Grand Canyon & Angie's Family Visit

It has been one week since Daniel and I returned from our trip to the Grand Canyon with my mom and sister. We picked them up from the airport on Friday, Dec. 16^th and drove straight to the south rim of Grand Canyon, arriving around 9pm that night. We stayed in one of the lodges in Grand Canyon Village, which was a great experience in and of itself since we were so close to the rim at all times. Despite the cold, it was a beautiful, snowy weekend to spend at the canyon. Even though only a few flurries fell while we were there, it had snowed heavily before our arrival so that the ground was white and sparkling. Unfortunately, this also meant that we couldn’t hike down into the canyon because the trails were covered in ice. However, we made up for that inconvenience in museums, animal sightings, beautiful overlooks, and wandering the Rim Trail!

On Saturday, our first morning there, we woke up bright and early to walk out to the rim and view the sunrise. As an official Grand Canyon artist said, with every change in light, the colors of Grand Canyon change too. It was amazing to see different crevices naturally light up while others fell into shadow, as well as to see the rock transition from a deep and seductive red to a light, playful pink. Aside from the beautiful colors, we also got to see some stunning animals. Our first sighting had actually happened the night before when my sister thought she saw a giant rabbit (it was actually a mule deer and they just have really big ears), but the most exciting one came after the sunrise viewing. We hopped in the car to drive around and see what trails we might be interested in trekking down (before we were cautioned not to by a park employee) but before we really got to any, Daniel saw something moving in the woods by the road. We stopped the car and got out to take a look, at first thinking it might just be more mule deer. When we walked a little closer and saw the female stand up, though, we realized it must be an elk considering how incredibly tall she was! As we got even closer, we counted about five more elk either just napping or eating little clumps of grass here and there. We were impressed with how big they were and surprised with how unconcerned they were with us approaching them. We made sure to take lots of pictures before we finally decided to get back on the road. 

The Grand Canyon at Sunrise.

Our first animal sighting, mule deer, aka "giant rabbits."

Hanging out with some giant elk... and yes, Daniel really did get that close.

The rest of the afternoon was spent going to various historic sites and walking a few miles of the Rim Trail, stopping at all of the beautiful overlooks and admiring one of the world’s most amazing natural wonders.  We stopped at one overlook and admired the sunset before heading back for dinner and a game of cards. While we were driving back to the lodge, we saw a coyote loping through the woods and smiled at our luck with animal sightings.  Our first day at the Grand Canyon was definitely a success!

The next morning we woke up early again to catch the sunrise. It seemed silly to be at Grand Canyon and not watch it! We said hello to some mule deer that were wandering around outside the lodge and drove to a beautiful overlook to watch all the different colors of the morning sky. On our return we had breakfast in a lodge restaurant with an immediate view of the Grand Canyon rim. It was probably my favorite meal spot of the whole trip!  After breakfast we drove all the way out to Desert View Watchtower and watched as clouds floated beneath us, moving across the canyon. We also went to the Tusayan Ruins and Museum, which is an exhibit that discusses the Native Americans who called Grand Canyon home and is also the site of the ruins of a small Pueblo village. When we arrived back at Grand Canyon Village, we decided to check out the geology museum at Yavapai overlook in order to try and understand the forming of Grand Canyon a little bit better. Adding to the awesome luck we had been having all weekend, we arrived just in time for a Park Ranger lecture on the geological history of the canyon. It was incredibly interesting and while I won’t attempt to retell his entire scientific story, I will relay to you that one river can certainly pack a lot of punch! While our last day came to a close and we were sad that it was over, we were all happy that we had a good time and that we were able to spend a weekend together.

Replica of Grand Canyon's different rock layers.

Beautiful Grand Canyon under cloudy skies.

On Monday, we made the long drive back to Albuquerque where we sadly dropped off my mom and sister at the airport to catch their flight back to Virginia. We will miss them very much but are certainly glad that they came to see us and incredibly thankful that they took us with them for a wonderful visit to Grand Canyon.

Angie, Daniel, Becca, and Sheri in front of Grand Canyon.

