wednesday, and it did.

On the way to Memphis we stopped in Tupelo, Mississippi, to visit Elvis' birthplace; a one room building with a porch swing that may or may not have been there in January 1939 when Elvis came into this world. Did you know Elvis was a twin? His older brother was stillborn. We didn't pay to go into the museum, a trend you will notice over and over if you stick with reading this blog, but there were some testimonials about how nice a kid Elvis was stuck onto the outside of the museum from people who knew him from that time.

One memory was from a kid who let Elvis borrow his bicycle when they were about ten. After riding, Elvis offered to trade the kid his guitar for the bike - an offer which was obviously refused. How different the world might have been.

Speaking of how different the world might have been, in Memphis we visited the Lorraine Motel where MLK was murdered on the balcony outside room 306. MLK was in Memphis to support a strike by the city's black sanitation workers for better working conditions. The motel is closed for business but open for tours as part of the National Civil Rights Museum, as is the boarding house across the street where the killer took aim from a second floor bathroom.

We did not pay to go into the museum but read the free exhibits in the street outside the motel. Coconut and J have both learned about MLK, Rosa Parks, slavery, and civil rights in school, but what we read and saw during our own civil rights unit provided more concrete examples of the discrimination faced and it gave them some context to visit places that were relevant to that time. It also gave R and me a chance to impress upon Coconut and J that the struggle for equal standing is one that continues not just for African Americans, think Ferguson, Missouri, but for other groups as well, think gay marriage. I think it is a theme we will revisit during this year as we thread our way through Mexico, and Central and South America, places which certainly have seen their share of use and abuse.

One of the things that crystalized for me as we visited these sites is the role that religion played in the civil rights movement. I guess I knew on some level that MLK was a reverend, but now I know that he really was. To me, many of his speeches are essentially homilies on finding that promised land that God created for all races, creeds, species, and folks. Many of the other organizers of the movement were also religious leaders - it's not something I'd focused on before. In one of the gift shops we visited but where we didn't purchase anything, I was leafing through a book containing great speeches of the 20th century and came across one by Cesar Chavez, who championed the rights of Mexican migrant workers. J was in a dual language program at school and during one unit learned about Chavez and came home talking about him - that's the only reason I knew the name and read his speech in this book. The speech was a call to the Catholic Church to be more active in supporting the migrant worker in his struggles, those workers being generally God-fearing and tithing believers in the church. It was an interesting contrast to what I had just learned about the civil rights movement for African Americans who were lead by their religious leaders in their struggle for fair treatment.

Because Memphis is a city, it did not have a lot of attractive camping options. We decided we would shorten the next day's 4-hour drive to our camp on the White River in Arkansas by starting the drive that evening - which meant that we had started the day in Mississippi, lunched in Tennessee, and would be having the evening meal in Arkansas; three states in one day.

Rather than camping though, Coconut and J also decided that we should stay in a hotel with air conditioning, free Wifi, and a pool. I agreed that if the place also offered free breakfast, we had a deal. We ended up in Jonesboro, Arkansas, where some kind of baseball tournament was going on, which meant all the bargain hotels in town were booked so we had to take a room at one of the fanciest places in town for $110 for the night. Coconut figured out that we only needed to each have $28 of fun to get our money's worth and we all agreed that our swim, downloading books, watching television, and taking an extra yogurt and cream cheese from the free continental breakfast added up to our money's worth.

The rest of our drive through Arkansas on the windy country road was nice. We drove past groomed yards, storefronts with businesses behind them, and another half-dozen or so armadillo road kill. I'm hoping that before this trip ends we see an actual live armadillo, not these crushed, rigor mortis, road specimens.

We ended up Thursday afternoon by pulling into Bull Shoals-White River State Park, where my cousin Anthony met us. He has been lobbying to become Vanamos' marketing and public relations director and spent a lot of time chatting with our fellow campers about our upcoming trip and encouraging them to read the blog. If we had room in our Thule storage box, we might bring him along. Instead, we are hoping he and his family can visit us along the way.

We spent our weekend at camp exclaiming to each other about how cold the river water was, watching trout eat worms and minnows at the visitor center, throwing wiffle balls and baseballs, and attending park ranger discussions about bears and the summer sky. We also rented a rectangular boat called a Jon boat which is the preferred mode of transport on the river because of its shallow draft. Most folks use these boats for fishing on the White River, which is one of the best trout fishing rivers in North America due to the constant cold water temperature - 50 degrees. We must have made quite a sight in our swimsuits and carrying towels and boogie boards into the boat like we were going to the pool. We cruised downriver a few miles and beached on a shoal to stretch or legs, but only J and I were hearty enough to get wet. Afterwards we made the short drive to the much warmer Bull Shoals Lake at the top of the dam that feeds the river. Because of high rainfall, parts of the picnic area on the lake are underwater and we all got a kick out of standing on top of the pavilions and swimming under them to sit at the picnic tables.

It's Monday now, and we are in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the day to run a few errands, drink my cousin's beer, and get a final night's sleep in the air conditioning before we push on through Texas to Mexico.

Slow down, America!

