We decided to just book it from Austin to Charleston, SC, our first stop on a straight shot up the Atlantic Coast. We’d had a weird route because of needing to go back to Texas, and we had already been through NOLA and that whole area twice before. So we planned two quick overnight stops. One at Poverty Point campground in Louisiana and one in Columbia, Georgia. Little did we know, Poverty Point was a U.S. National Monument and World Heritage Site and we had the fortune of being able to explore some of the oldest Native American ruins in the country!!! It was spectacular and totally unexpected. We had barely done any research and so were overjoyed to find out what we were camping next to.  It was a welcome reminder of how amazing this country of ours is and how much older than 1776 things can get…

The structures at Poverty Point date from 1600 B.C.!!! 

Leaving Florida was bittersweet. We had what we assume will be some of our best beach camping weather during our U.S. travels. It was perfect, not too hot but warm enough to feel like a vacation. But on the flip side, we spent more money than we had planned, so we were ready to refocus and reassess our financials. But of course that couldn’t happen until AFTER New Orleans. We had already been there once on the way to Chattanooga, but our friends weren’t available to hang out with us then so we did a brief but fun date evening. Now our friends were ready to mix and mingle and they took us to some of their favorite spots. A walk around the Bayou, an excellent shared dinner at 1000 Figs, and games and drinks at various bars that we can’t seem to remember the name of for some strange reason.

Definitely epic times with good folks. But alas it couldn’t last, and we moved on to Cagle Recreation Area for a night of camping before hitting Austin. Cagle was a nice surprise. Since it was just a stopover we didn’t do much research beforehand, but our campsite was quiet and beautiful, located right on top of a peaceful lake. Javi made a good fire (there’s a “good fire” and “meh fire” thing with camping), and we cooked a yummy camp meal of asian noodles, a staple of ours. We positioned the truck so the lake was the first thing we saw we we woke up. Another case of “wish we had more time here” but we were excited to get back to Javi’s family for a week of celebration.

Austin is Javi’s old stomping ground, and we have been there together several times. We usually stay with Javi’s sister, but this time we shared an Airbnb with his parents near the Mueller development, where his sister and her family live. The week was filled with food and family, and we hit up some delicious and thirst quenching spots new and old, like Ranch 616, the Omelettry, Shady Grove, Snooze, Bangers, and more.

Javi’s dad’s 70th birthday party was spent at his uncle’s place out in Georgetown. Aside from the birthday boy, the highlights of the party were the lawn games, delicious food, a piñata, a kid rave in the yard after dinner (initiated by Laura’s glowing poi and Javi’s DJ skills), and of course Javi and his brother-in-law who had biked a 50k to Georgetown from Austin.  It was supposed to be 70k in honor of the birthday boy, but . . . The next day Javi’s baby niece had her baptism at the Catholic Center with a post-ceremony celebration at Central Market.

Austin NEVER disappoints. We always have a good time there. Someday we can hopefully spend more than just a few days there.

Leaving the Everglades our journey took us north up the west coast of Florida along the Gulf of Mexico where our first stop was just outside of Saint Petersburg Florida; camping at Fort De Soto Park. But before making camp we stopped at one of St. Petersburg’s most memorable attractions, the Dali Museum. Javi had travelled there many years ago with his sister and has been a lifelong Dali fan so a stop at the Dali Museum was very much a not to miss item on the agenda.  Although the museum had undergone some changes Javier was not entirely fond of since his last visit the art is still as amazing as ever and both of us enjoyed witnessing the masterpieces that Dali created throughout his lifetime.

Our trip to the museum stirred up quite an appetite and we decided that the only thing that could ease our hunger was campfire hotdogs! Laura’s mother had long ago given us some campfire hotdog equipment that we had been dying to try so we stopped at a local grocery store and splurged on the natural organic hotdogs if there really is such a thing. We got all our fixings and drove to Fort De Soto excited for our evening feast. That night we experienced quite a windstorm at the campground, with a steady wind out of the north-west that didn’t let up the entire evening. It didn’t deter us from enjoying our campfire hotdogs though.  On the contrary the wind blew the flames of our camp fire such that the hotdogs cooked almost instantly! The hotdogs were delicious so much so that the four we initially made weren’t enough and we made two more.

