Roaming About

A Life Less Ordinary

Category: Nature (page 11 of 19)

Winter at Palm Oases in the Desert

Disclaimer: Mark and I are wimps when it comes to cold weather. We realize that a lot of people in North America have to deal with extreme winter conditions. To them, this post might come across as whiny and we might be called “spoiled brats”. We’ll take it, as long as we don’t have to move up north! ????

The first winter Mark and I were back in the United States after sailing on Irie in the tropics for eight years, we decided to house and pet sit in Massachusetts and Connecticut. “Since you’ve never shoveled snow in your life, you have to experience it at least once,” my husband reasoned. Despite 2015-2016 being a “mild” winter, one of those in New England was enough. And, I did get to play in the snow

The following fall, we drove our little Prius across the country for a winter of house sitting in Northern California. Who would have guessed it’s actually chilly there during that period of the year? We needed to run the heat or start the wood fire every morning and the following spring was the coldest and wettest in ages. We seem to attract extremes, which put an end to the long drought in California. You’re welcome!

Our next plan to stay warm during the winter was a 3.5-month house sit in San Diego, CA. The days were alright, but the old house wasn’t insulated well. And, who turns the heat on in San Diego? It was another cold winter for us, followed by an extremely chilly and windy spring in New Mexico. Obviously, we were starting to run out of options.

Green desert in Borrego Springs, CA – yes, that’s snow on the hills

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IWSG Writing Update March 2019 – My Road to Publication Step 2: Submitting to Agents

Every first Wednesday of the month, the IWSG (Insecure Writer’s Support Group) engages writers to share their fears, thoughts, progress, struggles, excitement, encouragement, or anything really, about their writing.

This amazing, supportive group of writers was founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh. Today, the co-hosts are Fundy Blue, Beverly Stowe McClure, Erika Beebe, and Lisa Buie-Collard. Feel free to swing by their sites and see what they’re up to.

My book progress

Last month, I decided to share my personal road to publication, starting with the non-fiction book proposal. You can read that post here. Such a proposal is needed to pitch a memoir to an agent or publisher. I’m pursuing the traditional publishing route first, since one can “always self-publish later.” Continue reading

California Desert Escape

What do you do when you feel like you’re overstaying your welcome at a friend’s house in San Diego (and you have a husband antsy to return to nature and could use a little break from memoir work yourself)? You pack up, jump in your camper van, and head into the California desert for a couple of days. Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is huge. You opt for the Borrego Springs area as an initiation to this region since you don’t have much time.

Zesty on desert roads

You boondock in solitude and under a million stars.

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The Yeasty Beasty Experience

Today, I would like to introduce you to an incredible couple, who we are happy to call close friends. Some of our best friends are the ones we met when living on the road or on the water; there’s nothing like hanging out with kindred spirits, or visiting them again during our travels.

Mark and I met Tom in Green Turtle Cay in the Bahamas, in 2008. He was sailing his sturdy little Ellida and would meet up with his girlfriend further down the Caribbean island chain. In St. Martin, we caught up with him and Karmen, who is a chiropractor and aspiring photographer. Her traits came in handy, as Mark was suffering from a bad back one year and he and I had a romantic plan the next year.  Continue reading

Our Oregon Trail

When Mark and I crossed the border into Oregon mid-October, we were welcomed with blue skies and friendly smiles. A tad different from the Olympic Peninsula. An Indian summer had arrived and the outdoors was calling. Before heading into nature again, Mark and I stopped in Portland. We met up with a dear friend we had last seen in Luperon, Dominican Republic, ten years ago. It was another reunion that will make it into a separate blog. As a matter of fact, we reconnected with three sets of friends in this state. I ought to dedicate my next post to all the beautiful friendships we experienced while on the road these last four months.

Portland

The biggest, most vibrant city in Oregon is not its capital. That honor belongs to Salem, which we would visit with friends later on. In Portland, we succumbed to urban camping. We had read about a 24-hour parking lot in the funky Alberta neighborhood, NE of the city center, where one could “settle” for $1.50 a day. This small piece of land, the size of a parking spot, became our home for a couple of days.

Our home base for a couple of days

We explored the popular bar and restaurant scene of Alberta on foot.

We rode our bikes across the Willamette River into the city center to soak up the vibe along the waterfront park (with its many homeless people), downtown and in Washington park.

And then, we had three days left, before we would meet good friends in Monmouth, near Salem. The city life (and its noise) wasn’t very accommodating to our wallets and ears, so east we headed in our camper van, towards the town of Hood River.