We have been doing a lot of interstate driving - I-95 and I-64 to Williamsburg; the interminable I-85 to North Carolina and Atlanta; I-20 through Georgia to Alabama; I-22 from Alabama to Mississippi to Memphis, Tennessee, I-55 to Arkansas - and I am amazed at how fast people drive and how noisy it is in the van with the windows rolled down. Of course, I've been more aware of how fast everyone else is going because everyone else is going faster than us. Wesley at full throttle is closer to`the minimum speed limit than the maximum so it might be that folks are going as fast as the law allows. What I shake my fist at as they fly past us though is the way they change lanes at the last second nearly clipping our tail, try to pass on the right when the blinker is on signalling we are trying to move right to get out of the way, and how they look so damn smug in their cars with the automatic transmissions and the windows rolled up and air conditioning blasting. We've gotten a few honks and waves from folks who either feel some nostalgia for seeing one of these VW Westphalia dinosaurs still stomping the earth or can't believe some idiot would take the thing on a public highway, but for the most part, people just want us in the rear view mirror. The stretch of State Route 78 that we drove out of Birmingham, Alabama, may have been most unpleasant bit of driving I've ever done, and I cut my teeth behind the wheel in North Jersey and currently live in Northern Virginia, where drivers are notoriously unable to merge, thus turning twenty mile trips into day long ventures. It was hot. There were red traffic lights every hundred yards, narrow lanes and big trucks on all sides, and the only businesses that seemed to exist in the otherwise empty strip malls were pawn shops, Dollar stores, garages, fast food joints, and adult novelty superstores. And then we saw a WalMart and that explained why the other retail businesses - including a grocery store - had failed. The highlight of this part of our trip, by a longshot, was seeing a dead armadillo by the side of the road.

Another highlight - sunset from our Mississippi camp

We've been on the interstate so much rather than the more time-consuming but interesting and scenic country roads because we are still on a schedule. We committed to meet R's parents in Atlanta and my cousin in Arkansas on certain dates so we aren't able to linger another day at camps that we like. We also want to get to Mexico, so pushing on day after day isn't all bad, but it does change the dynamic from take your time to hurry up - which is opposite of how we envision life once we leave the United States in about ten days.

As R pointed out, the places we've been in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and now Arkansas, may turn out to be just as foreign to us as Mexico will be - maybe even more foreign because in Mexico we expect things to be different but in the States we expect things a certain way. It would have been nice to be able to spend some more time getting to know these places. Most of the Alabama that we drove through was flying the confederate flag from a ramshackle home that had several abandoned cars with weeds growing up through the engine block permanently docked in the front yard. Bet you don't now how many used appliances you can discard by the side of a barn: a lot.

J and Coconut sleeping on the top bunk of Wesley after an evening downpour washed out the tent Maya planned to sleep in

To be fair, our camp on Monday night on Clear Creek in Alabama, part of the vast Lewis Smith Lake, was pretty. And the drive west towards Mississippi on Country Road 278 was a nice change from interstate driving and revealed a few nice homes in seemingly otherwise forsaken towns. Maybe there is more to these towns than we could see - I don't know - but at least our experience was a bit more organic because we drove through at about 45 m.p.h. and with the windows down. We did spend about 20 minutes chatting with a park ranger who had come to take a water sample near our camp in Fulton Campground on the Tennessee River-Tombigbee Waterway in Mississippi. He was enthused about our trip and may follow through on some of his own wanderlust - which would be great if we inspired him to do that. This is to say that anyone we've talked to has been nice.

This is the view we woke to at our Clear Creek camp in Alabama on Tuesday

Natural Bridge near the Mississippi - Alabama border. We stopped while driving along State Route 195 for a short hike and picnic lunch

For the most part, Coconut and J look at their screens while we drive and R navigates from the passenger seat or orders things on our friend's Amazon Prime account that we forgot or have already lost.  We are expecting R's new swim shorts (three pair; they were on sale), her old lady face cream, a VW repair manual, and our replacement credit cards to be shipped to our next known address in Tulsa, which belongs to my cousin, who will host us next Sunday. Coconut is also hoping some of her friends will respond to the letters she sent.

The kids reading, doing other worthy things, or even playing some games on their screens while we drive is fine. Once in a while we can get them to look up at something interesting like a ride-on mower parked on a front porch and sometimes Coconut will ride shotgun so R can sit back with J and play cards. J spends a lot of time playing games on his Kindle and we need to help him download some books once we get to free Wifi.

Coconut reading a book after taking a swim in the lake

We haven't spent much time living out of the van yet to establish a routine, but we have started to engage Coconut and J in helping set up camp when we arrive and doing some chores around camp while we are there. I've taught J how to scrounge unused or partially charred firewood from the unoccupied campsites and he'll take off doing that and report back on the burned ones that are still good but that he doesn't want to carry because he will get his hands dirty. Coconut will set up the chairs and her tent. They both do the dinner dishes. They've been receptive if less than enthusiastic about doing these things but we're hoping that we can help our children succeed not by doing for them, but by showing them what they can do for themselves. This slower pace of life on the road is new to them, and we realize enthusiasm may go up as the temperatures go down. So far all any of us have wanted to do once we get to camp is put on our swimsuits and hit the water.

