Life on the road

We’ve been pretty stationary in northern Nevada for a while, but intend to hit the road again in the winter (it dropped below freezing here last night! So... cold...). A lot of what I’ve been focusing on lately is acquiring backup sources of income for when there are lulls with the companies I prefer to work with. I’ve had a lot of questions over the past year and a half about what kind of work I do that allows me to travel and while still maintaining an income, so I figured I’d write up a blog post on some of the dynamics of my work life.

For those who don’t know, I am effectively self-employed. I subcontract/freelance for a few companies doing science editing and writing (and, more recently, tutoring). Therefore, all I really need is a minimum of a 3G Verizon connection (I acquired an unlimited data plan last year and have a 4G signal booster, which have made my life immensely easier!) and a functioning computer with Microsoft Office... the “functioning computer” part is actually typically the trickier part, because my last two computers have been somewhat iffy. For example, one day last year I spent ~10 hours working on two documents. Twenty minutes before they were due, the computer blue screened of death. I was clearly not paid for those jobs and the company I contracted for had to re-do everything and return the document to the client late. It was a disaster.

That said, although I have been pretty lucky and had fairly consistent work because I have several companies that contact me on an as-needed basis, my workload very much depends on the amount of work available, which can vary.  Thankfully I specialize in biology, which is a subject that is always deemed necessary, in part because all* medical professionals have to have a background in biology; thus, I am typically able to find work that I am qualified for if there are any kind of lulls with my primary companies... 

*Not everyone you meet or see (often on the internet) who claims to be a medical professional is, indeed, a medical professional. For example, many people have been buying degrees and the like and pretending to be qualified nutritionists (although some just flat out lie about degrees), and this is very dangerous. One person in particular lied about such qualifications and nearly killed one of my best friends with her unqualified guidance.

Anyway, back to the point of this post. The way my jobs work is that I get offered work when it’s available and I am a good fit for the jobs. For example, with editing, I have a company that assigns me a few jobs a week, but some weeks there’s more work and some there’s less depending on the number of clients who submit documents in my field of expertise. I have also recently been working on an open source AP Biology textbook as well, and although my assessment writing for that wrapped up (which was a couple of months of fairly intensive, consistent work), they needed some last minute modifications to other chapters, so I was asked to take on some last minute tasks to help finish up the book. I also have a few other companies that contact me as needed, so some jobs are temporary but very time consuming, and others are more scattered over time but more consistent.

I have been lucky so far because every time I start to worry about not having upcoming work, I tend to get a series of emails asking me if I want upcoming jobs. This is great, but then there is the added complication that every company pays on different schedules. My main editing company pays approximately 2 to 2.5 months after the job is completed, whereas a new tutoring company I’ve started contracting with pays within a week. This makes juggling finances a bit tricky.

I think I’m (hopefully) getting better about sorting all of this out and maintaining both consistent work, and, importantly, consistent income without several months of delay. There’s also the complicating factor that most of my companies do not take out taxes, which means I have to deal with that on my own. (The taxes part is probably the least convenient part about this kind of work.) Although I love what I do, it certainly has its challenges on the workload/pay schedule/filing taxes juggling end of things!

By now anyone who follows this blog probably knows quite a bit about my life outside of science, but I am a trained biologist. My training in biology is the reason I am able to travel freely right now. One of the problems my peers and I see time and again right now is a distrust of scientists and scientific disciplines. I’ve done work on evolution and climate change, so this is a problem I’ve run into a fair amount. To address this issue, Mommy, PhD started a #ScientistsArePeople campaign. so this is my contribution. 

Science Cred

-I got my undergraduate degrees from Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Simon’s Rock is a small liberal arts school (400 students total when I was there) that targets “younger scholars” who typically leave high school after 10th or 11th grade.

-I got my Master’s degree in Biological Sciences from Southeastern Louisiana University, where I focused on the evolution and ecology of lizard reproductive traits. 

-I received my PhD from University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with a focus on evolution and ecology, specifically the formation of desert organism communities; for my PhD work, I received a 3-year National Science Foundation EPSCoR fellowship for my research on climate change in Nevada. 

-I have 12 peer-reviewed publications and have given 28 professional presentations. During my scientific career, I’ve taught at several colleges, interned at the Philadelphia Zoo, and was a Research Associate for the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research.