The next day we awoke to a beautiful day and hopped on our bikes eager to explore Fort De Soto. Riding our bikes through the park and exploring it’s beautiful beaches made for an excellent day.  We had packed a lunch meaning we stayed out for the larger part of the day and returned back to camp as the day was coming to a close . One of the pieces of equipment we’ve been carrying along eager to use is the “Tentsile”. Essentially a tent that you can suspend from trees, it was given to us by a friend as a wedding present and we’d been dying to put it to good use. Javi set up the tent and we enjoyed the sunset floating five feet above the ground and enjoying an ice cold beer.

We struck camp the following morning and headed further north up the coast to Saint Joseph Peninsula State Park. Saint Joseph was probably one of the best camps we had encountered and despite the fact that we had a day of hard rain, the beach was incredible, the campground facilities were excellent and we had a great time visiting yet another one of Florida is beautiful Gulf Coast beaches.  If you’re ever in the area do yourself a favor and be sure to visit Weber’s Little Donut Shop.  We stumbled on this little gym while we were trying to avoid the rain with a shopping trip and it was well worth the find. We grabbed the last two glazed donuts that they had and our only regret was that we weren’t able to grab a dozen more because they were delicious!!!!

After a couple of nights at St. Joseph we continued up around the coast down the panhandle and made our way toward Fort Pickens Campground which is actually in the Gulf Islands National Seashore. We’ve somehow stumbled into an unfortunate habit of scheduling driving days during some of the best weather so we were eager to make haste and arrive at our destination to enjoy some sunshine.  We got there just in time to enjoy a beautiful sunset as the evening cooled off. Unfortunately we did not have a lot of time in Fort Pickens as we were on a tight schedule to make it to Texas.  The  Fort and the National  Seashore are incredible. We did get a chance to survey the fort which is an incredible relic from the Civil War.   One of the nice things about this trip, in addition to the amazing landscapes and nature has been the chance to explore some of the country’s historic treasures. Next stop NOLA!!!

Traveling to the Everglades was an eye-opening experience not only because of its natural beauty but also because of the grave environmental dangers it faces.  It also gave us the opportunity to come face-to-face with one of the Everglades most iconic species …. the mosquito.

We packed the truck and left Key West somewhat disappointed to be leaving such an idyllic existence but nonetheless excited to be back on the road. After driving through the paved savannah that is southern Florida we finally made our way (after stopping to get several cans of mosquito repellent) to the Everglades National Park. Flamingo campground was not too busy but upon exiting the truck we soon discovered what our greatest danger would be and it wasn’t snakes or alligators or crocodiles. The mosquitoes descended upon us in an instant and we hardly had any time before we were being devoured. As we danced and hopped around swatting mosquitoes away from us we had only a few seconds to reach for the cans of insect repellent and spray each other head to toe thoroughly.  We had also acquired a fogger which we used to spray the back of the truck and the general area of the campsite in hopes that it would keep some of the pesky insects at bay.  However, it soon became fairly obvious that the best way to keep the mosquitoes away was to run like hell.  So we hopped on our bicycles and went for a ride to try to evade the marauding swarm.  After our ride we returned back to the campsite to try and enjoy dinner during the sunset but the bugs were just too much and we ended up escaping to the camper to try and avoid them. We both had a good chuckle at the fact that such a tiny little thing could be present in such great numbers that it was really like dealing with a force of nature.

The next day we tried to brave the swarm and take a canoe trip up one of the canals to try and see some wildlife. For the most part the snakes, crocodiles, alligators and turtles we were hoping to see eluded us.  But what was present in vast numbers was, you guessed it, more mosquitoes. Despite the fact that we had drenched ourselves in another can of insect repellent they were still all over us so we turned around before reaching Coot Bay and tried to find some shelter in the concession area to avoid the skeeters and drink a beer.  We were told by a park ranger that the mosquitoes were the worst they’d ever seen them but were much worse near the coast so we decided to head further inland to do some of the many interpretive hikes that the park offers. The hikes did indeed provide a little bit of respite from the swarming mosquitoes and the information that they provided was very educational (do YOU know what a “hammock” is?)  The interpretive hikes gave a great overview of the different ecosystems and landscapes in the Everglades and though we had to drive to each one we were glad for the break from the swarm. Once we were back that evening we again quickly made our dinner and ensconced ourselves in the relative safety and comfort of our camper.