Low Voltage

Me, Frank, R, and Patti

We spent Tuesday night in Walkerville, North Carolina, with Patti and Frank. Patti is sister to a friend from college and she and Frank have spent the better part of their adulthood living on a boat and sailing to various parts of the Northern Hemisphere or driving across the United States in a bread van before recently settling in Walkerville of all places, which is near Greensboro, which is near nothing, as far as I can tell. We are happy to have met these interesting and inspirational people and thank them for their hospitality - which came in the form of food, air conditioning, a shower, their Wifi password, and good conversation. As a bonus, Frank was trained as an electrician.

We've been having an issue with the house battery in Wesley not powering our refrigerator through the night and asked Frank to take a look at it. This refrigerator failure isn't necessarily a problem for me - I prefer cold beer, but can drink it warm in a pinch - but Coconut, J, and R all prefer their foods to be stored at the correct temperatures so as not to contract some uncomfortable stomach problem. I see now I may have spoiled them by timely paying our electric bill each month we lived in Alexandria and never challenging them with the adversity of melty ice-pops.

Now, I don't want to get too technical and expose myself as the low voltage fraud that I am, but the house battery is what we paid a bunch of clowns in Fredericksburg, VA, to wire to run our lights and refrigerator. It is separate from the battery that starts the car engine, but just like the engine battery, the house battery is supposed to be charged by the car alternator when the engine is running. We already suspected before we left Alexandria that the set up was not working properly but decided we could leave town anyway and work out the problem on the road. Frank presented our first opportunity to figure it out and he confirmed our fears - the house battery was not being fully charged during the day so was pooping out during the night. But Frank also came up with a reason why this was happening - those guys in Fredericksburg didn't know what the hell they were doing. R and I suspected this very early on as well. Whenever we visited the so-called RV repair shop, we saw one guy working on his race car and the rest of the guys standing around waiting to order lunch.

Here I am pointing at the one guy in Fredericksburg that did any work. Unfortunately, he is not an electrician and the wiring he did failed

The work-around Frank rigged allowed us to charge the house battery through the alternator, but was a temporary solution to a long term problem because it required us to remember to flip a switch each time we cut the ignition to prevent the engine battery from draining once the house battery was emptied. There's a pretty good chance this switch would not be flipped at least once during this year, which is less of a problem if you are in a Walmart parking lot, but becomes a bigger problem if you are on the dirt roads of Central America. We might have risked living on this edge anyway but for another inkling of a problem that we had which we confirmed while camping at a very nice spot on Norman Lake on Wednesday night - the house battery is not large enough to power the refrigerator through the night. We know this because despite the house battery having a full charge at lights out, when we woke up in the morning the refrigerator was ten degrees warmer than the temperature we had set it for - indicating that it turned off at some point during the night.

I took this picture of J at our camp on Norman Lake in North Carolina

IMG_0399

IMG_0401

J iin the loft bedroom getting a few more minutes of screen time before lights out

The view from Wesley's master suite at our camp on Lake Norman, thirty miles north of Charlotte, North Carolina

When we arrived in Atlanta on Thursday to spend a few days with R's parents, brother, and cousins, R furiously googled RV Repair guys and came up with Bill from Mr. Mobile RV Repair.  Bill has set up a series of Mr. Mobile's throughout the country - and makes house calls to diagnose and fix RVs. You wouldn't think this was a good idea unless you actually owned an RV - or something similar such as Wesley - and it was our good fortune that we found this guy and his good fortune that we brought our check book.  Essentially, as an actual electrician, Bill was offended by the wiring and battery set up we had and scrapped everything the Fredericksburg shop (I use that term loosely) took three weeks to do and in five entertaining hours, rewired everything to a new house battery that will actually last through the night and allowed me to stand there and watch and help so I know exactly what wire goes from here to there and what it is related too.  I suspect this will be very helpful.

While Bill was wiring and telling stories, we found out that our credit card information had been stolen and used to purchase flossers and bubble gum at a CVS in Rhode Island, and that the radiator fan thermostat on Wesley was kaput, causing the fan to run at high speed even when the van engine had not been started for a day.  These problems all now all been corrected and we plan to leave Atlanta on Monday for Alabama and, no doubt, a new set of problems.  But for now, we're thankful the current set of minor setbacks on life's very bumpy road happened while we are here in Atlanta - where Coconut and J have their cousins to play with, I have my in-laws to pay for and prepare the food, and R can visit with her family and wash our clothes.

On the Road - Kerr Lake

For the first three nights of our year-long overland trip to South America we stayed with my in-laws friends - the very generous David and Thao - in Williamsburg, Virginia, and looked like typical tourists - standing in line at amusement parks, over-eating at buffets, and swimming in the hotel pool. Coconut and J had a nice time visiting with my sisters and nephew who came down from New Jersey for a final hug before we turned our bow south. That time finally came on Monday. Even though we would like to make it all the way to Tierra del Fuego in this year, R and I have planned that we won't do more than 4 hours of driving on any day and won't drive consecutive 4 hour days. That might mean we won't make it to the tip of Argentina, but this trip doesn't necessarily have to have a destination to be a success. With our paper map spread on the floor of Wesley and our four-hour threshold in mind, we fingered Kerr Lake in Boydton, Virginia, as within range. The GPS confirmed it to be a 2.5 hour drive and once we accounted for Wesley's more leisurely pace, we pinned it as our target for the day.

