I live in a 24’x8’ RV with my boyfriend and cat. Sharing this small space can be frustrating at times. Yair and I have endeavored to communicate openly and frequently about what works and what doesn’t in an attempt to find balance in space sharing.

We seem to naturally complement each other in things like housework: Yair is happy to do the dishes while I have made a habit of cleaning the floors and counters weekly. Yair makes repairs (most recently by replacing old, cracking sealant on the roof) and I make improvements (currently installing black-out curtains around the bed). But the most helpful agreement we’ve made so far has been a benefit to us beyond reducing frustration.

For about two hours a day I leave the RV, giving Yair time to himself to focus on what he enjoys, while giving myself an incentive to run and explore outside (my own form of “me” time). This is time for me to un-clutter thoughts, remember what’s been forgotten, and rewrite my to-dos, and the exercise and adventure puts me in a good mood. I return to the RV feeling positive and creative and often with new direction in problem solving. I usually find Yair in the middle of an activity that he enjoys, a chance to glimpse his inner world.

We have our occasional grumpy days but so far this arrangement is working well. The only hiccups occur when we  travel to a new place – when most of the day has been driving, running errands, and getting settled. We are both exploring ways to combat the stresses of these situations. But it seems like most of the magic is in having patience and a sense of humor.

Our recent travels have taken us from Sierra Hot Springs to Reno, stopping in Tahoe National Forest along the way. The hot springs and forest were very beautiful and relaxing and living in a city as large as Reno feels quite strange. Traffic? Lights at night? Sounds other than chipmunks? But it feels like it’s all worth it when we go grocery shopping – variety!

We’re here because of the airport – I’m flying to NYC for the weekend to visit family. And I’m expecting an even bigger culture shock when I get there…

After a few days of hiking at Glass Creek Yair and I decided to head to some hot springs, stopping at two lakes on the way. The first, June Lake, sits inside alpine forest and has sandy white beaches and crystal clear water. We spent some time walking the beach and watching schools of tiny fish dart around the rocks. A lot of families were there fishing, boating, and swimming, making the lake look just like an ocean beach (fun to see amidst the piney-mountains).

Our second stop was Mono Lake which is much larger and known for the tufas (columns of porous rock) that jut out from its sandy beaches. We walked around and snapped photos of the slowly approaching lighting storm before continuing on, through the rain, to Travertine Hot Springs. There, we found an ideal place to park – we lived, for free, only twenty feet from one hot spring and within a three minute walk of at least six others. Some dug out of the ground, some crafted from concrete, some built up around a rock that dripped clear, steaming water. Travertine includes the most interesting hot spring I’ve seen, made up of four tubs that are joined together and fed by a looming rock. It’s a hard thing to describe and I’ve included a photo below to help.

When we left Travertine we headed to South Lake Tahoe, stopping on the way in Hope Valley for a night. We are lucky to be hosted in the small city by the very generous Daniel who has allowed us to park in his driveway near the Tahoe Keys. The location couldn’t be better – we can walk a mile through the forest to a secluded beach or ride our bikes for about twenty minutes to reach the main part of town. And Yair and I have gotten along well with Daniel and his friends, adding a nice social element to our lives in Tahoe.

Generally, the people here are great. I don’t know if it’s because this is a vacation destination and many people here are on break, but the vast majority of people out and about are smiling and ready to shout a friendly hello. And it’s safe here. I’ve seen bikes and paddle boards left unlocked and unguarded, something unheard of in Austin.

In addition to friendly people, Tahoe boasts beaches straight out of the Caribbean (except replace salt water with fresh water and palm trees with pine trees), and a vibrant music scene. So far we’ve seen an afro-funk band playing on the beach, Vikingsholm (a Scandinavian-style mansion right on the lake), the cascading Eagle Falls, and a group of intimate beaches along the north eastern side that remind me of Costa Rica. Tomorrow we leave to check out Sierra Hot Springs but I’m sure we’ll return to Lake Tahoe soon.

We left Vegas in the afternoon and drove through the desert, past brothels and abandoned cars, among other strange things: an abandoned boat on cinderblocks, alien-themed cafes, a lone donkey walking through an empty main street. Yair and I were also treated to a peach-colored sunset and thunderstorm during our drive. About an hour after the sun had gone to bed we reached our overnighting spot – a turnout on the side of the empty highway. A large signpost loomed over us in the dark and we realized that we were parked at an abandoned gold mine and official ghost town, Palmetto.

The next morning we set out exploring the crumbling walls and open mine shafts. We spotted old cans, a jackrabbit, and a car driving backwards on a dirt road across the highway. Gunshots rang out from the vicinity of the car and we decided it was time to go.