Through the Mountains of New Mexico

After 800 miles, snowy mountain passes, and heart-attacks caused by flying sparks, we finally made it to Albuquerque, New Mexico late Tuesday night. We left Austin on Saturday morning and spent several hours, well into the afternoon, getting our trailer ready and collecting vegetable oil from a fellow WVO user also named Dan. When we finally got back onto the road, we drove through heavy rain and only made it to San Antonio by nightfall. It actually worked out well for us, though, because in the morning we made our way to the historic Alamo, sight of the 13 day siege where the Mexican Army, led by General Santa Anna, horribly defeated and killed about 200 Texans led by the infamous Davy Crockett, James Bowie, and William B. Travis. While I’m not one for guns and battles, the sight was incredibly touching given that they frequently referenced quotes from Travis’s last minute pleas for help, signed with “Victory or Death.” While much of the Alamo fort has been rebuilt, the church and one long wall are original to the mission that founded the fort in 1744. Even though much of it isn’t original, the extensive timelines, videos, and exhibits definitely make the sight worth visiting. We are very glad that we stopped by. 

The historic church at the Alamo.

After strolling through San Antonio, we began our drive northwest through Texas on the way to New Mexico. Our goal for the day was to make it to Alamogordo, NM for the night but as the darkness set in, we decided that Carlsbad, NM was a more realistic destination. We crossed the New Mexican border and happily smiled to ourselves about how we made it so far in one day without a single problem. Unfortunately, we forgot to knock on wood. We were about 20 miles from Carlsbad when we went over a giant pothole/bump/bridge (both of us were so scared we couldn’t remember what happened) when all of sudden we heard a crash and saw an eruption of sparks in the rearview mirror. Daniel pulled over and went back to see what happened, fearing that the tongue of the trailer had snapped. Luckily, the coupler had just popped off the ball and the safety chains had held the trailer to the bus. Unluckily, the stand that holds the trailer up when its not attached to the bus had not magically dropped and the tongue of the trailer was flat on the ground. Given that it was laden with two 55-gallon drums full of oil, a scooter, and many other things, it was impossible for us to pick it up and put it back on the ball. So there we were, stuck on a country road in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, with no cell phone service. Fortunately, there weren’t any rattlesnakes, scorpions, or coyotes sneaking towards us, at least none that I saw and trust me, I had my eyes peeled for them. Our solution to the problem was to pull out the 2 ton jack and raise the tongue just high enough to be able to back the bus under the coupler. We did so slowly, with the trailer rolling ever so slightly backwards in conjunction with the increasing height. We were afraid the trailer was going to roll back into the road but luckily we got it just high enough that the trailer stand could fit back down before that potential catastrophe could happen. We then backed the bus under coupler, snapped it down, and crept our way to Carlsbad for the night. The next morning, we added a ratchet strap to the coupler/ball system and haven’t had any problems since. Hopefully it was just on at an awkward angle and won’t happen again. 

The trailer on the ground after it popped off the ball.

With our new homemade solution in tow, we started on the road to Alamogordo, the closest city to the White Sands, a place we really wanted to see on the way to Albuquerque. At first we were happy that we had chosen a back-road to get there because it was much more scenic than the boring old interstate, but we quickly realized why the GPS had repeatedly been telling us to get back on the major highway. We gradually began going up hill but we didn’t think much of it because our silly minds kept telling us “hey, New Mexico is a desert, there’s no mountains.” But of course, the higher we climbed, the more wrong we realized we were. The things we were driving up were definitely mountains, like ski-resort mountains. As the bus worked hard to pull that heavy trailer up-mountain, the engine began overheating. We eventually confirmed that there was nothing wrong with the engine, it was just being overworked. After stopping for repeated breaks and using lower gears, we eventually made it to the top and drove through the adorable little ski-resort town, Cloudcroft. The drive down the mountain was a bit scary considering how steep it was (we were going down about 5,000 feet in elevation), but the views of the mountains were breathtaking.