It should be apparent already that the dominant species in this national park during our visit was not the humans. We decided on the morning of her third day there to make a hasty escape, cut our losses and move on to the west coast of Florida where we would hopefully encounter less bugs. On the way out of the park we did stop in at the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center where the main (and unfortunate) gist of many of the informational materials was the grave danger that the Everglades faces because of climate change, human development, and the many water issues that continue to plague this “River of Grass”.  It was definitely bittersweet leaving such a beautiful place that we knew was under such intense pressures. As environmental professionals while we really enjoyed (mosquitoes aside) the natural beauty that the Everglades represents we also knew that the challenges it faces are drastic and perhaps insurmountable.  We left happy that we had seen the Everglades but definitely afraid that this national treasure would not be around much longer to visit once again.

We weren’t even planning on going all the way down to Key West. In fact, by the time we got to Chattanooga, we hadn’t even really planned any of February’s travels. We knew we would be leaving Chattanooga at the end of January and that we had a few weeks to kick around, but we had to be back in Austin, TX for Javi’s dad’s 70th birthday (soon after Laura’s dad’s 70th!). We figured we might camp around the Florida panhandle but it wasn’t until a conversation with Laura’s uncle that we even thought about the Florida Keys. He and his family own a house in Key West, and when he heard that we had some extra time he offered the house to us. We didn’t even have to think about it, we immediately said yes. So down we went, and we are so glad we did, with three caveats.

First, Florida camping was a lot pricier than we expected, which makes sense once we realized how many people camp there, but it’s on par with, or in some cases more than, California camping prices. And we stayed in the most primitive tent sites we could find. We also did the Florida portion very last minute though, and a lot of the state campgrounds were already full, so that was likely a factor in our limited and pricy options. Second, it is a very long drive down to Key West, and although it should be obvious, we just didn’t realize how much gas it would take to get there.  Apparently, building a livable shack onto the back of your truck negatively affects the gas milage. Third, because we had to be back in Texas by late February, we felt a little rushed getting down to Key West, and didn’t really get to explore the Florida east coast as much as we would have liked.

That being said, despite the unexpected financial cost and time crunch, we really enjoyed our time in Key West. We were productive and we did several necessary repairs and touch ups on the truck. We also had some great beach days. Although Key West isn’t exactly known for its beaches, we had a blast biking around to all the different beaches. One day in particular, we loaded up the bikes with every beach item we had – towels, blankets, games, chairs, a kite – and rode to them all Higgs, Smathers, and For Zachary Taylor all in one day. A beach tour if you will.

Another day we wandered around the infamous Duval street witnessing the retiree-on-spring-break revelry, and of course had the inevitable mojito at Willie T’s. We somehow ended up at Southmost beach with more fruity drinks and watched the sun go down at Mallory Square. All that biking and cocktail drinking really builds up an appetite so we topped off our day with a delicious cuban sandwich at Sandy’s Cafe, which also happens to be a laundromat.

All in all, it was an awesome trip. We were ready to head on and get back to truck life, but were definitely a little sad to say goodbye to the good life. Definitely grateful for all these family members that treat us so well.

Our first stop after Chattanooga was Asheville, NC.  (In true contrarian fashion, we head North to go South, East to head West etc.) Javi had never been to this gorgeous mountain town, but Laura had spent a good amount of time there during her college years in Wilmington, NC. We also wanted to visit some friends there. We had a great few days hanging out with our buddies and getting to know their adorable kids. We did a solid hike in the woods, which is basically a requirement in Asheville, and then we visited some food and drink spots in the River Arts District. We were craving melty cheese and beer, and the Wedge Brewing Co. and Melt Your Heart food truck certainly delivered.