-I currently work as a science editor and writer. I primarily edit genetics manuscripts written by non-native English speakers who want to publish in English journals (the majority of the documents pertain to agricultural or medical genetics). As a writer, I have been writing genetics as well as anatomy and physiology content and assessments for higher education companies (e.g., right now I am writing assessment questions for an upcoming open source AP Biology textbook).

This is a picture of the presenters for the Donn Rosen and the Assumptions that Inhibit Progress in Comparative Biology symposium at the 2015 Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists, for which I was invited to give a talk on my research, and I am surrounded by a bunch of amazing, respected scientists (and yes, I’m aware I’m the only one not looking at the camera. In my defense, there were two cameras taking pictures and one made no noise/indication there was a picture being taken):

Photo by Rebecca Papendick

(Some) Non-RVing People Cred. 

-I was raised in a bar, not a lab. My parents owned a bar for 21 years on South Street in Philadelphia (I recall pretending to mix drinks behind the bar before I could even see above it). 

-My mom as raised Catholic (my grandmother was a nun), and my dad was raised Jewish. As a kid, I went to Quaker meetings and summer camp.

-Before dropping out to pursue college, I went to the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts for creative writing. (...and then I realized I’m not all that creative.)

-I was vegetarian/vegan during my formative cooking years, so I can cook vegetables exceptionally well but still have no basic understanding of how to cook meat.

-Dog training is one of my favorite hobbies (which is probably pretty obvious if you follow this blog or my Facebook page!). At some point I would like to get into dog training for biology field research.

-2015 will be my fourth year attending Burning Man. It’s generally not what everyone perceives based on media portrayal.

This is a picture from a little later in the day after I gave my symposium talk this year, when a fellow scientist and animal lover wanted to (non-scientifically) meet my dogs:

Carson City was a unique experience. I am sometimes surprised at just how different a traveling experience can be. I ended up parking lot surfing because of the circumstances described in my previous post.

There were a few notable experiences in my time in Carson City that really set it apart in terms of RVing experience:

-I was not the only one parking lot surfing. There are a few people I’ve seen on more than one occasion doing something similar. Some in cars/vans, others in truck campers and class C RVs similar in size to mine. I’m not sure if this is temporary for them as well or if this is actually their lives. I imagine this is pretty common of people living out of their vehicles nationwide. Although I am curious if they’re passing through like me or it is just a current hardship, there was a commonly understood respect for privacy. However, I will say, I was generally more comfortable if I noticed one of my surfing neighbors was spending the night in the same place.

A sunset view from my spot in the RV parking lot.

-There was a nearby clock tower  (you can faintly see it toward the left in the picture; there’s a circular light with a pointy top) that played a song hour, including songs such as Edelweiss and the circus theme song… I had recognized song bits, but it took me almost two weeks to realize the entire song played.

-The downtown was kind of weird. It felt like a combination of kind of dying oldish Nevada city but then there’s ste government parts and it’s almost hipster and up-and-coming in other spots... I never quite figured that out.

This planter was in an equally shabby block that I’m pretty certain is catty corner to the state senate building.

This is also across from the state senate building.

This is the state senate building.

And clearly Carson is pedestrian friendly enough that they have unique bike racks and walking and biking paths everywhere. 

-Carson City is the Nevada state capital. I ended up spending most of my time right down the street from government buildings. Yes, the low-end casino parking lot was only a few blocks from a bunch of very official government buildings.

Complete with war-protesting baby boomers out front of the state senate building.

Teddy and Toby visit the Nevada state Attorney General building.

Teddy and Toby visited city government as well.

It was an interesting experience, but we’re glad to be back in the Reno/Sparks area!

I am writing this from one of my most comfortable boondocking spots in a while: a casino parking lot in northern Nevada.

I am a little over a year into this full-time RVing thing, and I feel like I finally have a pretty fluid system. However, all it took was a brief trip to California to make me realize I still have plenty of room to learn with my lifestyle.

With my relatively newly obtained cell signal booster, I was able to turn mediocre cell signal into a functional 4G reception when I stayed in the mountains by Boulder, CO. However, it didn’t occur to me that I wouldn’t be able to amplify something that doesn’t exist.

Let me back up a bit to explain the conundrum. A couple of weeks ago, I arrived in Reno and attended the Joint Meetings of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, where I was an invited symposium speaker (which was pretty awesome!). 

