Our Volksvegan Adventure

The Temple at Burning Man 2009

Wow. That’s really the only word that can accurately describe our first Burning Man experience. We’d been hearing about the crazy event in the temporary “Black Rock City” in the Nevada desert for years, and this year, we decided to check it out with a bunch of our good friends. What an amazing experience it was, and quite the adventure!

We decided to take the volksvegan to Burning Man, and she weathered the dust storms, heat, and the long trek quite well. However, no journey in an old VW is without its technical difficulties! On the way there, it was getting dark and we had just turned the headlights on. Suddenly we heard a crackling noise and putrid smoke started pouring out of the dashboard! We radioed to our friends ahead of us in the caravan as we pulled over and rolled down windows. Sen spent at least an hour fixing and jerry-rigging the headlight wiring, which he had just fixed a few weeks before. An entire wire in the front burned, but he managed to hotwire the headlights and get us back on the road.

We made several stops and our caravan of seven people in three cars got a late start, so we drove through the night and watched the sun rise as we got stuck in the long line leading into Black Rock City, about 2 hours northeast of Reno. Burning Man is held on a dry lakebed in the desert called the playa, which is devoid of all life and covered in a fine, silty dust. We excitedly waited in line for hours as the sun came up. At some point we decided to stop idling the van and turned it off, put it in neutral, and pushed it as the line slowly inched forward. It was quite the workout, but it was the green thing to do, so push we did!

Once we found our camp and got settled, we walked out to the man statue at the center of the playa. It was a beautiful sight – a huge man surrounded by organic flame shapes made out of wood. Later that day, we endured quite the hazing as a brutal dust storm blew through, with high winds and dust so thick we couldn’t see (goggles and dust masks are a must on the playa). Luckily, it cooled down enough during the storm to allow us to take a nap. That first day we found it pretty difficult to adjust to the harsh playa atmosphere, but we were lucky enough to camp in Martian camp with many experienced and very fun people that made our transition easier.

Over the next week, we got very little sleep but had the time of our lives! There is so much to do and see at Burning Man, there is no way we could have seen it all in a week. There are huge interactive art projects and sculptures, “mutant vehicles” pumping music to ride around on, classes and workshops, talks, activities, games like mini-golf and tetris on a giant screen, light shows, live music, dance parties, bars and clubs, performances, alternative energy in action, and countless other amazing ways to keep busy. The best part is that once we were inside, everything was free (except ice and coffee, the only things sold at the event). Free drinks, free fun, free expression and freedom in general!

The photo above shows my favorite art installation, the temple. It varies every year and serves as a memorial and sacred space. Like the man, it is a temporary masterpiece, and at the end of the week it goes up in flames, taking with it anything you want to burn and purge. We were simply blown away by the outpourings of creativity we witnessed at Burning Man.

While on the playa, we dressed up in costumes (Seneca even paired a pirate hat with a tutu and stripey socks), played in a giant drum circle (where Sen got to play a hang drum), went to a yoga class and a henna painting party, hooped and made new hula hoops, made new friends, took turns feeding our entire camp, saw live music from Beats Antique, BassNectar and many others, danced our butts off, stayed up all night to watch the sunrise (twice), biked around checking out art, played mini-golf, went to a talk on 2012, and of course, watched the man and the temple burn in extravagant pyrotechnic displays. It was a life-changing and eye-opening event, but it definitely took a lot of stamina just to endure the harsh climate and conditions out there. We had to really want to have a great time and make the best of whatever nature threw our way (which was mostly heat, insane winds, and loads of dust).

The only bad part of the entire week was that my camera did not cooperate, and I now have only a tiny handful of pictures of our experience. Sometime in the middle of the week, after I’d taken a few hundred amazing pictures, suddenly my memory card was empty and they were all deleted. Later in the week it happened again twice, deleting hundreds of pictures with no warning. Not cool! Then the screen broke, and I could no longer see what I was taking a picture of. I switched memory cards and managed to get a few crooked, blurry pictures of the last day and a half of the trip. Sad!