R and I met at school in Williamsburg, however, so we before we hit the highway we took a detour down nostalgia way and visited some of our old haunts - including, believe it or not, the school library. After nearly 20 years most of these places remained surprisingly familiar. And of course, because no trip to Williamsburg is complete without a visit to the premium outlets, we made a stop so I could replace my threadbare and musty sneakers that were past due on fixing.

R and I outside the school in Williamsburg were we met. Photo courtesy of J.

Finally, with the air temperature past the boiling point and knowing that being in our unairconditioned Wesley is only tolerable when we are at cruising speed - 45 miles per hour - we set off for real on our journey - to borrow a term from John Steinbeck - into bumdom.

R had a revelation after a day spent at WaterCountry USA while she was hanging our wrung out swim suits from a line stretched from the front of Wesley to the back (essentially through our kitchen, family room and dining room) that we are actually going to be living in a van for a year - and she realized that made her happy. What a difference this emotion must be if you choose this life compared to if you are forced to live it.

Our view of Kerr Lake from camp

The drive south on Interstate 85 to the John H. Kerr Reservoir was uneventful, but by the time we pulled into campsite # 240 in North Bend Park, we were all ready for a swim. J decided, however, that it would be better if we set up camp first so we would get even more sweaty and then go for a swim. So that's what we did. J gathered firewood, Coconut pitched her tent, and R made happy noises as she pulled out our dinnerware and bedding. The swim in the lake after this bit of chores was extra refreshing and it wasn't long before J had made a new friend - Luca - and was running up and down the beach chasing after a Frisbee and living the dream - carefree and happy and not wanting for anything but more of the same.

J built a fire at camp. Sweaty work and it was rewarded by a swim in the lake.

Coconut enjoying a book at our camp on Kerr Lake

After the sun went down, and we were reminded the sky actually contains stars and not just planes and light pollution, and with Coconut zipped into her tent and J in the top bunk dreaming whatever dreams almost 10-year old boys dream, R and I enjoyed the lake breeze with the doors on Wesley flung wide open - just like the opportunity in front of us.

On the Road

On Wednesday night we hosted a going away party. It was a chance for us to show off Wesley, our 1985 VW Westfalia camper van, before we drive it to South America, and a chance for our friends to show off their Hawaiian party shirts.  I think most people were impressed by Wesley.

Our friiends and famly wore their party shirts to our going away party

The kids had spent the preceding week with their grandparents and R and I used the time to empty every drawer in the house of stray paper clips and find a nesting place in Wesley for every electronics cord that we own even if we weren't sure which tablet, iPod, laptop, Kindle, or MP3 player it belonged to or if we would ever remember which plastic bin, tub, or tray we had stored it in. It was satisfying to empty the house of much of the meaningless riff raff we'd managed to accumulate and a lot of fun finding places to store things in Wesley, and then just as much fun finding things to store in the places we found to store things. For example, R found this secret place on top of the water tank that was hard to get to but perfect for things we had to bring, but weren't going to need every day, like Coconut's 365 day supply of contact lenses.  After we got the box of contact lenses squeezed in, we kept on jamming things in, amazed at the amount of found space, and it wasn't until we lost a tube of sunscreen between the back wall and the water tank that we realized we couldn't store anything as small as a tube of sunscreen there.  But we found a domino and a bunch of dog hair in another secret spot next to the bench, so we are hopeful that an as of yet unrevealed spot will yield something useful.

Anyway, the point is R spent a lot of time planning where in Wesley to put our clothes, toiletries, plates, cups, pots, bedding, chapstick, and toolbox so they would be accessible when needed, but in surface versus deep storage based on the probability that we would need them daily, weekly, or not at all, and I spent a lot of time wandering around the house wondering if I should bring my Teva's and my flip flops, or just my flip flops. I'm not too good at packing but by the time it was party time, R had everything in its place in Wesley, I had the van refrigerator packed with luke-warm beer, the awning over the slider door was pulled taut and staked and the loft bed popped up and looking cozy.  We chose not to shatter this idyllic vision of life on the road by actually starting the engine so everyone could hear the uneven idle and smell the overloaded fuses.

It was nice to hear the support from our friends for our planned adventure and to share our excitement with them.  It turns out that many are just as excited as we are, and it was interesting to see what they thought would be important for us to bring along by the gifts they gave us: wet wipes for an instant shower from the musician who had spent time on tour, a bobblehead zen kitty for the dashboard from a therapist dedicated to relaxation, a tourniquet and windshield hammer from our first responder friend, "chill pills" for R from her father to help her loosen up when necessary (don't get any ideas we are a traveling pharmacy; the "chill pills" were just ibuprofen in a pill bottle my father-in-law doctored with his own label), and duct tape (my tool of choice) from a half dozen others.

Then, finally, on Friday morning, July 31, 2015, we were ready to put the pedal to the thin and worn carpet laid over the metal.  