During that time, I had hookups at the RV park attached to the casino hosting the conference. After the event, I had planned to go up to the sierras around the Lake Tahoe area to get away from the inevitable desert heat. On my way up there, I stayed a couple of nights at a free parking lot attached to a small casino in Carson City. I managed to have a shady spot, so even though it was getting into the 80s, the RV felt fantastic all day when the windows were open.

On Thursday, I made my way to the several locations listed on freecampsites.net, which have never steered me wrong before. Being that it was a popular part of California, I figured there would be at least some cell reception at these sites. I was wrong. There was nothing at any of the sites I checked out. And apparently you can’t amplify nothing. Moreover, I go camping to get away from people, and that area is crawling with people right now.

Because no cell reception means no work, I spent the night at a sno-park by the lake that I knew at least had 3G I could amplify. I stayed there for a while last winter and no one cared. Well, this time around, a cop showed up in the morning. Long story short, he had clearly seen one too many episodes of Breaking Bad and wanted to catch me doing something illegal... (I had all of my windows and my door open, so it amuses me that he thought I would be so open about illegal activities?) He thought I was suspicious because my RV is not registered in Louisiana.... it might’ve helped if he looked up the state on the license plate (South Dakota). [side note: I had actually met this cop back in December when he again wanted to catch me doing something illegal. He was very nice after realizing I was not a problem, but he clearly didn’t remember me this time around.] After a couple of minutes (particularly when he realized my RV is registered), he asked if he could take a look around the inside. I was pleasantly surprised that exercising my rights worked - I told him it was my house and I was uncomfortable with that. He said he understood and then went about his day.

I am en route from Denver, Colorado to Reno, Nevada and currently hunkered down in Rock Springs, Wyoming. I managed to make it here just in time for a torrential downpour that shut off power in at least part of the town for upwards of 4 hours. 

This is my first attempt at really working full-time while traveling with a particular deadline. As it turns out, that is not as easy as it sounds. To make sure I meet my deadlines, I can only drive so many hours in a day and need to make sure I have a place lined up to stay so I can get my work done. 

Therefore, I had to play a fun game of 1) identify general area that would be convenient given my intended workload for that day, and 2) determine if there are any free camping spots conveniently located near the highway (where cell signal tends to be strongest; I also have an app that shows cell signal strength across a map).

And, about an hour later, I have a game plan!*

We’re almost exactly a year into the RVing, and since about January I’ve been trying to actually maintain a web presence. Prior to that, I kept this blog and that was about it. My friend Jeremy, whom I met in Slab City, was telling me I should do the Facebook and website thing, so I decided to try it out. I am about as consistent with this blog now as I was previously, but what I’ve found most difficult about the social media aspect of this is keeping track of what information goes where (because, clearly, different outlets are for different things). 

I’ve noticed that I tend to keep my large overviews and ramblings about travel/RVing to this blog, whereas I use Facebook for more regular, short updates about our travels, and now Instagram for exceptionally cute pictures of the animals in real-time. I’m still sorting out how to link everything appropriately and I’m still not sure how people do all of this on a regular basis, but the good thing about spending an extended amount of time in the woods* is that you have a lot of time to think about how to modify things that you might otherwise overlook because of too any distractions.

*We have been camping in national forest land by Boulder, CO for a couple of weeks. It’s pretty great up here and I was able to get my 4G cell signal booster up and running, so I’ve been able to really participate in the digital nomad lifestyle.

And, to keep those who primarily follow this to follow the animals, some pictures of them wandering about the Rocky Mountains (from my Instagram account):

It’s been 11 months since I’ve been on the road and almost a year since I bought the RV. The longer I’m on the road, the more disconnect I feel toward people who live the traditional, sedentary life. Most of this spawns from the amount I have to repeat myself. I understand that what I do is perceived as “weird” to most people and they are just genuinely curious (often times envious to some degree). However, to me, this is just my every day life and I have a comfortable routine. So, whenever I go somewhere new and meet new people, it can be hard for me to explain anything about my current life without it turning into a really long discussion about how/what I do as a full-time RVer. 

I am trying to work on this, but it can be incredibly difficult, so I’ve found that I have become somewhat avoidant of new people recently. I imagine this will be a new phase wherein I have to find the best way to interact with people without my lifestyle automatically becoming the subject of conversation.

