Letting go.......

Ok - I have to do this....I can't seem to make myself sit down and write enough to catch up from my last Burning Man post to the current time, so I am just going to let go of my anal self and jump forward to NOW and maybe I'll catch up in a more round-about sort of way!


We are now in Palm Desert, didn't "plan" to be here, but here we are! We were in Colorado Springs parked at Bill's alma mater - the Air Force Academy campground having a wonderful time hanging out with family, old friends and NuRVers too when I received an email from the owners of an rv park where we've stayed before in Indio, CA - 3 miles from my parents home in Palm Desert. I think they had read my resume on the workamper.com site and were wondering if we would be interested in coming to southern California to work at their park. Well, this was an interesting proposition! My mother had just been in the hospital for a week and my sister had flown down from Alaska to help her with her recovery and was making plans to go back home. We weren't sure if my mom was truly on the mend but everyone thought she was. I had been feeling very guilty about not being there with her, but was soooo grateful that my sister could. Our "plans" at the time were to head south to New Mexico for awhile and then slowly make our way east towards Florida to see Bill's mom in Tampa. But the opportunity to go stay at this expensive park, one we were familiar with, for free (well, not exactly free!) and spend the holidays with my parents just couldn't be ignored. When things happen like this you just gotta do it! So we hashed out all the details with the park, I would work in the office about 22 hours a week and Bill would help with some outside work about 5 hours and we started to make plans to leave our little spot in C Springs. Our Florida plans will just start a little later...


Which route to take...oh my, this was quite a decision as Bill was very familiar with these mountains and we had some snow already and he was really concerned about our taking a "safe" route. But I soooo wanted to see some sites and do some fun stuff! He found a route for us that included 3 national parks - in Moab - Canyonlands & Arches and Zion in southern Utah. We finally got to actually spend some time in Utah! (we've raced through this state 3 times driving from CA to CO and back) We also had a fantastic stop at a hot spring, but more on all of that later. We took about a week to travel from CO back to southern California and stopped for two nights at Nevada's Treasure RV Park in Pahrump, where the "famous" pic of Bill working outside in the gazebo was taken. Finally in Palm Desert we arrived around dinner time at my mother's house. We had taken great pains to keep our plans a secret from my parents as we wanted to really surprise them and we did! Although, not exactly according to plan...there is that word again! So here we are in this nice little park enjoying lovely weather, working our real jobs and our rv park jobs and spending some time with my parents and my brother and his family. Next week my kids fly in for a week for Thanksgiving, my sister and her family arrive from Alaska, and cousins from L.A. are coming too, it's going to be quite the family get-together!


Now to get to the fun stuff!

Man Plans and God Laughs...

,,,one of my favorite sayings of my mother. She said it often to me growing up, constantly warning about the dangers of that dreadful word...I think I may have to rename this entire blog to Learning the art of NON-planning!!  I have been getting better, but it's slow going...


Post burning man we had reservations at the Grand Sierra to stay in an upgraded suite for a night while we "decompressed" - ha ha ha! Little did we know that the entire place had been taken over by teenagers (or they looked & acted like them, anyway) to see some fabulous light show that night. The mass of altered people was really more than we could deal with and we couldn't even go hang out at the pool or jacuzzi which was a pretty cool spot. 


So we spent the night, cleaned ourselves up and took Bebe down to Carson to stay at an RV park to get her cleaned up and replace our carpets with wood flooring. I had found this guy that does flooring while we were in Tahoe - a co-worker had used him and he did good work, I met him and we set up a date post BM.  Unfortunately the product he was using was inferior and after spending 5 days getting it almost 80% in we were very unhappy and he felt the same. At this point we were supposed to be on our way to Utah and Colorado. But he generously offered to rip out all the flooring, get a better product, take the rig to his shop and just work round the clock and try to get it done in 3-4 days.  In the meantime my friend Jen was in the area and we went out for a scrumptious lunch together in Minden - on her way home there was a most interesting experience between her and a porta-potty, and sadly, the porta-potty won! She texted from the hospital that her ankle was broken and she was in a boot up to her knee....not good. AND Daniel, her lover/roomie was out of town for 10 days - she had just taken him to the airport that day! So here we were with no place to live for a few days and here she was almost totally incapacitated and needing some help, how mysteriously God works! So back we went to Tahoe....just can't get away from that place, hmmmm. It all worked out well, we helped Jen out a bit and got to say our last goodbyes one more time! Our flooring guy was working like a mad-man to get it all done and when we finally went to pick up our rig the floors were fabulous! Worth the wait and all the hassle, especially because we could be there for our friend.


