The great escape

When we last left our heroes, they were slowly melting in the fires of Needles, California. Things were looking dire. It was somewhere around day 4 when our supply of Futurama ran out. We knew that we could not hold on much longer. On day 6, in desperation, we journeyed to the banks of the mighty Colorado, in search of water. While reading on the sandy bank we were approached by three girls, natives of Needles. They greeted us in what we could only assume was a typical local greeting- "Are you guy's, like, gay?" Now, Eric and I are not, in fact, gay lovers, but we are two dudes living in an RV, so it's not like we had never heard the question before. But we wondered what had prompted the question since they couldn't possibly know our living arrangements, and asked. This was the response: "Well, like, I don't know, like, you guys are like here...together...and you're not in the water, and your just, you know, reading books..." Think about that for a second. Books.
By day 8, we were nearly insane. Even Scrabble had lost its appeal. Luckily, there was light at the end of the tunnel. Our radiator was fixed and we were preparing ourselves for a life beyond Needles. When we turned the key, Steve roared to life, only to sputter out soon after in what seemed like a dying gasp. It turned out that the radiator had been the easy part. Now we found out that the head gasket on the left side of the engine had failed, spraying oil and coolant into the compression chamber. For those of you who, like us at the time, know nothing of cars, this is not good.
But, we were committed to nursing Steve back to health, and this turn for the worse did offer us an exciting new opportunity. We now knew that Steve would not be ready anytime soon, as we had thought before, so we decided to make a run for it. In April I had couchsurfed with a kid named Andrew in Flagstaff. I called him, and to my surprise, he was still around and willing to put us up if we could make it there. We packed up what few things we could carry, and set off, attempting to hitch a ride 200 miles East to Flagstaff from Needles.
After about 2 hours on the On Ramp to I 40, we were finally picked up by a kindly ex-hippy named Clay, just as we were about to give up and submit to another night in the desert. We arrived in Flagstaff just before midnight, and met up with Andrew. There was only one couch, so we decided to sling our hammocks outside his house and sleep under the stars. It would be another 8 days before we were on the road again, but of course, we didn't know that at the time. Stay tuned for Part 2.

Clay, the awesome ex-hitchhiker who picked us up in Needles and drove us to Flagstaff

An incredible cave in some canyons right outside of Flagstaff, AZ

Squatting in Andrew's recently vacated house in Flagstaff

Wow...sorry it has been soooo long since we last posted. We have been so busy these last couple of weeks that it will take me a little while to catch everyone up, but I will do my best. The most important thing to know is that we survived needles, and we are in Portland Oregon now!

Pins and Needles California

R.I.P. FONTANE

WE WILL MISS YOUR CROAK

Well, we made it out of Kingmen full of exuberance, and into the gateway of California: Needles. We attempted to make it to Barstow from Needles, a 200 mile drive, but about 4 miles away from Needles our radiator literally exploded. It may have been the heat (120 degrees F) or it may have been the fact that our radiator was ziptied to the car and was apparently an amalgamation of several different radiators welded into one, but either way we are stuck in this god forsaken hell hole until Tuesday night.


Mercifully the sun went below the horizon

Every day I think that it has to be cooler out, since it couldn't have possibly been hotter than the day before...man was I wrong. I have never been in a place where the wind is hotter than the absence of wind. It feels like we are being scorched by a magnifying glass, except that there is nothing interesting to look at here.

My poor Australian White's Tree Frog, Fontane, couldn't take the heat, and died on Saturday June 21st. He was 3 years old.

More and more this trip is beginning to remind me of the computer game the Oregon Trail. We have already lost one member of our party to heat exhaustion and the meat in our freezer went bad and had to be thrown away...I just hope neither of us gets bitten by a rattlesnake or dies of diphtheria.

We have been trying to keep ourselves occupied, mainly by reading (thank god we restocked on books in Flagstaff), watching Futurama, and swimming at the local pool, however our primary occupation is trying to dig a hole in which to bury ourselves in.

Our home is now situated on the side of the 76 gas station where there is a bathroom, an outlet, and very little local flora or fauna. I have now eaten at Denney's twice, and wish I could take it all back. We ventured out one day in search of the Colorado river, which is supposed to run through town, but on our adventure we ran out of water and had to turn back...we have plans to explore the area later this afternoon, but we will need to find more water, and possibly a couple of pack mules to carry it.

Today we discovered the internet, lurking somewhere within the public library...it is conveniently located next to the swimming pool, and I am able to write this post with some amount of optimism, because I know that I will be able to douse the fire that will inevitable ignite somewhere on my body once I trek back to the 76/home.