On a brighter note, the animals and I are in Pueblo, Colorado. After Vegas, we took a detour to Cornville, AZ (just south of Sedona) through Snowflake, AZ to attend a regional, dog friendly Burning Man event (Saguaro Man).

After Saguaro Man and on our way to Colorado, we even did some hiking in New Mexico, just outside of Albuquerque.

Here is an updated map of where we have traveled:

We have been in Colorado for almost a month. We are currently staying at my friend Louie’s house; she and her family have generously provided us with electrical hookups and a big backyard for the dogs (Louie also nomads most of the year, but is car-based and animal-free... although she does have a hilarious cat, Squee, who lives at her Colorado house).

Because we’re sitting still for a little bit and my registration is up for renewal, I am in the process of switching registration and residency to South Dakota (fun fact: I’ve been to 45 states; South Dakota is not one of them). South Dakota is a good state for residency for me as a full-time RVer because there is no income tax and their RV registration is less than 1/3 that of Nevada. I’ve heard Florida and Texas are also popular states, but I felt South Dakota was a better fit for my needs. 

In our spare time, we’ve been exploring Manitou Springs and Colorado City, which are just outside of Colorado Springs and have great nature (Garden of the Gods) and downtown in close proximity. Colorado definitely has some great culture and nature!

Garden of the Gods:

(I should note: The above picture was taken after successfully scrambling up and down this rock barefoot. Louie told me we were going to Colorado Springs; she did not clarify that we were going hiking/rock scrambling!)

Manitou Springs:

Unfortunately, I did not get to learn much about license plate collectors today, other than they 1) often start by collecting license plates from their birth year,  2) apparently there are enough of them to hold some kind of convention in Las Vegas, and 3) they are very strict about entry (hence why I did not get to learn much). However, it did make me realize that I just genuinely enjoy learning about and doing new things. For example, this is a list of some of the (at least what I think are) interesting things I’ve gotten to do and events I’ve been able to attend since being on the road fulltime (in addition to the typical hiking/camping/swimming):

-National High School Finals Rodeo

-crystal hunting

-various festivals

-drum circles

-glass fusing classes

-midnight rave bingo

-a History of Christianity class

-a city animal advisory committee meeting (kind of dull but learned some interesting information about Las Vegas animal laws)

-offroad in a 1976 Jeep (seriously, the car made the event)

-open mic events (Teddy even performed in the Slab City talent show)

-Slab City (an experience all to itself)

So basically, if I come visit you and you have some obscure hobby or event you like to do/attend, I would probably like to learn about it. Unless it involves license plates, in which case I may not care so much. I am also not super into needlessly dangerous or ill-intentioned things. I also really do not enjoy wasps and bees. Basically anything that can both fly and sting. (I am a biologist with biologist friends, so yes, that needed to be clarified.) But otherwise, I typically enjoy “collecting” new experiences. (Maybe that’s it. I’m an experience junkie.)

To end this entry with a nod to the other members of my RV household, here is Toby learning about turtles and tortoises. He also enjoys doing new things.

Also a nod to my lovely friend Alia, who genuinely just wants to help inspire others to better themselves while going through something no one should ever have to, but looking fantastic and graceful through it all... (she is also an experience junkie. I think that’s why we get on so well.)

It’s been a while since I’ve had a proper update, so I figure now is as good a time as ever!

Since Slab City, I’ve been visiting various lovely people around Arizona and southern Nevada. I will update more on specifics later, but for now want to restrict this to a few things I would like to express about mytravels.

I have recently been visiting some really great people, and I very much appreciate how hospitable everyone is when I come to visit. However, the more time I spend in actual civilization, the more I realize that there are a few things I would like to clear up for anyone I visit in the future (please note this is not aimed at any one person in particular; everyone I’ve visited so far has been so amazing and generous that I find this is a repeat conversation I have everywhere I go – I will admit that I am very lucky!!!).

