(Near) The Murder Capitol Of The World

Sunday morning, after boondocking on the side of Hwy 118 outside of the McDonald Observatory we got back on I-10 and headed towards El Paso. The last 80 miles of Interstate 10 leading up to El Paso mirrored the Mexican border and it was exciting to be so close to a foreign land. Unlike Europe, where one can visit multiple countries in the same day, the US is so enormous that it is a rare treat to find oneself on the doorsteps of another country. El Paso lies right across the border from Juarez, and unfortunately, Juarez has recently seen a huge increase in drug related gang violence, leading to it being dubbed the “Murder Capitol of the World”. Most online travel guides warn against crossing into Mexico in this part of the country, and we decided not to test our luck. Instead, we spent our two days in El Paso exploring the city and the outdoors at the Franklin Mountains State Park.

Quick Fun Facts

While traveling the last 9 months, we've kept track of all of our spending. Down to the penny. (I'm a sucker for numbers, what can I say?) Each time we spent money, we recorded how much we spent, when we spent it, where we spent it, and what type of expense it was (restaurant, RV parking, pet care, etc). This was useful in terms of comparing how we were doing against budget and also just fun to look back on, in retrospect. WE SPENT HOW MUCH ON GAS????

Minneapolis, MN

We spent Labor Day weekend in the city of Minneapolis. Minnesota was our 15^th state to visit on this trip, and I’m happy to say that the scenery did indeed improve as soon as we crossed the border from South Dakota. We took the scenic back country road way into Minneapolis instead of the interstate and in doing so I think we caught the cuter side of the side. We passed some really picturesque farmlands with vibrant red barns. About 100 miles outside of the city the roadside views turned from farmlands to forest, and if I didn't know better, I would have said we were driving through Arkansas.

Aberdeen, WA

After driving up the Oregon coast, we crossed the highway 101 bridge from Astoria into Washington, and followed the highway north into Aberdeen.

Driving along the Washington coast

West of Portland: The Oregon Coast Part 2

We finally made it to Seaside and settled in at our Couch Surfing hosts's home. In Seaside we had another great Couch Surfing experience (I know...but I promise I'm not being paid to say all of this...although if Couch Surfing did want to chip in, that would be OK too). When looking for someone to couch surf with, we decided to try out the "display my travel plans to local couch hosts" option. Neal, a very kind host from Seaside, contacted us and let us know that we were welcome at his house.

How to Make Friends in New Places

One of the disadvantages of traveling is not being able to bring your friend circle with you. Friday and Saturday nights can be a bit lonely sometimes when its just the two of us walking around a new city. We see big groups of friends walk by and remember what it was like to be the ones part of a big group heading out to dinner and drinks, looking to cause some trouble.

The other Friday we were poking around trying to decide what to do when I remembered seeing a link on the Couch Surfing website that I had meant to check out before. If you're a member, you will find the following links in the banner at the top: Surf, Host, Activities and Groups. I clicked on Activities, typed in Portland, and found a whole selection of events posted by local Couch Surfing members. One of the activities was an open invitation to a birthday party at a pizzeria in Southeast Portland. I RSVP'd yes, and all of a sudden we had plans for the evening!

New Friends and Fellow Travelers

We recently had the pleasure of being introduced to more fellow travelers. Heading into Portland, I contacted Kim, from So Many Places, on what to see and do there. She and her husband Brian had lived there for the last five years and she had written very positive things about Portland in her blog. I say this all in the past tense because she and Brian recently left Portland, to start their own awesome round-the-world adventure! (Check out their blog to see what they are up to now)

Petaluma and a Small High School Reunion

After dropping off my parents at the airport at 5am on Saturday, we drove into San Fran and spent the morning wondering around Golden Gate Park. The park is over 3 miles long and just under half a mile wide, and is 20% larger than Central Park. According to Wikipedia, this is the third most visited city park in the US, after Chicago's Lincoln Park and New York's Central Park. There are so many things to do in this park, its easy to see why its so popular.

Another Great CouchSurfing Experience

There are two Couchsurfing hosts in Springdale, UT, the little town right outside of Zion National Park. We had contacted both before we left Grand Canyon, and heard back from one. She apologized that she could not host us because she lives in a condo right off Main St and had no room for us to park our travel trailer. She did give us her cell phone number though, so we could call her to brainstorm on places to park. When we got to Springdale, we tried parking at a local church, but there were signs everywhere about no overnight parking, so we gave her a call. While waiting on her to call us back, we went ahead and booked a night at an RV park. We should have waited 30 more minutes, because she messaged almost immediately back saying she’d called up the other host, and that he definitely had a place for us to stay.

Couchsurfing

Couchsurfing has been around for ages, and almost everyone has done it to some extent.  Nowadays though, there are numerous forums to meet up with complete strangers and couchsurf or just meet up over some coffee and exchange stories.  Through these new websites it is more formalized, standardized, and has some safety features added.  We have used Couchsurfing.org a number of times and have had great experiences.

You start out by creating a profile about yourself, where you've been, where you want to go, and what you are looking to get out of couchsuring (CS).

Our First Visitors!!!

A couple we made friends with while living in Memphis happened to be on their own cross-country tour, and were nearby, visiting the Carlsbad Caverns, just as we were pulling into Alamogordo. We happily invited them to be our very first visitors in the trailer!

Carolina and Jeremy

Off to Roswell to Visit the Aliens

After visiting the Carlsbad Caverns, we drove another 50 miles to the Alien capitol of the USA,  Roswell, NM. We stayed the night with an awesome Couchsurfing host, Nadia.

Roswell is a quirky town of 50k people, the center for dairy farming, but most famously known for the Roswell UFO incident.

Fredericksburg, TX

We have spent the last few days in Fredericksburg. This is a super quaint town about 70 miles west of Austin. With a population of only 10k you would think it would be pretty boring, but if anything, it has turned out to be extremely inviting, relaxing and picturesque. There is a long Main St (about a mile long) that is filled with boutiques, cafes, restaurants, galleries, museums, ice cream parlors, and candy stores.

Main St.

Making New Friends

For the last year Skyler and I had been planning our trip, and in doing so, were doing a lot of research online. One of the blogs I had stumbled upon was Our Take on Freedom: Escaping the 9-5 Before We're 25. I’m one of those people that can’t start anything in the middle, so I found their very first entry, and read their blog from the begging to their most recent entry. Yair and Ayo, the writers of the blog, just recently turned 25, and have been traveling around the US in their RV for over a year. I found a lot of good tips in their blog, as well as a good dose of inspiration.  In December I had written them an email to let them know that A, I had been online stocking their blog for a while now, and B, that we would love to meet up with them. It turned out that they would be in Austin the same time we were, so we made plans to get together.