Campervan-ing ... the perks and snags (by Karen)

Meet 'Snoet' (that's Snout in Afrikaans)

After my first few weeks of campervan-ing I have begun to get a feel for the perks and snags of this adventurous mode of travel. I'm certainly no expert yet, but give me a few more weeks and I'll be sprouting all sorts of wisdom :)

After 4 months of being limited to carrying only what could fit in our backpacks, the first big bonus of having a campervan is that you can spread out, and even make a few purchases. Of course, the snag is that at the end when it comes to fitting everything back into the backpack we'll be screwed!

Our camp in Rifle Gap State Park (Colorado) ... so serene and peaceful

Our food and toilettries only juz fitting in the bear box

I can see why there are so many snails out there, because having your house with you at all times is very handy indeed. There's no chance of forgetting your wallet at home, or not having your rain jacket just when it decides to bucket down. You can also pull off anywhere and sleep, provided it's legal of course (or not likely to be noticed :). The snag is if you do get noticed then you get a rude awakening at 4am with a cop knocking loudly on the window ... which is what happened to us one morning. As it turns out, the cop wasn't actually interested in us per say, but was responding to a 911 call and thought it might have come from us. But since it was illegal to sleep in your car in that particular county he was obliged to mention this to us. He did very kindly let us sleep on till day light though :)

Fat American toilet :)
(actually its a flush basin)

It helps to have a well trained bladder if you want an undisturbed nights rest. With all the pallava of climbing over the other person and getting out the van to pee in the middle of the night you end up being quite awake, and getting back to sleep can be tricky. I find the key is to not open your eyes fully and to try to keep your mind in that drowsy-almost-drugged state. Hang on to the images of your last dream and  don't let your mind fire up with any real thoughts. However you can train your bladder to hold it in, and after a week I now seem to be fine till morning. But it is such a nice treat when we stay in a motel and can simply slide out of bed and pee quickly and effortlessly :)

Our dashboard: 4th of July party flag, San Fran half marathon
bling medal & Mr Bobblehead (free in the race pack!)

But the real problem is if you do hold it in, then by morning you're pretty busting and it can be quite desperado getting out the van in time. With my experience of this there certainly wasn't time to carefully select a choice pee spot, instead I went crashing through the scrub and hunkered down just in time. It was only then that I noticed I was surrounded by poison oak. Shit! Did it touch my legs? Did it touch my bum?? I couldn't really remember, but there was certainly a chance I got touched somewhere. For the next 3 days we were on red alert (it can take up to 3 days for the incredibly itchy rash and blisters to appear). Placebo affect immediately came into play and now suddenly itches were sprouting up all over. I frantically googled what to do if you get poison oak on you, and spent a day worrying about what luckily turned out to be a false alarm.

Washing in the river, California coastline

I've come to realise that a hot shower is probably the next best thing since chocolate. While in San Francisco we really struggled with where to sleep. All the camp grounds were either really far out the city or were super expensive. But even if we were willing to pay the unaffordable rates or travel the distances it made no difference as they were all fully booked up anyway. So we mostly wild camped a bit out the city, and then broke this up with a couple treat nights in a motel. 

Wild camp shower in Rifle, Colorado

So after not showering the previous day it was a priority to find somewhere, anywhere, to shower! In the end we went to a public swimming pool where we managed to get a very 'public' shower ... no closed cubicles, just and open shower which we had to share with all the kiddies who had just finished their swim lesson. I'll never forget the image of Roné huddled in the corner with her back facing out, looking over her shoulder and saying "Kaz, I don't do public showers!" :)

Just one of the stunning places our campervan has taken us to: Bryce Canyon, Utah

The charging station

You don't resize how much electrical equipment you have until you don't have a permanent power supply. Our little van doesn't have an extra battery for powering things, so we bought an adapter that goes into the cigarette lighter and provides a USB plug as well as a standard USA wall socket. However it is limited as to what you can run/charge off it since the voltage is pretty low. All ova sudden you find that you have 101 devices that all need charging at the same time. Our adapter is permanently on the go with at least 2 things charging at one time :)

Our camp in Yosemite ... the smell of the pine forest was really something special

Morning coffee after a wild camp outside San Fran city

Ever had it that you're on a road trip or journey somewhere and as you cruise past a pretty beach you say "ooh wouldn't it be nice to stop and have a coffee here"? Well, with the campervan you can :) It's so easy to pull over at any point and fire up a brew. And not only coffee ... breakfast, lunch, dinner, you get to choose what view you enjoy while cooking and eating.