If I visit you, please think of me more as your weird temporary neighbor and less as a house guest, per se. The most I actually “need” when I visit you is a safe place to park my RV (preferably level) where it won’t get too hot or broken into and cops won’t tell me to move along. I don’t want to inconvenience people whom I visit, and I am not visiting because I have nowhere else to go. Therefore, unless there is some unforeseen circumstance, I will always want to sleep in my RV. The reason for this is two-fold: first, my RV is my home. It has my bed, my stuff, my pets, and I find it very comfortable. The only thing my RV does not have that I would really like is an oven (one day I will replace my microwave!), but that isn’t actually relevant to staying in it… Second, I don’t want to inconvenience you by using a room or couch when it is unnecessary. It just makes more work for you and I would be less comfortable because it is not my space (think of me as being somewhat similar to a hermit crab!).

That said, when I visit, there are usually a few things that I will take you up on if offered, but I by no means require them, so I am not offended if they are not offered. I am always up for using an indoor shower, because even though I have a shower and hot water heater, showers in the RV need to remain pretty short to conserve my water tank (and dumping the grey tank more than necessary is fairly irritating, but again, not a huge deal). The second is electricity. I can run my generator or use my inverter, but I have to be sure to run these and re-power my RV a couple of times a day with my current solar situation (i.e., not great), but again, I do have the ability to charge my phone and computer as necessary (and I can even do laundry - I have a little washer and drying rack), it is just slightly less convenient. The third thing is food – I am happy to enjoy a meal or snacks with people I enjoy spending time with, but if possible please let me contribute as well! I come prepared with a fridge and cabinets full of food and snacks in part because I like to share, and in particular I really like to share with people I like!

For the past month, I’ve been staying in Slab City, which is an off-grid community considered “the last free place in America.”

Our campsite (my RV is the second from the right) - photo taken by Bear8Photo

Slab City, or the Slabs, is a lot of things to a lot of people. To me, it’s where the wild west meets hippies. From a practical standpoint, as a full-time RVer, I love not having to worry about where I’m going to be tomorrow – typically, if I boondock (dry camp), there are limits to where and how long you can park; if I stay at a park, there’s the daily/weekly/monthly cost. And then the local activities are perks on top of that – hot springs, a canal (Toby loves to swim!), hiking/offroading areas, movie nights, “spoken word” events, open mic nights, acoustic nights, East Jesus (an art installation founded by a Burner!), etc. As a full-time nomad, it can sometimes be hard to not be a part of a community. The Slabs offer a community that is accustomed to the transitory lifestyle, so I actually quickly felt like I was part of the community.

Teddy, Toby, and neighbor dogs playing at the canal

For some, the Slabs are necessity – financially or emotionally. The job market isn’t that great right now, and some seek the quiet and/or desire to be left alone. For others, it’s hippielandia – the promised land for rubber and leather tramps alike (nomads on wheel and foot, respectively), made famous by the late Christopher McCandless, whose adventures in the Slabs were featured in the book and movie about his life, “Into the Wild.” To others, it represents freedom from the oppression of government and failing of society. The snowbirds (many Canadian) appear to like the free camping, great winter weather, and breadth of activities in the area – both in and around the Slabs. It is almost akin to a free adult summer camp. And then there are “tourons” (tourist morons), who look and gawk but will lock the doors of their fancy sports cars if a Slabber gets too close. (I’m sure there are other reasons as well, these are just what I can recall off the top of my head.) Some people stay less than an hour to see Salvation Mountain, others have been here for decades… and you’ll find just about any length of stay in between when you talk to Slabbers. There are weekenders, week-to-month-long and seasonal residents, and full-time Slabbers who endure the 120* of the summer. 

It was actually the Slab City reviews by tourons that brought me to the Slabs. I’d seen the Vice documentary, which sparked the interest of a couple of guys I’ve dated, but it didn’t intrigue me much. I’ve been around my share of crazy people – it didn’t seem that special. However, I saw some pompous reviews where people said it was only worth a brief afternoon visit to Salvation Mountain. I figured I probably wouldn’t like the reviewers, so I’d probably like the Slabs. Surprisingly, I wasn’t actually wrong.

Toby enjoying the Slabs - photos taken by Bear8Photo

Before coming down, I had been lucky enough to make friends with a full-time Slabber on Facebook who looks out for Slab dogs. It was nice to come in knowing there was at least one person I was going to get along with. Every trip has its hiccups though, and I’m not really sure how I even stayed when, on my first day, I learned about the self-proclaimed cannibal (who has a sign outside of his camp advertising this aspect of his life), and the next morning, a tiny woman in a large van pulled up to my friends’ camp and started threatening them for “stealing” her dog, which had just shown up on its own a few days prior and never left. That’s definitely one thing about the Slabs – there’s no shortage of drama or whisper-down-the-lane gossip. (On New Years, there was supposedly a stabbing, which had been told to me by a few different sources. A week later, we learned it was apparently something along the lines of a black eye.) I'm glad I stuck around though - as with any city, there are unsafe components, but if you use common sense you'll be okay.

