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June 8, 2019 Dave Scheibel

Some places just feel like home, even if they technically aren’t. Colorado is that way for me. I’ve developed some close friendships with people there over the last few years, and also have a love of the high mountains. I feel like the home feeling has more to it than that, but I’m not sure how to describe it. I was excited to get there, so we decided to drive from Tahoe to our destination just outside Denver in a week.

We moved quickly from Tahoe across Nevada on Highway 50. Betty White can hold 80mph pretty well! Highway 50 in Nevada is designated the loneliest road in America, and it certainly felt like it! Jami kept wondering how many bodies were buried as we’d drive for many miles without seeing another car or any sign of civilization. We stopped in Hickison Petroglyph BLM park (free) for a night. It was a beautiful park, but it was unfortunate to see that many of the petroglyphs were almost indistinguishable from more recent carvings/grafiti. We still had fun exploring the park.

Here are a few pictures from our travels across Nevada. There are a couple from runs, and most are from a hike with Jami and Mia in the Hickison Petroglyph park.

Jami was trying to work as we drove along, which was a frustrating experience. We’d get spotty service, even though she could switch between AT&T and Verizon as needed. At one point she got an unexpected call from her company president. I quickly looked for a place to pull over. Of course just as I pulled off the freeway we lost service. Definitely not the type of conversation you want to have with a company exec!

We continued across more barren landscape and finally made it to Moab. We spent a couple nights and explored Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, as well of the town of Moab. Arches is small and we were able to see almost all of it in a day, while Canyonlands is massive, so we just scratched the surface. It was beautiful, but as Jami put it, all of the arches started to look the same at a certain point.

Here are a few photos from a run in Moab

And more Arches National Park photos!

The following pictures are all from a run in Canyonlands National Park

After that we finally made it into Colorado! I went for a run outside of Fruita in western Colorado, then we made our way to Golden. The Golden RV Park is run by the city and is one of the nicest we’ve stayed at. It is clean, small, right next to a running path and the river, and an easy walk into town. Oh… when we arrived it was SNOWING! After 2 months of running it shorty shorts without a shirt, it was definitely an adjustment! Thankfully the cold weather only lasted a few days, and has been pretty warm and sunny since.

My first run outside of Golden with Caleb… brrr!

And here are some more pics from my first few runs around Golden

Colorado has been incredible. We’ve been catching up with old friends and making new ones. Our first stop was with Caleb and Kelsey. I met Caleb while running the Fat Dog 120 in Canada, and we instantly became great friends. I think we shared around 80 miles of that race together. At the time he told me about a race he wanted to put on in Colorado on some incredible trails, but didn’t have a name or all the details worked out. I told him I would be the first to sign up once he put it together, and I have been for all 3 years of the High Lonesome 100! Kelsey is his amazing partner and a huge part of making the HL100 happen. Always so great to see them! I also got to reconnect with Matt and Julie, their son Paavo, and new baby Brecon at their temporary home base in Boulder. I started Team Run Run with them (which they have taken to new heights!), and after I left for Amazon we haven’t been as close. It was great to hang out with them, catch up, and reestablish our friendship. They live a very nomadic life and it’s always fun to compare plans! For the first couple of weeks in CO it felt like we were seeing an old friend almost every night! I’ve even run into friends unexpectedly while running the trails around Boulder! Colorado peeps just seem super cool. What great people!

Speaking of running, Golden and Boulder are running meccas, and it’s been so much fun to meet some running legends in person. I got to run with Andrew Skurka (National Geographic Adventurer of the Year, among other cool running and hiking accomplishments). Check out one of my favorite videos of Skurka after a Grizzly encounter on an Alaska adventure. I also got to stay in my coach’s driveway for a night (David and Megan Roche). It was so cool to chat with them and meet their super cute dog Addie in person (highly recommend following her on Instagram @Addiedoesstuff… be sure to read the photo captions)! On top of being incredible athletes, coaches, and people, they wrote an amazing book, The Happy Runner, that I’d highly recommend to anyone. It’s actually the one physical book I brought with me, even though I’ve already read it. I think there is a lot to take away from it even for non-runners. Megan had unfortunately just gotten some bad news about an injury, but they were still such great hosts! It’s inspiring to be around their positivity and energy.