After a drive through ancient bristlecone pine forests (home to Methuselah and other ~5,000 year old trees) we arrived in Whitmore Hot Springs, California at a gravel parking lot within walking distance of a hot spring. On BLM land, this spot was free to stay and just over a mile from three other hot springs, each with unique tubs and views of the Sierras and White Mountains. We stayed a few days, relaxing in the tubs often and chatting with visitors as they came and went.

We left feeling refreshed and made our way up into the alpine forests near Mammoth Lakes. Currently, we are parked at Glass Creek Campground inside Inyo National Forest. Yair and I can’t figure out why this campground is free (huge sites, bathrooms, trail access, a clear creek running throughout) but we’re grateful.

So far we’ve been taking it easy but there might be some hiking in our future. And once we get to our next destination, Lake Tahoe, we hope to add climbing to our list of activities.

After leaving our forest site near the Grand Canyon we became increasingly cosmopolitan until entering our biggest city yet – Las Vegas. We spent a few days getting there, stopping first in Mt Carmel, Utah at the East Zion Thunderbird Lodge. We had hook-ups, wireless internet, and access to the hotel’s pool and hot tub (very nice after living in the forest).

The next day we drove straight through Zion National Park, stopping a few times to run around on the dramatic rocks, and arrived in Mesquite, Nevada at the CasaBlanca Casino & Resort. Here, we had access to a gym, expansive pool with waterfall, and a smaller spa-style pool. I hit the treadmill and relaxed in the pool, soaking up the resort vibe and anticipating July Fourth in Las Vegas.

On our drive to Vegas we entertained ourselves by reading about the city’s strange and scandalous history. And once there we left the RV to settle into our room at the Westin. Here, we had a large room, a pool, hot tub, a daily happy hour with free drinks and tacos, and walking access to the strip. We watched fireworks from Caesar’s Palace, took in the grandeur of the casinos, danced at the most lavish nightclub I’ve ever experienced (Drai’s), dined on an intensely gooey-chocolate dessert (the S’more Crepe at Sugar Factory), met up with friends and fellow nomads Matt and Bree and daughter Siena, and generally enjoyed ourselves. We stayed for three nights, just long enough for me to feel like I got a taste of the place, before heading back to the woods.

Leading up to Vegas the designer in me was anxious to experience a city that I’ve heard about all my life. In addition to the mega casinos, I wanted to see the city’s unique, artistic character as presented via local artists, architecture, signage, and in ads. I wanted to feel the essence of the city, to learn what makes it Las Vegas.

We were staying in a chain hotel located off the strip and a large part of the block across from us was under construction so I wasn’t put off by an immediate lack of unique style in the area. I waited until moving through the strip several times before announcing to Yair that “this place has no identity…anything here…it could be anywhere else in the world.” Yair and I debated this for a while, after which I felt compelled to do some research. A little shocked (and vindicated), I discovered that this is a real problem and that quite a lot of money has been devoted to fund a city-wide project to make Las Vegas more attractive to “creatives”: innovative people who appreciate and create a city’s identity while driving the local economy.

I left feeling like I’d just been in an adult-themed Disney World and anticipated a return to the slower and more accessible world in the woods.

Welcome to Grand Canyon National Park! We live about 20 miles away, tucked into Kaibab National Forest (along road 610). Luckily, we’ve been able to use Yoni’s rental car to drive the dirt roads into the park and have explored the grandest of canyons from several drivable viewpoints along the North Rim and from a hike on the Kaibab Trail.

The hike included a very challenging 3,000 foot decent, turn-around at a waterfall (who knew there are waterfalls in the canyon?!), and a grueling ascent. That’s a total elevation change of 6,000 feet and a length of nearly 10 miles round-trip! This may have been my longest and steepest hike and by the end I was feeling ecstatically proud but also in need of some foot rehab. Yoni felt similarly, happy but recovering from leg cramps. Yair continued to prove himself super-human by dancing and juggling along the hike and completing it with energy to spare.

Our home in the forest is wonderfully free and secluded. We have no neighbors and only a few cars drive down the dirt road near our site daily (usually forest or park service vehicles or off-road motorcyclists). It is very quiet and the sky is very clear – offering deep blues during the day and an unbelievable night sky. The Milky Way is so visible at night that it looks like the glow of city lights when the largest and brightest parts are near the horizon. But there are no city lights. There isn’t even the normal haze near the horizon – just straight black with twinkling stars all the way to the ground.

