Wine, Bonsai, and Dollar General Bags taped to the Camper

Well we finally landed back in Asheville last night. The last leg of the trip was probably the hairiest we have experienced in our travels. I wish we had more pictures to show us unshowered looking absolutely crazy and homeless...discovering a bottle of olive oil had busted all over the inside of the camper....realizing a large steel cover on the water heater had flown off on the highway somewhere outside of Memphis...dealing with leaky windows which eventually soaked the floor....crawling out of the camper at Walmarts in 30 degree weather on a Tuesday morning....oh the list goes on.  But instead we managed to capture the happier times...dry and loving life in Arizona..

One of the highlights for us was visiting Maynard's vineyard and wineries in AZ.  In case you have no idea who Maynard is..he was the lead singer in Tool...and now has a band called Puscifer.  We were hoping to run into him while we were there...but I guess he was on tour.  Instead we met several people who loved telling us all about him and how tight they were with him..

This is the view from the old mining town way up on a mountain called Jerome where he put one of the tasting rooms...the picture doesn't do justice to how pretty it is there.  Interesting locals....that's all I'm gonna say about that..

I am trying to not slip into a deep dark depression looking at the pictures of us in the hot sun now that I am back in the cold drizzly rain...ugh.  Here's Paul keepin it real at a campsite...

On Easter we drove down to Mesa to visit my Grandmother and her twin sister. My Grandmother is in the shades. What a lovely visit.  I'm always amazed watching these women in their 80's cook dinner..hang out outside on the patio and talk about the old days.  I hope I inherited their superwoman genes.

My grandmother's twin and her husband have an amazing Bonsai garden. Couple of orbs floating around in that picture too.....

 An artsy pic driving back across the country. I don't know if other people have had problems with old country songs getting stuck in their head when reading the city names out in the midwest.  Driving through Oklahoma City was the worst.  There were signs for Wichita... I'M GOIN TO WICHITA.. (White Stripes)..signs for Texas "Let's go to Luckenbach Texas..." signs for Amarillo "Amarillo by morning.."  signs for Muskogee OK  "I'M PROUD TO BE AN OKIE FROM MUSKOGEE.....ugh you get the idea.  Tortuous amounts of songs immediately get stuck in your head and stay there.

 Sometimes you wake up at 5:30 in a casino parking lot..what of it.

I thought I would share Paul's tea set up he has on the console of the van. At gas stations we boil up some water in the camper..pour it into the carafe to keep it nice and hot...then we drive down the highway like lunatics pouring boiling hot water into small containers and tea cups..measuring the water temperature...timing the tea..  Most people don't do this I guess? 

 Ah yes Maybelle's flesh wound. Poor thing.   Driving through Memphis blind late at night..tired and hungry was like slipping into the seventh circle of hell  (no offense to anyone who lives there...but seriously we had a bad time..) Maybelle got her butt whipped too. That is the hot water heater cover totally blown off.  The Dollar General bag taped to the wet camper lasted about 3 minutes on the highway....Mother Earth please forgive us for accidentally littering.

That's all for now....Stay tuned for updates of fixing the destroyed camper!!

Little Rock to Red Rock

In this past week we managed to safely get the rig (and ourselves) from Little Rock, AR to Sedona, AZ.  We've been doing a lot of urban camping since the trip started including some inner city campgrounds and also free camping in the parking lot of a mega department store whose name we'll leave out because they are evil scum.  

The only hairy spot of travel from the week was heading from Oklahoma City to Lubbock, TX.  We're talking some Texas Chainsaw Massacre looking shit.  There were abandoned towns, yards with ten rusted old cars in the front yard and some seriously unfriendly (or just confused) looking faces.   I told Alyssa that if I saw the blues in the side view mirror anywhere in Texas we were just going to make a run for the border.   Fortunately we made it through the panhandle of TX without having to make an OJ-like episode.   I will say the wind coming through Lubbock was blowing at 45 mph and I was really thinking the camper was going to topple over. 

The only two things to do in Oklahoma City in the Winter/Early Spring appear to be visit the very cool indoor tropical botanical garden and visit the American Banjo Museum.  We did both in about an hr and a half.  

I played a show outside Lubbock at a winery out in the middle of nowhere on a Sunday at 1:30 in the afternoon.  It was one of the strangest gigs I've ever had.  For my first set I sang in this enormous barrel room where they store the wine.  There was two (very proud) Texans sitting five feet from the stage and the rest of the room remained empty.  