Kyle, Skurka, Matt and me on a run in Boulder

More trail porn from Boulder, Golden, and in-between

After a couple weeks in Golden and Bolder Jami and Mia had to fly back to Seattle. Their part of this adventure was done, and I immediately missed them. Jami had been on and off the van with work trips, but it definitely felt different having Mia gone and knowing I wouldn’t see them for a while (I’m flying back to Seattle for a week at the end of June, but will otherwise be in Colorado solo until August). Jami already found a fabulous new apartment for us, and is settling in as I write this (Thanks my love!)! Had it not been for trying to work she would have liked to stay on Betty White for longer, but she was definitely ready to get settled and see her coworkers back in the office.

Now solo, I drove up to Leadville, the highest US city, at 10,200 ft, to spend time in the higher mountains and to acclimate for upcoming races. My first race, The San Juan Solstice 50, was unfortunately canceled due to snow levels. It’s a pretty scary situation for the small town of Lake City, which is at risk of serious flooding as snow melts. I decided to jump into the Leadville Marathon, on June 15th instead. It is also going to have a course change, since its high point (Mosquito Pass, a little over 13,000 ft) is under too much snow to clear. I’m in a rustic little RV park right in the town of Leadville, with a view of Mt Elbert and Mt Massive from Betty White. My mom decided to come out for the race, so I’ll have some company coming up soon!

The view from a Leadville trail run with Caleb. The furthest mountain to the right is Mt Massive.

The Leadville RV park Im staying in on the left, and an incredible view of Mt Massive!

Another shot from a Leadville trail run with Caleb

Finally some pictures from a hike up to part of the High Lonesome 100 course. In the race this trail climbs to the high point of the course (a bit over 13,000 ft), in a saddle next to Mt Antero. On this hike I was only able to get up to near 11,400 ft due to the snow. I was climbing through thigh deep post holes pretty quickly at that point and decided to turn around. Hopefully it all melts before the High Lonesome 100 at the end of July! On my way back some storms started rolling in. Thankfully I made it back to Betty White before the rain started.

Thanks for reading!

Living the #goodlife on our Van!

May 13, 2019 Dave Scheibel

Almost 2 months in and I’d say the most surprising thing about living our vanlife is how easy the transition has been! It really feels like home with plenty of space. The biggest challenge has been missing friends and family back in Seattle.

Speaking of Seattle, we made the tough decision not to go to Seattle before heading to Colorado for June and July. Based on the pace we’ve set we decided it would just be too much to try and get back to Seattle and then over to CO by early June. As a result we’ve already started heading east.

It’s been over 3 weeks since my last post and I have a lot to cover, so I’m mostly going to do it in pictures, many of which have been taking on my runs. It’s a fun challenge to try and get good pictures without stopping, although some of the views recently have been worth stopping for. We’ve visited some incredible places over the last few weeks, and my iPhone photos really don’t do them justice, but hopefully give some small sense of the beauty of this part of California.

Ojai California is a beautiful town that we’d love to go back to and spend more time in. I left off my last post half way through our visit, so only have a couple of photos from a foggy, wild flower filled trail run to share.

From Ojai we made our way back to the coast and spent a night in Santa Barbara. We love SB, and really wished we had planned more time there.

We left SB and stopped in Solvang briefly before heading to Morro Bay for a couple of nights. Mia LOVES the beach. Mia actually knows the word beach, and will start getting uncontrollably excited if you mention it. As we drove into Morro Bay Mia started sniffing the air vent because she could smell the sea air. And she was beyond excited to actually go down to the beach. She had a blast digging in the sand and chasing rocks.

After Morro Bay we spent a night at a winery in Paso Robles (we needed provisions for the long drive), then explored Big Sur and Point Lobos.

From Big Sur we spent a night in Monterey where Mia got some more beach time. From there I went for a run in the Forest of Nisene Marks on the way to San Jose, where Jami was schedule to catch a flight back to Seattle for work.

