Happy Trailerversary to us, year TWO!

/
Happy Trailerversary to us, year TWO!

It’s our trailerversary! Two years of travel in the bag. We are celebrating with some locally sourced salsa and a siesta in Mesa, AZ. Milestones are cause for celebration because they are not easy to achieve, and this year has certainly had just as many challenges as triumphs.

Most recently, we had the rather unpleasant experience of road trouble; the trailer achieved its first flat tire. I have extensive experience with bicycle flats, which can be fixed in less than 5 minutes, and some experience with flats on cars, which can be fixed in the range of 30 minutes to 8 hours (depending on how willing you are to wait for AAA in order to avoid a car jack). This flat tire was nothing like that. Read on to hear about our new aeration system (a 6 foot gash in our floor)! 

Read More

Hi! We're FT travelers who still somehow manage to fail at work-life balance

/
Hi! We're FT travelers who still somehow manage to fail at work-life balance

We’ve been terrible about updating this blog, and today we'd like to place the blame for our silence squarely on the beefy shoulders of work. Work has truly bulked up this fall, and I for one suspect steroids, but It’s so hard to turn work in while it continues to bring home the gold. And I’m sure Paul feels as I do, that while we’re horrified by this metaphor and also by the gratuitous machismo of work moving in to our otherwise cozy lives, we put up with it because, this is America, and what else can we do?

Read on and I'll lighten up on the work-as-meat-head metapho, while also telling you all about my job!

Read More

This land is your land

/
This land is your land

Hi! We’re back in California.  Oh, we didn’t really want to be back in California, but it turns out that’s just where the travel nurse jobs congregate. This means that after 10 short weeks, we had to turn our obnoxiously red truck around and drive back across the country. Here’s our recommended course of action:

Read More

Empty Buildings

/

Paul's musings from the AYF blog:

The first time I visited Merrowvista was during one of the cold, dark New Hampshire winters. Summer camp wasn’t in session and I was visiting friends who had been long-time campers and staff members. They eagerly showed me around the Bahn, the AC, the council circle. I’ll admit that at the time I didn’t get it. Yes, the surroundings were beautiful, it was great to be in nature and away from the world but somewhere between New Hampshire and Weston Shelter I thought, “great, another empty building.” I didn’t understand their enthusiasm.

The passion and energy my friends had for this place intrigued me, and it’s part of the reason I decided to come work at camp and see what this place is all about. It didn’t take me long to understand.

Read More

Lost and Found

/
Lost and Found

From the Canaan Valley, I send you another reposting of the AYF blog courtesy of TPM:

I’d like to pose a philosophical question to the parents of this camp community; each parent must consider and answer for themselves: Will your camper return home with more or less than they arrived with?

 

Read More

Wealth Can't Buy Health

/
Wealth Can't Buy Health

Hello, again, from the Canaan Valley. My name is Paul and I’m one of the camp nurses. Here at the health center we believe in empowering campers through health. This is my 6th summer at Merrowvista and when I first started, I underestimated the health team’s role in the community and camper’s lives. I have learned that camp nursing is more than just treating scrapes and stomach aches. Like every other Youth Development Professional here, our job is to help campers grow and learn to be their best selves.

Read More

Reblogging our work from the AYF

/
Reblogging our work from the AYF

It has been a minute since we've posted and for that we apologize. Mid-may sent us on a month long adventure across the country and through many of our old stomping grounds back to the place where our adventure (arguably) started: Merrowvista.

