A Western Odyssey (very photo heavy)

[my_wild_dreams_]

WEBSITE
I made a website. It’s basically a blog. The website is called My Wild Dreams http://mywilddreams.net. So far I’ve just been setting up the front/landing page, and making a few blog posts to get started. I think I will try to get caught up on my trip reports so far. Now’s a good time for that because I’ll be moving slow during the winter.

Here are the main reasons I started the blog:
* To work on improving my writing (I think having a website will help me challenge myself more than I do with just forum posts)
* To have a better place to share my travels, the places I go, and the pictures. I should be able to control the formatting better (though so far, within the blog posts, I definitely can’t). I chose a name that’s not specific to vanliving so that if I want, I could continue the blog after I move on to other things, without having a mismatched name.[/list]

Expected subjects:
* Travel tales
* Some overall Vandwelling information
* Some personal finance information (nearly all people who want to live in vans and travel are interested in that side of it)
* Pictures!




PODCAST EPISODE
I was on a podcast. It’s called Fighting Failure. The podcast is mostly meant for people considering or making entrepreneurial efforts, but he story would be useful for his target audience. My episode can be heard here: Fighting Failure Episode 6 – A Path to Freedom. We talk mostly about personal finance, early retirement, and reducing spending. It’s 30 minutes long.

How it happened:
Not long after arriving in San Diego, I hung out with an old friend for a weekend. One evening, a friend of his invited us to meet them at a bar/restaurant to watch some UFC fights. While there, my friend was telling one guy (Jared) about me being retired, living in the van, and traveling. Earlier, I’d overheard Jared telling another about a project he was working on. Some stuff about how people don’t go after their dreams (enough) because they let their fear of failure get in the way. Jared talked to me a bit and asked me if I’d be on his podcast. Sure, what the hell.




PICTURES

(I’m behind on processing them… here are a few)

On a walk with friends:

TRAVELS

I've been in/near San Diego for a few weeks now. I'm loving it. I'll write more about this later. This weekend I finally got out of the city. I had been in cities entirely (except for while driving) for like 6 weeks! I've came to a national forest area northeast of San Deigo. It feels great being out here.

 

[my_wild_dreams_]

Ok, I've gotten caught up on my travel posts on the blog. Here's an index of them so far. This is nearly the exact same thing I've shared here so far (except for the first two posts listed). For anyone new to the thread, this may be an easier way to view the posts/places that you're more interested in.

From now on, as I make new posts, I'll share a short intro/summary here, and a link to the full post


Vanlife Manifesto: A strategy for Nomadic Vandwelling

Converting a cargo van for full time living and travel

Camping in the Colorado Rockies & quitting my job

The Most Beautiful Lakes in Colorado

The Last First Day, Camping in North Clorado

Arcadia In Wyoming (La Barge to Alpine via back roads)

Jackson, Grand Teton, Yellowstone

Camping and Hiking near Cooke City, Montana

Beartooth Scenic Byway (Wyoming/Montana)

Red Lodge, Montana

Improving My Daily Habits

Camping in Shoshone National Forest (Wyoming)

New Bike

Camping near Lake Wenatchee (Washington)

Two Weeks in Seattle

I take my city friends to Olympic National Forest

Ocean in View! Oh! The Joy! (Northern Oregon Coast with my Portland Friends)

Portland

Driving south through Oregon

Northern California: Border to San Francisco

San Francisco to Big Sur

Big Sur

Cambria, CA

Santa Barbara

 

[my_wild_dreams_]

New blog post: Get the hell out of the city: Camping near San Diegohttp://mywilddreams.net/2016/12/27/get-the-hell-out-of-the-city/

Ok, So I traveled down the California coast during October and November. Then I spent about a month in and around San Diego. Because it's tricky to free camp along the coast (especially because the National Forest at Big Sur was closed, I had spent every single night for the last 2-3 months inside cities. It's no big deal, but there are small annoyances: putting up and taking down curtains, moving the van around often, not being able to just step out of the van and pee, etc. Plus, it's great being out in nature. So I was craving it. A lot. So, I got he hell out of the City for a week and went camping in part of Cleveland National Forest that is near San Diego.

A preview of pictures:

 

[hoyden]

Thanks for the coordinates! Glad you found a warm place to camp

 

[Grand Whazoo]

Excellent pictures young friend, of a wonderful trip. I don't know how you upload such tack sharp images, I'm always disappointed in mine. At least on "blogger" they seem to lose resolution, I've not tried linking them here. Personally I think Wander The West must have a "professional photographer" designation that I seem to skate by. Thanks for sharing your trip!

 

[my_wild_dreams_]

Excellent pictures young friend, of a wonderful trip. I don't know how you upload such tack sharp images, I'm always disappointed in mine. At least on "blogger" they seem to lose resolution, I've not tried linking them here. Personally I think Wander The West must have a "professional photographer" designation that I seem to skate by. Thanks for sharing your trip!

I tell you what, man, pictures are tricky. There are so many ways for them to get messed up (for the quality to be reduced).

Here are some ways it happens:
- If the place you upload it to compresses the pictures. For example, Facebook does this. A lot of places you can host pictures do it. It's a tricky one because it is often not obvious, and maybe not obvious even when you're trying to compare to the file you uploaded (because it's a small difference - but even still, its one more step of degredation)
- If the pictures get resized on a wesbite, that can mess them up
- If there's some kind of problem with the color profile. I've been struggling with this lately and it is a real pain in the ass. There are different Color Profiles (or color spaces?). They are sets of colors that a computer uses. Of course, there are a bunch of different sets. If you use the best one on your computer and then upload it somewhere that doesn't support that color profile, your picture gets messed up. I've been converting mine to sRGB lately, which is a step down, but at least this way they don't get messed up even further when uploaded and displayed online.