We moved on through the Carolinas feeling satisfied from our mountain adventure. Our next stop was Columbia, SC, where we visited with Javi’s extended family members. Some of those folks are the same ones we went to the Caribbean with, so we were lucky enough to go sailing with his uncle on Lake Murray. It was a beautiful day and we got a good skipper lesson, which affirmed our interest in future sailing adventures. Happily fed and sent on our way, we made our way to our very first camping experience in the fully stocked camper we had worked so hard putting together.

Jekyll Island, GA was a surprise and a delight. We felt very at home there and were so excited to finally set foot on an Atlantic beach after crossing the entire country. We also realized how glad we were that we brought our bikes, because we biked all around the island, out of both necessity and fun. The campsite was clean and the neighbors were friendly, some of whom were also excellent bluegrass musicians. We were a little bummed to leave after only one night, but we had our sights set on Florida.

Long Point Park in Melbourne, FL was our next stop and also where we had our first weather issue. In the middle of Laura cooking dinner outside, it started to absolutely pour and later in the night we woke up to a crazy wind storm. We felt like we were going to be blown away, but the truck held it together and we survived to tell the tale. The neighbors must have felt bad for us because the next morning they offered us their kayaks to use in the amazing lagoon. We put in right from the campsite and had a short but beautiful trip. We just missed a manatee according to the neighbors, but saw some dolphins. Overall, the campsite was great and again, we wished we’d had more time there.

We left Long Point toward our final destination: Key West. But before the Keys, we stopped in Ft. Lauderdale to have lunch with Laura’s aunt and cousins at Aruba’s Beach Cafe. After a relaxing meal with an ocean view, we kept it moving on down to Key West. It was a loooooong driving day, but totally worth it when we made it down to that unique paradise. More on that later.

After leaving Texas, our first stop was New Orleans. We of course enjoyed some delicious food (Green Goddess), drinks, and street music, then crashed with some friends. We knew we were coming back to NOLA later so it was just a brief visit this time around. We also made a one night stop in Birmingham to visit with some of Laura’s cousins and rest our heads before finally arriving in Chattanooga where Laura grew up.  It was New Years Eve and we had a fair amount to celebrate.  2016 had been an epic year and 2017 was shaping up to be equally so.

We posted up in Chattanooga for the entire month of January. You would think that there’d be plenty of time to enjoy the many sites that have garnered Chattanooga Outside Magazine’s Best Places to Live status but between the weather and timing we somehow managed to not really do much adventuring in town.  There was the odd bike ride along the Tennessee Riverwalk or night out at Tremont Tavern or Flying Squirrel but we mostly spent this time visiting with Laura’s family, eating, relaxing, and going to a hot yoga class here and there. Laura’s parents and two of her sisters and their families live there, along with a whole bunch of extended family members. This meant lots of babysitting and kid stuff, lots of hanging out, lots of food and drinks. The last week or so in Chattanooga was spent finalizing the livability of the truck camper for “Pickupandwent” adventures. We ended our Chattanooga time with Laura’s dad’s 70th birthday party held at the Chattanooga Golf and Country Club, where Laura spent much of her childhood. The party was a smashing success and a great way to end our family time. The truck was ready, we were all packed up and we’d spent some QT with family; Now –  Wagons South!

We are breaking up the Jalamundo Road Trip into a few different parts to avoid crazy long posts and because some of the legs feel like their own separate little adventures. This part starts with our final week in SF, which was spent crashing at a different friend’s house every night and doing a lot of final goodbyes. We came back after Hawaii to get the truck, and since we decided to leave on the new moon because MEANING, we had to wait a week to leave. This was mostly cozy hang time with our buddies and getting some final stuff together, as we had already done the whole goodbye to city thing in October. Basically this was the longest goodbye to a place and people that ever existed. Especially since we had told folks we were leaving way before we even quit our jobs. So, although it was sad, it was time to finally go. This time, for real.

We took off and drove down the Pacific Coast Highway or Highway 1 to San Luis Obispo, where we stayed at the SLO Hostel in the historic district for a night. It was a really lovely converted house with a mix of business and pleasure travelers. We moved on from there to visit friends in southern California, where we did some touristing around. The Griffith Observatory in L.A. is super neat and we were pleasantly surprised by how great the hiking trails were around there.  Hiking in L.A.?  Who Knew!?  From L.A. it was on to San Diego where we stayed with more friends and had a great time going to the San Diego Zoo.