With Jami off on work travels for a week, Mia and I drove over to Yosemite. I had never been, and it exceeded my expectations. Most days I ran and or hiked at least twice, and I still feel like there is so much that I missed and want to go back to see.

Incredible waterfall and rainbow that I caught just at the right moment. This looks better as a still image, but is pretty cool as a GIF as well (see the still in the gallery below).

We met Jami back in San Jose at the end of the week. Unfortunately she was flying out again to Miami and then to Seattle, so Mia and I had another solo week. We decided to stay closer to civilization and catch up on some RV maintenance and upgrades in Sacramento. Jami joined us again at the end of the week and we met up with our fabulous Seattle friend Daisy, who was in town visiting family, for dinner. On Sunday I ran some trails with Daisy in Auburn CA before we started east. Our first stop is Lake Tahoe - stay tuned for those pics.

[Note from Jami: it’s still not a van!]

Thanks for reading!

Duct Tape fixes everything!

April 19, 2019 Dave Scheibel

Feel free to scroll to the end if you want to see my creative use of duct tape; probably not what you’re expecting (viewer discretion advised). Otherwise read on to hear about our travels for the last couple of weeks.

Time has flown by! We’re really loving life on Betty, and it’s starting to feel like home. Our travels have taken us from Temecula to Long Beach, LA, Palm Springs, Joshua Tree, Ventura, and now Ojai. Tomorrow we head to Santa Barbara.

I finally found some running trails near Temecula on the last couple of days. There were beautiful views from the hill.

After Temecula we moved over to Long Beach. We had fun exploring a few neighborhoods, and Jami took me on a surprise date to a first Friday block party. We also took a little tour of the haunted ship the Queen Mary. The first picture below was an interesting situation, with a photographer taking a picture of another photographer and model… not sure what was going on there! I guess with Jami taking the photo it was a photographer taking a photo of a photographer taking a photo of a photographer taking a photo of a model… whew!

After Long Beach we moved on to Northridge, which was the closest location we could find to Jami’s LA office, which she needed to stop into for some meetings. It was hot. Thankfully I did find a trail to run nearby, but mostly Mia and I lounged around while Jami worked.

From there Mia and I had our first drive without Jami out to Palm Springs. I was a little worried how that would work, since Mia likes to ride on someone’s lap and I didn’t want to let her do that while I was driving. Thankfully it worked perfectly! I setup a blanket in the passenger seat and Mia was a great copilot. We went for a little hike once we arrived at the Happy Traveler RV Resort. Mia was very excited, but wanted me to cary her on the way back.

Jami picked up a rental car and joined us in Palm Springs later that night. We spent a week there and had a blast connecting with friends we hadn’t seen in a while, exploring the town, running some great trails, and enjoying some great drinks. We love Palm Springs, and I could see a longer stay in our future. Oh, it’s hard to see in the picture, but after a trail run I looked down to find my legs stained orange in pollen from all of the flowers leaning into the trail. Jami said it looked like I had a bad spray tan. I can’t explain the guy driving with his leg out the window…

Jami took a flight out of Palm Springs to Chicago and I drove over to Joshua Tree National Park, which was beautiful! After driving through the park from the south to the north Mia and I parked Betty for free on BLM land. The next morning I had a blast running some trails in Joshua Tree.

After my run and a shower we drove the four hours back to LA, where Jami was landing from her trip to Chicago. We stayed at the Dockweiler Beach RV park, which is right on the beach and only a few minutes from the airport. I’m glad we only stayed one night though, since the constant sound of airplanes was a bit distracting.

We took off early the next morning and drove up to Ventura, where I stopped for a quick run. Jami worked while we were driving and found a setup that Mia was happy with that still enabled her to type with both hands. After my run and a shower we continued on to Ojai, where we’re staying at a park. This will be the longest we’ve stayed without hookups so far, with a solid 3 days of showers and living… we’ll see how it goes!