The constant travel made it difficult to write and now both Paul and I are working 16 hour days, juggling family, youth development, and ongoing remote work. Luckily, part of our job as youth development professional requires that we WRITE BLOGS, but not fun travel adventure posts so much as reassure parents that their children are safe and cared for posts. With the permission of the camp director himself, I repost my contribution from the very first day of camp here:

Read More

Low Down Adventure

/
Low Down Adventure

California boasts many National Parks to check off and Southern California puts many of the ones on our list within reach. Paul was especially excited to go to Death Valley because it is the lowest point in the western hemisphere. I was excited because Death Valley is the third largest Dark Sky Park in the world and I love stargazing. Read on to hear about our unlikely, low down adventure

Read More

We Expect to be Discovered Any Day Now

/
We Expect to be Discovered Any Day Now

I had low expectations for Southern California, but so far we’re having a blast. We’ve parked in the desert, with a lovely view of the San Jacinto and San Bernardino mountains, which remain snow capped although it is a blistering 90* out. We’re a quick trip to Palm Springs where there happens to be a free, outdoor art installation at the moment and the super bloom airbrushes the highway medians with color on the way to Joshua Tree and Death Valley. We have made a bucket list of hiking trails that feature slot canyons, waterfalls, hot springs, cholla, and high peak pines. But wait, THERE'S MORE!

Read More

Snow Birds, Rain Birds, Love Birds

/
Snow Birds, Rain Birds, Love Birds

This post is mostly to say that there’s no longer a water shortage in California, and you’re welcome. We’re pretty sure the serious dry spell ended just about the same time we arrived. We have parked ourselves safely south west of the Oroville dam, and proven that brisk weather is not the only reason that people get head colds in the winter. Rain and dark days must have a little something to do with it too. Read on for snowy adventures in Yosemite!

Read More

Why is there a bear on the California state flag? It should be a cat.

/
Why is there a bear on the California state flag? It should be a cat.

Odin and I spend about two hours a day strolling the local streets. Some might be able to get their 10,000 steps in just by doing chores around the house, but we’ll never achieve that level of activity by stomping about our abode. On our walks in California, we commonly encounter upwards of 20 (TWENTY!) cats. It doesn’t matter if we’re on an excursion in the snowy Sierras or wading through the river flood of the Sacramento, there is always a feline infestation.

Read More

Florence, a Retrospective

/
Florence, a Retrospective

For those of you taking notes, we actually left Oregon a few months ago. Since then we’ve done a lot of traveling, family seeing, and campground hopping, so we haven’t had a chance to wrap up our beaver state time. Although we did not always love the coastal weather, we did truly enjoy our time in Oregon.

Oregon is full of hidden gems and local wonders. It is a state best experienced on foot, which is to say up close and slowly. We found so much beauty in the microcosm of Florence, a blink town that most tourists drive through without stopping to fill up the gas. We could have expanded this list to include the Oregon scenic byway, which is a gem; Portland, so weird; and Bend, perhaps the worlds most perfect outdoor mini-metro. But—we only spent a day at most in any of these Oregon hot spots. If our time in Florence is any indication, a day is not enough time to know the very best of what those versions of Oregon have to offer. Your time is best spent in Oregon going deep, rather than seeing widely. Read on for our central Oregon coast to do list!

Read More

IT’S OUR TRAILERVERSARY!

/
IT’S OUR TRAILERVERSARY!

We’ve now been living in the house on wheels for a full year! At the moment, we’re parked in the Sacramento Delta, about an hour and a half outside of San Francisco and clear across the country from where we started. It has been a stormy January in NorCal and listening to the rain plink plink on the trailer roof reminds me of our very first night in West Virginia. Read on for some reminiscing, recapping, and to hear about the parts of trailer-life that I thought I would hate, but don't.

Read More

Verdant vs. Vile: Keeping the Trailer Clean

/
Verdant vs. Vile: Keeping the Trailer Clean

Ive said that Oregon is lush, fertile, verdant, but then the mold began to take over and I stopped feeling poetic about the PNW.

The situation came to a head when I discovered a pair of shoes, unworn for 5 days, completely covered in mold. I am not an allergy prone person, but it turns out, mold is rather potent. The shoes had been next to the bed, and I had awoken each morning with increasingly painful headaches and clogged sinuses. A cursory investigation revealed that everything hanging in our closet had become moldy. Unused backpacks were covered in a green film. The freaking windows were moldy. I have a high tolerance for gross, and it turns out that moldy windows is my low bar.