When we finally made it down the mountain and arrived in Alamogordo, it was getting too late to see the White Sands. We stopped in town for the night, and started out again in the morning. We drove the 20 miles to the White Sands and we were a bit disheartened at first because of the seemingly incessant rain. To our great delight, however, the rain began to subsist after a while and a beautiful rainbow appeared over the endless white sand dunes. It was an absolutely gorgeous sight and I feel very lucky to have seen it. We played in the sand for a while longer, ran up and the dunes until we were out of breath, and took in the awesome landscape as best as one can in terms of a thousands of years old geological wonder. The awe-inspiring sights continued for us as we made our way north to the Valley of Fire, a 20 mile long lava flow. It’s a very young lava flow, relatively speaking, being about 5,000 years old. It was so much fun to walk around, explore the cavernous lava rocks and ponder about what the Native Americans living in the area when the lava vents were opening thought about it!  In the end, it was a successful day of incredible sight seeing. 

Lava rocks in the Valley of Fire lava flow.

Beautiful rainbow over the White Sands.

Daniel and I in the White Sands.

We finally arrived in Albuquerque that night, and after meeting up with our friend Christina and her roommate Emiliana, we took a much-needed hot shower and hit the sack. The next morning, Christina drove us around to a nifty coffee shop and showed us the Co-op, a grocery store full of local and organic foods. We explored some more on our bikes for the remainder of the afternoon, had a lovely dinner with our Albuquerque friends. On Friday, my mom and sister will fly in to Albuquerque and we will drive to the Grand Canyon to spend the weekend. I am so excited to be able to spend some time with them in such a fantastic setting. We hope that you all are enjoying a lovely holiday season!

3 Cheers for Austin!

We have been having a great time here in Austin! Our first full weekend was a rainy one but it was hard to complain considering how needed water is here.  Daniel spent a large part of the rainy weather working on some projects that Lesa had for him. Just as in Baton Rouge, Daniel easily picked up a new skill, but this time with the backdrop to the furniture rather than the furnishings themselves. Lesa decided she wanted a faux finish on the walls of her dining room and Daniel knew he was up to the challenge. They went to the paint store together, picked out the colors and a how-to guide, and then went back home to get to work. After many different steps and a couple of days, Daniel was finished and the walls looked gorgeous. Lesa was very pleased with them and Daniel had a new picture to add to his portfolio.

The faux painting technique on Lesa's wall by Daniel.

The rain finally stopped just in time for my birthday on December 7^th so Daniel and I spent the day together exploring Austin. He treated me to a local breakfast and then we headed into downtown for a look at the Texas State History museum. The museum is very large, understandably, considering how big the state is. We spent a long time wandering from floor to floor, checking out videos, exhibits, and artifacts. We were both surprised at the amount of information neither of us had ever heard before, especially since I was a history major. Of course I don’t think I know everything about history, but at least thought I was competent in US history! Apparently not, according to the Texas State History Museum!  The museum led us through the lives of famous Texans such as Stephen F. Austin, William B. Travis, James Bowie, and Davy Crockett, for even those who weren’t born here but fought for the Lone Star State are Texans in these citizens’ hearts. We learned about things from oil to NASA to immigration and everything else in between. It was a great museum and one that we thoroughly enjoyed.

The Texas State History Museum.

After the museum, we wandered over to the “SoCo” district. It is just as trendy and cool as it sounds, believe me. There are boutique clothing shops and neat thrift stores and there is even a unique little candy shop that serves delicious chocolate bars. The area is even cooler if you know the history behind it and I’m sure what I know is just a small portion. The district used to be a depressed area just a few years ago, but with some much-needed investment and determined business owners, it has been transformed into the place to see and be seen. The best part is that some of the businesses who struggled when the area was in its darker ages survived and are thriving, hip stores and café’s today. After lots of window shopping and a nice birthday dinner, we headed back to our Austin home for a movie. Even though I was missing my family more than ever, it was a great birthday and I sure am glad that I got to spend it in Austin with Daniel and the Cox family.

The yummy candy shop called Big Top.

Saturday the 10^th will bring an end to our Austin visit and we will be sad to say goodbye to Lesa and her family. They have been endlessly kind and generous and we have nothing but gratitude for them. Despite having our fair share of technical problems, we have had more than our fair allotment of luck with the people we meet along our journey. We hope this continues as we make our way through the White Sands National Park and up towards Albuquerque this weekend. Send positive thoughts our way!

A block of veggie oil jelly... lets hope it doesn't get cold enough for this to happen again!

