Tumbleweed

Our van excursion so far has had no sponsors which we're generally fine with but it does seem like we're missing out on some excellent marketing opportunities. Imagine the possibilities - my daily run could be brought to you by the good people of Hoka or Salomon, our camping excursions could be sponsored by North Face or Patagonia and our van itself could be sponsored by any number of companies looking for maximum exposure and association with a worthy cause. In fact, we have a number of white patches all over our van (see photo below) just waiting for the right sponsor to step forward and slap their logo on our vehicle to turn their fortunes around. Now that the call is out there, I suspect in no time we'll be more sponsored than your favorite NASCAR driver! So don't be bashful, spread the word and let's watch those lucrative sponsorship deals roll in!  We received some excellent suggestions for our van name a couple weeks ago. Thanks so much for submitting your id...

We arrived in Santa Monica a week ago and have been staying with my aunt which has been a great break from life on the road. We also had been putting off a bunch of van maintenance and related projects until we got here since these things are more easily accomplished at someone's house rather than a Walmart parking lot. In fact, our projects will be the focus of this week's blog since we haven't really been doing much travel this week. Apologies that there aren't many photos but fixing water leaks doesn't inspire me to take photos! Our punch list for the week consisted of installing rear windows in the van, installing a swivel seat on the passenger seat, fixing a persistent leak near the shower and fixing our inverter (finally!). We started with fixing the shower leak which we suspected was likely a contributing factor to the stinky van that I mentioned a couple weeks ago. As with most things in the van, extensive trouble shooting is necessary before fixing a proble...

Before getting into this blog post, we need your help in naming our van as we're now six weeks into our adventure and we still haven't landed on a name. Some names that haven't fully stuck are Willy Wonky (the name during the van build when most things we did were a little on the wonky side!), Patches (you've probably noticed the funny white patches on our van where the Amazon logos used to be) and Mochi the Catbus (inspired by Ginny's love for mochi and the crazy catbus in Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro ). We've also thought about naming the van after Scout since we were supposed to be sharing this adventure with him. So, if you have ideas for names, please add them to the comments below. Many thanks! We've spent the past week driving down the California coast from the Bay Area to Los Angeles. It's a drive we know well although we typically would have done it in a day in the past whereas this time we took our sweet time to meander down the coast. We...

Before getting into this blog post, I thought I'd take a moment to explain the blog name 'Tumbleweed As, Bro' as my friend Adam asked about it last night. Ginny came up with the name tumbleweed and I liked it as it really captured the essence of how we're living in the van - no deep roots and just going whichever way the wind blows us. Tumbleweed was not available on blogspot so I had to get creative to still use the name. In New Zealand, adding 'as' after adjectives like sweet or cool provides a point of emphasis and is the equivalent of saying 'right on' or 'awesome'. And since I'm already being very casual using New Zealand slang in my blog name I thought why not throw a 'bro' on the end too.....right, bro? So there you have it - the genesis of 'Tumbleweed As, Bro'!          We've been in California for over a week now and are enjoying the more temperate weather. We haven't had to fire up the heater, worry about our...

Even though both Ginny and I are from the East Coast, we really love the West and connect more with the land and the wide open landscapes of the western US. It's hard to put into words but there's something inspiring and freeing about big mountains, endless horizons and desert landscapes. Terry Tempest Williams said it best with this quote:   "To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from." And there's no question that the West is much better for the lifestyle that we're currently living. We've had our best campsites of the trip during the past week as we've traveled through New Mexico, Arizona and California.  We spent a full week in New Mexico which Ginny had never visited before. We loved the high desert and mountains of Northern New Mexico. Photo below shows a traditional adobe structure in Taos, NM. As we were leaving the state, we stumbled upon the El Mal...