After SoCal, we crossed our first state line into Arizona (!) where we enjoyed the cool desert air and visited some of Javi’s old stomping grounds. Javi had spent some time in Prescott Arizona during his grad school days to do some interesting sustainability work with the ECOSA institute. ECOSA, founded by Anthony Brown, offers students the opportunity to study ecological design surrounded by Prescott’s awesome natural environment. We visited the school and Mr. Brown while we were there and Javi got caught up on the latest ECOSA news. We stayed in Prescott that night and moved onwards to our next stop, New Mexico, where we spent about a week. Our friends in Los Alamos, NM are super fun adventurers so of course the first day was spent mountain biking down a freezing cold snowy mountain. We knew we were in good hands and came out alive and well, albeit a little bruised. The rest of the week was spent enjoying some cozy home time playing board and video games and exploring northern NM. We had a soak in the nearby snowy hot springs. We visited historic buildings and churches in Los Alamos and Santa Fe. We went to Meow Wolf (must see), a wild interactive art and literary adventure that has to be experienced to be believed.  And we visited some artist friends in Truchas who shared lunch and some incredible life stories with us.

We then left our desert friends and headed towards a solid chunk of Texas family time. After stopping through Austin, where Javi went to undergrad and where his sister and her family live, we went on to Brownsville in way south Texas on the Gulf of Mexico where the rest of his family live. The Austin crew soon followed, and we all spent about two weeks enjoying each others company over the Christmas holiday. Javi has two sisters, each with a husband and two kids, so our time was mostly spent at his parents’ house hanging out with everyone and doing kid stuff. Christmas time in south Texas means perfect beach weather so the whole gang spent some quality time at South Padre Island as well.

Those two weeks and in fact the whole first part of the Road Trip flew by in an instant, and soon we were on our way out of Texas for the next phase.  At this point the truck was still full of too many possessions and we were under pressure to make it to Chattanooga for New Years Eve so it didn’t quite feel like “life on the road” just yet but it definitely was starting to get there.

SF to Brownsville!!!

After we left our jobs in September 2016, we had a month long staycation in San Francisco. We kicked around, hung out with friends, saw some sights, ate good food, and said goodbye to our city. Then we prepared ourselves for our first Jalamundo adventure. HAWAII!

Like so many other folks around the world, we had dreamed of Hawaii for years. And it was only a 5 hour flight away from us. We figured that if we were going to leave the west coast we finally needed to take advantage of our close proximity to paradise. It just so happened that Laura’s parents were planning a trip in early November to Kauai and they kindly allowed us to join them for a week. There was no way we were going to just spend a week on our first trip to Hawaii so we planned additional time in both Kauai and Maui.

Our first week in Kauai was spent with Laura’s parents at her aunt’s condo in Princeville on the north shore of the island. This was the more “comfortable” portion of our trip, the rest was largely spent camping in the great outdoors. We took advantage of the activities at the resort, including hula and surfing classes for Laura and a ukelele class for Javier. We also took an incredible sunset sail with the parents as well as a lovely kayaking trip on the Wailua River. The luau that happened to be on election night was a bummer, not because of the luau itself which was quite enjoyable, but for other obvious reasons. As we tried to recover from the political nightmare (which was really just beginning), our thoughts turned to the next big move on our trip: the Kalaulau trail.

The parents headed out at the end of that first extremely relaxing week, and we then headed into an extremely non-relaxing but rewarding four days along the Napali coast. The Kalaulau trail is an 11 mile stretch of treacherous cliff hugging trail that ends at the secluded Kalaulau beach. To get started on the trail, we had to figure out what to do with our bags and rental car. It was rumored that leaving a car at the trailhead was not the best idea so we dropped our bags at a kayak shop locker and Javi parked the car under a streetlight at a busy beach lot near the trail. Javi hitched a ride back to the trailhead and off we went. We got about 2 miles in before we realized we may have gotten in a little bit over our heads. We knew it would be a tough hike but we hadn’t done much training during our mai tai-soaked first week, and we were in for a very rude awakening. We got a bit more than halfway through, 6 miles of up and down muddy trail to the Hanakoa campsite on that first night. We arrived, exhausted, ragged and bewildered, but happy. The Napali coast was as beautiful and epic as we had read. And we definitely had been needing some exercise in the fresh air.