Sorry, but these are the only interesting pictures I have taken as of yet in needles. We found a skate park near the pool, where Sam tried to do some tricks. I valued my head and stood safely out of the way.

Mouth to Car: Auto Problems

Sorry it's been so long since I have updated this...internet is somewhat hard to come by on the road.


22nd Birthday Party at the Hesbrook house

We were both sad to leave the incredible hospitality of Alex, Michele, and Zack in Santa Fe, but we needed to continue the road trip. We left whistling out of tune, full of vim and vigor, and Steve made it sluggishly at about 30 miles per hour into Flagstaff Arizona, which is a very cool oasis in the Arizona desert. We got in on my birthday June 16th and stayed at the KOA RV park. We paid $30 to park, and promptly hiked up Mt. Elden under the full moon with our hammocks to sleep at the peak. It was a beautiful hike, with ancient sinuous juniper trees, towering pine trees, flowering yucca, and bioluminescent beetle larvae. We set up our hammocks on top of a rock outcrop that looked over all of Flagstaff, cheersed with our last two beers, and passed out...exhausted.


The full moon over Flagstaff


Sam reading in his hammock

The next day we met up with a family friend of Sam's, Cindy Perin, at a pizza resturaunt that turned out to be much like Chucky Cheese...needless to say we blew all of our money.

Cindy Perin is an incredibly interesting, hospitable, and subversive woman. She is most widely known in Flagstaff for her ongoing battle to try to be sustainable. She is in the process of building a beautiful house complete with solar electric, solar thermal and the latest in green building materials (recycled tire roof shakes, recycled money table top,...recycled blue jeans insulation), however some of her "neighbors" (you can barely see their house from hers) are trying to keep her from putting up solar panels because don't fit in with the decor of the neighborhood. We left Cindy's house well fed, with a few fewer t-shirts (spooning leads to forking, all my friends are dead, and the Tetons are an orogenous zone...she seems to share our sense of humor), and joking about how it would be as hard for Steve to leave Flagstaff as us. We were more right than we knew.

Steve started acting funny about 30 miles outside of Flagstaff, where we pulled off at exit 71, came to a stop at the stop sign, and didn't move for about 2 hours, 2 cops, and one tow truck later. Turns out the radiator cap wasn't working so well, and we were spewing coolant. About 5 hours and 300 dollars later we were back on the road, on our way to Kingman Arizona...we broke down again about 30 miles away.


Our poor radiator :(

It's hard to convey the exact feelings we were both going through, but if I tried it would be something like "F*$#in' piece of %$@##$...manacle laughter...qhi@#!...nervous laughter...?????...$$$$...FUCK! As we listened to "easy listening Kenny G" on hold with AAA.


Apparently warning lights do nothing to deter truckers



After 2o min or so of "Oh, well you're going to need RV AAA, not AAA plus", "You're in Arizona...I don't understand, why are you calling AAA Colorado", "I don't think you can upgrade to AAA RV...let me connect you 4 or 5 times back and forth between Colorado and Massachusetts...click", we got a hold of a towing company, and made it into the middle of nowhere within Kingman. We ate Carl's Jr. for dinner and slept in front of the auto shop.

I am currently posting this from the auto shop, where the two mechanics are exponentially more helpful than anyone else we have run into, and we are hoping to be all fixed up and at least make it to San Francisco before Emi's birthday on June 27th. (I wish I could have made it to Emi's graduation in Chicago today, but judging from our RV trouble, I think it would have been a wasted plane ticket).

Ta for now, hopefully I won't have to post from an auto shop tomorrow!

Looking Proudly Towards the Future

For my graduation present Emi and Mari designed an incredible 3 x 5 ft poster to hang on the side of the RV. Unfortunately due to problems with the mail I haven't recieved it, and am planning to pick it up in San Francisco. I am really excited about having the poster, but I am a little worried about what people will think as they drive by the RV, but then I remember that I don't really care what they think. Anyways, I had to share it with you all before I even get it, because it is just that amazing:

Seeing as this is my first blog you would have thought we might have thought it through more, but frankly we didn't, and there are a few things i wanted to throw into the blog that I had forgotten, I guess mainly for my own memory (because I don't really expect anyone to be reading this).

Gathering VO from "The Ritz" in Colorado Springs: Our first experience getting fuel

Sam spent about two hours walking up and down Tejon St. in downtown Colorado Springs asking every restaurant around if we could have their waste oil. Many places were interested in what we were doing, but the right person wasn't there to okay it, or in the case of the Phantom Canyon Brewery, they were as committed to being green as we were and already had a company that recycled their oil for them. Of all places, the Ritz, a somewhat skeezy bar downtown let us take 40 gallons of their oil for $10 and a little attitude, but we were grateful none the less.

