Last fall on our way to the West Coast we went over Wolf Creek Pass in Colorado.
As one of the most dangerous passes in the Rockies, this 10,857′ pass features grades up to 8 percent in places. It’s especially treacherous when traveling Westbound, and even worse when snow is on the ground.
This crazy pass is so steep that 70s country singer C. W. McCall (of “Convoy” fame) even wrote a song about it, called Wolf Creek Pass:
I looked at Earl and his eyes was wide.
His lip was curled, and his leg was fried.
And his hand was froze to the wheel like a tongue to a sled in the middle of a blizzard.
I says, “Earl, I’m not the type to complain
But the time has come for me to explain
That if you don’t apply some brake real soon, they’re gonna have to pick us up with a stick and a spoon…”
This is the second time we’ve headed westbound over the pass on our way to Pagosa Springs, just east of Durango. In the past, as RVing greenhorns we would’ve smelled our brakes heating up the whole way. But now, Trucker Jim is experienced enough to keep those babies nice and cool, and we smelled nothing when we got to the bottom.
One thing that really helps is knowing where the twists and turns might get you into trouble. The Mountain Directory West for Truckers, RV, and Motorhome Drivers is one of the most useful books we’ve acquired since hitting the road. It tells you where you might find trouble, and what roads are best avoided when hauling a heavy load.
We’ll be putting it to good use on Saturday, when we hit the road again.
When you live the hobo lifestyle, many people will mistakenly assume that you’re either a trustafarian or you’ve won the lotto. We’ve had many people comment “oh you must be rich” when we tell them how we live.
Rich in spirit, mind, body and soul maybe, but financially, we are not (yet! hah!).
Most people don’t believe it, but you really don’t need to be rich to take an extended travel sabbatical and see the sights you’ve always wanted to see. All it takes is the determination to work out the details and finance the trip.
No More Excuses!
If you’re thinking of hitting the road but your finances, job, family, pet or health situation is keeping you from doing it, stop right now and pick up a copy of “Answers to the Common Excuses Not to Travel Full-Time.”
Our NuRVer friends Chris and Cherie recently published a useful 78-page e-book that addresses 15 different excuses that people make for not living the travel lifestyle they’ve always dreamed of. From figuring out how to get rid of your stuff, to planning for health care and making a living, “Answers to the Common Excuses” will motivate you to put your dream in motion.
We knew we were pushing the envelope by staying here this long.
Last year at this time, we were already in Nevada, working as Satan’s Minion and far from the treacherous winter snowstorms that blanket our little piece of the Rockies.
This year, Fall really hung on, and we were happy to be able to watch the Aspens transition from day-glow fall colors to stripped down versions of their former summer glory.
Our plan was to leave this weekend, but we still have so much to do, and wanted Wyatt to get one more lesson in on Saturday morning. He can use all the help he can get. So we decided to leave on Monday or Tuesday.
But now, the newest weather forecast calls for snow showers and the heaviest snowfall of the season, with no reprieve in sight until Wednesday of next week.
Looks like our ETA for our friends in southern Colorado….Tinytown, Lake City and Pagosa Springs…won’t be until a week from today, when hopefully we can pull our trailer out of the driveway and up into the muddy, steep 6 percent grade that climbs up to our main county road.
For now, we’ll light the fireplace, bundle up and settle in.
Once the weather finally warmed up here in the Southwest, time seemed to speed up as quickly as the fat grew around our waistlines from all of the good eats and tasty Shiner beer we’re consuming (we are in Texas after all!).
Our road trip adventures are happening faster than we can write about them, and as much as we don’t want this blog to be a “this-is-what-I-did-today” journal, for the sake of catching up, here’s a quick recap of a few of our favorite stops:
The Pepper Pot, Hatch New Mexico
Hatch is nothing more than a wide spot in the road, but it’s got a worldwide rep for being the green chile capital of the world. When we heard that Anthony Bourdain once said that he had the best red enchiladas of his life at the Pepper Pot, we had to find out if it was true.
Bourdain was right. The Pepper Pot’s menu was the finest of traditional New Mexican cuisine, and I’ve never had a better green or red sauce than theirs (with the exception of my Mom’s, of course!). The aromas and flavors were a smooth, smoky blend of New Mexico’s finest chilies, the staff was friendly, and this massive lunch was just $25 for the two of us.
The Texas Hill Country
There’s an unexpected beauty to the Hill Country region that’s drawn our rig back since 2008. This year the countryside was especially green and lush, with incredible spring flowers and overflowing creeks and rivers.
We love Texas so much that next time a pile of money falls from the sky, we’ll buy a small piece of Hill Country land to winter on. The food can’t be beat, the people are friendly and open, and most aren’t afraid to express their opinions. Texans tell it like they see it, which even when I don’t agree with it, I can appreciate.
Come hell or high water, nothing was going to keep the good people of Luckenbach from holding the first annual Texas Hat Festival.
If anyone knows about hats, it’s Texans. The Luckenbach Hat Festival was all things hats, with a ton of incredible Texas bands, vendors, games and contests.
Like the ugly hat contest I entered. I didn’t win, but at least I can say I got my fifteen seconds of fame, on stage at Luckenbach. I also got a pretty nifty cowgirl hat for just twenty bucks, then ended up wining one later from an event sponsor!
Staying in the Hill Country hasn’t been cheap. Texas doesn’t believe in free public lands or have a whole lot of national forests, so we haven’t boondocked since New Mexico. While it’s been a luxury hooking up to the grid for the last few weeks, RV parks are spendy, costing no less than $27 a night. While there’s deals to be found, like the “By the River” campground we almost died at in Kerrville, they are few and far between.
Despite all of our misadventures here and the high cost of RV parks, it’s the Texas music, the diverse scenery, the food and the people that make it all worthwhile.
You meet all kinds on the road, especially if you like to camp on the cheap in free (or almost free) places, like the Greeley Missile Silo Campground where we stayed for a few weeks, in Greeley Colorado.
I found this $5 a night campground in FreeCampgrounds.com. It’s located far enough off the freeway that there’s not a lot of noise, and what made it especially appealing, other than the price, is it is literally located in farmland, and sits right atop a decommissioned missile silo. You can even go on a free tour given by the caretaker, and go deep into the bowels of this creepy military space.
As one of the only cheap boondocking spots between Loveland and Fort Collins, it’s a central place to stay for a night or two. But we pushed the limits of our tolerance for cheap RV camping spots, and stayed here for almost 3 weeks while we started our real estate search.
It was mostly quiet, but one afternoon, we crossed paths with another camper, a sketchy character who had been staying at the park in a tent. She stumbled out of the bathroom and short of breath, asked me to call 911. I screamed at Jim to get the cell phone. As he went to get it, her likewise sketchy boyfriend showed up, and told Jim “Oh don’t bother, she’s just been drinking. She does this all the time.”
Meanwhile, the woman collapsed on the grass, writhing and clutching her chest as if she’s having a heart attack. In short quick breaths she tells me “I . . . can’t . . breathe! Get him away from me!”
Jim is stunned. I grabbed the phone and dialed. We didn’t know if this was going to turn into a domestic violence episode or what, but I made the call, not wanting to take the chance that this woman was really going to croak.
While we waited for the paramedics, we realized that both she and her boyfriend were loaded, and both reeked so bad, like they had just hijacked a truck full of MadDog 20/20.
When the EMTs showed up, Jim and I ran inside the trailer. From the window, we watched them go through the motions of attempting to treat the woman. After a while we realized that they were weren’t moving too quickly, and were actually smirking at each other while the drunken woman was still on the ground. It was obvious there was nothing wrong with her, other than alcoholism.
She demanded that they take her to the hospital, and the EMTs complied. They took her away in the ambulance, while her boyfriend was questioned by the cops.
Suddenly, the lure of cheap camping had worn on my nerves. The next day after learning we didn’t get that dream property, I had a meltdown. Five dollars a night or not, I was done with that park, and wanted out.
Once we left the Missile Silo campground, I was actually relieved to be paying $500 a month rent at a KOA campground in Wellington, just north of Fort Collins. As much as I hate KOAs for all of the franchised predictability they represent, my paranoia slowly disappeared as summer kicked off and hoards of happy RVers started rolling in.
We’ll be hanging out in this trailer park with slightly more conventional people for the duration of summer, or until we find our ideal piece of land in the nearby mountains. This park is way more expensive and it reeks of the feedlot down the road, but at least it has a pool, and no bum fights either.
I was bad last month and forgot to post our road trip expenditures, so here’s two months worth, April and May, check our a PDF of our RV Road Trip Expenses for April and May 2009.
Some of our biggest expenses in those months weren’t really suprises, just the unpleasant realities of what it costs to maintain a fulltime RVing rig, such as $823 to repack the trailer wheel bearings, four new tires, a water heater repair and $111 on truck maintenance.
April also included paying taxes and our CPA, and $200 to join Escapees. Our phone bill went up, because we dropped our Virgin Mobile account after getting sick of their poor coverage in rural areas. Now we have Verizon, which gives us better service, but at a higher cost. Finally, all of these expenses seemed to have led heavy drinking because we overspent on booze again!
With these hefty spending months behind us, we’re hoping for some low budget months ahead. The plan is to find some land, get our remaining stuff out of storage in CA and bring it to Colorado, and then camp for “free” on our own property until the snow files.
I’m embarrassed to say that like most Americans, Jim and I have done relatively little foreign travel. We’ve been to Spain, Canada and Mexico, and that’s it. But while we do aspire to be globe hoppers, until we feel like we’ve uncovered enough of the best places in this gigantic country of ours, we’ll stick to the highways and byways of America.
Jamie Jensen’s books suggest 11 distinct road trips bisecting the U.S. From north to south, or east to west, the classic routes include The Pacific Coast Highway, Route 66, the Great River Road, and the Appalachian Trail. Detailed maps and clear directions to plenty of points of interest provide for unlimited day trips and side excursions. You’ll also find accurate contact information for lodging, car rental companies, state tourism boards, and road condition numbers.
The best part of Jamie’s books are their emphasis on finding the quirkier, offbeat attractions and towns across America. While there’s enough useful information about major cities and attractions to give you a head start on your research, Road Trip Nation will help you plan more unusual itineraries.
Plan Your Next Offbeat Adventure
The Atomic Tourist, for instance, might select a route from the Trinity Test Site in New Mexico, to the Titan Missile Museum in San Xavier, AZ, to Arco, Idaho, home of the remains of the Experimental Breeder Reactor Number One.
Music lovers will enjoy discovering blues festivals in the south, and cowboy gatherings in the West.
Teetotalling travelers can find their way from the wineries of Westfield, NY to Napa, CA, to the world’s biggest six pack in Lacrosse, WI. They’ll also learn to steer clear of Shamrock Texas on St. Patrick’s Day, even though they could kiss an actual piece of the Blarney Stone in that town’s Elmore Park. Why stay away? Because Shamrock is a dry town.
Road Trip USA identifies attractions one might easily otherwise miss, like the birthplace (and burial site) of On the Road author Jack Kerouac, just 20 miles off highway 2 in Lowell, MA. And how else would you know where the geographical center of North America is? (the answer: Rugby, ND). You’ll discover things like just how many places in the U.S. claim to be the home of Paul Bunyan. Statues of the Lumberjack giant can be found from Maine to Minnesota to our old stomping grounds of Northern California.
It’s also a useful tool that teaches you how to properly pronounce town names before you arrive and look like a tourist. Learn how Sequim, WA is really annunciated (“Skwim”), or Cairo, IL (Ki-Ro).
The only problem with Road Trip USA is that there is so much information, if you forget to consult it before planning your itinerary, you could miss important landmarks like we have. For instance, we passed by the World Largest Frying Pan in Long Beach, WA, and in that same trip, drove right through Curt Cobain’s hometown of Abereen, WA (may he rest in peace!) without even knowing it until later when flipping through the book.
Try Jamie’s Handy Pocket Guides for Short Trips
Road Trip USA’s Pacific Coast Highway Guide and the Road Trip USA Route 66 Guide are a neat addition to Jamie’s encyclopedia of quirky attractions. They’re jam packed with useful information, and you won’t have to lug around the biblical-sized Road Trip USA book if you’re just traveling within those geographic areas.
As West Coast natives, we’ve frequented a lot of his selections in the Pacific Coast Highway Guide, and have to say that his descriptions are accurate, truthful and unbiased.
We wish we had these books when we lived on the West Coast, as Jamie reveals stuff about places we’ve been to but were oblivious to some local finds, like the Olympic Game Farm in Washington. We thought it was a repulsive canned hunt farm, but it turns out to be a home to retired Hollywood animal actors!
The Route 66 Guide is also handy for anyone traveling near that famous route. You don’t have to follow it exactly, as Jamie offers lots of tips and ideas for attractions that are within a reasonable distance of the original highway. We especially enjoyed how he lists local indie radio stations for drivers to listen to, which can give you a taste of local flavor far better than any syndicated radio station can.
So turn off that satellite radio, drive off the interstates and onto the blue highways, and go find the real spirit of America, because believe it or not, it is alive and well. You just have to look harder these days to find it. But first, pick up your copy of Road Trip USA today.
Stay tuned for a guest post from Jamie, about ways you can save money on the road while traveling . . .
During our stay in the Hill Country, I found a great article in Texas Monthly called “The Best Small Town Cafes in Texas,” and mapped out our eating route where we would get to try out some of these hidden gems. If you’ll be traveling through the Lone Star State, I highly recommend printing yourself a copy of this article and keeping it handy.
If there’s ever a state that could turn me into a carnivore, Texas would be it. As we drove across West Texas and into the Hill Country, BBQ aromas wafted out from so many eateries along the way, that, even I, a 23-year vegetarian, had a hard time turning down the flesh.
But I stayed true to my convictions, because we all know that aromas are oftentimes more powerful than taste. Whenever I get close to pondering what a spare rib would taste like after all these years, it’s pretty easy for me to turn it down, once I consider what meat would do to my guts (ick), and the guilt I would feel after eating it.
Luckily, as I discovered at Paula Deen’s restaurant in Savannah, southern cooking has a huge variety of side dishes (some with vegetables!) that I enjoyed, as well as catfish done up every way imaginable. Plus, with the Tex Mex influence, I was happily chowing down on beans, tortillas and all sorts of mismashes of southern and Mexican dishes at the same sitting (like homemade mac and cheese and pinto beans!) wherever I went.
Granted, most of the food in Texas is made with a TON of sugar, bacon fat and salt, but if you’re an easy-going vegetarian like I am and can look the other way, then you won’t starve. You won’t stay skinny (check out these Texas-sized onion rings!), but you’ll certainly eat some of the best downhome cooking in the U.S.A.
All things in moderation, right?
Not when it comes to Allen’s Fried Chicken in Sweetwater! This home cookin’ haven was listed in the Texas Monthly article as Ma Allens, and has to be one of if not the best regional food experience from our entire trip to date.
The food is served family style, and there’s lots of it. Both food and that down home family feeling that is. We waited in line outside the small nondescript building for just a few minutes before joining a party of bikers from Lubbock, at a table with teo seats left.
These good folks were practically regulars, and knew what dishes to ask for, like butter potatoes! But the dishes kept coming, roast beef, cole slaw, okra, squash, mashed potatoes, potatoe salad, green beans, pea salad, creamed corn, macaroni and cheese, yams, homebaked rolls … and of course a massive pile of some of the best fried chicken Jim has ever had. Sorry mom.
If you’re familiar with Austin’s South by Southwest music festival, you know that it took place in mid March. It’s now mid-April. So as you can see, we’re a little behind in our postings but hey, we’re busy out here on the road.
We were so stoked to finally catch this scene. The whole city comes out for it, and they’re really quite welcoming to the hordes that show up from around the country, clog the streets, and run around showing off their prestigious wristbands to bartenders.
And while you can pay the high ticket price and get into some really incredible shows during the festival, there’s plenty of great bands, free music and free beer (I told you Texans know how to party!) to catch on just about every block. We rode our bikes all around town with Skinny Chef and Flux (thanks you two!), and sampled some great tunes, all for F-R-E-E! Here’s a sampling . . .
Big Bend National Park lies along the Rio Grande River in Texas. In the old days (pre 9/11), you could cross the river and walk right into Mexico, into a quaint town called Boquillas del Carmen.
The people of Boquillas thrived on all of the park’s tourist activity.
But then our government in all its infinite wisdom, decided that it wasn’t safe for us to mingle with the Mexicans, and outlawed this favorite activity of Big Bend tourists.
Today, Boquillas is dying a slow death. Each day, the locals risk arrest by crossing over to the park, placing their handmade trinkets for sale onto rocks where tourists gather, like at the hot springs.
Then the Mexicans run back over and sit all day long, underneath a canopy of shade, hoping something will sell. They were easy to spot along the banks of the river.
Whenever we soaked in the springs, I felt like such a schmucky American. I kept wondering; why are some of us born into such better circumstances than others? Not that I’m complaining, but still. . .
I’m so fortunate that my grandparents came over from Mexico at a time when immigration was not the issue it is today. In this era, Mexicans will risk their lives just for a few dollars a day to feed their kids. My own family had it’s hardships in the early days, but I’m betting they weren’t quite on the same level as today’s.
As one of the most dangerous passes in the Rockies, this 10,857′ pass features grades up to 8 percent in places. It’s especially treacherous when traveling Westbound, and even worse when snow is on the ground.
When the EMTs showed up, Jim and I ran inside the trailer. From the window, we watched them go through the motions of attempting to treat the woman. After a while we realized that they were weren’t moving too quickly, and were actually smirking at each other while the drunken woman was still on the ground. It was obvious there was nothing wrong with her, other than alcoholism.
I’m embarrassed to say that like most Americans, Jim and I have done relatively little foreign travel. We’ve been to Spain, Canada and Mexico, and that’s it. But while we do aspire to be globe hoppers, until we feel like we’ve uncovered enough of the best places in this gigantic country of ours, we’ll stick to the highways and byways of America.
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