February 10, 2007 at 7:03 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
I’m still pretty much out of action with the cold so the blog may be a bit restrained for a few days. It’s particularly disappointing because we had a great day planned. We were going to do a bunch of exploring, and then meet up with fellow Airstreamers Ken & Petey Faber, and photographer Douglas Keister and his wife, for dinner. Ken can be seen in the Winter 2006 issue of Airstream Life magazine, posing with his amazing one-of-a-kind Airstream trailer, “Der Klein Prinz.”
But this morning we regretfully cancelled that plan. In the evenings the cold knocks me out. So we’ll meet up with Ken & Petey another time. Doug will be flying off to Europe and Asia, doing research for his upcoming book & photographic projects — I’ve asked him to get me some photos for upcoming articles, too.
After sitting around half the day watching movies I could stand it no longer, so we got into the car for a quick look at nearby Saguaro National Park. Saguaro is an unusual park in that it is divided into east and west portions, which are 30 miles apart and separated by Tucson. The east side is only 10 miles straight north from here.
Although I wasn’t up to hiking, there’s a nice one-way loop drive you can do. The scenery is beautiful and there are hikes to be had all around the park. It’s perfect medicine for a cold.
The older saguaro cactus have holes in them, which are used as homes by birds. We spotted an owl nesting in a saguaro, which was the first time we’ve managed to spot one. It was very exciting, so I carefully mounted up my long lens, crept out of the car, and sidled up to within about 30 feet of the cactus to get a nice close-up.
You can see his face clearly in the shot. Looks like a spotted owl (which doesn’t live in the desert) or elf owl (which does).
Great picture? Well, when we got back to the Airstream and enlarged the photos we realized it wasn’t an owl at all … but merely a bit of the internal structure of the cactus playing a trick on us. Click on the picture above for an enlargement and you’ll see. No owl at all… I had no idea those saguaro were so tricky.
February 9, 2007 at 8:50 pm · Filed under Travel / lifestyle musings
Uh oh. I thought I’d get through this winter without a cold, but — zing! — someone got me.
E&E seem mercifully unaffected, at least so far. In the confined space of a trailer it is amazing that we can all co-exist without spreading colds to each other, but somehow we manage to do it. I am really hoping they stay healthy, because they’ve got to fly on Thursday. Emma won’t make it if she’s congested.
I also have to fly, on Friday, so I’m dosing with Zicam and hoping for the best. But if I must have a cold, being in the desert with warm temperatures and lots of sun is the best place I can imagine.
So what if we had been in a less conducive situation? For example, imagine we were midway through a drive down the Natchez Trace, or Blue Ridge Parkway, or up the Dempster Highway in Alaska? Well, our experience has been that there’s always somewhere to pull over and park it for a while. The spot may not be your first choice, but at least with the rig you’ll have a warm bed, food in the fridge, and the other comforts of home, even if you are just hanging at a truck stop.
This is partially why we always travel with plenty of supplies: water, food, propane, etc. Even without many illnesses we’ve had many a day where an impromptu stop was either required by circumstances or chosen just for fun. From talking to other RV’ers I know that many leave their water tank empty (to save weight, usually) while towing, but we never do that, and many times we’ve been glad to have the water.
Unexpected stops seem to be a part of this life. Planning is great but it’s no guarantee. We’ve had plenty of unexpected stops. Most have been by choice, but we’ve also had some because of weather, mechanical breakdown, getting a late start, and illness. The trick of course is to find the opportunities in every stop, and revel in “adventures” even if they aren’t exactly what you set out to do.
OK, what was a talking about? See, that’s what happens when I get a cold. Last year’s cold was in San Diego and it was a doozy. Since my brain has gone to mush, perhaps you can flick over to that blog entry and entertain yourselves reading the Archives while I get better.
February 8, 2007 at 8:18 pm · Filed under FAQs
I promised I would write about the preparations for Mexico, so here’s an update. Joe and I have been going back and forth on the details as they turn up. The latest snag has been insurance — it’s expensive. US auto insurance is worthless in Mexico, and if you get in an accident, the Napoleonic code that Mexico uses considers you to be guilty until proven innocent.
What that means from a practical viewpoint is that a fender-bender is treated as a criminal offense, and so the parties involved will be “detained” in a prison cell until the authorities are assured that the responsible party can pay for the damages. So it becomes a matter of having good Mexican liability insurance, along with bail and legal services riders, to be sure you aren’t the person left rotting in a cell at the end of the day.