We went into attack mode. Here's our step by step on mold battles:

 

    Read More

    Some thoughts on Voting

    /
    Some thoughts on Voting

    I love voting. I think all NH natives do. We participate in the first primary in the nation (caucuses are a democracy hoax). We can register day of. We can meet all the candidates for state and national offices at town hall q and as. Many Presidential hopefuls strut their stuff in our Fourth of July parades. We may be one of the most homogeneous states in the union, but these libertarian hippies commuting to Boston and paying no sales tax continue to swing elections with their 4 electoral votes in all sorts of directions.  

    Even beyond NH’s primary, voting is fun. Voting is an opportunity to reflect on what you think, and why you think it. Reflecting is fun! Also, voting is your voice. If you don’t vote, you really can’t complain about politics. Complaining is super fun, you love complaining—so vote.

    Bonus: Can you tell what's wrong with this picture???

    Read More

    OREGON, ORESTAYIN

    /
    OREGON, ORESTAYIN

    Sometimes we meet nurses who were travelers, but they fell in love with a place or a person and decide to stay at that assignment permanently. That is not what happened to us. Oregon is nice, we like Oregon, but we do not love Oregon.

    Read more to hear exciting radio, food, and weather updates!

    Read More

    An Oregon Food Chain

    /
    An Oregon Food Chain

    Oregon is an eat or be eaten state. A live off the land state. A nature is a cycle of vicious and unapologetic destruction state. Based on my observations, I’ve created an Oregon specific food chain to help visitors.

    Berries, especially Huckleberries<<

    Oregon is lush! There are berries everywhere! There are so many berries that they rot on the tree, without people or other woodland creatures bothering to harvest them. Paul and I have made several pies, crisps, and buckles out of Oregon berries.

    I had never seen a huckleberry before, so I wasn’t 100% on what I should harvest. 

    Read More

    On Temporary Co-Workers

    /
    On Temporary Co-Workers

    As a travel nurse I work with all new people every 13ish weeks which presents some unique challenges. For instance, I am supposed to learn a new set of names at each job, and I am horrible with names and faces. Luckily healthcare is a profession where all of your colleagues wear name tags. I just have to be real discreet each of the 170 times I check the name badge of the nurse I’ve been working with all day.

    But it’s not just names, I also need to know each person’s role. Are you the Doctor? Respiratory Therapist? One of the many supervisors who I report to, but who I will only meet once on my whole assignment? Transport? When someone asks me “Is there anything I can help with?” I have to pause and think, is there?

    Read More

    Coastal Radio Report

    /
    Coastal Radio Report

    The weather report for coastal Oregon this morning? Foggy. Every morning is 48* and the visibility is less than a half mile. Driving over the drawbridge to town is eerie and romantic—maybe the rest of the bridge isn’t even there anymore—it’s impossible to know for sure.

    One of the new joys of Oregon living is the regular appearance of Downtown Deb, the DJ for “Dead Air,” which has had a regular spot on Oregon Public Radio for over 20 years. Deb takes over airwaves from 7:00 to 9:00 on Saturday evenings. She cannot believe how great it was to hear that jam, just so great, and she really hopes that you’re feeling it too.

    Read More

    The Road Trip to Glory: live coverage of our PNW drive

    /
    The Road Trip to Glory: live coverage of our PNW drive

    In honor of Paul’s obsession with the Olympics I give you a breakdown of the points and deductions awarded on our most recent road trip.

    Road trip enthusiasts will recall that the NY to AZ journey featured several 14 hour days in a bucket seat. The tuck is comfortable, but no truck is that comfortable. Since then, we've made it a priority to take jobs that are an easier distance—this one was 12 hours as the Google map drives. We had a week to get there and the result was a blast. We researched our route a little, but let whim dictate where we went and what we did. +5 points for flexibility

    Read More