On the second day after another arduous (and at times terrifying) day we got to an otherworldly beach, very much worth the hard work in getting there. We happened to spend our one night on the beach during the full moon. The few nomads who lived at the beach were holding a crystal prayer bowl ceremony and invited all the campers to join them for the evening. It was a lovely and grounding ceremony that brought everyone together and allowed us to celebrate the bright night sky. The next day we left the beach feeling rejuvenated and spent one more night on the way out back at the Hanakoa campsite.  We still had enough steam in us to take a quick side trip to an incredible waterfall!  On the fourth day we arrived back at the trailhead, exhausted but proud of our accomplishment. The Kalalau trail is definitely an incredible trail that should be on every hiker’s bucket list.

After a well-deserved night of pizza and rest, the next morning we continued on to Maui and spent a week road-tripping, camping, and visiting old friends. We drove the road to Hana using a handy GPS-based guided tour app, and continued on past the end around the backside of Haleakala volcano. The shifting landscape, from humid palm tree lined beaches to arid, rocky mountainsides, was dramatic and surprising. We felt like we were driving through the wild west back on the mainland. We continued the drive up to 7,000 feet where we bundled up in our freezing tent and continued on the next day to the very top of the volcano at just over 10,000 feet1

As our trip started winding down, we started to plot our future trips to the other islands and eventually our permanent life in Hawaii. Ha! But until then, we’ll have to subsist on the stories and memories from an amazing first trip.  Check out the galleries below for some additional pictures of our awesome Hawaiian journey!  Aloha & Mahalo!

Hawaii week One

In June 2016 we were fortunate enough to be invited on a week-long sailing trip in the Caribbean. A honeymoon of sorts, albeit with eight other family members and friends, we didn’t hesitate to say YES given our interest in sailing and our ever-growing excitement over global adventures. We joined Javi’s parents, an aunt, three uncles, and his cousin and her girlfriend on a 52 foot 4-berth, 4-head beast of a sailboat called the Rumba. We flew into St. Maarten from SF (via New York for us since that was the cheapest flight) and sailed from there. Originally, we were going to sail St. Maarten, St. Barts, and Anguilla. But after some local warnings over customs headaches in Anguilla, we dropped that part of the trip. It was just as well because a few extra days in St. Maarten and St. Barts was worth it.

We arrived on a Friday and set sail out of Captain Oliver’s marina on Saturday, sailing first to Tintemarre Island, a wild island within the St. Maarten Nature Reserve. We swam with sea turtles there, was that a dream?!

Next up was Ile Fourchue for lunch then we anchored at Anse de Colombier, St. Barts, where we could see the old Rockefeller estate. The next day we had a short sail to Port Gustavia, the capital of St. Barts, where we spent the afternoon walking the town and eating delicious food.

After some unsuccessful fishing, we headed to Philipsburg, St. Maarten and docked at Bobby’s Marina for a couple of nights. Later we sailed to the French side of the island (we had been on the Dutch side) to Anse de Marcel and then a couple of miles to Grand Case. At Grand Case we snorkeled around Rocher Creole before having to return our boat the next day.

One of our favorite moments was jumping off the boat in Anse de Columbier with our little dry bag full of beer and hiking gear. We swam to shore and went on a short hike with gorgeous views of different sides of the island. Our hikeable water shoes, which we got specifically for this trip, came in really handy.

Seven days, dozens of sea turtle sightings, hundreds of blissed out nautical moments, and countless Caribe beers later, we arrive back at Captain Oliver’s to say farewell to Rumba. Feeling like experienced sailors after a week at sea (ha), dreams of future sailing adventures began to expand from the “maybe someday” corner of our minds to the “how can we do this forever” section.