Fortunately, there are dozens of websites that quote Mexican auto/RV insurance online. We’ve been comparing coverages and shopping prices for days. For visits of less than 30 days it’s usually cheaper to buy a daily policy, and beyond that it’s cheaper to buy the 6-month policy. For combined truck and trailer value of $60k, on a 15-day visit (for example), I’m seeing premiums of $377 to $700 — quite an impact on the overall cost of a trip!
Of course, there are many variables that affect the price. Optional riders, medical payments levels, liability levels, and obscure details such as whether payouts are in pesos or dollars and where bodywork gets done. It’s much more expensive to get a policy that allows you to get repair work done in the USA rather than Mexico. And some companies have a good reputation for easy customer service over the phone in Mexico, whereas others …
So we’re proceeding with caution. I’m reading threads on RV.net forums, visiting various insurance websites, reading policies (and wow is that tedious!), and comparing the experiences of people who have gone before us.
To further complicate things, we need to figure out our exact dates of entry/exit if we are going to buy a daily policy. We can buy extra days while we are in Mexico, but it would be a nuisance. So the decision to buy a 15-day policy at, say, $403, versus a 6-month policy for $560, has to be considered carefully. It might be better to buy a 6-month policy for the flexibility in dates, and to retain the option to go back into Baja later this spring if we feel like it.
I’ve also made a checklist of things we need to do in advance of crossing the border: buy a telephone card, collect our documents (passport, vehicle registrations, and in my case a notarized letter from myself affirming I’m authorized to drive the company vehicles into Mexico), sanitize the water tank, buy a phrasebook, etc. Really, there’s not that much we need to do. I’m over-preparing this time because its our first trip.
Today I took a short walk out into the desert for a lunch break. The area immediately around the campground isn’t particularly interesting except for the birds, but I could see taking a mountain bike out for some real exploration. I spotted some cardinals in the brush, and there seem to be a lot of songbirds in one area. The desert floor here is mostly brush with cholla (CHOY-ya) cactus, but it varies a lot depending on whether you’re on high ground or in a dry wash. The saguaro cactus (the ones with the “arms”) start a few miles north of here. We’ll see more of those when we go to Saguaro National Park.
Cooking out under the bright desert stars
February 7, 2007 at 9:00 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
This morning I happened to notice a new wi-fi signal in the park: “Odyssey”. You may have noticed a link (left column of this blog) to a blog of the same name. Could it be?
Yes! I took a look out my dinette window and there it was, 44,000 pounds of mammoth motorhome. What an opportunity! Blog meets blog. So of course I grabbed my camera and headed over to see Sean and Louise, who I had never met before.
I knocked on the door and high above my head, a window popped open and Sean’s head appeared. It was a bit like talking to the Wizard of Oz … me, standing below in the shadow of Odyssey and looking up to Sean as we chatted. Later, Louise’s head popped into the window as well.
It’s a shame we were both preparing to leave. I would have liked to have heard more about their travels in Mexico, although I’ve read the blog entries. We’ll have to try to catch up again on the west coast this spring.
We have moved to our home for the next month, about ten miles east on I-10, still in Tucson. We have never booked a full month anywhere before, so it felt rather strange to set up here knowing we’d be so permanent. A month is nothing to an apartment dweller, but to us it feels almost like a commitment. What if we don’t like the neighborhood? What if we get an itch to go somewhere else?
Fortunately, the new park is fine. It’s situated out in the desert, with absolutely no neighbors except deer and jackrabbits. We can’t hear any traffic except an occasional train a couple of miles away. There’s free wi-fi and it actually works. And our site is pleasant enough, level gravel with nice views of the surrounding mountains and the desert.
After we settled in we got a visit from Mike and Tracy, who are parked just a few miles up the road at a “55+” park. It’s a bit more stuffy over there but Mike wanted to take some lapidary classes offered in the park. Our place is more relaxed. Eleanor and Emma pulled out all their rocks and suddenly the afternoon disappeared in a haze of mineral chat, until it was time for Emma’s evening bike ride.
Don’t worry about the blog getting dull while are here. We’ve got a ton of things to do: work, hiking trails, Saguaro National Park (right up the road), real estate hunting, bicycle paths, a trip to the Florida State Rally, and family day trips to places like Mt Lemmon, Catalina State Park, the Titan Missile Museum, Bisbee, Patagonia, etc. The blog will be busy.