The Columbia River Delta

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The Olympic Peninsula, Washington

When Mark and I were “done” with Vancouver Island in Canada, the beginning of October, we faced a dilemma: taking the ferry through the San Juan Islands and visit Seattle, or hop on the older alternative and discover the Olympic Peninsula. Since you read the title of this blog post, you know what we decided.

The Olympic Peninsula is a relatively large, remote and “forgotten” appendix in the Northwest of the state Washington. It’s well-known for its rain, rainforest, lush surroundings, and more rain. So, we knew what to expect, when we took Zesty for a spin through this fertile and moss-covered region. The highlight of the area is Olympic National Park, for which our annual national park pass came in handy again. There is a big circular route around this huge wilderness playground, but since we were heading south, we had to choose between the east or the west side. The western road offered more access roads into the park, but the eastern route offered a detour to Port Townsend, a town we’d heard nice things about. We doubted ever coming back this way, so found a solution.

Port Townsend

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Van Life on Van Island – Part II: The Sunny Spell

Mark and I have been exploring and living in our camper van Zesty full-time since the end of July 2018. Last week, I wrote a blog (with tons of photos) about arriving in Canada, early September, and our first ten or so days on Vancouver Island. The rain was omnipresent, but we managed to have a wonderful time. When the sky cleared, Mark and I left Campbell River (see my Bears vs. Salmon post for one of our highlights in Canada) to explore a more remote and cooler part of the island – the north – before tracing the East Coast all the way to its southern point.

To read the photo captions, hover your mouse over the images, tap them once, or click to make them larger.

Sayward

Few travelers venture north of Campbell River, where island communities are smaller and hardier. It’s colder and wetter up there, so we tried to take advantage of the few sunny days in the forecast. We stopped at the town of Sayward, anticipating to spend the night there at a free campground. Upon discovering that our resource, iOverlander, was wrong – there is a fee to dry camp in town – we checked out the inviting waterfront and moved on to spend the night elsewhere.

The logging industry is huge on Vancouver Island. Continue reading

Van Life on Van Island – Part I: The Rainy Spell

Whistler Moments

From the moment we entered Canada, it started raining. Well, not quite. Before the deluge, we managed to fit a trip to Whistler in with our friend Rachel, whom we met in the South Pacific sailing. Her sister generously offered the three of us a night in her time-share there, so we didn’t have to be in a hurry. Talk about a luxury experience for us. The room was more than adequate, comfortable and modern; Whistler itself was a fun resort town to walk through, eat and window shop. The highlight to me, as always, was nature and what it had to offer. That “last” sunny day provided us with beautiful waterfalls, enjoyable hiking trails and good company!

Vancouver in the Rain

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The Quinsam River Salmon Hatchery – Bears vs. Salmon

Salmon return to their home waters, upstream, to spawn and die. That’s about all Mark and I knew about these fish and the “salmon run” when autumn approached. Other than their meat being expensive and tasty, especially smoked.

During our stay on Vancouver Island in September, we learned that it was soon to be the height of the Pink Salmon run. There are five different wild Pacific salmon species in this part of the world: Chinook, Sockeye, Coho, Chum, and Pink.

When we hiked along rivers, we peered into the crystal-clear waters, expecting hundreds of fish leap against the stream and up waterfalls. It wasn’t quite like that, but we did see a couple of salmon attempt this amazing feat. They were immediately swept back downstream to rest up and try again. Capturing them on camera was an even more challenging feat.

We heard about a fish hatchery in Qualicum Beach and decided to check it out, mid-September. Continue reading

North Cascades National Park, Washington

After our whirlwind visit to Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, Mark and I wished to explore Glacier National Park in Montana. My intention was to then continue our trip into Canada: Waterton Lakes NP, Banff and Jasper NPs, and saying a quick “hello” to our friends Sue and Dave in Calgary, before heading west to Vancouver and Vancouver Island.  I write “my intention”, because we never plan much in advance, and this whole itinerary might have been a tad ambitious, as summer was already ending this far north. Why was that a surprise to me?

Upon doing research online about Glacier National Park, we discovered that massive forest fires raged on the western edge of the park. This was the preferred side for us to enter, because it offered spectacular views, contained free camping, the distance was doable, and it made most sense for our route north. But, the western entrance was closed. We decided to skip this park altogether and drove westwards within the United States, choosing North Cascades National Park as our new destination in Washington state.

The Logistics

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