stinkyslinky

May 12-19, 2015 In typical Taos fashion I’m writing this post while drinking some local brews and breathing in the fresh air. Now I understand you might not know anything about Taos, New Mexico so let me give you a quick primer. Picture Mad Max mixed with Steam Punk, now throw in a few new age crystals and add some Native Americans and you would only be lacking a pinch of angst. Once completely mixed make sure to re-separate and you’ll have a good feel for Taos. No doubt that’s the brew talking but it’s nonetheless our experience of the interesting desert town. Why go in the first place? I can hear you telepathically asking. Earthships are the only answer I really have. Breweries might come in a close second but green building is what really brought us out of the mountains and down onto the Taos plateau. Earthships are homes that are zero energy to live in once built. If that’s not impressive then I guess you like paying utility bills. I don’t. So how do you build a home that is net zero energy to live in and collects it’s own water? One word, Dirt. Yup, you read that correct but instead of typing away my buzz educating you on the ways of off-grid living I’ll simply leave a link, here. Now that that’s out of the way let’s get back to Taos and the steam punk crazies that live there. As soon as we arrived we noticed that something was off with the little town and not just the cost of a cup of crappy coffee. Which was undoubtedly over priced, but I still think that something happened when we pushed [...]

Cortez, CO Mesa Verde National Park, Chaco Culture National Historic Park, Aztec Ruins National Monument, and Canyon de Chelly National Monument May 5-12, 2015 Are we in Mesa Verde? Is this Verde? Yes. Yes it is. We arrived excited about checking out Durango CO, why? Why not? Any town named Durango deserves a good touring in my book. OK, I don’t actually have “a book” but the expression still applies. Durango turned out to be a quaint college town tucked away at the base of the Colorado Mountains. Brewery. Check. I like this place already. I’m easy to please. We walked the town and felt a vibe similar to Athens, GA. Durango was about an hour drive from our temporary parking pad so we headed back to where the 50-amp plug was, aka home. Bird's eye view of Durango, Colorado Mesa Verde National Park was literally right across the street from our campground so the next morning we drove the park and enjoyed all the cliff dwellings. That is what Mesa Verde is famous for after all. We immersed ourselves in Native American history as we toured Balcony Cliff House and Spruce Grove Cliff House. Cliff Palace is also a large complex that was amazing to see in person. There is something about homes perched precariously on the sides of cliffs that bring back a feeling of true oneness with nature. So close to falling to your death, it brings about a heightened awareness that leads to taking everything in that much more than say walking through Durango. One is not better in my mind just different. Unfortunately, on our visit Cliff Palace was closed for restoration, as it is literally sliding off the [...]

March 27- April 14, 2015 Ahh…it’s good to be back in the red rocks of Sedona. I have already said all one needs to hear about Sedona (check out our previous blog here). If my words have not sparked a desire to pay this place a visit then good, it’s getting overcrowded here anyway. We decided to stay around in the area for three weeks and spent little to no time getting reacquainted with our vacation spot. The town of Cottonwood is closer to the RV Park than Sedona so only because of sheer proximity the little town became our home. Of course Sedona has a ton of great hiking trails, magnificent vistas, and health conscious food, so we did our due diligence of indulging when time permitted, which it always does when you are neck deep in travel. We did manage to do a few things that we had reluctantly missed on our previous visits so I guess I will write a little about them. Just keep in mind all the usual vortexes, restaurants, and crystal shops were revisited. So what’s new? Slide Rock State Park peaked our interest since the desert days were unusually hot for this time of year. This state park has easy walking trails and plenty of tourists and locals in bathing gear. Why, you might wonder? Well as the name implies there are a number of rock slides that backsides have smoothed down along with the raging river. Actually this time of year, before the monsoons begin, the water is not really raging and it is ICE cold. Refreshing is more of the term used to coax bathing cladded families into the pools and slides. Refreshing it [...]

Lake Havasu City, AZ March 1-10, 2015 We arrived at our nice site at Cattail Cove State Park, on the banks of Lake Havasu, with no issues. The drive was scenic and painless. Those two rarely go together while driving around your bath and a half home on wheels. This post is going to be a little short only because we did not do epic things while staying on the lake. We took some downtime to relax and float around. Of course we drove to town often and hit up nearly every brewery in the area. By now you should realize that is a given. We also managed to explore downtown thoroughly. This included a few walks under the famous London Bridge, which was brought brick by brick from London.  The city thought it was getting the actual Tower Bridge, bummer. The rest of the time was spent on the lake. That was a daily decompression from the hellish experience of installing an RO (Reverse Osmosis filtration) system in the rig. The project should have been easy, but once the filter I ordered online arrived I realized that all the parts that are needed to connect it to an RV were nowhere to be found. So the daily search for needed parts, finding a tank that fit under our sink, and the tools needed to install said filtering system began. It really was not as bad as I'm making it sound but our PR blog manager said that bad experiences tend to sell better to the younger generation than positive ones. And with nine people checking our blog on a regular basis I thought that adding some Hell to the story might [...]

3:10 to Yuma, AZ Well, we decided to follow a path further south to Yuma to check out what all the hoopla was about. Sadly, we found out that it was mostly all talk and no action. Of course this “all talk” is a metaphor for Mexican dentistry and “no action” is another metaphor for relaxing in the sunniest place in the world. But don’t let me get too far ahead of myself. Let’s start from the beginning of it all, The Prison Hill Brewery. Yuma is known for its territorial prison which helped calm some of the wild out of the West, and where you have a prison a brewery is sure to follow. Upon landing at our sunny location just outside of Yuma City we dropped into the brewery for some suds and pub grub. Fairly priced brews were a thing of our past since we had hit California but, as fate would have it, cheap beer can still be found just across the boarder in Arizona. The days in Yuma were hot which is why we chose it in the dead of winter. Shooting straight temperatures averaging 78 degrees this weather is made for boondocking. We opted for a cheap stay with full hookups but the desert hills were full of wildcampers and dune buggies. We of course did some proper jail time in the old prison, Yuma Territorial Prison, with our free time. Personally, I like the brewery better than old rusty cells that whisper of dusty sunburned wild men. That’s just not my kind of vibe, but each to their own. We also worked in a legal boarder crossing into old Mexico to check out the [...]

Palm Desert, CA Saturday January 17-30, 2015 Disclaimer: Satire Alert (sort of) After trekking through hours of horrible LA traffic I could almost smell our new destination. Icy hot can do that to a youthful nostril. We made it to our Palm Desert location, just outside of Palm Springs, the mecca of older nomads and geriatrics in general. It was a tight squeeze getting parked but with the help of all the friendly blue hairs it was breeze. My park job was the work of the entire village. Once parked everyone disappeared back into his or her familiar retirement role. I joke because I myself jumped out of my rig to help a few new arrivals miss the towed and get safely stowed amongst the palms. I never have to complain about late night disturbances, people driving too fast, or generally being heard. I’m kidding because we actually like it. People are always asking me to open can goods as if I am Hercules. Perhaps I am. On a serious note old people are easy. They are done giving a shit, if you know what I mean, and since that part is gone they just want to have a little fun. Pool volleyball can become so competitive that ACLs are blown, no joke. Sports at the parks are to be taken serious but the rest of life is laid back and in slow motion. Want to get a feeling of the lifestyle I’m talking about? Just image the last ten years of your own life. That’s how they live. They still drink wine, listen to music, play sports, eat good food, and all by 9pm. It’s like Utopia. Anyway enough about my peeps, [...]