So off we went on our mad dash across Utah, once again, totally bummed that this seemed to be the only way we could get to Colorado to see Bill's cousins before they left town & were swamped with other obligations. I WANT TO SEE UTAH!!!

an old army boot camp site in Green River, UT

Now that we had a year of traveling under our belt & a bit more experienced we were committed to try to boondock whenever possible. Boondocking is camping without any hookups, one can do this on the side of the road, in an approved rest stop or far away amongst nature and beauty. Most of the time you will not only save money but have a more interesting experience as well. At some point we hope to really outfit Bebe with a major solar array to do this for very long periods of time...but I digress...  I found the great website OvernightRVParking and for a small annual fee you can pop in your location or zip code and get information on all of the possible spots to park for free or for a very small fee. We used this our entire trip from CA to CO and loved it.

Burning Man 2011

Bill's 5th and my 4th Burning Man brought us to a new camp, living in our home amongst other like-minded nomadic souls...this was quite a switch from our previous visits where we have camped with our hash friends. But since we were bringing Bebe this year we thought this was a better fit & it was! We spent weeks preparing Bebe for her maiden voyage to the playa, hoping against all hope that we could keep her relatively dust-free (hahahaha!) and let me tell you, she looked sweet on the inside - all decked out in orange fur, tie dye pillows, batik prints & crazy throw rugs. Bill bought rolls of filter material and covered the window screens and air conditioner vents & we just hoped for the best. We found a home for our plants with Reno hasher Sir Rubs a Lot & his green-thumbed wife, dropped off our sheepskin seat covers for cleaning, grabbed our Leopard Martini Lounge friend Matt & off we went, playa bound. 

Waiting in line is always an experience!

In the past we have always come in at midnight; driving out to the playa was quite a different experience in the daylight, the vast desert was beautiful. NuRVing friends and fellow Quartzsite camp-mates, Sam & Tracy, were able to get "early-entry" & secure a good location for a bunch of big rigs & we were the 2nd ones in on Sunday evening. 

Sam & Tracy

We had a 2-hour wait to get in, which wasn't bad at all &  it was fun checking out all of the other rigs & people in line.  We set up camp & hopped on our bikes to go see "the Man." By the time we returned several other campers had arrived & we got to meet a bunch of the people we've been corresponding with over the last several weeks.  

Cherie & Chris

Technomads Chris & Cherie originally started this camp a few years ago & I was excited to meet them as they really helped us out when I was trying to decide on internet options when we started full-timing; plus I had been using a couple of the iPhone Aps they had developed. Fellow full-timers Ayo & Yair were "organizing" our camp this year & pre-burn I found out that they were Jewish and Ayo was doing some work with Camp Ramah where my kids camped every summer, and Quartzsite friends Tom and Schelby with KSvert that came to visit us in Tahoe were camping with us too!! So we had some good vibes about this group going in...

We didn't spend a lot of time in camp but we knew a lot of people at BM this year so we did a lot of visiting, which was super fun! Bill's co-workers Steve & Julie, our last camp - Leopard Martini Lounge, the new Hash camp and good friends Daniel & Jen were included in our romps about "town". Monday night was the long-standing Leopard Martini Lounge Party - it was great seeing everyone, especially decked out in their finest "leopard". 

We had a couple of fun "date nights" with hash friends Cheek and Doggie, and Pix & PT aka Sparkle Pony. Both date nights were planned with a specific location & a loose meeting time - and can you imagine, each event we showed up and no one was there! Amaaazing, I know! Of course, it was totally expected that that would happen, but in both cases, a bit later and in different locations we met up with our friends and had a splendid time. Cheek was determined to get us out for an all-nighter, which we had yet to do, even after all the times we had been there. We are more the get up early and explore all day, than the, sleep all day and stay up all night, kind of burners. But we took naps and had a blast....of course, Bill came home bloody and still has scars, but it was a night to remember. The most amazing thing of all was that we found each other, or rather Doggie found us, in the pitch black while riding our bikes!  