However, Slab City is also a pretty small group of people. Through Facebook and an RV social networking website (RVillage), I knew there was a fellow full-time RVer around my age visiting the Slabs. A mutual friend had told me he was there, so of course I Facestalked him, but hadn’t bothered to message him. He is a photographer (Bear8Photo) with a black and white dog. On New Years at The Range (the music/performance space in Slab City), I saw a young 30-something guy with a camera taking pictures of the performance. He seemed a little too clean to have been here for long. And then I saw a black and white dog lingering around him. So, I went up and asked if he was Jeremy – he had no idea who the hell I was at first, until I mentioned RVillage, and apparently he had messaged me earlier (but I hadn’t yet checked the website that day).

I ended up moving my RV and settling next door to Jeremy for the next three weeks. We had a couple of neighbors, snowbirds from Oregon, with whom we would periodically cook, enjoy fires, and sometimes take trips to town (Walmart is a BIG adventure, and I ended up only going on one Walmart excursion). It was nice to have someone with a similar background and motive to explore the Slabs with… we were even both from Pennsylvania. However, our similarities beyond being young full-timers with dogs from Pennsylvania were minimal. He lives off of savings and selling pictures on street corners; no bills, no known steady source of income. The opposite of me. He quit a job to live on the road; I wouldn’t hit the road until I knew I had a job. (I think he is much braver than I.)

Jeremy, me, and Chuck (our neighbor) offroading at Bradshaw Trail

Offroading by an active bombing range

After four weeks here, my time in the Slabs is beginning to wind down for the season. Jeremy left yesterday for San Diego, and it feels a bit like summer camp is ending. Saying goodbyes is always sad, and probably the second worst part of my lifestyle (behind dumping the black and grey water tanks). However, I feel strongly that this is a place I can always come back to when life allows, and I like having that to look forward to.

First and foremost, happy New Year to all of you and happy 6 months of full-time RVing to me!

I’m finally back in the blog-o-sphere. It’s been a while, but I’ve finally taken enough of a break from the computer that I feel up to updating this old thing.

I spent just about five weeks in South Lake Tahoe (which a part of me misses very much. Good people, good food, and fantastic nature, what more could a girl want?). Just before Christmas, I migrated south through Nevada and am now in Slab City for a short spell. This is an off-grid community/campsite. It is an interesting, unique community that the documentaries do not adequately portray.

I am fortunate to be camping at the site of some full-time Slabbers who run the junkyard, which is apparently the oldest campsite at the Slabs (or so I'm told). Many here are snowbirds, and a few tough individuals stay here year-round; these awesome folks are the latter. Also, I haven't really had to worry about safety with a pack of 11 junkyard dogs around! This is a particularly interesting find in the junkyard (points if you can figure out why... hint: I have no idea what a bionol capacitor does):

There’s so much to write on my experience here that I will hold off on relaying my experience until I’ve spent some time here. In short, it's basically hippies meets the wild west (with some less-preferable tweakers mucking about). I imagine this is what Burning Man would be like if it were year-round and not quite so pretentious.

We recently left Sparks. In the theme of “traveling but not too far,” we have temporarily set up shop in South Lake Tahoe. The only issue is that data access goes in and out sometimes which can be tricky with work, but I think for still being new to this I have been troubleshooting everything quite well. [In related exciting news, I managed to snag someone's grandfathered (unthrottled) unlimited data account with Verizon before they stopped allowing transfers. Which means I have two years of unlimited data with Verizon for exactly the same cost as I spent on 20 gigs/month for them. I’m not going to lie – it feels pretty swank to be able to watch Netflix and HBO in the heat while “camping” in a beautiful, fairly isolated area in 30 degree weather.]

I made friends with a local (also a fellow Burner) who has been awesome enough to point out some of the great little trails and things to see around here… and also humor me while the Eagles had that embarrassing display of not playing in their last game against the Packers. 

