Stay Rad

The Mojave

2012-02-07T20:24:00.001-05:00

Sometime after dark Tuesday night, we finally pulled off of I-40 and headed into the Mojave National Preserve. A second turn lead us down a gravel road, into the deserted park. As far as we could tell, we were the only ones camping out that night; the isolation and the silence were unreal.
We woke up at the foot of the Kelso Dunes. The sandy hills are some of the only "humming" or "booming" dunes in the world, created by winds whipping sand up from The Devil's Playground, then halting at the Providence and Granite Mountains.

The hike to the hills' crest felt like a heart attack, but it was easily forgotten, or at least forgiven, as we ran down the dunes and felt and heard the short didgeridoo notes ring out. Apparently a heavier person can create a sustained sound as sheets of sand glide down on top of one another, but we didn't have it in us to go up and try again.

There wasn't much else to do in the area, so we paid a visit to the Kelso Depot lunch counter and then climbed in the car one last time before arriving at our final destination.

The Road (in pictures)

2012-02-07T19:10:00.000-05:00

Iris is at it again, so while Tristan is down the road at one of (that's right, there's more than one!) Joshua Tree's VW shops, I thought I'd make an earnest effort to bring us up to date in the blog world. We've been in JTree for about a week now, but let me back up a bit first.

New Mexico to California, as seen from the passenger seat

Tristan raced this guy for a bit, they exchanged friendly honks and waves before heading their separate ways

Look what we found! You hardly need two hands to count the number of vehicles Iris managed to pass on the road, but this was one of them.

short, but idyllic corridor in Arizona- I didn't realize how badly I missed trees

ABQ, NM

2012-02-06T20:09:00.000-05:00

We spent a long and leisurely three days in Albuquerque visiting with friends Grace and Elliot, soaking up domestic comforts and not being on the road, mainly. Paxton has grown a lot since we last saw him, the dogs are just the same, and Albuquerque is alright. Really, we're keeping our fingers crossed that Grace and Elliot will move back to Virginia when they finish grad school, but it was still cool to see how people live in the Southwest.

Pax was all about shoes. Picking them up, moving them around the house, and occasionally trying them on. Check out the sick vintage Italian hiking boots I found in a thrift store here. Of course they're too big...anyone wear a women's 8.5?

The highlight of our visit was a hike into the base of the mountains surrounding the city. It wasn't terribly strenuous, but the view was amazing. There were a lot of enticing rock faces, unfortunately climbing wasn't on the agenda for this short visit...maybe on the way back.

Possibly eclipsing the hike was the meal that followed. Tristan picked up some top sirloin steaks at WholeFoods (thanks Beth!) and Elliot made them into this:

Elliot's cooking is never short of amazing, but we hadn't had meat like this, nor do we expect to for months. It was the perfect last meal before moving into the last leg of our trip. The parts came in for Iris and it didn't take Tristan much time to get her all situated again. We were on the road Tuesday morning, heading for the main attraction.

Joshua Tree, here we come.

The Adventure Begins

2012-01-30T13:59:00.000-05:00

     Yvon Chouinard once said that the word 'adventure' is overused. He should know, having had quite a few genuine adventures in his lifetime. From rock climbing to mountaineering, occasionally paddling and even dabbling in the outdoor gear industry (you may have heard of such business endeavors as Black Diamond, or even Patagonia), Chouinard is a bona fide adventurer.
     I hope he won't object to our use here, but sitting in a coffee shop in Amarillo, Texas, I can't help thinking of his sage words. "When everything goes wrong, that's when the real adventure begins."

     Maybe I should back up a bit. Really, it all started on a stretch of Route 40 in Arkansas. It looked something like this:

and this

     It was the start of a trend, you see, at first a theory and now proven fact: whenever I get behind the wheel, Iris will inevitably act up. After sitting in bumper to bumper traffic, she began to overheat. And then shudder. And then without warning, sputter out. Tristan and I immediately switched positions and he got her started again and over to the shoulder. We found out from a nearby trucker that we were looking at up to five hours of delays, thanks to some midday construction a few miles ahead. Great.
     As far as I can tell, Tristan worked miracles that day. With the engine running hot, the van would crank, but she wouldn't start. Tristan wondered if maybe the engine was flooded and got under the van to disconnect the fuel pump and bleed pressure out of the lines. The next ten minutes were an emotional roller coaster as Iris would start, and then immediately die. Start, and then...die. Reconnect the fuel pump and the engine would flood again. Finally, after several rounds, Tristan effectively bypassed the fuel pressure regulator using a zip tie and screwdriver. Thanks MacGyver!
     The problem temporarily fixed, we were on the road again. We made it all the way to the Ozarks and at some point, Tristan even let me drive again. Climbing those mountains though, man. Just as Tristan conceded to get in the back and relax a bit, the shudder came back. I tried to convince myself it was the raging wind, but Tristan was on needles, asking me play by play details to diagnose the problem by proxy. It was more pressure than an eye exam (one or two, one or two- can you repeat the question?). Finally he decided the van was running too lean and reconnected the fuel pressure regulator. So I guess we'll just continue on this way, adjusting Iris for the terrain at hand.

      Tristan took over driving again, into the night until we pulled into a rest stop (possibly the coolest rest stop of all time) in central Texas. It looked like this:

We passed a windy, but comfortable night sleeping in the van and woke up to an amazing sunrise. Then we were on the road again.