Ok… On to the duct tape story. The last couple of days I’ve been running in the heat and have been super sweaty. This has lead to some painful chafing on my inner thighs, which got to the point of bleeding on my 12 mile run in Ventura. It’s a bit painful while running, but mostly after I’m done; both in the shower and after. I actually had a hard time walking after the run. Jami graciously went to the store in Ojai and got some bandages, which I applied with Neosporin. Thankfully this morning I was feeling much better, but was worried about making things worse during my run (just a short 4-6 miles). The bandages wouldn’t hold, so I decided to try duct tape (also my go to for avoiding nipple chafing). It worked beautifully! The trick is to take it off right at the end of your run while it’s still warm and sweaty… I’ve waited longer in the past, which leads to painful removal. Wish me luck on my long trail run tomorrow!

Inner thigh duct tape application successful! I used some gauze to make sure it didn’t stick to the chafed area, much like a band-aide.

Ok, sorry about that. I’ll try to make it up with some cute pictures of Mia lounging on the van and some from my run this morning.

Settling into #Vanlife

April 3, 2019 Dave Scheibel

It’s hard to believe we’ve already spent over two weeks living #vanlife! I feel like we’re starting to settle in at this point. There is still a lot to learn, but we’re beginning to establish routines. We tend to get up between 7 and 8, or earlier if Jami has a meeting or I have a longer run and plans to move locations. We usually put the Murphy bed up right away, and then make coffee (for me), tea (for Jami) and breakfast (Mia first). After breakfast I go for my run and Jami starts work.

We boondocked for the first time at the Oceanside Marina. They don’t allow slide-outs so we weren’t able to deploy the Murphy bed. This gave us a chance to try the two twin beds setup (basically the two couches). It worked ok, but we much prefer a real bed. Thankfully it was only for one night. Other than that boondocking worked great. Our 400 watts of solar kept the batteries full during the day even with charging devices and using lights. Our batteries were able to keep up with the load until the sun came up on Sunday. We used our generator briefly to run the microwave. I’m guessing we could make it 3 to 4 days before having to refill fresh water with daily showers, dishes, washing hands, etc., which is more than I expected. If we really tried to conserve we could stretch that longer.

As I stepped out of the van for a run I overheard a young boy tell his father “Dad, I want a van like that!” talking about Betty. It brought a smile to my face.

After cleaning up from the run we moved over to Paradise by the Sea RV Resort, still in Oceanside. This was a pretty nice resort, and we spent a few days soaking in the sun and enjoying coastal living. The only annoyance was the coastal rail line with frequent trains passing by. Thankfully they seemed to stop at night. I loved running along the beach, taking evening strolls, and trying some Oceanside restaurants (Campfire is highly recommended!).

From Oceanside we moved inland to Temecula. Our first stop at Pechanga, a Casino RV Resort, was great! We actually would have stayed through the weekend, but they are sold out. It’s nice and quiet with lots of grass and hedges for privacy.

The hills are beautiful in Temecula, and I was itching to try and find some trails. I couldn’t find any close by on my usual apps, but did spot some via satellite/arial imagery. Unfortunately they were private with no trespassing signs in person. I still found some beautiful scenery.

One difference with our new #Vanlife is laundry. We’ve done laundry a couple times so far at RV Parks. It was something I really wasn’t looking forward to, but after doing it a couple times I’m starting to like it! There are usually lots of machines, so no matter how many loads we have we can do them all at once. It makes the total chore about 90 minutes long, and then we’re done for the week!

On Friday Mia and I decided to get some lunch in Old Town Temecula. It’s a cute Main St, with lots of restaraunts and shops. We stopped at an outdoor bar at The Bank. Mia was happy to sit on the stool next to me and look longingly at my Margarita and chips. You can see that Jami joined in for a stroll after she was done with work (with Mia looking pretty content with life).

For Friday night we tried the Harvest Host service at a local golf course. Its a subscription service that gives you boondocking options at wineries, farms, and golf courses. It’s all free, with the hope that you spend some money at the establishment. The local wineries were booked, so we decided to try a golf course. It was way out in the hills without any cell service, but was nice and quiet and beautiful.