Luckily she had seen our bikes in Tahoe and knew what they looked like. We were supposed to meet Pix and Sparkle at the Little Black Dress Party and then have them over for dinner - they were a no show at the party but were waiting for us when we returned and we had a fabulous evening. 

Camp Nomadia held an informal get together for people curious about our lifestyle with a question and answer session, which was fun to be a part of. But it was the same day the hash held their annual Red Dress Run, so off we went! I think there were way over 100 people with a lot of newbies at the hash.  And of course, more blood for Mr. Bill!


We stayed an extra day to avoid the long exodus out and instead baked chocolate chip cookies and delivered them to the people waiting in the 6-8 hour line to get out...we were soooo happy to not be them! 

Camp Nomadia

The weather was the best ever and the playa floor was a joy to ride on, unlike previous years where the dust/sand was so thick it was impossible to bike through. It was a very "chill" burn for us and it was just what I needed this year...clean up is still in progress, months later, and I think this may be the last year for us...at least for Bebe!

POOF! 2 months flew by...

Guess that's what happens in life at this stage of the game....all of a sudden you pop your head up & it's fall! Our last month in Tahoe was a whirlwind - finishing up my workamping gig, preparing for Burning Man, Bill cleaning out his office and saying goodbye, again, to all of our friends. The latter is truly the hardest part, especially because this time we really have no idea when we will be back in town. The Tahoe office of Bill's company is now closed with the remainder of the employees telecommuting from home. We thought they were going to lay him off at the end of August before we went to Burning Man, but that isn't happening so fast. His new company, Polaris Environmental, is getting some attention, so it could be any time now that this takes off. Our NuRVer friend, Maria, helped Bill set up his website and it looks great, just what he wanted, thanks Maria!! You can check it out at polarisenvironmental.com.

Awesome campsite - CHECK!!

We did have a few fun adventures before we left the lake - like going tent camping with Daniel, Jen & Socrates at Buckeye & Travertine Hot Springs, wow, now that was cool! We found an awesome campsite and Soc's agreed as he got the best spot! The weather was perfect, the hot springs divine and the food, well, with foodies Cheek & Doggie (hash names) how could it be anything less than fabulous! Mr. Bill got some fishing in and provided us with trout both mornings, which we had fun dressing and cooking over an open campfire.

You should see the one that got away!

Everything's better with a little bacon ;)

Cheek took us on a long drive up to Mono Lake and we saw the cool Tufa Towers & June Lake, which is the cutest little town. This was an area neither of us had been before and it was super cool to have our own tour guide!

We had some fun times catching our favorite music around town - especially with our Tahoe Valley Campground friends playing at the Flight Deck & Murphy's. 

There were a few concerts at the campground too...

And nothing would be the same without copious visits to our favorite local brewery...Mt Tallac Brewing

We had a visits from friends Tom & Schelby but no pics :(  & from our friend Cindy who we dragged along to tailgate the Phish concert with Michelle - Bill had a tough time of it, to be sure!

One of our last beach days was again planned with Cheek & Doggie...we rode our bikes and met them at Pope Beach & brought all the fixins for a sweet BBQ

good times!

Then our preparations for Burning Man began in earnest...we were taking our home there and tried to take all the precautions we could to protect Bebe. With lots of good advice and some of our own well-earned wisdom we hit the deck, flying! Covering all of the upholstery with the sticky carpet plastic stuff, I then made slip covers for the dinette and captains chairs, purchasing ones for the sofas. I also covered all of the window coverings & remaining upholstery with bright orange fur! The fur works as a great magnet for any flying sticky playa dust & because I just used a staple gun to apply it, the fur came off easily and really did it's job.  I can't even BELIEVE I didn't take a pic of Bebe decked out in her fur! Here are a few pics from our preparations...stay tuned for our Burning Man 2011 Blog

New slipcovers, pre-fur!

Blue hair & feather bangs for Burning Man,
courtesy of my daughter Lauryn!

Our friend & nail technician extraordinaire, Lillian decked Bill
out with the most awesome BLING for Burning Man!