Wesley pulls away from the curb on its way to South America

Our first destination was a brief stop in Richmond to visit my grandmother who will turn 94 this October, and then it was on to Williamsburg so that J could experience the class trip that he will be missing during this, his fourth grade school year. We were a bit concerned that a trip down route 95 on a steaming hot Friday morning in a van with no air conditioning and in the direction of Virginia Beach would not be the most auspicious beginning to a year spent on the road. Things went amazingly well, however, and we take that as a sign that choosing this trip was the right thing to do.  Yes, we sweated, but not profusely, because in what should be recognized by the authorities at the Vatican as a minor miracle, traffic never actually came to a standstill. There was a car stopped in the middle lane of route 95, but it wasn't ours.  A cricket flew in our open window while we were driving, landed on J, kissed him on the neck and then flew out the other window. Oh, and at one point J, the boy who won't admit he's ever tired, actually took a nap stretched out across the bench seat and Coconut let him put his feet in her lap.  It's too soon to say, but maybe this brave act by Coconut is proof in the pudding that she and J will actually draw closer as brother and sister during this year.

My sisters and nephew drove from New Jersey to meet us in Williamsburg and we promptly dropped big dollars on dinner at a Colonial tavern on Friday night, two hundred dollars at Water Country USA on Saturday, another hundred at dinner on Saturday night, and we made our best effort to enrich the shareholders of Busch Gardens amusement park today.

Coconut and J with their cousin Gabe just before they ride some metal contraption at Busch Gardens.

It's an unsustainable pace for us to spend money, but it's been a lot of fun. Thus far, our very untraditional plan for the year has gotten off on the foot of a very traditional American vacation.    

La Libertadora and the Admirable Campaign

This past Friday was Simon Bolivar’s birthday.  In case you don’t know,  Bolivar was a Venezuelan military and political leader who was critical to establishing Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and a couple of other Central and South American countries no one in the United States cares about as independent of Spanish rule.  He's the Southern Hemisphere's equivalent of George Washington.  La Libertador! I read a biography about Simon Bolivar when we were in Ecuador in 2008 and when I came back to work I put an annual reminder for his birthday on Outlook. June 24, 1783. I don’t know exactly why I did this – I haven’t done it for any of the Kardashians or U.S. Presidents. Washington and Lincoln have that day in February, but it’s not their birthday and I don't know when their real birthdays are; I think that Federal holiday is designated mostly so department stores can have sales to boost corporate profits.

This year when that Outlook reminder popped up reminding me that it was Bolivar's two-hundredth and thirty-second birthday, which also believe it or not by some coincidence happened to be my last day at work for the year before we drive through Mexico and the Americas, I used it as an opportunity to get a little bit nostalgic for our time spent in Quito when I knew that if I needed shoelaces I could buy them from the woman in the plaza.

Shoelaces anyone?

I also used it as an opportunity to think a little taller.  See, Bolivar was inspired from a young age towards liberation of Latin America from Spanish rule and not only did he nail it, but he managed to get a country named after him.  (Hint: it's not Simonia.)

Other than an early fascination with the Hells’ Angels, which I eventually ruled out as a career option because I didn’t own a motorcycle and couldn’t stomp on someone’s face with a jackboot, and a desire which I can't seem to shake to abuse my knee joints and back alignment by hiking the length of the Appalachian Trail, my life aspirations have been fairly traditional: job, marriage, mortgage, kids. Satisfied in that order.

Happy family! Though, sometimes Coconut is not a morning person

I don’t know whether my vision of life inside a white picket fence sprung from the stable and loving home life provided by my parents, from watching countless re-runs of the domestic bliss embodied by The Munsters, or just from a lack of imagination. But that was the path I was on and I probably would have been very happy in living it, or at least in my ignorance of the chance I had to live some other way, but for that ingredient which has showed up at all the important junctions in my life – dumb luck.

I think I've already introduced you all to R, my wife. She's behind all of this with little resistance from me. So, let's just accept that I was lucky that she called my name and I was smart enough to call her back and that we got married and had two children (daughter, Coconut; son, formerly Rooster but heretofore referred to as J), and that we purchased an affordable house, and leave work at 5 each night, and aren't hooked on caffeine or cable TV, and have saddle bags on our bicycle so we can grocery shop and borrow books and movies from the library, and that we decided that an overland trip to South America was about the best thing that we could do right now when Coconut was 12 and J was just about to be ten.

Without getting into why the doctor thinks it's crazy how we got here, I want to give myself a little bit of credit because I think I may have been leading you all to believe that I am an unwilling passenger in all of this. No Siree Bob! I was actually looking for a smart, good-looking girl with her own wok and holes in her Birks to lead me to this point in our  "Admirable Campaign" - sitting on sagging IKEA Henriksdal dining chairs for the last six years because we needed to put the $480 that we could spend on new chairs and better back support into this trip. And now we are on the verge of turning the wheel south on a trip around the world.

On your marks, get set . . .

I wonder what Coconut and J think about life right now.  Before we stuff them in an aluminum box and drive off. They haven't told me, in spite of my threats to perform Flashdance on the school playground if they don't. Do they want what we've given them so far - a rainbow ice cream treat of a palace?  Or would they care to make different plans?  Because whatever itch R and I are scratching from realizing whatever it is we've been hoping to realize over the last bunch of years, this is when Coconut and J may get swallowed whole.