This was the view from our parking spot at the golf course.

On Saturday we boondocked again in Temecula, before heading back to Pechanga resort. On Friday we move to Long Beach.

Mia cuddling with Jami as she works at the Pechanga park.

BTW, I quit my job, we sold our condo, and we moved into a van!

March 22, 2019 Dave Scheibel

A refresher on our path

This title reminds me of a text I might send my mom. You might say that Jami, Mia and I have made some big changes over the last few months! Honestly I’m most excited to tell you all about our latest adventure living in our new van, Betty White, but I probably need to fill many of you in on some background first.

Amazon was a trial back in the corporate world for me. After leaving Microsoft in November 2016 and trying a small company partnership with the launch of Team Run Run for a few months I found myself with an offer too good to refuse (Thanks Janene!). I decided to give it a shot. It was a fantastic place to work with amazing people, but long story short, my heart just wasn’t in it. I’m lucky and fortunate enough to be in a financial position not to have to work, so I decided to leave and see where life would take me! Who knows, some day I could end up back at Amazon, but for now I’ve got other adventures in mind!

I don’t seem to be working in any of the photos of my time at Amazon…

We also decided it was time to move on from our condo about the same time I left Amazon (November 2018). We still loved it, but had been talking about selling it for awhile since it was bigger than we needed. With market conditions for Seattle condos beginning to cool off we decided we would take the opportunity to list it with Mark Worthington (he was great if you need an agent in the Seattle area!). With the holidays and cooler market conditions it took a few months to sell, and we closed last week!

So, with all that going on we needed to think about where we would live next. We considered a small apartment in Seattle or maybe a year in Denver. We found ourselves just a couple weeks away from closing without a clear plan when I suggested the idea of buying an adventure van/RV! We had always dreamed about exploring the country in an RV some day. Within a week we had our van purchased and waiting for us in San Diego! <Note from Jami: it’s not a van. Fine, van is in the title and it’s built off of a sprinter van chassis, but no one would look at and say, ‘hey, nice van.’ They would, however, be inclined to say, ‘hey, nice RV.’ Dave likes the idea of living in a van. The only way I would stay in a van is if 1. I was being held hostage and tied up in the back, or 2. I was stranded and it was either sleep in a van or sleep outside. It’s not a van.>

How we picked our van

I had already been looking at sprinter vans to aid in mountain adventures, so had a little knowledge of what was available. We knew we wanted something easy to drive, so that ruled out big trucks and bus type RVs (Class A's are the big busses, and class C's are the trucks with big overhangs/beds over the cab). Personally I would have considered a class B sprinter conversion (think Mercedes sprinter on the outside, and RV on the inside), but one of Jami's must have criteria was a usable dry bath (a dry bath has a separate shower, while a wet bath has the sink, toilet, and shower all combined). There are only 2 class B sprinters with a dry bath, and they both compromised too much in other areas to be options for us. That left us with the class B+ (technically a Class C, but the smallest of them). They are built on a sprinter type chassis, but have more of an RV back end which gives them a little more space and storage.

There aren't a ton of Class B+ RVs on the market. We went to some local dealerships to view them, and quickly decided that the typical RV manufacturers (Tiffen, Winnebago, Thor, etc.) had too traditional a feel and felt cheep to us (which was also reflected by reviews). That left us with 3 primary higher end manufacturers with options in the B+ size (Leisure Travel Vans, PleasureWay, and Airstream). Leisure and PleasureWay seemed to have similar options, good reviews, and good quality, but we liked the Leisures better. The one Airstream option is fairly new to market and is significantly more expensive without any significant differentiating features, so we ruled it out. We were down to Leisure as our top pick.

Leisure has 3 different main model families (Wonder, Unity, and Serenity) built on the Ford Transit (Wonder) and Mercedes Sprinter (Unity and Serenity) chassis. We liked the Unity the best mainly because of the Mercedes chassis and available floor plans. All of the floor plans have tradeoffs. We tried to think about how we would live in it on a typical day, which helped us narrow it down to the FX, Island Bed, and Rear Twin Bed floor plans. The main benefit of these is two separate living spaces, so that I could sleep in while Jami had someplace to work. We ended up deciding on the FX for the full queen bed with a real mattress and very flexible living space.