February 6, 2007 at 10:27 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
The real trick to this mode of travel is the fact that I have to keep working … and not just at an ordinary job, but a startup business that demands my attention at least six days a week. Often retired folks will say, “You’re so lucky to be doing this at your age!” and that’s true, but I envy the retired folks who don’t have to report in to a job every day, and who don’t have to worry about whether they can be reached by phone or get online.
So today was another day at the office. This morning I had a couple of calls to make early, so there I was again, wandering around outside and jabbering into my cell phone. I usually go outside so I can pace while I talk, but also so I can avoid waking Emma.
The difference today was that Mike Young, our Airstream neighbor, was out with his Nikon D70 and a very fast & massive 200mm VR (vibration reduction) lens. He spotted me and took these spy photos above of me talking to one of the magazine’s contributors.
In a campground in Idaho last summer, I was doing this same routine every day, sometimes in my pajamas. A neighbor spotted me and said, “You must not be a very good businessman!” I asked him why he thought that, and he said, “You spend too much time on the phone. You ought to be able to enjoy your vacation!”
Well, obviously this is not vacation. But I do hope to take one next month when we go to Mexico. Our ability to connect via phone and Internet will be limited. I could get a “North American” phone plan from Verizon and have some cell phone service, and I could seek out wi-fi campgrounds and cyber cafes, but instead I think I’ll take a real vacation.
So I’ve been working for months to get the business ready for me to be completely out of touch for two weeks. That might seem easy but it’s really not. After three years of being dependent on my daily involvement, the business needs time to separate from me. But the exercise of getting the business running more independently is healthy. Eventually it will need to stand on its own.
I mention this because those of you who are considering going on the road with their businesses or vocations need to appreciate that in most cases you can’t just flip a switch and go on the road. It takes time to get everything lined up. It took me months to get ready to go mobile, and it has taken months to get ready to go offline. But the effort is ultimately worth the investment.
February 5, 2007 at 7:19 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We are already right at home here in Tucson. We’re learning our way around town, getting to know the local events, attractions, traffic patterns, stores, etc. And it would be impossible not to like this weather: sunny, crystal clear, 70s, and dry.
This morning a blog reader dropped by: Mike Young. Mike has been following our blog for a long time, and commenting too, so it was fun to finally meet him in person. He and Rosemary will be here at the park through Wednesday, so we’ll get together for something fun tomorrow.
But our visit was shortened by the fact that today was a work day. Other than Mike’s visit, our adventures have been limited to a bike ride around the park after work. Emma is still reveling in her ability to ride a bicycle, and after a day at the computer a bike ride is just the thing to relax.
I don’t mind working all day when the sun is shining in the open windows and the warm breeze is blowing. You’d think a beautiful day would be enticement to go outside and play — and it is — but sometimes it’s also just as nice to put on some music, work at the table and look out at the mountains. Eleanor made another batch of lemonade from the fallen lemons of our tree, and suddenly it felt like summer.
An Airstream can be marvellously relaxing even on a work day. There’s something about the interior curves of the space that makes it feel like a cozy secret getaway. My secret vice is to wait until Eleanor and Emma are out on errands, and sneak a nap in the afternoon between tasks. Sleeping in the Airstream on a warm sunny afternoon is as relaxing as a massage. For the record, I didn’t do that today, but …. I would have liked to.
February 4, 2007 at 7:00 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
One nice thing about this place is that there are fruit trees all around: lemon, orange, or lime. Every time we’ve been here, the lemons have been ripe and we manage to collect enough drops to make tangy lemonade.
Finally — beautiful weather. 70s and clear sunshine is predicted for several days. We took the opportunity to check out some local real estate. (The Catalina Foothills area is beautiful, but we also saw some nice in-town bungalows from the 1940s.)
Emma only cared about one thing, getting out on her bicycle. The roads in the park are pretty quiet, so it was a nice safe place for her to take me for a cruise. I think she’s ready to step up to a real bike path now, and there are several good bike paths around Tucson to try.
It’s a measure of how much I don’t care about football that I wasn’t wasn’t even aware it was Superbowl Sunday until someone mentioned it this morning. But back in the RV Resort, everyone seemed to be geared up for super-TV-watching.
A lot of Class A motorhomes are built with big outdoor TVs mounted on roll-out trays in the lower section. These always struck me as sort of ridiculous, but to each their own. Tonight several motorhome owners are sitting outside watching the Superbowl, despite the evening chill. I guess if you have an outdoor TV you need to use it for an event like the Superbowl, even if it would be much more comfortable watching the indoor TV.
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