Texas is really flat and windy.

Like, really windy.

That morning, feeling refreshed and with only hours to go before we reached Albuquerque, I insisted on driving. Ha. About 100 miles down the road, Iris began to overheat. And then shudder. We barely made it off the exit, she was stumbling so hard. Luckily there was an O'Reilly's Auto Parts at the first light. Unfortunately, they had nothing in the way of helpful auto parts, but they did recommend a vintage VW shop in downtown Amarillo. We stopped for coffee and a wifi connection so Tristan could search Iris's symptoms once more. We couldn't believe it when his query brought him to a recommendation for the very same downtown shop. I can't even describe how fortuitous our breakdown was. This was literally the first town with a vintage Volkswagen shop west of Asheville. We know, we did the research ahead of time.

We made it the five miles to Danny's Volks Stuff, which turned out to be the old Piaggio and Vespa dealership as well. Danny and Tristan hit it off talking about building motors and sand rails and a number of other things that went over my head. Finally Danny took Tristan's confessional on any and all previous self-maintenance, then pointed us toward the historic district. It was only about a mile's walk to get some coffee and internet and await news from Danny's son Danny. We found a really cool maze of an antique store in a series of old, converted doctor offices. We found the local coffee shop, the 806, a sort of southwestern version of something you'd find in the Fan back home. We walked another block to the Cowboy's Gelato and got some seriously bangin' burgers.
Along the way, we imagined all sorts of treacherous maladies that surely had befallen Iris and wondered if we would be spending the weekend in Amarillo. Maybe Grace should pick me up so our visit wouldn't be ruined. When Danny Sr. called (or maybe Jr.), we were surprised, if not relieved to hear nothing new. All signs pointed to the fuel regulator, just like Tristan had thought. Naturally, they didn't have one in stock, but the Dannies didn't seem that concerned and so we decided to walk back to the shop and amble on. Tristan got behind the wheel and slowly, but surely, got us the rest of the way to Albuquerque where we are taking it easy and awaiting parts for repair.

So that was a long-winded way of saying if things never went wrong, you'd miss a lot along the way. We spent an unexpected day in a town we hadn't meant to visit, met some interesting characters, even learned a thing or two. All around, a good time had by all. Just so long as Iris doesn't do it again.

On The Road Again...

2012-01-26T12:32:00.002-05:00

It's been about 5 months since that first post about a chafing couple in need of a getaway. At the time we were living in the back of a scooter warehouse and have since moved into an unusually spacious apartment in an old Richmond neighborhood. Apparently we have decided that we no longer need space. Who needs space? Space is for the birds. And so we have temporarily moved our lives into a 6x10 foot box, otherwise known as Iris, Tristan's '84 Vanagon....and then there's all that open road.

parked in Hollis' west Asheville driveway; note the scenic background she walks out to every morning

Our first stop after departing Richmond was Asheville, North Carolina. Tristan always goes all starry-eyed when we visit Asheville, it's hard to imagine that we won't spend some longer chapter of our lives here eventually. Unfortunately on this leg, we only had a couple days to soak in some of our favorite coffee shops, restaurants and breweries, and of course Tristan's cousin, and one of my all-time favorite people, Hollis. There was no time to visit the surrounding mountains and rivers that usually draw us down here, but that's okay....we'll be back.


thanks Kelsey for the tasty road snacks!

We got to Memphis in just over 8 hours (way to go, Iris!) She's been good to us so far, but Tristan, who is hyper vigilant to every shudder and noise his baby makes, is convinced the trip will end any moment with an expensive tow back to Richmond. It doesn't help that we've had to spend most of our whirlwind stay indoors on account of the rain either (read: getting our internet fix). Imagine a hypochondriac on webMD, that's about the intensity we're dealing with here. He's agreed to let it lie for now, so we're packing up and starting into the 16 hour drive to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Grace, Elliot and Paxton (and Makena and Leela), here we come!

Weekend Getaway

2011-08-15T10:29:00.000-04:00

Every now and then, a man and a woman living in close quarters start to chafe in their habitual surroundings. Or maybe they'll just latch onto any excuse to hit the open road when it calls. And so we wrangled a few days off (some paid, others not) and loaded the necessities into our newly acquired $300 hatchback.

We should have known what 5:30 AM would feel like after an epic pool party the night before, but in the end we rallied, pushing the dog through the backdoor of an obliging friend's house, and hit the road. Gustron more than proved himself this weekend as we were delivered safely to the put in of the lower Youghiogheny River in Ohiopyle State Park. Apparently they'll rent a raft to anybody with fifty bucks, so after a brief safety talk we set out to crush some class III-IV white water in a two-man Shredder.

securing our deflated raft - "don't stand up in the water, don't breath under water, wear your helmets"

chasing windmills

We split shortly after the river run and headed to Seneca Rocks, West By God Virginia. We ran into some unexpected luck and ended up the only non-residential campers in the area, crashing in the coolest weather I've felt all summer. We spent two glorious days climbing on the west face of the South Peak, summiting on the first and then withstanding an earth quake on the second. All in all, it was an unforgettable weekend. We stopped in Harrisonburg for a beer before we headed home to play, yes, Bananagrams.

first pitch of Old Man's

fourth pitch