It was our first experience actually pumping the oil out of the grease trap, and we didn't have a system set up yet to pump it straight into the fuel tank (I don't think the RV was running at the time)...So, we got a 55 gallon plastic drum from Sinton Dairy, and rented a dolly from Home Depot. I spent about 20 minutes hauling that drum down Tejon about 3 blocks at 11pm before I couldn't feel my arms anymore. I stopped on a street corner, and waited for Sam to show up with his 2 door Honda Accord (while waiting, covered in grease, and sitting next to this giant drum of oil, two giggling girls pulled up next to me and asked if I was handcuffed to a trash can). Sam finally arrived, popped his trunk, I got in looking like some kind of contortionist with my knees by my head, and my arms desperately clinging to the dolly with the grease. We sped down Tejon (apparently a speed didn't even register on the speedometer) with grease sloshing around and smoke pouring out of the dolly wheels. It was a sight to see, but unfortunately neither of us brought a camera. We are working on streamlining our pumping and filtering set up so we have one end of a hose that goes in the grease trap, and one that goes into the fuel tank, so hopefully I will never have to cart 300 lbs of VO downtown again.

Selling in Santa Fe

We woke up very early this morning to drive out to the Tesuque Flea Market (about 30 min outside of Santa Fe...that is if your driving a crappy RV), where we spent the day mainly sitting and reading or napping in a hammock. It was a pretty slow day, but we are confident that sales will pick up tomorrow and Sunday. For now we don't have all of the accessories to make our stand look incredible, or really anything besides a few coat hangers to display shirts. Luckily I had all of my climbing gear with me, so we hung shirts by carabiners and quick draws from my 60 foot rope and almost created a convincing deliberate booth style.

Here are a few pictures from the last couple of days...I'd add more but I'm tired.

Bright eyed Sam about to christen the RV with undrinkable, but definitely smashable Andre chamagne.


I don't know why this is underlined all of a sudden, but anyways, we try to do pull up pyramids every morning on the hang board we put on the side of the RV.


The sun setting over the Great Sand Dunes.


We spent a few hours on top of the RV relaxing and looking at the stars.


Riding bikes to the Great Sand Dunes after Steve wouldn't start in the morning.


Relaxing.


Bringing a little bit of the Sand Dunes wherever we end up.

June 9th-June 13th: Colorado Springs to Santa Fe

Well, we finally made it, we graduated and went straight to early retirement…we’re living the dream. After casually mentioning selling t-shirts out of an RV, we bought it, retrofitted it to run on vegetable oil (check out the “about us tab” to find out more about our “sustainable business and living in a van down by the river”), gutted it, dressed it up to look nice, and broke a champagne bottle on the front grill to christen it.

On Monday June 9^th we prepared to brush the dust of Colorado Springs off our heels and head to Great Sand Dunes National Park to redust our shoes with sand, and to relax after two months of horrible stress from classes, graduating, starting a business, selling shirts, and partying relentlessly, and in a poof of irony the RV (Steve) refused to start. It was about this time we realized we had never turned the head lights off from the christening ceremony. Auspicious beginnings.

We finally made it to the Great Sand Dunes trailing the sweet smell of French fries and an air of invincibility, only to be forced to relax a day longer when Steve refused to start once again. Our motto soon changed from Santa Fe or bust to Santa Fe and bust.

We arrived in Santa Fe running on oily fumes on Tuesday night, and were graciously fed, showered, and put to bed at our college friend Alex Hesbrook’s incredible house (right off of Dinosaur Trail). For the last 2 days we have been fed sumptuous gourmet meals by Zack and Michele and have transformed their garage into our printing studio to restock our stock room (bathroom) and prepare for the Tesuque Flea Market on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Today we also managed to fill up our 40 gallon vegetable oil tank at Joe’s Diner, where we met a very nice and curious kitchen staff, owner and personal friend of Zacks as well as a huge and nasty grease trap. We spent about 2 hours pumping the beautiful, golden, free fuel into Steve’s belly, which also meant that each of us spent about an hour with our hands submerged in grease, and faces aching to break out into acne (we’re still working the kinks out). You know how people say that there’s no such thing as a free lunch? Well the oil that the lunch is fried in isn’t really “free” either.

Anyway, we’ve gotta go get some sleep so we’ll have our strength tomorrow, and you, well, you should probably go do something more productive too. Write the great American novel. Consider the daffodil. I don’t know. Anyway, we’re going to bed. Stay tuned.

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Yo! I'm working on the website right now! This is to test the blogging capabilities of lonelydinosaur.com Woo stylesheets!
-Matt