I don't know if you can picture it or not but this is a pretty surreal moment for a Boston raised boy to be sitting in the middle of nowhere in Western Texas on a Sunday afternoon  in a dark warehouse singing to two strangers while they sip a bottle of Cabernet.  After the first tune the lady commented "Not bad for a North Carolinian." They turned out to be good folks but that was a rickety start.   Here's a shot below of what Alyssa does while I play my shows.  Hopefully she can get on the stage soon! 

The Caprock Winery in Lubbock, TX...very church-like.  Wine is holy though right?

By my last song at the winery I had a little crowd.  They seemed to want a lot of Jack Johnson and Jason Mraz...WTF? 

We've had some inquiries as to how two vegans survive on the road driving through the south.  The most crucial element in our survival is this feller strapped in below.  We call him three tier and we stock him at every Natural Food store we come across.  The top shelf is all tea items (Kyoto sencha, herbal teas, some bagged assam for driving and of course a few different tea pots).  Middle drawer is all dried legumes, beans, basmati rice, quinoa etc, and yes we travel with a pressure cooker ha!  Bottom drawer is all spices and oils.  

Three tier is a life saver and keeps us from having to eat lettuce sandwiches from that gross nutrition-less sewer they call Subway.  Everyone should keep a three tier in their car.  In fact I think three tier is the cure for cancer.  There, we did it.  

Amazing Ayurvedic veggie restaurant in Albuquerque.  We literally pulled off the highway, ate here and got straight back on the highway, no offense to Albuquerque but we had business with this place.  Great food and amazing masala chai.  

Woke up in Flagstaff, AZ to this giant piece of shit outside the window blocking the mountains.  I don't know if this is the company owner...John Jelly-Belly or whatever the fuck, but he needs to definitely stop pedaling diabetes onto America's youth (and simple minded).  This is a true cooperate high fructose corn syrup monger...this guy is just another dingle berry caught in the butt hair of America.  

I'm sure he's a nice guy but I wouldn't be pissed if this rolling billboard for obesity got flattened by an 18 wheeler while he was in the bathroom. We read that the red jelly beans are made with a dye that comes from crushed insects too...little food for thought.   

Flagstaff is incredible btw.  You really get the Colorado vibe.

Sedona is an incredible place founded back in 1902.  It is in the heart of Red Rock Country and some of the landscapes are absolutely breathtaking.  I'd love to write a ten paragraph blog post about the wildlife and incredible plants here but 90% of you would be bored to tears.  It's also considered one of the spiritual capitols of the world.   Do a youtube search on Sedona Vortex for more info.

First amazement then observation ha!  As you can see I don't get to pick ALL of the pics that go up.  

Alyssa with one of her clients..

We rolled into Sedona on a Full Moon.  The Moon has a serious effect on water here on Earth and we primates are made mostly water.  I can't help but think we were pulled here like some rolling tide meandering across America.  

Thanks for reading and PLEASE leave comments/ subscribe...let us know what you need more or less of.  Criticisms greatly appreciated.  We are very grateful for all the readers last week...we had over 300 hits in the first hour of posting.  We're gonna go hike red rock country now, hopefully we won't be needing any anti venom.  

In the spirit of Sedona here is a great quote from Abraham Hicks: 

"Whatever you're thinking about is literally like planning a future event. When you're worrying, you are planning. When you are appreciating, you are planning...What are you planning?  

Flat tires...Jump roping at truck stops... and Soba noodles in OKC

Before setting out on our present adventure, we gave Maybelle a nice bath.  Paul waxed her too. I think it was wax...whatever it was was extremely toxic to breathe and got him feeling pretty good    ..talking absolute nonsense.  I would walk by and he would be talking in strange accents to himself or making songs up about spots of dirt. 

Some of us never really grow up..

This is one of Paul's favorite things to do..roll his shirts up like burritos and stick them in the closet. 

Alright so we had a pretty rough start...as we were blazing down some highway outside of Nashville around 11:30 at night (I had to work on Monday so we left late..),  I said the one line you don't want your passenger to say:  "What's that vibration.." We realized there was a major tire problem and pulled over.  Paul got out and went into ape sh*t mode.  Of course the tire issue was on the road side and we were dodging mac trucks as he frantically tried to loosen the bolts.  Somehow he fixed the tire and we made it to the next gas station to give the newbie some air.  

We slept like babies at the nearest Walmart and set out again the next day.  We had to make it to Little Rock for Paul's show by 5:30. It was an NPR program called Tales from the South that took place in a cool restaurant.  There was story telling involved and live music  (Paul). The tire was a champ and we were cruisin along....but then we hit 4 hours of traffic.  An amazing amount of traffic.  Enough traffic that we missed the entire show...   We actually did make it to the venue..as the sold out crowd was pouring out. We did what I think most people would do in that situation..we  sat down with the staff and drank heavily.