Stopping on the coastline for a lunch break

Wild camp outside San Fran

One of the best things in this world is waking up to the sound of the ocean, or the smell of pine trees and forest and birds singing. It's the little things, like doing my exercises looking up at the stars, staring into the flames of a camp fire, peeing with only a full moon as witness, and driving long straight desert roads with vast open plains all around, that really feed my soul. And in our little campervan we have got to experience this plus so much more. So despite any snags I would most definitely say there are way more perks!!

I love a big fire at night :)

Chilling the white wine!

Another stunning spot our campervan has taken us: Yosemite National Park, California

Adventures and training while traveling (by Rone)

It's been amazing to travel these last few months and combine it with some good training all over the world. I can really feel the health benefit from solid training, healthy eating and getting away from the rat race back home. The adventures started with doing an off-road race in New Zealand, hiking in Patagonia and traveling South America (see previous blogs). This inspired me to enter the San Francisco half marathon in August. I have to admit it was pretty challenging trying to keep fit while backpacking through South America. It just isn't always possible to do a run after a 15km sightseeing day, or some places such as Cuba or Jamaica just didn't allow for running. 

   

Sightseeing in Rio

Rio and New York offered some solid running opportunities and I will never forget our morning training sessions in Rio where I would go for a run on the beach and Karen will do her climbing training. We lived 100m away from Copacabana beach in a very nice apartment for 10 days. 

Climbing training in Copacabana beach in Rio

Morning runs on Copacabana beach in Rio

Karen starting a climbing route

But as always, the training never goes according to plan, and I managed to sprain my toe running barefoot on the beach in Rio, and then the injury flared up massively after a hectic day of sightseeing in Washington DC, just one month before the race and taking me out of running for 2 weeks.  And to make matters worse I picked up a serious bacterial infection when in Kentucky (we think due to being exposed to air con!) and was flat on my back for another week and had to take a 10 day course of antibiotics! This resulted in me doing a very harsh last minute bootcamp to try and get some good fitness for the half in San Francisco.

Me finishing a route

After Washington we went to Kentucky for a climbing trip in the Red River Gorge. This is one of the best places in the states to do sports Rock climbing (see Karen's blog) and offered some SERIOUS hills for me to do some tempo training sessions.

Brutal hills after a days climbing

Our pad in Kentucky

The people, atmosphere and vibe there were amazing!! We even went to the Drive In movies a couple of nights.The beauty about climbing all day in Kentucky and combining this with running was that we could indulge in the naughty stuff every now and then:

Best Pizzas in the world!!

After 4 weeks in the east we arrived in California and collected our Campervan at LA one week before my half Marathon. The first 3 nights we stayed with some of Karen's friends on a ranch next to the coast line just north of Santa Barbara. It was another very cool experience since it was an organic farm and they choose to go with the more natural living experience. They are awesome people and it was great to get to know them over dinners and campfires.

Heidie and Guner- awesome friends!!

We made our way to San Francisco via the coast line road which was spectacular, but surprisingly the weather was very cold. We had imagined shorts and vest tops, but we ended up with down jackets and beanies!

California coastline

My medal after the race

As a treat and to enable a little less stiffness in the joints and my back we stayed in a hotel the night before the race. Karen got up at 5 am to prepare some porridge for me before I started the race at 7am, next to the Giants baseball stadium. The vibe was immense!! The route took us along the waterfront with awesome scenery of the Bay area. I think the very steep hills in San Francisco are very well known, but thankfully we only encountered a few of them during the race. We turned around at the Golden Gate bridge heading back where we actually finished in the Giant's baseball stadium!! It was really something special and I managed to touch the holy infield grass where the Giants play. 

