And whoever constitutes that “they” needs some talkin’ to. That’s what our soggy selves said, anyways, after a dreary, drenched December in the Mohave Desert. Around its borders, skirting southern Nevada and down through Joshua Tree, CA we stood witness to inches (inches!) of falling rain, out in deserts that may only see four total the whole year long, mind you, and where fractions of inches can sometimes cause flash floods and wreak havoc on tiny side roads.
This was the only ten minutes we stepped outside in a day of wind, rain, and hail.
The plus side was a meteorological show in the skies, with moody, swirling clouds, lightning displays far more impressive than any laser light concert, and music from the winds, which yowled and howled like some out-there cover of Bon Jovi. (Come to think of it, we never listen to Bon Jovi. Polling the audience: should we?)
Violent, crashing storms roll in over a lonely dirt road in Southern CaliforniaWe don’t watch television, and the show is, for us, primetime entertainment.
The inhospitable weather was at once a blessing from the heavens and a curse on the ground. With the short days and dark skies, it was easy to make what is usually a difficult decision for us, to stay in and go deep on projects instead of getting up and going out on hikes.
We were able to touch, tap, and craft the beginnings of projects we hadn’t handled during the longer, more agreeable days of summer and fall.
We made moves on our next book. Opened our Adobe Suite and strung out video clips we’ve taken throughout the year. We are making progress! We have edited two videos! The pages of our manuscript are looking more like…pages of a manuscript.
Escaping the bus with a windy cold hike to a piping hot spring. A mood-lifter, a blues-extinguisher.
We grow grumpy, sometimes, though, in the grey short days. Overcome by blah blues, we argue about small things. We are cramped in Sunshine’s 80 square feet, cooped up in the metal orange walls. We are cricked and achy. We haven’t moved our bodies in days.
That is the downside. Storms may lead us to creative work, but at the end of the day, we are trapped. Besides the daily commute to dig a hole in the ground, and the rare escapes windy, stormy hikes, we are bus dwelling prisoners held captive in our own four walls, two cantankerous cranks cohabitating in eighty square feet. I stare longingly at the rainbows before they are again engulfed by clouds.
We are on the shores of Lake Mead, with 30 mph gusts. We are in a white gypsum badlands with hot springs, and the dust is swirling in the anger of the air. We soak in the reeds of a hot spring, protected for minutes . A group of women are there, in the hottest part of the pool. They are conducting a ceremony. They dunk a small woman under the hot waters. She is twisted and crying. I call them the witches of Parhumph.
A rare sunny day on a quiet stretch of paved road. Between Joshua Tree and Parker, Arizona.
On January first, we drive south. An OHV area is like a 1920s Oklahoma Dustbowl. Barstow is blustery. Baker is unbearable. Blythe ain’t any more nice. A semi-truck is sideways on the freeway. Plastic clings to the creosote bushes like a scared child to its father’s pant legs. It has been weeks since we popped the top. I have grown accustomed to cooking on our Coleman hunched over. My 30-something-year-old spine is accommodating. “Give it 50 years,” says JR. “You skeletature will not be thanking you.”
Swimming just before a rainstormGolden Energy, we lift our hands to the sky in praise of cold water!
When the sky opens, and the clouds gather, we huddle up in our little tin box.
Like sardines. Anchovies. “Why don’t they can salami?” asks JR. I don’t tell them they do. It’s called spam.
There are cracks in the metal and gaps in the rubber and the gusts of wind flood blow in, no matter which direction we’re parked.
The third week of January arrives. We are over it. “I think it’s our year, Kit,” says JR. “We’re gonna run away to Mexico.”
I gape at him. My socks are soggy, my skin is pall and pale. There is sun south of the border.
“When do we leave?” My voice is almost a sigh.
I hope to god I find my passport.
A rainbow promises good tidings over a sandy lake bed, where we camped for four days in peace.
What a year 2022 has been. A year of more firsts than you’d think, what with the varied experiences we’ve been dealt across all our years on the road.
Each month surprised us with joys and tragedies we never could have predicted, not with even the most accurate tarot cards, and with offers and setbacks that could we never could’ve prepared for, not even with the most prescient, responsible mindsets.
The first six months of this year were the strangest we’ve had on the road, ever, because we found ourselves doing the almost-unthinkable… *flying* to locations, away from our beloved home, Sunshine.
You see, we usually drive everywhere we want to go. After all, we live in this lil orange bus full time, and honestly, we rarely leave her behind. So you see how utterly strange it was to bid her goodbye, board multiple flights (some of them international), and hop around with only backpacks for awhile. I thought we’d fill you in, briefly, on our year, because it’s kinda been all over the place.
This is the quickest catch-up we can offer, a full nine months in more or less twenty-two paragraphs. A lot can happen in a year—and maybe we’ll take the time to tell each of the following stories in depth in the upcoming months. But for now, let’s go.
Buckle up…it’s gonna be a ride.
January: New Year, Lots of Old Buses
Just so you know, 2022 started on January 13th. Or, at least, that’s when the celebratory party was thrown.
Over 500 VW buses lined up in Lake Havasu, Arizona for a four-day gathering—and, seriously, what could be a better New Year’s party for two bus lovers than that?
This was our second time joining the VW madness that is Buses by the Bridge, which is the largest Volkswagen campout in the country. If you own a VW camper, and haven’t yet attended BBB, I highly recommend you make the journey out. The magic of seeing that many buses in one place is, alone, worth it.