And there are a ton of other reasons, but I'm not the right person to learn this stuff from. (I don't understand it very well)

 

[my_wild_dreams_]

Ok, I spent 7 weeks in San Diego. I'll make at least two posts about it. Here's the first one:

San Diego: Notes on the City
It's supposedly "America's Finest City". But is it though?

 

[my_wild_dreams_]

New blog post:The Most Interesting People in San Diego

 

[my_wild_dreams_]

New blog post:Joshua Tree
I camped a few days in Joshua Tree National Park. Didn't do a whole lot. Jut one bike ride and one hike. Got this nice picture on the hike:

 

[my_wild_dreams_]

New blog post: Cost of Vanlife: my first 6 months
People often wonder how much full-time vandwellers spend. I’ll share my cost of vanlife over the first 6 months.

 

[my_wild_dreams_]

Hello. I spent a week at the
Rubber Tramps Rendezvous (aka RTR) and had a wonderful time. The RTR is a gathering of (mostly nomadic) people who live in vehicles (Vans, cars, trucks and truck campers, plus camper trailers and RVs). It occurs each January in the Arizona desert near Quartzsite, AZ. While I was there, I did a fun little project: shooting the various Rigs of the RTR. I've shared them here:

New Blog Post: Rigs of the RTRhttp://mywilddreams.net/2017/01/18/rigs-of-the-rtr/


There are 48 different rigs shown. Here are a just few examples:

 

[slickrock steve]

On your chart of expenses, is that per month of expense??
Or is it not being read correctly by me. When my Wife and I took off last year for a 7 state tour, we did not come anywhere near that much in cost. We had left So. Cali., from our home in the high desert, went thru Vegas into Utah, where we visited Zion, Bryce, Escalante, Canyonlands, and went up the Flaming Gorge area into Wyoming. Then all the way across Wyoming to Lusk, up to South Dakota, saw Crazy Horse, and Custer State park,and then North Dakota, across thru Yellowstone, then Kalispell Montana, across Washington to visit for a few day at a friends ranch. Then down thru Oregon's east side, to the back way into Crater lake, and out to the coast via Medford, and over the Siskyou's to the California coast, and down as far as Bodega Bay, then east to Hwy 5, and drove home from there in one long day. Our total cost for the trip never hit near the cost over all you have spent. Am I missing something?? Yes, we already had a 1 ton diesel truck, and a camper, but even with the fuel costs, and food/beer/park admissions, campgrounds, never hit more than about $6000 for the entire trip. Yeah, we did boondock most of the time, except for when we needed to do laundry, and dump tanks, and refill water. We did stay at campgrounds in Crazy Horse, Lusk, and Bryce, as well as in the Redwoods, and up in Kalispell, and of course in Yellowstone. Biggest cost was of course fuel, but the diesel is pretty good at about 12 MPG.

 

[slickrock steve]

Yellowstone Falls

the obligatory "Old Faithful"

 

[slickrock steve]

The cafe from "Northern Exposure", and the KBHR Radio station from the same series...

Linda by one of the smaller trees in Redwood Park

Northern California coast lighthouse

California coast heading south

 

[slickrock steve]

Russian Fort called Fort Ross, on the northern California coast

Best Seat in the house!!

 

[my_wild_dreams_]

On your chart of expenses, is that per month of expense??
Or is it not being read correctly by me. .... Our total cost for the trip never hit near the cost over all you have spent. Am I missing something??....

Yes, those are monthly numbers in the chart posted on the previous page of this thread. And yes, you are missing some things that I explain in the blog post. Mainly that the spending includes buying a really nice camera and other photography equipment (About $4,000), and 18 months of health insurance (About $1,500). My monthly spending was $2,100. I expect my monthly spending in 2017 to average under $1,000, and to have some months under $500. If you're talking about just your "for the trip" cost, as you described, that may not be comparable to my numbers, which include every single dollar I spent on anything and everything.

 

[park]

Slickrock Steve.....just as a sidenote, it's not really proper etiquette to pirate another thread with multiple pictures of your own personal trip. If you want to highlight or discuss your trip in detail, you should start your own thread in the future. We'll be sure to check out your trip in your "trip" report. Thanks............................

 

[slickrock steve]

Sorry to seem to pirate another trip, but thought I was cool. Ok, I did see where you had spent some money on other stuff, and was still not cognizant that you were putting the insurance, and camera there. I had just lumped the overall cost on our trip which included admission to Crazy Horse, Cody Museum,Yellowstone, Rodeo in both Kalispell, and Ellensburg WA., and fuel, camp grounds and food.
Again I am sorry I stepped on some toes, and will start another thread if I find I need to elaborate, or get off subject.
I do remember when I was about 25, taking my then VW bus to Baja Mexico, and living there for about 7 months, along the "Playa Publico".
Some of that was why I was so interested in your adventures.
Lots of luck with your adventure, and keep up the reports please!

Steve

 

[my_wild_dreams_]

New blog post: 2017 Rubber Tramp Rendezvous
I went to the a gathering of nomads in the Arizona desert in January. I met three fascinating people, one of them has been a personal hero of mine for years

 

[my_wild_dreams_]

Two new posts to share:

Before Vandwelling: Test Trips
This is some background info on the test trips I took, back before I build my own van, to see if I thought I should do so. One trip was in California (Sequoia) and the others were in central Arizona.

Exploring Arizona 1 - Apache Trail and Roosevelt Lake
A trip out of Phoenix - along the wonderful Apache Trail, and camping with wonderful views of Lake Roosevelt