Kaz behing bars :)

It was definitely one of the best half marathons I have done, but there was no rest for us and after gulping down some protein shake we started exploring the city. I really wanted to go to Alcatraz but unfortunately you have to book these tickets up to a month in advance. But our luck just kept on getting better and we found a few Canadians who wanted to sell 2 tickets. The Island is 2.4 km offshore from San Francisco and is surrounded by artic waters and extremely strong currents.  Alcatraz, or "The Rock", is where all the most dangerous prisoners were taken when it was a federal prison in the time period 1933-1963. There have only been 3 successful escapees in the history of the prison, and even now they don't know if they survived the swim to the mainland since they never found them. We had a really interesting and informative tour at this well-known jail on Alcatraz, and I can definitely recommend this tour for anyone who is visiting San Francisco.

Our first baseball Game

After a relaxing day in the city the following day we went to our first baseball game ever! It was the Giants vs Blues and the Giants won!!! It was just like in the movies!!

Yes, we have tickets!!

Golden Gate Bridge

Afterwards we drove outside of the city again to get a spot for wild camping since it was just too expensive to stay in the city. We found a nice spot with a beautiful view where we enjoyed breakfast and coffee the next morning before heading over to the Golden gate bridge. It was a pretty spectacular bridge and I guess famous from all the movie scenes. You also have really good views of the city, the bay and Alcatraz from the other side of the bridge. San Francisco is an amazing city with a really nice vibe to it, and I wish we had more time to spend there. We both felt that this is somewhere we can definitely live, except for the major issue:  It was freezing cold!!! We had to wear our down jackets and Jeans most of the time. Apparently July and August gets very cold due to the fog never leaving the bay area. But when we looked at the average temperatures for this region it rarely reaches the 30 degrees which we as South Africans love so much!

Our campsite and bear box!!

Our next stop was Yosemite and this was up there in the same league as Patagonia for me. We stayed in a camp site called Crane Flat which was inside the park, but 20 minutes away from the Valley. It gets really crowded in the valley and we wanted to avoid the crowds. If you want to stay in the valley then you need to book weeks in advance.  It was my first experience in bear territory and we had to remove everything out our van which resembled food, toiletries, and even something as small as lip balm!! So we had to spring clean the van and put everything overnight in what is called a bear box.  This is a big brown aluminium box you can lock so that the bears can't reach your food. Apparently they have had a few incidents of people leaving food in their car and bears literally ripping open the doors of campervans and cars. That story was enough to motivate us to make sure we had everything in the bear box!!  

After an awesome sleep we headed off to the start of our hike which was an 18km round trip. The Glacier point is the number one recommendation on Trip Advisor to see in Yosemite. You can either drive there which takes about an hour or take the steep hike from the bottom of the valley.

On our hike towards Glacier Point

The view from glacier point

We of course did the hike and it was just spectacular the whole way!! The view from the top allowed you to see most of the valley and a great view of Half-Dome.  

Karen soaking up the atmosphere at the top

S'mores 

Our legs felt like jelly after practically running down, but we treated ourselves to a nice big campfire and S'mores for desert.  S'mores are roasted marshmallows over the fire and then put in between two crackers/cookies with a small piece of chocolate in between. One is enough to make your teeth almost fall out!!

There are massive, ancient giant sequoias which live in three groves in Yosemite National Park.  Day 2 we visited the Tuolumne groves where we did a shorter hike to see these ancient trees. Some of them reach up to 3000 years old!!

Kaz standing on one of the dead tree roots 

This use to be a tunnel for the wagons in the late eighteen hundreds

Lunch in front of El Capitan

Amazing El Capitan

Kaz climbing in Yosemite :)

Day 3 and we had to start our drive towards Colorado, but we thought we would sneak in another long hike before we left. We decided on the 15km hike where you hike to the top of North Dome. Initially we thought this wouldn't beat the Galcier Point views, but we were left gazing at this STUNNING scenery all the way. And it was absolutely amazing at the top. I can definitely recommend these few hikes for anyone who goes to Yosemite!!

Hiking up North Dome

At the Top of North Dome with a view of Half Dome

After Yosemite it was Bryce Canyon where we stayed in a campsite 2 nights. I didn't know what to expect, but this turned out to be one of my favourite places we've visited so far. We did the Fairyland loop hike on day one and walked for 13km between these soft rock formations.  I've never seen anything like this before. Hoodoos, which are odd shaped pillars of rock left standing from the forces of erosion, are seen everywhere. It's like a stone forest!!