Perhaps the camera was just another lesson learned at Burning Man… you can’t get too wrapped up in technology or capturing memories, you just have to live fully and let go to enjoy the moment. I’m sad to lose the hundreds of beautiful photos I took, but it makes me even more determined to go back next year and prepare for the worst!

We’re finally done with our mountains of laundry and in the process of unpacking and cleaning everything. The bus is so dusty, it’s going to take days to clean it out from top to bottom! Everything we own (including us) was covered in a layer of dust, and I still don’t think I’ve gotten the playa completely out of my hair! But it was all worth it for one of the craziest parties we’ve ever been to. What an amazing journey!

Next up is Earthdance, in nearby Laytonville, September 25-27. The bus makes a perfect hangout for our favorite local event. Now, if we could just get it clean enough for the next trip!

The first camping trip of the summer was amazing! The volksvegan made the trip beautifully – though I am really glad Sen was driving, because the little one-lane dirt road from Highway 1 to Usal campground is insane! It was a steep eroded road with huge ruts, tight switchbacks and loose gravel, and was really close to the edge of the cliff at some points. But boy was it an amazing view from the edge!

We packed up the volksvegan and followed our friends Pal & Ottie out to Usal. It takes about two hours from home, though it’s only about 60 miles or so. The volksvegan carried us up up up and then across a ridge along a steep cliff, then down down down into a big valley, overlooking Usal beach as we descended. When we got there, we easily found the campsite where our friends Mike & Kelsie and Rick & Paula were already set up. It was a fairly secluded site with lots of room for all 8 of us. We set up the pop-top quickly and then figured out how to put up the canopy that attaches to the side of the bus (it has been a while) before hopping on the bikes and heading to the beach. When we were almost at the beach, we stopped dead in our tracks: just ahead of us, near the side of the road, was a herd of HUGE elk. And we forgot the dog leashes at camp. So we headed back, got the leashes, and sped back to the beach in time to see watch the elk and check out the area. Apparently the elk that live there are one of the largest subspecies of elk in the world. They had huge fuzzy antlers and seemed totally oblivious to us. Good thing the pooches were leashed up so they couldn’t scare them away! Unfortunately my camera was acting up when we first got there and I didn’t get very good elk shots. 

We hung out with our closest friends all weekend, met the “neighbors” and brought them some midnight munchies (lots of fruit). We went for a hike up the ridge to an overlook where we could see the whole beach and had a close view of an osprey nest just above us on a dead tree. We also took another hike to a really crazy grove of redwoods. I have never seen redwoods like this before! They were gnarly, with huge trunks and branches that twisted and turned in all directions. The whole hillside was covered with them in one area, it made me wonder what made them grow that way. We spent a lot of time with one tree in particular (check out the picture at the top of this post), which looked like an octopus with tons of branches coming off a huge trunk. It was definitely a magical place!

We got to watch sunsets at the beach, cook big meals outside, and got lots of exercise biking and hiking around all weekend. We headed home after visiting the gnarly redwood grove one more time. The forest was teeming with life and lush. Juneau and Niko had such a blast running around, hiking with us, and playing on the beach. The Lost Coast is definitely a special place, we’d love to return soon and do the backpacking trip from Usal to Shelter Cove. It hardly felt like camping with our little home away from home – both pooches fit nicely in the bus with us and we were quite comfy!

It was a beautiful mini-vacation! You can see all the photos of the trip on flickr.

Next up for the volksvegan: Seneca and Pal will be heading to Hopland’s Solar Living Institute in the van in a little over a week, where they will learn how to make bio-diesel, create a processor, and learn how to run a bio-business. Hopefully they’ll learn enough to start producing fuel for ourselves and gradually build a client base from there. It’s exciting that we’re finally moving forward with a business and becoming a bigger part of the biofuel revolution! Stay tuned for notes from the course.

We recently took the volksvegan on a small journey a little over an hour away to Earthdance a very eco-conscious music and peace festival near Laytonville. Pictured here is our camp. As you can see, we put our handy dandy canopy to good use. It attaches to the side of the van and gives us much needed shade. It was a hot and dusty weekend, but we had a great time and saw some awesome live music. We were also surprised at how green and veg-friendly the festival as a whole and all the vendors were. It was definitely worth supporting this event, which is synched up with others around the world in an international prayer for peace.

