Turning Over a New Leaf – An Overdue Update on Travel Life

After six enjoyable weeks in Punta del Este, Uruguay waiting for the 4Runner to arrive by ship from South America to the States we flew to Austin, Texas ready to pick her up in Houston. As an aside, if you find yourself in Austin near the airport, JD Market inside the Mobile gas station on East Riverside Drive makes delicious tacos and burritos.  

En route to retrieve the 4Runner, we were informed that she had acquired quite a bit of mold during her ocean voyage. The pictures the importer sent us looked really bad and now we were faced with a dilemma. Was the damage something insurance would cover? Ours, the exporter, the shipper, the importer? Our shipping agent was in the U.K. and not in the office. The exporter was in Uruguay and not answering us either. It was also a Thursday of an upcoming holiday weekend. Do we stay in Houston for 4 extra nights waiting on answers or do we just get the hell out of Dodge and deal with the mold ourselves?

We got the hell out of Dodge. We wanted to get a mobile detailer out to the hotel but that wasn’t going to work and so we cleaned off what we could, bought some cheap seat covers from the Bass Pro Shop next to our hotel, stocked up on food and snacks at Trader Joe’s and we hit the road. (The back seat already had a full dog proof cover and didn’t really have any mold so that was a small win.)

On our way out of town we had a quick stop at the Cadillac Ranch ‘monument’ in the desert and then we were off to Amarillo and then to Colorado for family and friend visits. We had gotten a ways past Fort Worth when some really nasty weather started to roll across the plains. Shani was checking the weather and it looked bad and directly in our path. Golf ball sized hail, torrential rains and tornadoes were forecast. We could see the wall of black weather moving towards us. We stopped at a rest stop thinking it might give us some cover while we investigated our options for a bit. Another get the hell out of Dodge situation. There was no hiding from the storm, just an opportunity to out run it. It was black sky to the left and blueish far to the right. Getting caught in the hail was not an option, it would completely destroy our ruined windshield. (Wrecked in a sand storm in Chile) And so, as much as conditions would allow, it was pedal to the metal racing the storm.  

In the end we made the right decision. A tornado did come through, 18-wheelers were flipped on their sides and golf ball sized hail came down along with the predicted torrential rains. We were pretty psyched to miss out on all that mess!

While spending a bit of time in Colorado with family, we happened to be there for the Air Force Academy graduation and were able to see the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds do their amazing fly over and routine celebrating the graduation. The Thunderbirds are the Air Force’s flight demonstration squadron and they do a combo of group maneuvers and solo routines. Pretty impressive stuff. We also got to have a nice hike with our friends Tom and Katie and their girls. Really good to catch up.

And then we were off to Truckee, California to experiment with our new life plan. We were actually going to stay put for 3 whole months in Truckee. We even signed a lease! Our plan was to hike and climb and join the climbing gym and live a normal-ish life for a bit. Our friends live there and are very social which plugged us into a group of instant friends, something we were overdue for. Overlanding and RV life can feel pretty lonely at times and it was great to have friends again! It also put us much closer to Shani’s family and another set of good friends.

We did a lot of nice hikes, everything was so close to Truckee. We played in the river and even got the paddle boards out on Donner lake a few times. We went to some parties, hung out with friends old and new and generally had a great summer in Truckee.  And then we were back in France. This time we really were going to get the maintenance issues taken care of! We had been stymied on our last attempt. Our plan this time was to get to Spain, near L’Estartit at the Bosch service center that had been recommended to us previously.  We did spend a bit of time in France near Fontainebleau so that I could get a bit of bouldering in. So much fun in the forest. Also this time around we ended up staying in more motorhome aires, both paid and free. It seems a lot more crowded than it was when we first started these RV adventures. One of the paid aires was Sainte-Eulalie-de-Cernon Aire, we had been here before but both had food poisoning and did not tour the little medieval village next to the aire and we had wanted to get back and have a look. It is very charming but also very small but still worth a visit if you are in the area.

From there we were off to Adge and then Béziers for a city visit and then Montagut and Girona. Béziers certainly exceeded our expectations! It’s a wonderful and charming place to visit. The same can certainly be said about Girona. Do try and visit if you get a chance.

At some point during this part of the journey our fresh water pump decided to call it quits. Previously the kitchen faucet had done the same and we used the bathroom tap to get water. Now there was no water. Fortunately for us there was a Hymer dealer and shop that we could make an appointment with to get the issues sorted. We were able to schedule the Fiat service and the Hymer service in the same week! While at Hymer we also mentioned our Electrobloc problem and they had one in stock and we got that taken care of too. Quite a week for us.

With most of our van issues taken care of we were off to Albarracín, a little medieval village next to some amazing bouldering. In fact, after Fontainebleau, it has the second largest amount of bouldering in Europe (or so I’ve been told). The rock climbing is certainly world class! On the way to Albarracín we did two nights at a free aire at Vinya Els Vilars. That was a pretty amazing spot and we could have stayed longer for sure.

After some fun days in Albarracín we headed to Valencia and had a lovely paella but the weather was turning bad and so we headed off to Autocaravana Carpe Diem in Vera. Our timing was good and we missed the worst of the weather but Valencia wasn’t so lucky and had horrible flooding and property destruction. From Vera we could take a bike ride to the coast but unfortunately ended up at Playa Nudista Vera where we all got an eye full and Shani caught a flat tire. A (clothed) biking Brit was able to help, otherwise it would have been a long walk home!

Next we drove to Almuñecar where we spent nearly two weeks. We had a lovely ocean view from our pitch and a relatively easy walk into town. There were nice spots in town for drinks and tapas, plenty of boardwalk for sea side strolling, a good barber shop for an overdue haircut and some nice beach bars on the sand. Two weeks might not have been enough.

Our next spot was outside the town of Nerja, which, if I’m honest, is a little too touristy. Lots of Brits and quite busy. We did manage a fantastic lunch out and had an epic Iberico pork shank. We might have stayed another day or two but we had a meet up planned with our van life friends John and Kellie near Estepona. It was really great spending some time with our friends but our time was running out and we had gone way further south in Spain than we had intended.  We spent a few days in Merida, Salamanca and Pamplona before crossing back into France for a few days in St. Jean de Luz and then a couple of days to get back up to Sens and the Ibis hotel for a couple of days of cleaning and organizing the van. It always takes longer than we think and a couple of nights out of the van sure help get all of the things taken care of.

After dropping the van off with Sandrine for storage we were ready for a vacation in Paris! We always enjoy our time in Paris, this time it was a bit cold but the Christmas markets and hot wine were really fun. It also coincided with the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral and that was pretty cool to see from the outside (Tickets were impossible to get for the inside tour).

We had only been in Europe for three months, why leave so soon? As it turns out, towards the end of our summer in Truckee an opportunity arose for us to unload all of our things that had been in storage for 10 years and for us to finally go through all of those things. It’s a bit overwhelming to go from overlanding/rv life to having all this stuff you haven’t seen for years but that’s where we are. Sorting, cleaning, donating, and spending time with family.

We’re planning on being back in Europe in the spring for a few months in the RV and then we’ll see what’s next. A house boat on a river in France? A home base in Spain? Buying a 1 Euro home in Italy? Stay tuned as we try and figure out what’s next!