I first learned the joys of sno-parks. These are fairly large parking lot areas that get plowed when it snows in the winter. You can get a pretty cheap season pass to be allowed to park at them as much as you want, and California, Oregon, and Washington are states that have sno-parks.

The one I am at in particular is right near a large number of trails, a beautiful creek with lots of dead salmon (and yes, they are fragrant when you are by the creek), and is only about a mile and a half from the lake itself.

So there are, of course, plenty of opportunities for me to make the dogs pose.

However, as you can imagine, it was cold in the lake, so Toby wasn’t allowed to swim. This did not go over well.

It has been a while since I last posted, and both a lot and very little have changed in that time. I have officially been in my RV for 4 months, and it is finally starting to feel like I have some kind of grasp on what I'm doing.

Since my last post, I spent 4 weeks in Fernley and then 5 weeks in Sparks/Reno, which is only ~25 miles west of Fernley. I am here through 13 November, and after that I should be hitting the road again.

This delay was for a couple of reasons, one of which is new employment. I have been lucky enough to snag a couple of new remote gigs, including content writing and reviewing for a higher education company and a new editing position with another academic editing company. Settling for a couple of months has been good for getting acclimated to new work and figuring out my next step.

About a month ago, I drew this tentative plan:

Clearly I am not an artist, but you get the idea. At this point it looks like the Pacific Northwest and northern California will not be happening at this point and I may be heading toward Louisiana sooner than expected. 

Even though I haven’t gone very far recently, we are staying in a much more dog-friendly location. We are a short walk to a dog park on a lake, and Toby enjoyed swimming until it got too cold:

Teddy even tried (a little… to get a biscuit):

There was even a small festival downtown that was dog friendly (you can hear Toby complain about lack of attention toward the end):

Overall, however, they seem to be pretty well adjusted and excited no matter where we go. 

Burning Man experiences and events often come across as inside jokes that non-Burners generally roll their eyes at, so I am going to try to avoid that in this entry (sans the title).

Burning Man is many things to many people. If you haven't heard of it, it's basically a week-long experiment in temporary community on a dry lake bed (playa) in Northern Nevada ("Black Rock City"); the event emphasizes radical expression and radical independence. Also, there's really damn cool art (and at the end they burn a gigantic wooden man structure):

This, for example, is an art car. There are hundreds of all different types of these wandering the playa.

There are also sculptures of all kinds. This, for example, has flapping wings when someone climbs inside the sternum area and uses the peddles. 

Overall I got very few pictures this year, so if you want to learn more about it, I recommend looking up the millions of other pictures people post online.

At any rate, this was my third consecutive Burning Man event. Every year has a different feel and different series of circumstances. This year I learned some important things about myself and my life in my RV in particular:

1) It was really weird bringing my RV to Burning Man. Almost everyone else had their temporary "homes" (rental RV, weekend/vacation RV, tent, car, etc.) whereas I had my actual home on the playa.

For most of the week this was my view of Esplanade, which is the main street in Black Rock City. This year my camp was at 6:30 and Esplanade, which is right by Center Camp and a very high traffic area. Needless to say, having my entire life on the playa (minus the animals) had me kind of stressed at times.

2) I think my most "profound" realization from this year's Burning Man is the acceptance that I am more of a loner than I ever realized. Some people may say "well duh" considering how long I've lived alone for and the fact that I frequently travel by myself (human-wise, at least), but I really thought I would be able to immerse myself in all that is Burning Man for a week straight... needless to say, I was incredibly happy that I had my house with me so I could escape when I needed some alone time. That is definitely one of the ways in which living in my RV makes me a much happier person.

3) I have no good response to "where do you live?"  People are really, really confused about what I do and how I live... but, by and large, I seem to be living everyone's dream (including my own, of course).

4) Having a freezer on the hot, bright playa is one the BEST. THINGS. EVER. 

Since my last entry, I managed to get a Burning Man ticket, have it fall through, get another Burning Man ticket, have another Burning Man ticket bought for me, sold the extra Burning Man ticket, and traveled westward to northern/western Nevada (it was a complicated process). I will specifically address my Burning Man experience in another entry; this will address the traveling aspect of this leg of my adventure.