On the horizon is the Okanogan Family Faire in northern Washington, October 17-19. Since we’re now a lot farther away, it will be quite a long trip. We’re working on getting the volksvegan ready for the long trip. The clutch has been giving us issues, apparently because it is leaking fluid. Seneca has replaced the clutch master cylinder but we found out it’s still leaking, so now we’re going to try replacing the slave cylinder, even though it was replaced last year in Salt Lake. He also installed new glow plugs, which had burned out, making the bus difficult to start. We’ll be giving her a bath and hopefully troubleshooting various small issues before loading up our gear and making the trip up north. We can’t wait to go to the faire, which will be our only barter faire of the season, although we seemed to have swapped the barter faires of the northwest with the heady music festivals of northern California. Either way, the volksvegan makes the ultimate road trip and camping mobile, and despite her age, she’s still getting us to these fun events. See you in Tonasket for Okanogan Family Faire!

We made it to Fort Bragg in two days, and luckily we had beautiful clear weather and clear roads, even over Donner Pass. (There was 4 feet of snow on each side of the road, but the roads were clear and no chains were required). The volksvegan made the trip just fine with me at the wheel while Sen drove the Uhaul.

It’s still hard to believe that we’re living in another state in a town where we don’t know anyone. We’re in the process of unpacking and moving into the new place, and our friend Jake is our first house guest. He came up from the Bay Area to see us for the weekend. Not that there’s much to see in our house full of boxes in various stages of disarray… Anyway, we’re glad to be here and we’re starting to get settled and explore our new home. Stay tuned for more volksvegan adventures around our new home in California!

After holidays and visiting friends one last time in Moscow and Boise, we are ready at last to embark on our greatest adventure yet: the big move.

We are leaving in just a couple of days to move to Fort Bragg, California. While we’re very excited to finally settle somewhere we love, the journey there will be a bit scary. It’s January, not a good time to move. We are planning to make the shorter trek through Nevada instead of the longer way we’re used to down the Oregon and California coasts. The coast is very wet, often flooded, and prone to mudslides, so road closures are very common this time of year. Instead, we’ll face the wrath of Donner Pass, a big snowy mountain pass over the Sierra Nevadas. I’ll be driving the volksvegan while Sen drives the Uhaul towing our little car. We’re prepared with good tires and chains if need be (except for the Uhaul, since Uhaul is lame and won’t rent them to us, so we may have to buy them if they are required). But despite knowing quite well how to drive in the snow, there’s something about Donner Pass that scares me silly.

So here’s hoping for a safe trip with no delays or major weather issues (forecast looks pretty good). Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers during our travels – we’ll need all the good vibes we can get!

Since we’ll be settling down, my posts here will probably be less frequent, but don’t worry, there are still many adventures ahead in our volksvegan. I will continue to post about any grease-powered trips we take in the bus, as well as our efforts in collecting grease in a place where we know next to nobody, the restoration and repair of our ol’ VW, and much more. So stay tuned, one epic journey may be coming to an end, but there are many more miles of fun ahead!

Here’s wishing everyone who has been following our adventures a Happy Holiday season! I procrastinated on my annual Holiday e-card, as usual, but of course I had to use a photo from our trip. The tree is a giant sequoia called General Grant, which was named “The Nation’s Christmas Tree” by President Coolidge. General Grant is the second largest tree (by mass) in the world, and is simply breathtaking. It’s obviously too big to hang lights on or even take a picture of in one frame!

We also visited the world’s largest tree nearby, General Sherman. These and many other giant sequoias only grow on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevadas – you can see them in Yosemite, King’s Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks, all of which we visited this year. They are truly amazing trees, able to withstand year after year of fires as long as some portion of them from top to bottom is left intact. As a result, many are hollowed out inside or have huge tunnels through them, making them a lot of fun to explore!