Life in Tahoe....

is really pretty fabulous...the weather finally changed & summer is here! My little workamping job is pretty good although I am busy with my CPA work so my weeks are flying by. We hosted a few happy hours which were fun & plan to do some more. Our friend Gina, who Bill knew from work in the bay area & became my friend when we met her up here in Tahoe in 2008, moved back last week from Sacramento - sweeeeet! Things are odd at the brewery, our old hangout, as the brewer is thinking of shutting down, the weekly concerts are now more like once a month & we've been by for happy hour & found the place closed...life has changed for so many of us. Friday night there was a sweet concert with our friend Jen & Bob's band "Daughters in Arm" & a huge 4 band concert Saturday night that was pretty epic - fellow hashers Beav & LCL came to visit & we got to catch the last band. Our bike rides to the beach & hiking are still the best. We had great hopes to hare some hashes when we got here but obviously our priorities are not there since it's already been 8 weeks & there isn't one on the calendar yet!

We had a lot of fun on the Slow Rollers Poker Ride last month & got a few slides in on the condemned super slide!

 Socrates, Daniel's doggie has been enjoying our wagon in some comfort! 

I think this is how I would like to travel at Burning Man!!

   Finally got over to Sierra Hot Springs and our good friend Becca joined us for a wonderful afternoon - Bill made a 3 point shot from quite a distance without choking her! The weather was perfect, we brought goodies & Becca brought reinforcements, it was very hard to leave...

We've been lucky to have lots of visitors this summer & Angie (of NuRVer fame) came up & spent a few nights at the motel down the street. Boy do we miss her and Kev!!  My daughter, Lauryn, may actually get her butt up here to visit this summer too.  And speaking of kids...my son, Jake, got a great full-time job up here in Tahoe which may actually turn into something permanent. Bill's daughter, Madeleine is celebrating her 24th bday today & is graduating with a masters degree from Cambridge this month and son Will is hoping to graduate next spring, cross your fingers!

Bill just found out his office here in Tahoe will be closing at the end of August & they will lay him off & re-hire him through his new company as an independent contractor. This couldn't have worked out better for us & we may be really spreading our wings & traveling to Florida for the winter. Just spoke to fellow NuRVers Kev & Angie & they are thinking we should all party in the Keys & enjoy some bikini weather instead of our Burning Man fur coats in Quartzsite!

Speaking of Burning Man....our replacement camo netting came in & is fabulous, provides shade & a breeze! We've gone through our old costumes & pulled out some to donate, purchased some new fur for the bikes & the cornice boxes around the windows in Bebe, but I've got a few sewing projects I NEED to make time for! Our friends, Daniel & Jen gave us one of those Capice Shell Chandeliers that I think will make into a fabulous dress, & I need to sew all of the slipcovers out of the batik pieces I bought in Quartzsite. We've been reading about RV detailing, post Burning Man & trying to decide if we should tackle this ourselves or pay a bizillion dollars to a company to do it for us.... We'd also like to pull up our family room carpeting & replace it with the wood laminate we have in front of the kitchen. Hoping to do this in Denver while we're in CO visiting family and friends.  Our plans for camping at Burning Man have changed drastically...we are going for something new and different this year and instead of hanging with the new Hash Camp next to Leopard Martini Lounge we are going to camp with Camp Nomadia, a bunch of full-timing (& wanna-be) RVers. I think a better fit for us this year since we will be bringing our home, Bebe. The Hash Camp was becoming a little more structured experience than what we were looking for.

We have spent many days at our storage unit getting rid of more & more stuff...probably not too much of that left, maybe one more charity pick up. We will plan to stop there before and after Burning Man, then probably not again for quite some time.

And that wraps up another exciting blog!

How to stop the merry-go-round!

Our life seems to never stop! We have to make a concerted effort to have a day or evening with no plans...seems eXceSs didn't get his hash name for nothing! Yesterday was the big day to pack up Bebe and take her down the hill to have the fridge recall done. I have been really concerned about this "fix"- from everything I have read the company responsible is not really fixing the problem (bad cooling units) but inserting a part that will shut down your fridge before it gets too hot & burns your rig down. This actually just happened to a friend of ours last month in the middle of the night. Luckily his smoke alarm worked & he got out with his life. This spurred all of his friends to promptly follow up on the recall notices we were just receiving. The other problem with this "fix" is that the part they put in is super sensitive & I have heard many complaints about it malfunctioning & then having to replace the fridge on your own dime! Eeeks I say! Oh well, we don't have much choice.