They've already been bit - Coconut is twelve and has been on four continents and spent time in over ten U.S States and paints her nails black. Think she's going to do what everyone else wants her to do? Opening her eyes to the world in this way may buy her a lifetime passport. J has starred in a very informative and entertaining documentary on the hot water spouts of Iceland and likes to lie face up on a mattress placed directly under darts stuck into an asbestos tile ceiling and turn out of the way of the falling dart at the last second (well, not yet really, but I can see him doing this in college.)  Basically, he's up for anything, and he may realize on this trip that anything is possible.

It's like this: are Coconut and J going to be happier knowing that they scored in the 90th percentile in standardized testing, or that the oil pan wasn't cracked after Pop took the tope, which is Spanish for giant Mexican speed bump, too fast?  It's like this: maybe the captives didn't think they had it so bad until El Libertador rode to town.  And this time, he's embarking on his Admirable Campaign hand-in-hand with La Libertadora!

Holes in our Sneakers

We've done this drill before. In 2008 when we went to Ecuador for four months we rented our home and had to empty drawers and cabinets, scrub the toilet and vacuum years of dust from our lampshades and fan blades so that our tenants didn't feel like they were moving into a junk drawer. My wife R and I were hissing at each other like a couple of alley cats over whether a box should be labelled pantry stuff or non-perishables. It's completely logical that a half-empty jar of Sockarooni pasta sauce left in an otherwise spotless refrigerator should become grounds for divorce when a relationship is under that kind of stress. For this year-long overland trip to South America that we are about to undertake, we also have renters for our home. It's a testimonial to R's and my growth as human beings that when given this second chance to clean and straighten our house and discard and store our crap, we have not renewed our retainers with Dewey, Screwum & Howe.

We started this emptying the house process months ago and even though we have been working diligently at it while binge watching episodes of "The Walking Dead" and "Orange is the New Black" we still have loads of boxes to pack and haul to storage and rolls of bags to fill and bring to goodwill so the sorters can peek inside, move some things around, and then toss the whole thing in the dumpster.  So even though you would think we would have this place stripped down to the studs by now, we've run into two problems.

The first problem is that we have six more years worth of stuff since the last time we did something like this. Two rubber balls have produced 85 offspring off all colors, sizes, and degrees of bounce.  We have enough pencils to make a tree and if we had any engineering skills could probably build a Transformer out of the number of barrettes, random plastic things, and matchbox cars we've found.  Plus, the kids are older and don't think it is "fun" anymore to help Mommy and Poppy clean hair out of the sink drain like they did when they were young and cute. The message they're sending from behind their screens is clear - this was your idea so pay the piper.

The other problem is that we have a family moving into the house that plans to make it their home for the year. Even though they are graciously allowing us to leave most of our furniture, we have to remove all of our personal items.  I haven't actually asked them this, but have a gut feeling they don't want to find my copy of the Internal Revenue Code displayed in the middle of the bookshelf when they move in on August 1st. Since we are still living here but don't want to be packing boxes up until the minute our tenants’ movers ring the doorbell with their stuff, our pre-vacate the premises packing requires us to anticipate what we might need (fourteen decks of cards) as compared to what we just can't do without (toothbrushes). All the things we might need, we have moved to storage. But even the stuff that we have managed to clear out of the house keeps managing to find its way back. My daughter Coconut has asked for the typewriter, her letter writing box, and our DVD collection. My son Rooster has retrieved his football card collection and World Cup soccer sticker book, and shortly after we surreptitiously discarded his rock collection, made himself a nice new gem pile with "precious stones" he found in the alley which are currently neatly laid out on a towel on his bedroom floor.

We sent these first day of school outfits of Coconut and Rooster to the thrift store.

R wanders around the house with her iPhone randomly taking photos of things to get rid of on Craigslist so the kids and I run for cover when she approaches to avoid being photoed and posted as “free”. She recently sold her dresser and has what's left of her wardrobe - three shirts, a clown suit, and some undergarments - piled in a suitcase on the floor. We have to bake cookies so the kids giddily dance around the kitchen while we haul to the car goodwill bags filled with things they haven't used for years but are sure to desperately need if they see them.

One last plaintive look before being stuffed into a bag and dumped in the Goodwill bin.

In going through my own things and deciding what I will be happy to see again when I unpack it next year against what I'll never remember I even had, I realized that but for the fact that R can often be found at my side, I must cut a pretty pathetic figure. Looking with a critical eye as I was going through my clothes drawer, I realized that most items were faded, frayed, torn, and dated from the days before Bill Clinton ran for a second term. The other day while sitting in a meeting at work I saw I had a hole in my sock that matched up perfectly with the hole in my sneaker. I could see the top of my big toe. In anticipation of leaving this place for a year, I've become neglectful of simple things like noticing as I try to squeeze every last use and value out of things without any plan to replace them. My bike tires are so worn I can see the tubes but I don't want to spend 100 bucks for new ones because that's money that will be hanging from the roof of my father-in-law's shed for the next year.

The other night when I was tucking Coconut into bed she said that she wanted to wash her sheets. Ordinarily this would lighten my heart for how responsible she's become to pick up a chore that R and I have  neglected. Instead, I felt like she shouldn't bother because she’s only going to be sleeping on them a couple more days and the time to wash them and put them back on the bed can be better spent doing other things. Rather than tell her this, however, I bit my tongue, kissed her forehead and told her that was a good idea. Then I left the room and turned out the light; just like we're going to do on this life in a few days - clean sheets and all.