Seneca and I are on separate sides of the country this holiday season (our first time apart since we started our adventure in June), but we’ll be back together for New Year’s Eve, just in time to pack up and move down to California. Here’s hoping that mudslide season can wait a few more days until after our big move!

To all our family and friends who have made this trip possible: thank you for giving us a place to park or stay on our journey, letting us use your showers and kitchens (and even your beds), praying for our safe travels, and in some cases storing our stuff for six months while we were on the road. We are so grateful to have so many wonderful people in our lives all over the place! Now once we’re settled in a new place, we’ll be ready to return the favor and give our friends and family a place to stay while we play tour guide in our new home town. You’re all invited (just not all at once)!

Happy Holidays!

We spent a wonderful week or so in the gorgeous Mendocino and Anderson Valley areas. It rained on our way in, but every day after that was mild and sunny. In addition to looking for rentals in the newspaper and at rental agencies, we got to watch sunsets on the Mendocino Headlands and drive along the winding coastal roads and through majestic redwood forests. We hung out with friends in Mendocino and Boonville and even got a little disc golf and beer sippin’ in at Anderson Valley Brewing in Boonville.

The Mendocino coast is an amazing place, and we are happy to report that we will be moving to the area in January! We found a place to rent outside of Fort Bragg, a town north of Mendocino Village. It is on over two acres of redwood forest (shared with the land owner) with two bedrooms and a big open living room/kitchen. It will definitely be a step up from our bus! We hope to start collecting grease and processing it there, since we’ve discovered that it’s much easier to use waste veg oil if you have a place to store it, settle it, and filter it.

The climate and ecology of the area will certainly be a change for us Idahoans. The California coast is moist and foggy, although the sunshine seems more prevalent than in the more Northern Pacific coastline. Since we’re only a few miles from the ocean, we’ll have a milder climate and probably no snow during the winter, which is rainy instead. We’ll miss the snow, but we can always head east to the Tahoe area to snowboard or hike in the Sierra Nevadas. Change is good, and we’re ready to be settled somewhere that’s a little more laid back, conscious, and organic. Mendocino county recently banned GMOs (genetically modified organisms), which means most food is local and organic. We hope to eventually buy land in a place we can live a bit closer to the earth: grow our organic food, set up sustainable energy, and work from home. So moving to NorCal will put us a step closer to that direction, especially because there are many intentional and sustainable communities in the area that we hope to check out.

We will be moving everything from Idaho to Fort Bragg in early January. So while this will be the end of the epic volksvegan adventure of 2007, there will be many more journeys ahead, and there’s still much work to be done to our veg-powered VW.

We finally arrived in California after way too many days traveling. We made the mistake of going the long way, through Portland, and on our first day we were stuck in LaGrande, Oregon, due to a blizzard that closed the freeway. We left for Portland the next day and arrived at my cousin’s house in the late afternoon. We visited Roots Brewery, Portland’s organic brewery, with my sister, and left for California the next day. After stopping in Eugene for some Cozmic Pizza, we arrived in the Golden State, heading deeper into the coastal fog. The fog was so thick that we decided to camp at Patrick’s Point, and stopped in Arcata the next day.

In Arcata we discovered to our dismay that the bus’s temperature was rising, and found a leak in another coolant hose (those things are getting old, after all). We went back into town to replace the hose, and after Sen the grease monkey fixed ‘er up, we were on our way again. Once again stopping at one of our favorite spots from this summer, we had lunch and a beer at Lost Coast Brewery in Eureka. Then we were on the fast track to the Mendocino area, where we hoped to start looking for a place.

Last night we arrived at our friends’ house to a big veggie dinner (yay for cool friends!) and slept in the bus. We picked up the newspapers and scoured them last night, so we’ve been calling around, looking for rentals, and visiting them. Hopefully we can find one soon, although we’ve heard it can take a while to find a place down here. I guess we’re hoping for a miracle, and we’re prepared to do a lot of hard work to get it. Keep your fingers crossed for us and think happy thoughts!

