#teardrop camper

Been adventuring around the tri state area. We have rescued two amazing dogs that will now be adventuring with us on our travels. Unfortunately our teardrop couldn’t handle all four of us. We sold our teardrop to a family in Richmond. So for the time being we have been using our VW bus for our trips. Starting to sketch up plans to build a bigger teardrop. Stay tuned!!

Last weekend we went to Glen Onoko Falls in Pennsylvania. Tahoe had his first sip of cold mountain water and took his first breath of fresh mountain air, a very important moment for an adventure dog. We had lunch together next to the waterfalls, he munched on his dog food and I had my peanut butter banana sandwich. We scrambled rocks, hopped across streams, howled at the trees and enjoyed the sounds and sights of the waterfalls together. Mans best friend. Although it was a shorter hike, it was refreshing to be in the woods again. This upcoming weekend Jess Tahoe and I with a few friends will be taking a camping trip to upstate New York. Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring.

Meet Tahoe, our new puppy and adventure buddy. We have brought him camping three times over the last month and a half and he seems to love it. Runs ahead of us on the trail and stops and waits until we are in sight again, hangs by the fire at night and loves to be outside. A likely candidate for our team. The past few weekends, we have checked out Bass River State Park, NJ - Allaire State Park, NJ and Dingmans Ferry, PA.

Fire, friends, waterfalls, hiking, warm bourbon cider, lakes, autumn leaves, our new friend Tahoe, s'mores, surfing, the ocean and the crisp fall air. It has been a great Fall thus far. 

This week we are going to drive the truck on the beach at Island Beach State Park in NJ - surf, grill food, hang with friends, have a fire and let Tahoe have a all day cooled down beach experience.

Cheers to adventure and new friends!

The first two days at Big Sur have been amazing. The morning fog washed away by the afternoon and Jess and I took a trail down the cliff and made our way to the water. We rock scrambled our way up and down and explored the coastline for a few hours. After we got some lunch in our stomachs, we headed to Pfeiffer beach for a few hours which is a cool sandy beach spot ( 10$ - ouch.) Today we will be exploring a few waterfalls and taking a couple of trails within our campground (Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park). The trails lead you through the big beautiful alluring coastline redwoods. The redwoods are unlike anything I have ever seen and truly make you feel pint sized. With the morning fog and the large redwoods rising up hundreds of feet surrounding you, it truly feels as if you are in a dreamland. 

The Pacific Coast Highway truly is America’s most beautiful scenic highway. The winding road along the cliff face overlooking the lightly colored greenish blue ocean is surreal. The landscape is so charming and I can safely say Big Sur has me lured in. The only downfall I see and I must write this because it really is unfortunate. I pulled up to a gas station yesterday at the price was 6.77$ a gallon! That’s highway robbery, no pun intended. French toast at a local restaurant that Jess and I went to check out was 19$! I understand raising prices because of the touristy area, but the prices here are absolutely disgusting. I don’t mind paying for good food and I never complain about gas prices, but that is ridiculous. Otherwise the natural beauty certainly makes up for any downfall. 

Tomorrow we head to Yosemite National Park, I am so excited.

The Grand Canyon is unreal. It’s feels as if you are staring at a painting or a backdrop for a John Wayne movie.

Jess and I visited the South Rim. I really would have liked to to gone to the North Rim just to avoid the Disney World crowd like madness. Our trip was originally planned for coming up from southern Arizona so the South Rim made sense. Due to the fires in the Coconino area and our reservations being cancelled our trip changed last minute and was rerouted.

After setting up camp we headed to the visitor center to attend to our ritual, postcards and a sticker. The visitor center had to have thousands of people there, total madness. The stress levels started to rise. After coming from Bryce and Arches, the crowds just were too much to handle.

Luckily Jess and I read up on a few cool hikes to beautiful views of the South Rim away from the overwhelming crowds. We headed to the first hike’s trailhead, two other cars in the small parking lot was a great sign. We headed down the trail excited to get “our” views of the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is a very spiritual place, I didn’t want that compromised because of the stampede like crowd of tourists. So two cars in the parking lot was an exciting view. The trail was only a little over a mile each way, cake. Coming around the last bend was more than we could have asked for. A ledge that ultimately sticks out into the canyon, I saw Jess’s face light up. After spending hours that only seemed like a mere five minutes we headed back to camp.

This morning we woke up with a family of Elk in our campsite. Grazing the grass and paying no mind to Jess and I’s excitement. We hung out with the elk as one while we ate our egg white burritos. The smile wouldn’t leave my face, waking up with Elk 50 feet from us is what it’s all about.

This morning we are headed to a few more view points including Desert View which I am pretty excited about. I definitely would like to come back to the Grand Canyon and hike down into the canyon. Unfortunately when I booked the sites, all the backcountry permits for camping were booked up. Always next time. Now we are headed
back into the magical state of Utah to experience Zion National Park. We only have two nights there. We will be nonstop, fitting in as much as we can. We can always sleep this fall when we head back east.