Our Dream House

One of the questions that my wife R and I get asked when we tell people that we are going on a year-long overland trip to South America is “what about work?” I translate this to mean, “Are you out of your mind, man? You’re going to throw away your career, pull your kids out of school and away from their friends to drive them to where? Do you read the papers? This is not safe or responsible.   And you are going to pay for this how? Good effin’ luck.” I suppose I should be grateful that these people consider me well groomed and rational enough to be employable in the first place. But the answer that weighs on my mind is that neither R nor I will be working for the year, which means that unless we hit the lottery, we will have no income for the year. Note, our budget for the year does not include money to buy lottery tickets.

While having no income will be slightly less than we earned when I was a government employee and R ran her own immigration law practice, we are counting on it being okay. We have been planning this trip since 2008. Along with the money we’ve put aside from each paycheck for the kids’ college, our retirement, and my beer, we’ve also saved more than a couple of dollars for this trip.

Yet despite all this saving, we’ve still been able to do just exactly what we’ve wanted – be it the spring break vacation to Hawaii or Iceland, tickets to the ballgame or the theater, or just going out for dinner and a movie.

How? It comes down to one simple principle that has played big in every major life decision I have ever made – dumb luck. Although R and I never talked about money and bank accounts when we were dating, choosing instead to focus on more practical things like whether our hacienda should have one or two turrets and what kind of chickens we would keep, it turned out we have the same philosophy when it comes to spending money – we’re cheap as hell. We hang our clothes rather than putting them in the dryer. We don’t have cable, Netflix, or a Starbucks habit. We turn out the lights when we leave the room, cut coupons and use them, and brown bag our lunches. Target is our Nordstrom and the thrift store is our Target. Our children, Coconut and Rooster, wear handed-down hand-me downs. I didn’t think anyone could be cheaper than my dad until I met my in-laws. And the bargain-hunting, coupon-cutting childhood we were raised in is being passed down to our children. My daughter Coconut checks music CDs out of the library rather than buying them on Amazon.

Now, none of this is to say we don’t appreciate quality. Chinese products have a very, very bad reputation in our house and we’ll spend a few extra bucks to get a better product that will not fall apart in the middle of its first use. But we recognize the difference between what we want compared to what we need, and we’ll shop around for hours using our neighbor's Wi-Fi to find the best price and use the time to talk ourselves out of buying the things that we think we want. I suppose this impulse control can be achieved through some form of practiced self-flagellation, but it’s how we’re wired.

When R and I were just starting out in the careers that we are getting ready to flush down the toilet, she decided it would be a good idea if we bought a house rather than continue to rent the perfectly situated and spacious apartment that we both loved. Some fool bank loan officer who is now probably employed cleaning bathrooms at the airport offered us a pile of money that, although we aren’t very good with numbers, R and I were sure we would never be able to pay back. We ended up across the tracks and with a mortgage that we can pay with the loose change our guests leave in the couch cushions. Despite the fact that it has little natural light, seems to grow smaller each year as our children grow bigger, and has free range rats in the alley rather than chickens, R calls it her dream house. At some point we realized that the dream is not the house that we owned or the stuff that we had, but the life that we lived. Our priority in living, and what we are trying to instill in Coconut and Rooster, is that doing things is cooler than having things. Choosing to buy this house rather than one in the fancy part of town is emblematic of all the other choices we’ve made either by stumbling into them or through thoughtful process and which have allowed us the financial freedom to create experiences, and to save the money that we are about to use to live the dream that we both knew we always wanted to live.

Meet the Cuy

I don’t know a lot about cars and engines and stuff, but I do know that you need a car with an engine and stuff to do an overland tour of the Americas. So, the first thing that my wife R and I agreed to do after we decided we would drive a VW camper van to South America was buy a VW camper van. To give this thought some context, let me go back a lifetime - to 2008.  That's when we spent the summer in Quito, Ecuador, and the seed for this year-long journey was planted.  R was volunteering with Asylum Access, a non-profit organization providing legal services to refugees and I had taken a leave of absence from my government job to buy ice cream for my daughter (age five) and son (age two), learn something that passes for Spanish, and generally goof off.  R helped some people escape from those that wanted to harm them in Colombia and set them on a path for a new life and I managed to not lose the children and not have them eat anything that did permanent damage.  We each achieved success in our own way!  We called our trip the Adventures of the Cuy.

J & Coconut in the jungle in Ecuador, summer 2008.

After 3 months in Quito, we explored the jungles and beaches of Ecuador.

Coconut practicing for her eventual overlanding trip.

One weekend during that adventure while we were vacationing at the beach and drinking rum (which is what R and I are prone to do at the beach) we met a single mother with her adolescent children who was WOOFing around the world for a year.  I remember that she and R had an intense conversation while the kids and I dug very deep holes in the beach for fun.  We parted from the woman as friends, but never spoke to her again.  It was one of those circumstances where someone you hardly even know says or does something that profoundly impacts the course of your life - like Brett Favre telling me to buy real, comfortable, jeans.  It happens to me all the time.