Amazing site!!!

My horse Spur

We have had so many amazing days and time on this trip and it's so difficult to say which the best were. But if I have to name the most amazing and unique morning of the trip then it was day 2 at Bryce Canyon. I did a 3h horse ride through the canyons with my own cowboy called Cash.  I had to ride western style and not European style. The cowboys actually laughed when I told them I can only ride European style. It turned out to be much more relaxed and actually easier with the horses being very responsive, but very sure footed. Which I was really grateful for since the paths were very steep with high drops offs at the edges in the canyon.  I loved every minute of this experience and was so grateful for Karen's research to get us here. This place is highly recommended!!  

Cash- my cowboy!!

Riding through the Canyon

We left that afternoon to drive toward Rifle in Colorado where we stayed in Rifle Gap State Park's primitive campsite. The main goal here was to climb for 2 weeks. 

So it's really been fantastic to get away from the rat race and stress from work. Although you have some minor stressful and tough times when you travel on a budget, you just get over it and laugh it off. I can honestly say that these kinds of trips give you more confidence in life.   

Red River Gorgeous (by Karen)

Lowering off a route at Bob Marley crag

Imagine your ultimate sport climbing destination, and I'm pretty sure that Red River Gorge will tick most, if not all, your wants and needs - stunning long flowing routes, ranging from vert to super steep, with no limit on choice and grades - it is every sports climber's heaven!

So what is 'The Red' (as it's more fondly known) and why is it such a climbers paradise?

After your first flick through the Red climbing guidebook you will immediately realise why it's such a popular climbing destination . There is over 60 crags, most with 10-30 routes, and some with 50+ routes, and that's just in the South guidebook! And they are all generally solid lines, not packed sardines where you feel like the route is a tad contrived. The rock is a beautiful orange sandstone, the features being mainly edges, pockets and thin finger flakes. The friction is good, it's more the humidity that's a problem ... but more on that later.

The Motherlode

The Motherlode is, well, the name says it all ... the cream of the Red crop. The crag soars 100 feet overhead, with long super pumpy routes. It's an extremely intimidating crag, and to add to it's intimidation the routes are properly airy. You definitely need to have a good head for big whippers at this crag! However if the Lode is not your cup of tea then there are so many other crags offering different things that you're bound to find your perfect spot.

No doubt you'll be flying to the USA for your Red trip, in which case you have a number of airport choices: Lexington (Kentucky) is the closest, but there is also Cincinnati, Columbus, Louisville or Indianapolis.  We actually flew into New York and spent 6 awesome jam-packed days exploring the city top to bottom. We then got the lush Amtrak train down to Washington DC, and after a week there with some friends we picked up our car hire and headed west! The drive from Washington to Red took a mighty 10 hours, so if you short on time then it makes more sense to try fly to a closer city and pick up your car hire there (note you will need a car to get around).

My first words of newly-aquired wisdom to you are: beware of US car hire companies! They lure you in with seemingly decent prices, but then pull a RyanAir and charge extortionate fees for all the added "extras", which are actually more like necessities. The biggest one being insurance - in the UK by default you have standard insurance cover, normally with a pretty high excess amount, and you can opt to boost that to reduce the excess. But here by default you have ZERO cover, meaning you are 100% liable for any repairs or replacement cost of the vehicle, including tyres and windscreen damage. To add just standard insurance cover is around $26+ per day! They also don't include any breakdown cover and charge another $7 per day for that. And to top it off, if you want to add an additional driver it's another $12 per day! Then there's still Supplemental Liability Insurance, sat nav etc. Add that all up and what started off as $50 per day very soon becomes $unaffordable-per-day.

Once we discovered this injustice we immediately jumped on google to discover what other poor suckers in the same situation did. We found an extremely useful post on TripAdvisor where someone recommended using a company called CarHire3000. I skyped them and bham, just like that we had our car hire booked for just $25 per day, including full insurance and an additional driver :) Turns out this is a British Company who make your booking through a US company (Budget). Since its a British company they don't do all these sneaky hidden costs like in the USA and we all end up happy ... or at least we were!