Perhaps the best part of BBB was the after-party we attended, which is pictured above. Hanging with Dave Manning, the premiere Volkswagen troubadour, and his bus Vincent, was a two days damn well spent. We were like a coupla modern-day cowboys out there by our VWs, building a fire pit on the Arizona range, talking art and poetry and dreams of social transformation.
My, was it good to see our VW family again.
February: Swimming in the Winter
It was so pleasant and warm and dry near Lake Havasu that we couldn’t bear to leave. So, for most of February, we remained in the dry desert, among the Saguaros, in land so warm and sun-baked that we could swim daily, even in the midst of what should be the coldest month of the year.
March: A VW Pilgrimage
March hit us like a tornado we didn’t see coming. In a frenzied invitation from Volkswagen themselves, we journeyed to Germany for a pilgrimage to Sunshine’s home country. VW is releasing a brand new take on the classic VW bus, the ID. Buzz. It was our duty to attend the world premiere of its release off the factory line—and to learn all of Sunshine’s history while we were at it.
This trip was Volkswagen-tastic, and there are too many stories to tell here. Stay tuned for a follow up on this trip, as it’s well worth its own post.
April: Fish Outta Water: The Big Apple
New York City is not a place we ever thought we’d visit. Too urban, too crowded, and well, from what I’d seen, the stars are all on the ground. Not exactly our slice of pie.
Yet, our Volkswagen pilgrimage continued to just that spot.
We were to attend one of the largest automotive events in the world, The New York Auto Show, where the ID. Buzz would be making its debut in the USA.
Our flight took us from Germany directly to the Big Apple. There, in the fluorescent lights of the Jarvis Center, we went *deep* into the world of modern automotive releases and hung with everyone on the Volkswagen America team.
We were in New York like a marmot would be in a spa. Wild and reckless and clueless. JR ate way too many slices of street pizza, we shot a commercial with the Volkswagen crew, and, yes, we kept our clothes on (ya can’t skinny dip in Central Park, we learned.) That was the most urban period we passed since our pre-Vanlife days living in Los Angeles. I even wore shoes, people, for 16 hours out of every day, so you know it was serious.
May: A Family Affair
It had been a year and a half since either JR or I had seen our families, so we decided to stop by the green rainy pastures of North Carolina to say hello.
JR’s parents own an organic farm in the center of the state. Meeting their baby chickens and walking their rows of kale and spinach made our spring hearts sing.
It’s been rare we get these chances to visit, so we opened our hearts to that special moment in time. Being there to give his mom a squeeze on Mother’s Day was something that hadn’t happened in, well, forever. Sometimes the scarcity of moments like those make us realize how precious they truly are.
June: Kit’s Caribbean Fam
My mother grew up in the Bahamas, which means the maternal side of my family are all native Bahamians. To this day, they still live on the island on Nassau.
JR and I first visited my family in the Bahamas together when we were 15, and we hadn’t been back to say hi since 2013.
So, when my grandfather passed away, we decided to extend family time to attend his funeral. We flew from North Carolina straight to the islands—with the same luggage we hauled to Germany and New York. We had coats and boots, not sunblock and bikinis! Safe to say—we bought sandals from a beachside hut first thing when we landed.
Seeing my Ma’s family was precious. It was also surreal and difficult given the loss of my grandfather. We ate conch and rice and beans, went out on the boat for spear fishing, and sat with my grandma as she spoke of my grandfather.
It was healing to celebrate his colorful life as a Calypso nightclub singer, to laugh over photographs; and to grieve alongside my cousins, aunt and grandmother. As we flew out, over the blue blue ocean, I made a note in my journal that maybe we’ll wait less than ten years to return again.
July: We Sold Daydream
The day we flew back to Sunshine and Daydream in Phoenix, it was 116 degrees outside. I wish I could say we immediately packed up and drove off. But that’s not what was in the cards for JR and me.
You see, we had not one but *two* buses waiting for us—a whole other story that will take a number of blog posts to catch you up on. Short story is: we’d been traveling in a two-bus convoy, and that wasn’t quite working out for us. So, we took it upon ourselves to sell our second bus, Daydream. The process took three weeks, during which we stayed in our buddy Richard’s yard. It was a challenging and relieving process.
Sunshine also had a host of issues that were keeping her off the road, and we needed to address them before moving north. So, yes, in July we melted like two orange creamsicle snow cones in Phoenix. I’m amazed that with all our work over asphalt, the wrenches didn’t melt to our palms in the heat of midday.
August: Alpine Trails
Late July to mid September found us in one of our favorite summer haunts. We love the high Rocky Mountains in the warm months, for slow days of aimless idling.
Really..do we need more than these photos to explain why?
September: Red Rocks instead of Red Trees
Early September lured us south with the promise of, yes, another vortex of Volkswagens. The thirty-first annual Jerome Jamboree was happening in the haunted hills of Arizona, and we’d never attended, after all these years of promising ourselves we would. Plus, it had started growing cold up in the Rockies, and this year, we’d decided to err on the sunny side of south. So we said hi to our VW fam…and drove a squiggled road down into the flats.
Which led us to Sedona, Arizona, red rock paradise. Our most recent leg. A perfect segway into a warm fall, complete with swimming for the inclined. Safe to say…you know we both were. 😉