The Road to Austin

It’s been a while since our last posting but I’m sure by the end of this update, you’ll understand and forgive us. Daniel and I are now in Austin, Texas but we spent quite a bit of time working and playing in Baton Rouge before we left. During the week of Thanksgiving and even several days before, our friend Mrs. Theresa Dreesen was able to find Daniel a lot of work to do. Mrs. Dreesen is skilled at faux finishing forlorn pieces of furniture and making them look gorgeous again and she was kind enough to teach Daniel the trick of the trade. Daniel caught on right away and she put him to work painting several pieces. Furthermore, she put us in contact with her friend, Mrs. Phyllis Eyre, who also had plenty of projects for Daniel to do, whether it be painting furniture or painting walls! It didn’t even seem like work half of the time since we got to know Mrs. Phyllis and her husband, Byron, and enjoyed having dinner with them and getting to know them. Even though we planned to leave Baton Rouge before Thanksgiving, we were thankful for the jobs and new friends staying a little longer provided.

Daniel working on a distressed finish.

On top of being thankful for work, we were extremely grateful for the Dreesen/White family to invite us to have Thanksgiving dinner with them. This would be the first year that we weren’t around our families for Thanksgiving and, while we did miss them very much, we thoroughly enjoyed spending our day with our new Baton Rouge family. The only unpleasant part of the day was that my bike lock was cut during the night and my brand new bike was stolen.  It was a pretty rotten thing to wake up to on Friday and put me in a bad mood for most of the day but with the encouragement of Daniel and my mom via telephone, I accepted that it was not the end of the world. When Saturday, the 26^th finally came around, the aura was bittersweet as we said our goodbyes to our dear friends, especially my young amigo Jack. I will truly miss learning about fire trucks and hearing pirate songs all day long. We want to sincerely thank Bryan, Julia, and her parents for taking us in. You guys have huge hearts and we think you’re the greatest people in the world! When we finally got on the road, it was smooth sailing for quite awhile. We drove over bayous and past beautiful farmland. We scoured the swamplands with our eyes in hopes of seeing a gator, but alas, no such luck. Maybe one day!

It wasn’t until about 110 miles from Baton Rouge that Daniel happened to look down at the dash and notice that the temperature gauge was almost in the red. Of course, we were in the middle of nowhere with no one but cows to help us. We drove a few miles to the nearest exit and pulled over at an abandoned gas station with steam billowing from under the hood. When Daniel opened the hood, the entire engine and road underneath the front of the bus was soaking wet. All of the coolant had erupted out of the overflow tube on the reservoir. We called my dad, who was once a truck driver and knows a thing or two about engines, especially big ones, and told him what the problem was. From hundreds of miles away, he gave us different scenarios of what could have happened, the most feasible and easily fixed being a broken thermostat. We decided to try and drive to the closest town in order to find someone to help us. We only managed to get two miles down the road before the temperature gauge was in the red so again, we pulled off at the closest exit. This time the gas station wasn’t abandoned but it was still in the middle of a cow field. Daniel decided to call our roadside assistance, Good Sam, and see if they could have someone come tow our bus. Well first, they told us they wouldn’t send someone to tow us since we weren’t on the side of the road and we were in a safe parking lot. They said they would rather send out a mobile mechanic if they could find one. Unfortunately, it was Saturday on a holiday weekend and no one would be available until Monday. It seemed we were stuck.

We sat in the gas station for a few hours, on the phone every now and again with Good Sam or my dad. I finally decided that I just couldn’t spend the weekend in a cow field and we were going to make the 15-mile journey to the closest city, even if it took all day. Daniel called my dad and he told us to slightly unscrew the cap on the coolant reservoir to relieve some of the building pressure. We followed his instructions and hit the road, keeping the bus under 55 mph. To our pleasant surprise, Big Easy made it the whole 15 miles to Lake Charles, LA without overheating. On Sunday, Daniel called around to different auto stores to see if he could get the thermostat and install it himself to save money but unfortunately, no stores had it in stock. We figured a mechanic would probably have to order the part as well since it isn’t very common and we were disgruntled at the thought of camping in the Walmart parking lot for much longer. Then, with high hopes and a hint of desperation, we thought to ourselves, “since the bus didn’t overheat on the way to Lake Charles, maybe we can get even further!” We decided to try it and, with the cap on the reservoir slightly open, the bus made it 200 miles to Giddings, TX before it overheated again. We stayed the night there and the next morning we made it the remaining 50 miles to Austin, where we happily met up with Daniel’s cousin, Lesa Cox and her family.