On our way our out to Fernley, where  we were spending a couple of days before I headed northward to Black Rock City, the dogs got to check out Bonneville Salt Flats (on the Utah/Nevada border):

My not-so-inner nerd was amused when we passed by this sign on our drive:

However, the excitement of traveling was short-lived (for me, at least) when we made it to Fernley and the radiator went out. There were, however, a few ways in which I got very lucky, even though all of the mechanics I found online were booked solid because it was the week before Burning Man and everyone has vehicle trouble. 

1) The radiator went out less than 0.5 miles from the RV park I was staying at, so I didn't destroy the engine.

2) I inappropriately self-diagnosed the situation (I thought the drain had fallen out; I saw a hole underneath with liquid dripping down... turns out liquid just gets everywhere), but couldn't find the appropriate parts at the local auto shop....

3) On a frustrated bike ride back to my RV park (I believe I was at 10 miles total in less than 12 hours at that point on a bike with no front breaks that was not my bike, because my bike had flat tires), I managed to find a little hole in the wall and asked for advice; it turned out they were actually available to fix my radiator.

4) Even though the radiator is not officially covered under any warranty I have for the RV, I called the sales warranty department of Cruise America and they said they would cover it since I so recently bought the RV and the mechanic had said it went out from age. They covered it up front with a credit card, so I didn't even have to deal with reimbursement.

All of that meant I left for Burning Man only 5 hours after my originally scheduled departure! Sometimes I feel like the luckiest unlucky person alive.

Yesterday I sold my RAV4. I took a pretty big loss on it, but the trade-off was waiting around to figure out what to do with it or having it just sit around. In the end, I know when I have enough saved up I can get another car, but at the same time I truly adored this car (as much as you can adore a car). 

My RAV4 was my first off-road vehicle. Because of that car I was able to explore so many parts of the country that would otherwise have been off limits to me. For example, on our very first off-road trip, we did a very daring trek up Harquahala Mountain in Arizona to hunt for scorpions and a rare chocolate morph of a species of boa (the specific species I cannot recall right now since we never found it):

We saw a lot of cool looking Saquaro cacti, like this zombie cactus:

After stupidly telling ourselves repeatedly that "well, we've gone this far, we just need to go a little further" up the steep, shaley sides, we somehow made it to the top without falling off the side of the mountain:

And that's when I knew she was worth the cost of 4WD.

Unfortunately for me, her 4WD was not true 4WD ("4WD-on-the-fly," basically AWD)... meaning I couldn't flat tow her. 

In the end selling my car was much harder for me than getting rid of my apartment, because in a sense that car offers me a freedom that the RV never will in the back country. However, for now it was the right decision, and I feel a weight lifted off me from that apprehension about what I should do with my car.

Today marks 1 month since I started living in my RV. I think it was pretty successful - I made it to the two places I intended to go (Dixie National Forest and Rock Springs, Wyoming), paid my bills, and exceeded my minimum required income to comfortably sustain my life choices while still having time to experience my surroundings - tonight there is even a County Fair that we will be enjoying (provided it is not raining too heavy). I absolutely love the dynamics of small towns, like someone running for Coroner advertising on horseback during a parade:

And, as I stated before, there is plenty of open space and activities for the dogs:

Overall, I’ve been surprised by how easy the transition was for all of us - the cat included (she went back to her evil, Toby-bullying ways in no time). The main differences I’ve noticed are that I’ve had to become more comfortable with mechanical and electrical concepts and traveling is just a lot more convenient. Even though gas is pretty pricey, the price is pretty comparable to when I stay at hotels while traveling, and it’s really nice to always be able to curl up in my own bed at night. Toby agrees and is thoroughly exhausted every morning:

I sound quite silly, but you get the idea. The funniest part is that the video was taken at about 11am. Toby is clearly not a morning dog!

The only downsides are that I still don't know what to do about my car and I’m starting to see a lot of my friends posting about going to the Joint Meetings of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (fish, reptile, and amphibian people!) and Burning Man, neither of which I can attend this year. The good news, however, is that next year they are both pretty close together - both in time and location (JMIH in Reno, Burning Man in Gerlach), so I am determined to be at both next year!

I am also in the process of renovating right now. Pretty soon I might be getting a solar panel or two (hooray!), and I am currently in the process of repainting the faux wood in my RV and making new curtains:

And, as I started on my renovations (although I’m going at basically a snail’s pace right now), Springer has been making amazing progress on fixing up his amazing truck camper: