Road Trippin'

I'm going to do my best to keep this one brief because we are frantically packing after a split second decision to hit the road this morning. Brenda returned home a few days ago after 4 months away, she had a couple of days to decompress, and then she decided that she needed some fun to solidify her decompression. Not only did she want fun though, she wanted some warm sun to go with it. Since her last 4 months have been spent in Seattle, putting up with the constant gray skies and rain that permanently go with that city during the winter, who could really blame her for wanting warm sun and an adventure to thaw her out? Not me.

I'm a pretty easy sell when it comes to an adventure. Even though I've had some fun being a ski bum for the winter in Bend, I am ready for a change of scenery. More than anything, I am ready to not stare at the 4 walls of our home on wheels at night. Our RV has been getting smaller and smaller and smaller these last 4 months. We never intended for this RV to be an actual home. It was only supposed to be a mode of travel. So this morning, when Brenda said “we should go someplace warm”, I said “yes please”.

The best way I know of to have a quick and easy, down and dirty, truly American adventure, is to go on a road trip. And with that, we did a quick weather search and decided southern Nevada, Utah, and Arizona were all places that would fit the bill. They are all sunny, warm, and they all have rugged wilderness areas that we haven't fully explored.

For this adventure to be fun for me too, I needed out of our home on wheels. I have been feeling cooped up lately and I've been feeling like the walls of this RV have been closing in on me, so we are leaving the RV behind in Bend for a couple of weeks. We are doing this adventure the old fashioned way. We loaded up our car with our packed to the gills backpacks, we have our needed clothes, food and water, and we are going to forgo the comforts of the RV. We are going to do some redneck style 4 wheel driving in the desert to get us out into the boonies so we can get to some off the beaten path trail-heads and hike and explore and sleep out under the stars. It's going to be great.

We haven't figured out exactly where we are going yet, although we do have some places of interest. That's the beauty of a road trip adventure. You can figure things out while you are driving. We will most likely be off the grid and out in the boonies for a couple of weeks, so we'll check in when we are able.

Here are a few photos from some hikes in the last few days.

The view from the tippety-top of the world.

Brenda is back, and as you can see, she is happy to be hiking with our good friends Armando and Hideki.

This photo didn't really turn out very well but I still like it.  It was from a midnight backcountry ski adventure under the light of the full moon.  


The view from the top of Smith Rock.

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