The next day was much better...we made it to the gig on time and had an awesome time...We even got some jump roping in at a truck stop.  Blowing truckers minds...

And heres what we made for dinner tonight....a soba noodle soup with zucchini, onion and mushroom.

Iron Chef Morimoto 

And here is a picture of the finished curtains...lovely!! 

Spring Fixins

We're gearing up for a year of full timing in the Scamp upon moving out of the cabin in the woods out in Saluda, NC.  I've managed to get all of my belongings (aside from my guitars and pa system) into a knee high rubber bin.  Less is more when you want nothing to do with society and it's foolish conformist expectations!  

 Monday we're headed out on the road for 3 weeks and I'll be playing at venues in Nashville, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Lubbock and Phoenix to name a few.  It will be nice to get back out on the road and shake off the winter cob webs.  I was starting to lose my shit all holed up in the woods like a madman hunkered over the wood stove listening to the "Into the Wild" soundtrack.    

I did a quick browse through the camper to see if anything suffered winter damage.  Fortunately this past winter was super mild and the only issue I found was a seized up and rusted burner valve for the stove top (the gas knob would not turn at all, not even with a pair of pliers). Also when I tried to open the bathroom door, I pulled the knob right off.  Both issues were caused by excessive moisture in the camper and rusting.   Let this be a lesson to all you novice campers...always put a dry bucket in the camper upon winterizing to eat up that excessive moisture.  

There was also a good amount of mold on the window sills and bathroom.  With a quick google search I found that straight white vinegar in a spray bottle applied directly to mold kills about 80%. 

The door knob was an easy fix...I actually found a screen door knob at a local hardware store that fit the holes. 

The valve burner is something that I seem to have to change yearly.  I'm thinking about taking them out of the camper in the fall and then just putting them back on the stove in the spring.  Only issue is that it takes a while to install them.  Here's a couple pics of that job...

Might be time for a new pan under the burners...we use this stove more than most people in a camper...in fact you'd think we're running a small cafe out of the Scamp. 

The new burner valve in place...30 bucks, plus 8 dollars shipping...WTF?  Is that thing sterling silver? Some of these parts companies for RV are criminals...always try the hardware store first! 

            
Here's the stove all put back together...much prettier.  Ready for some cruelty free meals on the road.


The job took me a couple of hours and a whole lot of talking to myself.  I like to scream obscenities when something doesn't cooperate (I got that from my grandfather).  I hope no children were walking by the camper while I was doing the fixin'!

We're all ready to go...wheels are greased, car is tuned up and she will hit 200,000 miles on this trip.  I'm not big on advertising, in fact I hate it...but I will say that this car has been an absolute tank for me.  From 100k miles to 200k miles the van needed not one repair...this is all while driving from Tampa Florida to Alaska (the long way) and back to Asheville.  Transmission is getting a bit slow...I'm guessing thats from towing 1200 lbs worth of camper all over the place.

I'll keep you posted on the health of the van (Zelda) as the trip progresses.  That will do it for me in this post.  Remember, use your alarm clock less and your middle finger more.  Thanks for reading!

Paul

Curtains!! Maybelle gets a makeover.

It was time for Maybelle to get a camper version of a makeover-  new curtains.  We found some fabric at a discount fabric place for $4.99  a yard.  I don't think that is a huge discount, but the place was closing in 5 minutes and we were getting the evil eye from the Mildreds and Gertrudes.   After convincing Paul that we were not getting the vivid blue and purple fabric depicting a killer whale breaching in front of a sunset, we finally decided on a yellow and rose pattern.   We also got some blackout fabric to line the curtains with.. it was only $4.99 a yard too. 

My elaborate chicken scratch measurements. 

I did a 1.5 increase on the width for each window and added three inches on the length.  I haven't done the door yet so I won't talk about it. 

Two side windows:  22x45

Big back window: 22x67.5

 Here is my sewing machine designed for a 12 year old girl. I bought it while living in Alaska - wanting something tiny that I could travel with. It hasn't let me down yet!  I was certain it couldn't handle the blackout fabric...and I was dead wrong.  She beasted it. 

 For the blackout fabric, you need to cut that fabric a few inches smaller than your actual fabric. I just folded the edges over and didn't get fancy with it.  I am way too impulsive and sloppy for anything else.

I will take some pictures of these beauties when I am finished.  We lost power for some reason today and I had to stop sewing.  We did what most people do when they lose power..we headed to the camper and had tea.

 Maybelle naked and waiting!!