We made it to Boise just in time for Thanksgiving, although we had to rent a car because the volksvegan was still in the shop. We made tofurky and delicious morel mushroom gravy to add to the feast that Sen’s mom prepared. We stayed in Boise waiting for word from the VW shop in SLC before continuing our journey.

Today, after being assured that the bus would be finished, we headed to SLC to pick ‘er up. We got a call on the way saying that after installing the new head, they had found that the alternator wasn’t charging! They ordered an alternator but when we arrived, they said it broke on the mechanic when he went to install it. As if we could use any more bad luck. Since we replaced the alternator in July, we were able to get a new one under our warranty, and dropped it off at the shop. It should be done early in the morning.

While in Boise we did some research and thinking, and decided that we will head to Mendocino county, California, to look for our new home. We visited a lot of amazing places on our trip, but we’re definitely drawn to the Golden State! We chose this area for many reasons (the beautiful coastline being one of them), but a main one was the fact that it was the first (and only) county in the US to ban genetically modified organisms (GMOs). So most of the food in the area is local and organic, just the way we like it! We will be checking out the area and hopefully finding a place to rent in the next couple of weeks. Keep your fingers crossed for our house search!

Despite the fact that our beloved VW is still in the shop in SLC, we have an awful lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. We have been to some amazing and beautiful places, hiked hundreds of miles in gorgeous wilderness, spent time with good friends and family, and learned a lot in the process. I am so thankful to everyone who has made this trip possible, especially to my parents for not thinking I’m totally insane (just a little bit) and for storing a lot of our stuff and taking good care of our kitty for nearly six months now!

Our time in Moab went quickly and was over way too soon. We got to ride the famous Slickrock bike trail, a crazy rollercoaster of sandstone that was incredibly challenging and quite a workout. I ended up walking about half of it, but I suppose that’s to be expected for a novice mountain biker’s first trip to Slickrock. After our ride we were exhausted, and stayed at the Lazy Lizard Hostel to get some rest and much-needed showers.

On our last day in Moab, I was still too sore and tired to get on a bike again, but Seneca was determined to have one last ride. I dropped him off at another popular (but very difficult) trail called Porcupine Rim, parts of which consisted of a singletrack right on a cliff edge overlooking the Colorado River. I’m way too much of a chicken for that, but daredevil Seneca loved it. After I met him at the end of the trail, we decided to do one more hike in Arches National Park, because our previous hike to the famous Delicate Arch was so late in the day that we missed the prime views at sunset. This time we made the hike just in time to watch the sunset cover the arch and surrounding slickrock in a beautiful orange glow, and of course the pictures came out much better this time!

The next day we got up at the crack of dawn so we could make it back to SLC in time to drop off the rental truck. We got there way earlier than we expected, so we had time to look up veggie restaurants on Happy Cow and found an awesome place called One World, Everybody Eats. When we entered we were greeted by smiling people who explained how the cafe worked: they had a buffet of different dishes prepared, all organic and many vegan. We could choose whatever we wanted in whatever amount we could eat, and afterwards we could simply pay what we thought it was worth. The cafe was dedicated to reducing hunger (they offered a couple of staple dishes for free) and sustainable sustenance. We were surprised and delighted to find such a conscious restaurant, and we sampled everything we could. It was yummy and satisfying.

After our lunch we headed to the VW shop to hear the news on the bus. The mechanics had our engine taken apart and said we’d need to replace the head (the one we just replaced a few months ago – argh!) but that the pistons were fine (thank goodness). They hoped to check a few other things out and gave us an estimate that wasn’t nearly as bad as we had anticipated. The best news was that it should be done by next week, so we won’t have to wait long to head down to Cali and end our journey.

We shuffled rental cars (we had to rent a smaller car to drop off in Boise) and loaded up for the trip to Boise for Thanksgiving. I’ll be making a Tofurky to eat with Seneca’s family, and we’re excited to actually spend a holiday together for once. Unfortunately since we need to return the rental car and get a bunch of stuff done when we arrive in Boise, I won’t be able to make it to Portland with my parents for the Pru Crew Thanksgiving dinner. At least we have a lot to be thankful for this year, and more adventures ahead…