After R helped me out of a very deep hole and told me about the conversation, and after about five minutes more of daydreaming (which we are also prone to do, especially when drinking rum on the beach), we decided that we would undertake a similar trip when our daughter Coconut was in the seventh grade - which seemed to me to be far enough in the future to safely agree to do without really committing to anything.  Then I didn't think seriously about our agreement for six years despite all the times R would bring it up, which was pretty often.  It turns out that taking a family off the grid for a year requires someone to give it about six years of thought and planning.

And then finally, as Coconut was starting the sixth grade in September of 2014, it got real.  R reminded me again of our many conversations (at some point I had also agreed that instead of going by airplane from organic farm to organic farm to provide manual labor we should drive an old van through the Americas.  It's possible I may have been drinking rum on the beach when agreeing to this alternative) and said she'd been looking on Craigslist and had found a rusty old van in town that she wanted us to go look at.  Well, it turned out that van was not rusty or old enough, but after a few more visits here and there around the East Coast we finally found our van in rusting armor.  We named it Wesley and just recently got it back from the mechanic where it had been since March.  We drove it around for a couple weeks and everything mechanical seemed to be in working order (that's the extent of my shop talk), so we dropped it off at with a guy to install solar panels to charge our auxiliary battery which will power our electronics, lights, and refrigerator.  We hope to have Wesley back soon so we can actually go camping in it before we set off on our year long trip.  We need to learn the important things like  how cold we can expect our drinks to get and where, strategically, is the best place to keep the toilet paper.  In another post I'll explain Wesley's very cool design and layout, what modifications we made, and how a family of four actually expects to survive while living in it for a year. Until then, meet your crazy adventurers:

R is always reaching for the stars.

R – She’s the brains of the operation. She pitched the idea to take a year off and travel, and stuck to it through all of my efforts to domesticate her. I’d like to put her in a time capsule because every generation should have someone like her.  She tries to downplay it, says this is not a unique idea and that she’s just tacking on to what others have done before her, but she’s never done it. I’ve never done it. Goodness knows our kids have never done it. It takes some amount of guts to take a family out of its suburban comfort zone, pack it into a VW camper van, and drive it across two continents. But that's R, always climbing towards the stars.  Will we still love her when all is done and done? I bet we will.

Vanamos daugher and family gap year

Coconut – Our daughter is a tough nut to crack. She’s an introvert and bookworm, but will be the first one in line for a daredevil stunt or some other adrenaline-pumping thrill. She’s laid-back and independent and has not revealed much about her feelings towards our upcoming adventure; but every now and then I see the gleam in her eye. Coconut will be turning 13 during this adventure, so we got her a tent as her own space to unwind. It’s roomy enough for her to be alone with her thoughts and maybe even invite one of us in for a game of cards if the mood strikes her.

Vanamos boy and family gap year

Rooster – Our son will turn ten on this adventure. He likes playing sports, bouncing off the walls, and waking up early. We aren’t bringing an alarm clock along because it’s inhumane to set it earlier than Rooster will wake. Though generally shy and humble, he’s confident in what he can do and can sometimes be seen strutting around the barnyard like he owns the place. Rooster is naturally inquisitive and often hilarious. He’s also very practical; he sleeps in his clothes to save time in the morning.

Me – I’m an attorney in a small office at a large government bureaucracy. Over the last several years events in both my personal and professional life have caused me to reflect on where I am, how I got here, and where it’s leading. Some might call it a mid-life crisis, but as someone recently pointed out to me, I’m actually past halfway for a white male of my socio-economic status. Given the incidence of hair loss and couch-potatoness among males in my family, the picture becomes even clearer – time is all I’ve got and I’m running out of time! Of course, time isn’t all I’ve got – I’ve also got a family, a baseball glove, and the complete catalog of studio recordings from the original lineup of Black Sabbath. But you know what I mean.

Vanamos Dad and family gap year

The Happiness Project

My wife R and I had this crazy idea to buy a VW camper van and spend a year driving it to South America via Mexico and Central America. It’s crazy on the one hand because we have a daughter (age 12), a son (age 9), and zero mechanical acumen.   I just recently learned a “starter” is not just something that you order with drinks before your entrée; it actually helps make the car go vroom.

We’ll have to take the kids out of school, where they both have very good grades and nice friends, and somehow prevent them from bickering each other to death as they spend the next 365 days buckled next to each other on a bench seat where they won’t even have arm rests to define their space. There’s a good chance this will be the last time they ever acknowledge us as their parents!

It’s crazy on the other hand because, well, it’s just crazy awesome! I mean, you would have to be nearly insane to not want to take a year off from the daily 9 to 5 and spend it with your wife and children in an 80 square foot rectangle on wheels. Think of the stories we'll have to tell - of being bitten by enormous mosquitoes! Of paying bribes to men in uniform! Think of the shared experiences  - perfecting our Spanish while ordering cold bebidas at surf camp! wondering where the heck is the tow truck and when does the rainy season end!

But life is what you make it; so we’re going to do it. We’re going to leave Alexandria, Virginia, on August 1 and drive 80 miles south to Richmond to spend the night with my Aunt. Assuming she doesn’t talk us into turning around and heading home, the next day we’re going to drive south some more and then we’re going to keep doing it until we get to the Mexican border. And that’s when the adventure really begins.