The transition week

Last week was busy! On Wednesday Jami flew to Florida for work, and movers came (we used CallBox Storage) and took 95% of our belongings into storage. On Thursday I cleaned the condo, moved the last few odds and ends into a small local storage, got Marcus’ help shipping 5 large boxes overnight to San Diego (decided against trying to lug them through the airport… thanks Marcus!), turned over the condo to the new owners, found a nearby AirBnB to sleep at, then ate some Pie with Marcus and Bethany for Pi Day! Oh, and somewhere in there I setup our new address at Traveling Mailbox, submitted a change of address, and booked our first couple of nights at an RV resorts, along with my daily training for upcoming summer races. On Friday I dropped off our car with Daisy who graciously agreed to keep it for a couple months, picked up Mia from her getaway with Freddy, and then met Jami at a hotel near the airport as she got back from Florida. On Saturday we took a 6am flight to San Diego, where our salesman Dean picked us up and took us to meet our new van in person!

Drugged Mia on the way from the San Diego Airport to San Marcos to pickup Betty White!

We drove up to see Betty ‘Babs’ White shining in the California sun and took a few minutes to admire her. She is a pretty van! Then we met with a service tech for a few hours to go over all of her systems. Whew… there is a lot going on that will take a while to fully comprehend. Propane, solar, a generator, auto-leveling jacks, fresh/grey/black water tanks, house batteries, inverter, surge protector, 2 tvs, TV/WIFI/Cell antennas, fantastic fans with rain sensors, AC/heatpump/furnace, etc. etc. etc.

We went to finalize the paperwork and I got the first “you’re lucky you’re cute” (YLYC) of the day from Jami (I seem to fall back on my cuteness a lot). We had made a down payment, but needed to actually pay for the majority of the van and apparently I had packed our checkbook, somewhere not with us, and since it was a Saturday a wire transfer wasn’t possible. It was almost noon by this point, so we took an Uber for a quick bite to eat and then headed to the RV resort to search through boxes for our checks. Luckily Jami found them pretty quickly, and we Ubered back to pick up Babs!

As we made the final payment I got the second YLYC. I had cancelled our homeowners insurance policy and started a renters policy, but didn’t actually have RV insurance yet… oops! I had of course talked to our insurance company about it, but hadn’t started a policy. So, I sat out front of the dealership and and called our insurance. I found out they didn’t actually provide RV insurance in Washington… something they failed to mention when I talked to them originally. Long story short, I made another call and we had our insurance in place!

With insurance in place the three of us drove off toward Escondido for our first night aboard Babs!

#Vanlife

<Note from Jami: it’s not a van.> Organizing stuff on Babs went much faster than I expected. This is completely thanks to Jami and her amazing organizational skills! This was one of my biggest worries, and it was a huge stress relief to see that there was enough space for our things. After just a day I felt like everything had a place. We are still figuring out what else we need, but feel pretty settled and organized already. We’ve already had a couple of Amazon deliveries right to our site!

We got some folding rocking chairs and a table to better utilize outdoor space.

Mia seems to be loving #vanlife! She gets tons of walks, usually has us around, and has lots of comfy place to curl up. The only downside is that playing fetch with the Frisbee is a little anticlimactic since there’s not much room to run.

Babs all set for the first night in Escondido!

Both Jami and I have an amazing sense of freedom. It’s a pretty cool feeling knowing you have pretty much everything you need and more in less than 200 square feet, and that you can easily take it with you almost anywhere. I love the feeling of simplicity, and also the way it makes you aware of the impact of many things that we take for granted normally. For example, it’s very easy to track how much water we’re using, how much trash we use, how much energy we use, etc.. I think it will make us more efficient over time.