We spent the evening chatting and getting to know Lesa and her family and went out for a delicious dinner at Chuy’s, a local tex-mex place that has delicious jalapeño ranch dip. We stayed the night with them and rode the metro train back to Big Easy in the morning. Big Easy is staying in the parking lot of PeopleFund, a nonprofit organization where Lesa works that gives loans to local businesses that have a hard time getting them from banks. The business is kind of enough to let us stay there since it is much closer to downtown than where Lesa lives. We have still been going back and forth to her house, though, where she gives us warm food and lets us take hot showers! The joys of family!

On our first full day in Austin, Daniel found the thermostat part we needed and spent the morning putting it on. Even though he is not a mechanic and has never been trained in automotive repair, he admirably pushes through and figures it out for himself, with a little help from the bus manual. Even though we never had the problem professionally diagnosed, we really think that this was the issue. Furthermore, Big Easy hasn’t overheated since, so keep your fingers crossed for us that we fixed it! After the repairs, we headed to 6^th street and had lunch at a local, open-air pizzeria. We wandered up and down the street that everyone told us to visit and explored shop after shop. My personal favorite was a musical store that had everything from guitars to music related paintings to guitar shaped toilet seats. It was pretty awesome afternoon.

The next day, my birthday came early in the form of finding a great vintage road bike on craigslist for only 60 bucks that my mom kindly gifted me, along with a heavy-duty lock. It might be a little rusty, but its just my size and rides like a dream. Needless to say, I was very happy with that early birthday present. Thanks again mom! We spent the remainder of the day riding our bikes through parts of Austin and then went back over to Lesa’s house for dinner with her family.

The following day brought us a new trouble. We began the day by driving about 30 miles south to Bastrop, a town greatly affected by the Texas wildfires this past September. We drove through miles of burnt woods and saw piles of rubble that were once houses. We saw tiny green sprouts trying to grow up amidst all of the devastation and two little squirrels chasing each other in what must have once been a lush, green home to them. Seeing all of this destruction was incredibly sad for us, but it was interesting to experience first hand what we had only heard about on the news. One of the most intriguing things we noticed was how one property was completely destroyed, yet the other was hardly touched. We drove back to Austin discussing the seemingly pure randomness of nature’s fury. 

Two squirrels playing in the burnt woods.

Remains of a house.

Melted fiberglass boats.

 

Little green sprout growing out of the ash.

Road through all of the burnt pine trees.

When we made it back to the city, we decided to transfer more vegetable oil over to the tank inside of the bus since we originally planned to leave Austin on Saturday, the 3^rd.  Unfortunately, what we failed to think about before we left Baton Rouge was that all of the veggie oil that had been sitting and separating while we were there would get mixed back up again during the journey to Austin. Therefore, when Daniel tested the oil, there was water in it. Needless to say, we were quite frustrated. Our only options were to travel on to Albuquerque using diesel or stay in Austin for longer and wait for the oil to settle again. Since we don’t have much by way of funds and because of the kindness of Lesa’s family and work, we have decided to stay in Austin for another week and hope that the water separates out of the oil during that time. Keep your fingers crossed for us! We decided to treat ourselves after such a frustrating afternoon so we made a trip to Spider House, an awesome restaurant/venue with a huge outdoor patio and fire pit. We went there at the recommendation of our friend, Christina, and we were not let down. Between yummy pizza and margarita specials, we thoroughly enjoyed dinner. Also, we got to hand out some cd’s by our number one Richmond band, ROMA, with the hopes that they will be invited down for a show some time!

With one more week in Austin, we have a lot more exploring to do and maybe even some green businesses to meet. Even though it was an unexpected change of plans, we are having a great time getting to know Daniel’s extended relatives. We will continue to keep you updated on the veggie oil crisis, as well as all of the fun we are having down here in Texas!