We picked Friday to do this in Carson City, NV because we had scheduled dermotology appointments in Minden, which is close by. And while in the area we thought we could go visit our storage unit & see about downsizing. In our most ambitious dreams we saw us spending a few hours moving the garage sale stuff into the new smaller unit to start organizing ourselves. Ha ha ha!! We took a look at the 5x5, which is 1/4 of the unit we have & looked at each other & laughed...we went into the office to talk to them about a 10x5 & they offered us our current 10x10 unit at the 10x5 price - we don't have to move anything!! BUT we still want to get rid of most of the stuff so we are starting tomorrow with our first charity pick-up from the storage unit & trying to give away as much as we can to our friends, as this is the "good stuff" we couldn't part with!

Had room for 6 to crash if they "spooned"!

After getting burned, spliced & stitched @ the dermatologists we made our way to our fav Mexican cantina in Carson City - El Charro Avita where we drowned our wounds in margaritas...back up the hill to prepare for the RTO'ers (that's Reno Tahoe Odyssey) 36 hr relay race our hash friends were in - we've hosted the last 2 years and just cuz we weren't in our big house that was no reason to stop us! Bill & I hosted 2 groups of 6 at 8pm & midnight - they came to shower, eat, sit by our campfire & take a nap. We had a fun time trying to figure out how to make our dining table into a bed...after much experimenting I went online to my fav RV tips site - rv.net forums, posted my problem & within 5 minutes had the answer!
Saturday we had a tough time getting going...but we did end up at our fav little place for happy hour, Blue Water Bistro, then off to hang out at our old digs with friend, Daniel.
I didn't leave my bed on Sunday!

It's still snowing!!

It's June 1st & it's still snowing - JUNEuary!! This is not exactly what I signed up for!  Look at this pic, do you see something missing??  Like a whole lot of other RV's?!  The campground is pretty deserted right now, we had a few folks here over Memorial Day & there are actually tent campers out there in the snow, craziness!

Update on the workamping gig - met with the asst manager, Lori, who is a doll & she is going to try her best to work me into the schedule, I am low-man on the totem pole as the newest employee but I have skills she WANTS! So training starts next Wednesday...


My daughter, Lauryn, who is 27 and a new hair stylist (September 2010), has a pinched nerve in her right hand. No feeling or movement at all. She is supposed to start work at a new salon next week, and with no workers comp or unemployment to fall back on it's a scary time for her.  I drove down to the bay area, where she lives, on Tuesday and took her to a chiropractor. I am not a believer, but Kaiser gave her a splint, told her to soak it and sent her home...just not good enough for me. This Dr. took full x-rays, found her scoliosis that was treated as a teen -that along with the accident she had 6 months ago when she was rear-ended while stopped & her car totaled are the culprits that have left her in this situation. He spent a lot of time with her and she went back again yesterday. She now has some small movement if she holds her hand up, so we have hope!!  She's overcome a lot of adversity to be where she is today, roadblocks keep getting thrown in her path...but she perseveres!

Bill, Eric, Daniel, Karla & Jen

happy with his strikes!

First strike of the night!

Last night our friend Daniel decided we should all go bowling, I mean what else does one do in the middle of a winter storm, right?! His girlfriend Jen & our RV friends Eric & Karla joined us & we had a blast...several hours of beer drinking, whooping it up & silly frolicking got us all out of our funk, and it was fun to watch Bill using a "house ball" and still striking gold! He sold all of his bowling balls & bag for our move into Bebe, but I stashed his beautiful white bowling shoes deep in the basement of the RV, so at least he had something & it was obviously all he needed as he bowled "180" with none of his "stuff"! 

We got home to frozen water pipes to Bill's amazement "it was supposed to freeze tomorrow night, not tonight!" So out he went to see what could be done & we didn't even need the hairdryer to defreeze, he got us disconnected & onto our house water & we were good to go.  Awoke this morning to Daniel's motorcycle with a frozen windshield & XS' mark!