Working from Babs has been challenging at times for Jami so far. We started with 3 internet options: resort wifi (boosted by an antenna on top of Babs), a Verizon hotspot (also with a directional MIMO antenna if needed, and an unlimited data plan), and tethering to our AT&T iPhones as a last resort. Unfortunately none of the options are great consistently in our current location. Having some concerns about site availability we booked 5 nights here. Now in hindsight, we likely wouldn’t have stayed that long with the internet as it is.

Mia is wondering if she sits nicely for long enough will Jami give her a bite of the granola bar? One of the things we love is all of the LED lighting!

Mom, are you still working? Are you done with your plate? Can I lick it for you?

RV parks are a mixed bag. This is after only staying at two, so we have a ton to learn I’m sure. The first was pretty nice, but this one feels like a massive parking lot with over 200 sites. The facilities are also a bit dated. It got good reviews, but in the future we’ll do a little more research before booking something. I’m also excited to try some boondocking (basically staying anywhere without hookups) in more scenic areas. There will be tradeoffs, such as no facilities and the need to track our power and water usage more closely, but I think it may be worth it. In reality I expect us to spend a mix of time at RV parks and boondocking.

Is Betty White a van, coach, RV, rig, or what? We honestly didn’t know the difference, and after asking it sounds like they are all pretty much synonymous. <Note from Jami: coach, RV, rig, motorhome are synonymous. Van is not. It is not a van.> I like to think of us living #vanlife, but also realize that Babs is a little bigger than the typical sprinter van conversion. She is still built off of a sprinter van chassis, so I think I can get away with calling it #vanlife though! Jami MUCH prefers RV or coach, so we’ll see what sticks.

Our little home on wheels came to be Betty ‘Babs’ White after some discussion and deep consideration. She was obviously a strong woman. Originally we were leaning toward Jami’s idea of calling her Babs (after Barbra Streisand) because she’s regal, elegant, and has a prominent nose. Then I thought a Golden Girls character would be fitting after spending a day with her. None of the character names fit so we landed on Betty ‘Babs’ White. It goes with her paint color, spirit, and hopefully longevity. You can call her Betty, Babs, or Miss White if you’re nasty.

Utilizing the multiple spaces on Betty White. A Queen Murphy bed comes down where Mia and Jami’s feet are sitting.

Exploring San Diego

We have one more day in Mission Bay which is in close proximity to explore San Diego. We’ve loved it so far!

One of my favorite ways to explore a new city is through running. Thankfully I’m in good shape and upping my mileage (thanks Coach David!), with almost 80 planned for this week. I’ve mostly been running around Mission Bay and Fiesta Island, and today ran out to La Jolla and then rode a rental scooter back.

On Wednesday I decided to make my way into Old Town San Diego (I also needed to get Mia some food and do some grocery shopping). After running 13 miles I didn’t feel like walking another 4, so decided to try out a Lyft scooter that I noticed during my run. I quickly set it up and was off! I rode it almost 3 miles and then decided to walk the rest of the way. Old Town was way too much of a tourist trap for me, so I quickly decided to find a pet store in another neighborhood.

I walked up to the Mission Hills and Hillcrest neighborhoods and loved them (Jami and I went back on Thursday night for dinner)! On my way there was a massive downpour! I quickly ducked undercover and luckily it passed quickly. I got a couple of slices of great New York style pizza from Bronx Pizza (thanks for the recommendation Arya!).

That parking post is on the sidewalk. Luckily I wasn’t on the other side of the road after the rain!

What’s next

We plan to boondock on Saturday, and stay on the coast in Oceanside at a nice looking park on Sunday. From there we need to be in LA in early April, and then are meeting friends in Palm springs (we’ll explore Joshua Tree before or after that). We’d like to see a lot of the coast, as well as Yosemite and other parks. We plan to be back in Seattle mid to late May, and I plan to be in Colorado in early June through July. Also, starting in mid April Jami will be traveling for work pretty much every week, so Mia and I will be exploring on our own for some of the time.

We aren’t sure what will happen when we get back to Seattle. We may choose to rent a “home base” apartment, or not. It’s a little too soon to tell.

I’ll try to blog to keep family and friends up to date with our adventures, but am not committing to a regular schedule yet.