It's all happenin' in Beattyville :)

The closest town to main lode of climbing is Beattyville ... not quite a one-horse town but pretty damn close :) There isn't much to do there, but there is a small supermarket where you can get some general groceries and a bank ATM to withdraw cash. And since my partner came down with a serious bacterial infection we also discovered that there are a couple of medical clinics and pharmacies in town.  However Stanton, which is about 30 mins drive from Beattyville has a bit more choice on supermarkets (better prices too) and fast food joints.

Stanton drive in!

We also discovered that Stanton has a genuine classic Drive In!  They only open on the weekends (Fri to Sun) and have 2 screens. They show 2 movies on each, the first starting soon after the sun sets (which was 9:15pm for us) and the 2nd after that. They have a website (http://www.mt-view-drivein.com/) where you can see what is showing at the moment.


My first couple days I took it easy just getting used to the rock and style of climbing. I needed more days though to get my head around the long lead outs. The falls were always clean, but I've always had a bit ova weak head with leading, so this was a real challenge for me. The other problem was the sheer volume of crags! With only 2 weeks there how do you choose which ones to go to? 

Me climbing at Bob Marley crag

Drive By crag was actually the first crag I climbed at and turned out to be one of my favourites. Bob Marley crag offers some really steep, shorter (by Red standards) routes and this was also one of my favs. Unfortunately I only discovered Bob on my 2nd last day ... still got so much to go back to!

Once I had my flow I eagerly jumped onto something challenging (Paradise Lost at Purgatory crag, 8a) to see if it would make a good project for me. But I quickly realised that with the humidity levels so high it was impossible to get on anything too hard. The heat smothers you like a blanket, and feels almost like a physical wall  pushing against you.  I am not much of a sweater ... I can do 2 hours in the gym or a half hour run and not have broken a sweat, but here in Red I would arrive at the crag after a 20 minute walk literally soaked. I was having to chalk up on every move, and one dip in the chalk bag wasn't nearly enough to get the clamminess off the hands. So needless to say, with all the slipping and slime-ing and super chalking it was impossible to get on a project. Once I'd realised this I focused on onsighting instead and taking on routes a couple grades below my max.

Fun jump start on a 5.11c

I probably haven't sold Red too well with all this talk of extreme humidity. But fear not, it is purely about timing. We were there in July, which is bang in the middle of summer and when the humidity sets in. Spring and Autumn are very different I'm told, with perfect climbing conditions and temperatures. Despite the sweatiness I still got in loads of climbing and had an awesome time there!

The popular hangout for climbers is Miquel's Pizza ... actually 'popular' is an understatement, it is THE spot and is always busy, even mid-week!  They offer very cheap camping there (only $2 a night, with extra charge for showers) but since we were there for a decent period of time we searched for a cabin rather. But we found that most of the cabins are for 4 or more people, and sharing the cost between just 2 of us was too expensive. But certainly if you are there in a group then google around for cabins coz there are loads in the area and you'd only be looking at maybe $20-25 each a night each.

Pine Crest Camp - the Lodge

We hit lucky though and found an awesome spot called Pine Crest Camp Lodge (www.pinecrestcampkentucky.com/) which offers lodge accommodation (shared bunk rooms or private rooms with private bathrooms) and a communal kitchen and massive lounge area.

The kitchen at Pine Crest

Pine Crest Camp - the fire pit

They have laundry facilities, a wikad fire pit, free wifi and big screen TV with cable. Plus it's really close to The Motherlode and PMRP climbing areas, much closer than Miquel's Pizza. Miquel's offers lodge accommodation too but way more pricey than Pine Crest. Chuck and Brenda, who run the lodge, are such amazing people. So friendly and chatty and helpful. It was the perfect spot for us and I highly recommend it.

But no matter where you stay you have to treat yourself to a Miquel's pizza at same point in your stay. They have a unique serving choice where you choose the number of slices you want, as opposed to ordering a small, medium or large. You tailor make your pizza choosing from a massive list of toppings, where again prices are determined according to the number of toppings chosen. The price is low, the slices are huge, and they really pack on the toppings, so you're bound to walk away satisfied :)

All in all I loved The Red, the routes were awesome, the countryside is beautiful, and the people we met were welcoming and friendly. And there is sooooo much to climb there! I already have plans underfoot for another trip there next year October :)