On the road to Zion…

Arches National Park is by far the coolest, oddest, strangest most beautiful place I have ever been. These pictures do not do it justice. This is a place that must be visited to truly understand the strange beauty of it.

Jess and I started out with one of the more popular hikes to • Delicate Arch •
It was a little under 4 miles round trip. Although 4 miles isn’t very long, we were nervous with the harsh summer desert heat. With lots of sun screen and water we prevailed. The hike to the arch was beautiful to say the least and well worth the sweat. The next hike we did was to Landscape Arch, which was a quick 2 mile hike. The landscape arch is the longest natural arch in the world, pretty neat.

Thanks to my friend Darren with lots of recommendations for the Moab area. We ended the daylight with a burger and milkshake from Milts. A cool outside seating burger joint that has been serving Moab since 1954. I couldn’t think of anything that I would have wanted more after a long day.

I wish I had more time to spend at Arches National Park and the entire Moab area. So much cool hikes, history and beautiful scenery to check out. Will be coming back in the future without a doubt. Tomorrow I think we will head to Bryce Canyon National Park.

Cheers!

We had about a 4 hour drive from Great Sand Dunes National Park to Mesa Verde National Park. The directions took us down route 160, such a beautiful drive. The winding road takes you right through the Rio Grande And San Juan National Forests. About 2 hours into the drive we stopped at a local farmers market and got some delicious food and checked out some crafts made by the local artisans. Lots of beautiful hand made items.

We booked two tours at Mesa Verde National Park. The first tour we took “Balcony House” was incredible. Starting off the tour with a 30 foot wooden ladder that takes you right into the heart of the cave dwellings. The Puebloan’ s created these insanely beautiful seated dwellings in the 12th century. It’s pretty cool that 800 years later we can be blown away in awe by their creations. The second tour was called “Cliff Palace” which is the largest Native American cave dwelling in North America.

Needless to say Jess and I can’t get over how cool Mesa Verde is. Tomorrow we are off to Arches National Park. Which we didn’t plan on going to. I think that’s the best part of this trip, freedom. Rolling with the punches…

Feels nice that the weather cooled down as the sun dropped behind the mountains. Can’t wait to crawl into bed..

Happy 4th of July from The Great Sand Dunes National Park!

We left The Great Smoky Mountains National Park around noon on Wednesday. As you can see our route changed a bit. Some of our reservations were cancelled in Arizona due to fires. So, we high tailed it to Colorado stopping only for fuel and food. I didn’t get any sleep and drove the entire day Wednesday, Wednesday night and most of Thursday. Jess hopped in for a few hours here and there giving me a few breaks. You also might notice there is a picture of Jess driving and not me. That’s because Jess slept most of the time :) . Luckily I had some good driving tunes and coffee to keep me awake. We did get to stop and check out Cadillac Ranch outside of Amarillo, Texas which was a cool piece of art.

We got to the campsite late Thursday afternoon and went to sleep pretty early last night. We did get to meet our great camp neighbors who are from Minnesota and travel the U.S. every chance they get on their motorcycle while pulling a trailer tent. They have been doing it since 1990 and had some great tips and ideas for camping/the camper and cool recommendations for areas in the U.S.

Jess and I woke up at at 4am to hike around the Sand Dunes at Great Sand Dunes National Park. For the first hour as the sun was coming up we were the only people in the park, that we could see at least. The Great Sand Dunes in Colorado are the tallest dunes in North America. Such a surreal natural beauty.

Now to take a nap in the hammock…

We started our journey yesterday and already it has kicked ass. We stayed at Cosby Campground in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Very quiet, shady and beautiful campground. Our campsite was next to a creek, which made a great backdrop. We stopped at a veggie stand on the way in to buy some local produce. We broke out the cast iron skillet and made some badass veggie tacos. On the way out of the campground we stopped at Ozone Falls. Great photo op and swim spot. The falls drop 110’ into a cool little swimming hole. Summertime vibes.

Leaving this upcoming Tuesday for our first stop - The Great Smoky Mountains National Park! Lots of packing to take care of as well as double and triple checking the teardrop camper.

I’ll be sad leaving Richmond, such a cool city. Great people, great restaurants, great history and lots of fun outdoor stuff to do on the James.  It’s also in a great location being just a short drive from Shenandoah National Park as well as the beach. If you have never been to Richmond, I highly recommend checking it out. Pick up a copy of Colden Issue II for a breakdown of cool spots of Richmond by my homie Darren. http://colden.bigcartel.com

Shout out to my boy Tiny for making the last year and a half of work a bad motorgator. 

builtsosmall-campervantravels:

america-living:

Tiny House/Tear Drop Trailer Combination

Wow. Very different. My two loves combined.

america-living:

Tiny House/Tear Drop Trailer Combination

Wow. Very different. My two loves combined.

sometimes i just want to simplify. this looks quite appealing. take my family on a road trip, cuddle up, cook dinner…drive with no destination.

the only thing we have is time, the only thing we don’t have is time.