December 10th, 2016: Catching up my journal.

Writing from: The Mojave National Preserve. Now this is really the middle of no-where. I think this may be the most remote I’ve ever felt. We are so far from any major settlements or services. It amazes me that people used to do this by horseback. Traveling in this type of terrain is brutal. And to think people used to live here!

#Vanlife tidbit: Get a Buddy Heater. Going without it would have made traveling in Utah virtually impossible. The cold sometimes just becomes ruthless and you can’t think about anything without thinking about the cold first. We made some friends that didn’t have a heater and completely sold them when they came and hung out. Winter camping is already hard, make it better with a heater.

Thinking about: The amount of propane we go through is absolutely nuts. Between cooking and heating (at peak cold, we were going through ¾ of a can a day. I think when I get home I’m going to strap one of those 10 or 20lb propane tanks to the roof to save money.

This post is long because it covers a long time. I don’t develop the scenery or the people we met bc this is more so remembering in the future. I’ll get back to that once I’m writing more frequently.

It’s starting to set in how long I’ve been traveling. I noticed when I would tell Lexie a story from the beginning of my travels and then a second later think about how long ago it was. For those wondering, it’s been a little over two months since I took off. It’s cool to be able to look back into my journal and read about all the stuff I’ve done thus far. I’m going to try and make my journal entries a bit more detailed, and to help out with this, I’m going to try to write every day. This one may be a bit long since it’s going to cover everything we’ve done since returning to the Van from Thanksgiving. At any rate…

We flew into Salt Lake City, happy to be back but worried about the cold that we were about to jump into. We spent the night in a hotel to ease into it and get things settled before having to wake up early and head to the mechanic. I was trying to get the pop-back fixed, and it seemed like everything was great when we left, but of course, it started back up. More on my mechanical woes later, as they resurface. Mechanical issues have been such a consistent theme in my posts. I hope they stop eventually or become more infrequent. After heading to Walmart, we were ready to trek out to Arches to start our next leg.

It’s hard to express how shitty it is to drive in the van in the cold. My small exhaust leak makes it unsafe to drive without the windows down. So, imagine having to drive in 25-degree weather with the wind blasting through the windows for 6 hours. It really was a shit show. Nonetheless, we made it to Arches and camped outside the park excited for the next day.

Driving through the park was great and we decided to camp on the north side of the park so we could be close to all that we wanted to see. We hiked around for a few hours and looked at a few of the arches but the wind was picking up and it became annoying to be outside. We rushed back and threw on the heater (this would be a theme throughout our time in Utah).

The cold was just relentless. I can’t mention enough how it just took over our life. We really just couldn’t escape it because when we drove, we had the windows down and thus it was cold. Then, when we got somewhere, we were typically outside, and thus cold. Always cold. On our second day we woke up with no clouds so at least the sun was able to slightly warm us up. We wanted to get up and out early so we could see the delicate arch before the crowds (we noticed it was a weekend). The Delicate Arch is probably the main thing to see in the park and it’s freaking beautiful. The shape, the size, and proportions make it seem like someone drew it out. It’s crazy to think that a chunk of rock fell one day and then bam, there it is. We continued our drive south through the park and then headed out to Moab to grab a few things (like a shower) before heading into Canyonlands.

When I look back onto the last few months, Canyonlands is going to be up there with one of the most spectacular things I saw. What’s also weird is how understated it is by the National Park Service. They really promote Arches, but to be honest, I thought Canyonlands was a much cooler place to explore. I mean, it’s hard to compare the two, and Arches really does have some interesting stuff, but Canyonlands is just another planet. The park is just a feast for the eyes with weird buttes, canyons, and rocks everywhere. The park is split up into three districts, and we planned to spend a few days in the Island in the Sky district first. The first thing I wanted to do was take a trip down White Rim Road, which takes you down a famous 4 wheel drive trail and gives you a closer look at the canyons. I don’t get the best range in my gas tank so I wanted to make sure we did this on the front-end instead of the back and potentially get stuck due to running out of gas. After coming out from White Rim Road, we headed over to the trailhead for False Kiva, which Lexie and I were both really excited for. It’s a 1000 year old rock circle up high inside an alcove. It’s a pain in the ass to get to and I bet it’s scorching hot during the dry season. You couldn’t help but think what they had used it for. It was also cool because it’s not on the map due to being a type two archeological. So we basically had the place to ourselves. Our last planned activity for Canyonlands was to head to the Green River overlook so I could take some sunset photos. The Gator helped us make a ton of friends and we chatted while freezing our asses off. I headed back into the van for maybe 5 minutes when the sky opened up and became a beautiful shade of red. I ran back out, and took what must be one of the most beautiful pictures I’ve ever taken. It’s a photo I’m extremely proud of and you can see it here. After talking to one of our new friends, I was inspired to get my ass up early shoot the sunrise at Mesa Arch. I knew it would be cold, so I drove us to the parking lot so I could get a good start on the day. I was really excited and cold so I didn’t sleep well and ended up on the trail by 6:45am. I checked my weather channel app and it was 18 degrees — without a doubt one of the coldest experiences of my life. Even crazier is the fact that none of us out there pushing through the cold got any pictures because the clouds covered up the sunrise. Such a bummer, but that’s part of the photography game. The positive that I do take from this experience is that I met Ryan and his girlfriend Sid, from Humboldt County. He was interested in the van and in my blog, and was also traveling around with his girlfriend so we hit it off. Sid was really interested in going to see The Wave, so I gave her my wealth of knowledge to help them go see it. After hanging out for a bit, we were both off to town to handle our respective errands before heading off to our next adventure. At this point, Lexie and I were starting to really get over the cold. We dropped off the van at another mechanic so I could once and for all get the leaky exhaust fixed, and then headed into a brewery to get a good meal and some alcohol. We ate and drank for a few hours and I started to share my sunset picture at the overlook that I was so proud of. After getting the car back (still unfixed), we headed for the Lazy Lizard, the hostel we had been showering at. They had a private room that Lexie and I could sleep in for $26….so, so cheap. It was a bit old, but clean where it needed to be and we could tell this was an older place that for shoestring travelers in every sense of the way.

The subsequent 3 days were uneventful due to the fact that we pretty much drove all freaking day (Moab to the Mojave National Preserve is ~650 miles). There was no reason for this insane commitment to driving except for the fact that we were desperate to get back to warmer weather. After leaving the Lazy Lizard we had tried to go to The Needles but scraped that because the road was snowed over and icy. We just didn’t want to deal with another night in the single digits. So we said screw it and kept going. The only real memorable thing from these few days was the time we spent with Ryan and Sid in Monument Valley. I think I had mentioned him earlier, as he was trying to shoot the sunrise with me at Mesa Arch as well. He had mentioned he was going to be in that part of the state, but never when. It was such a coincidence, but we saw them pulling in and decided to all get in the van so we could split the fee ($20 bucks for a car!). Out of all the times we could have arrived, we literally see them in another state pulling into the lot…craziness. We ended up doing the tour and camping together. I’m an idiot and drove them up them up a mountain on the coldest night of the cold weather system we were experiencing, but they were cool. They hoped in the van with us and we all hung out around the heat and talked for a few hours. We just shared stories and laughed. It was a really great time and they were good people to run into. Hopefully our paths will cross again.

I think I’ll cut it here. I’ll write about the Mojave Preserve when we make it out to Joshua Tree in a few days.