While we are fulltimers, already camping in a stunning place and pretty much living the life of campfires, beach walks and forest hikes, we decide to drive our Avion out of the park and head south to check out Homer. If you go to Alaska, you visit Homer, right? On the Sterling Highway, we stop at Anchor Point where we park in another State Recreation Area for a couple of nights. We get there late after we have first finished our jobs up north, but with the sun never leaving it’s no problem. Immediately we notice a big relief from the overload of mosquitoes that have been bothering us for days.…
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Composting at the Kenai River Festival.
Finding your tribe can feel impossible when you stay in places just long enough to get familiar with the lady at the laundromat. Friends are maybe a phone call away, but if they are in a different time zone, catching them can be challenging. This is one of those things we have not figured out just yet. The kids don’t have an issue with it. They easily make friends, even if it is for a day. We have great conversations with campers and are sometimes invited to join them by the fire. We make some great new connections, but I still miss my tribe. The other day we went to…
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Five earth nomads in Paris.
Our 7 year old has been talking about the Eiffel Tower for a very long time. While we skip the city of lights traveling south, there is no way we want to deprive our kids of experiencing Paris, no matter how young they are. Absolutely last-minute we decide on accommodation through Bookings, and we land in an apartment on the Quai De Marne inside of the Périphérique, walking distance from the metro. To be clear; we had to drive our ancient diesel bus into Paris, where we supposedly needed a vignette for environmental reasons. We could never obtain this vignette with our Berry Bus, so according to all the official…
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Pastries and coffee in the rain.
According to the blog, we have been stuck in France for a few months now, but nothing is further from the truth. Since the last blog, we made our way back north to The Netherlands with our little Berry Bus, ferried to England, flew to Colorado and drove all the way to Alaska with truck and trailer. Pfew. We choose to drive up the west coast of France because the weather just seems to hold out a little better here. Of course that turns out to be just a theory, and we are once again at the mercy of major fronts, dodging rain storms. It doesn’t matter as much as…
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From coast to coast
After our first week back on the road it is time to truly start heading north. We move on from our pathetic Spanish campground after our laundry is done to drive no more than 45 kilometers. The goal is to sleep in reasonable temperatures, with as little rain as possible. Little do we know at this point how much we are going to put up with later, weather-wise. We park in the city park of Tous. Close to us, a family is having a party. They have a barbecue and turn on music. When Finn hears the music across the park, he asks if we should give them some money.…
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And then suddenly we were living the Vanlife.
Our last visit to Europe had been more than 3 years. With another little one added to our family, a trip was overdue. After we found a friend willing to keep our black lab for a very long time, we booked tickets. The plan was to spend the Holidays in the Netherlands, and then to take a train down towards Malaga to rent an Airbnb. Do you have any idea how expensive it is to train 5 people through Europe? More expensive than purchasing a vehicle and driving it there. The Berry Bus needed a little TLC. New tires, shocks and some welding plus other things that my hubby…
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Hot springs, cliffs and forest.
After staying put in one spot for about a month, we have now been back in our van for a week. It’s about time for an update. We are still south of Valencia, so taking our sweet time to drive back north. Why heading for cold weather sooner than absolutely necessary? Leaving the apartment in Vera on the late side, and of course in a rain storm, we did not try to get very far. Just after the next town down the coast, we set up camp on the rocky cliffs next to some other campers. There was not much of an evening since it was late as we were…
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Destroying the Alcazaba?
Like most other children, our kids are intrigued with castles. Since we spend most of our time in the United States, we have not had the chance to visit many. Here in Europe every other town seems to have some sort of castle, or at least a ruin. We were curious about the Alcazaba in Alméria. Finn was just a tad bit nervous. Was this like the castle in Dutch amusement park The Efteling? That one had just been a little too realistic in its décor and activities for his liking. And despite the conversations beforehand, Zoe was imagining that today she was finally going to meet a…
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Cabo de Gata
Cabo de Gata is a fairly large Natural Park on the southeastern coast of Spain. Beautiful landscapes, impressive coastal views and dozens of hikes describe this area in a nutshell. Hiking was our intention for this day. We ended up on a few little walks instead. Oh well. We managed to roll out by nine, and hoping that local signs to the Park would trump iPhone maps, we ended up in Carboneras for coffee. At that point we had driven though the park for a grand total of maybe 5 kilometers before heading for an industrial zone. What was this? A fountain downtown, a couple playgrounds and our usual chemical…
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The journey to Europe
I know we could have opted for 24 hours from door to door. I know we could have looked at the travel as pure necessity, the only way to see our European friends and family. But why would we, if life is a journey in itself? We flew from Denver to London, took a train to Newcastle, slept in a hostel and then took a boat to The Netherlands. Except for the part of flying for eight hours with a 2-year-old, we enjoyed every minute of it. Everyone was exhausted after the flight, and it was a good thing that we had our Ergo Baby and that the 4-year-old still…