We are entertained by a woodpecker family nesting a tree hollow next to our RV and by herds of wild bison that move through the trees to open meadows. The bison are strange to behold and particularly mysterious at night when they move about, unseen but heard, surrounding us with deep groaning that can easily be confused with stomach gurgles. There are other creatures around: butterflies, chipmunks, weasels, ravens, and the Kaibab squirrel – a fluffy and long-eared squirrel that only lives here. We also happen to be camped near a trailhead which has made it easy to take off on long walks without needing to drive.

It’s an ideal place to relax and explore. The only problem is, again, our lack of connectivity. I have no phone service and our only access to the internet is miles away, inside the Grand Canyon National Park general store. I have a big list of things I want to do online and am looking forward to our upcoming stops on the way to Las Vegas where we will have internet access as well pools and hot tubs. Perfect timing as the temperature has started to creep up – getting into the 100s at lower elevations. Excellent weather for swimming.

And hiking with my flow wand in hand! Yair did two quick videos of me playing on the trail. Check them out here.

After leaving Capitol Reef National Park we headed to Bryce Canyon National Park where we promptly found the best parking spot in the campground, settled in, and lost track of time.

Now, before I begin to describe Bryce I should mention our drive. We took scenic highway 12 up and over, down and through multi-colored cliffs and canyons. We passed another oasis-like campground inside a deep canyon nestled along a flowing, clear river. I saw some of the most extreme power lines of my life and the climbing, twisting road itself – all marvels of engineering. But the most unexpected part: a stop for lunch at “Hell’s Backbone Grill,” a local/organic-oriented restaurant inside a Buddhist resort. The hippie vibe and lush gardens were a refreshing break from the conservative desert areas we had been traveling through. We played with the restaurant’s adopted cat, enjoyed some tastiness, and hopped back in the RV for more scenic driving and made our way to Bryce.

Bryce Canyon National Park is unlike any place I have ever seen. It is large pine and fur trees, fine sand, looming pink limestone figures called “hoodoos,” chipmunks and look-alike ground squirrels, cliff swallows that zoom through holes in the rock, mule deer, cliffs and plateaus, lilies, desert sage, prairie dogs, a variety of startlingly blue birds (iridescent purple!), and pronghorn (who look similar to antelope and can run up to 60mph).

We did some amazing hikes – conquering the Fairyland, Rim, Queens Garden, Navajo Loop, Peekaboo Loop, and Bristlecone Loop trails. By the time we left I was feeling the effects of these steep climbs and descents in my quads. I am feeling strong! For anyone interested in moderately challenging and dynamically beautiful hikes I implore you to visit Bryce. And I suggest that you go between Monday and Thursday when the crowds are down. Check out the photos below – I think they say it all.

So, we were busy. And happily so. So much so that we lost track of how many days we were in the park. A campground sink with hot water (luxury!) enabled us to do laundry and dishes easily. And a nearby dump station for the RV made everything so much simpler.

While immersed in our campsite bliss Yair was surprised to learn that Yoni, his younger brother, was ready and wiling to take a vacation and meet us wherever we were. Within days Yoni had booked his flight and arranged to drive to us from Vegas. Yair set up a tent and, voila!, we had a guest.

Yoni was a great addition to our hikes and campfires, which he constructed and oversaw. Each night the fires got bigger and more complex until our last night which verged on becoming dangerous (which fits with his boy scout education). We hiked a lot, ate a lot, talked a lot and burned a lot of wood. It was good times. And now we are, all three, heading into Arizona to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon where I hope the trends continue.

Well, maybe not the dangerous fires.

We spent the maximum allowed time in the campground at Capitol Reef – two weeks. And we even managed to extend our time in the park by staying in a ranger’s driveway. All this time in one place has been a new experience for me and a shift occurred where I stopped feeling like I was on vacation and started embracing the realities of my new life.

Being in one place allowed me to explore everything I wanted to in the park, get familiar with my surroundings, meet some new people, and get into a daily groove. I also found myself becoming more aware of how I spend my time. When we’re not driving to a new location and exploring new and exciting surroundings a lot of free time opens up. And how I fill that time is completely up to me. Another factor was our lack of connectivity – there was no phone or internet in the park.

One result of this was an increasing feeling of isolation. Yair and I both experienced pangs of homesickness – missing the friends and favorite activities we left in Austin. On our last days in the park, while living in the ranger’s driveway, we were able to get online, feeling a wave of relief at being able to communicate again. But it’s not the same as being there with someone and I expect we will both continue to struggle with this aspect of nomadic life. But, it’s a bittersweet kind of struggle – missing wonderful people and things reminds me how much I love them.

We did get some shots of social: Laura and her parents met up with us in the park and invited us out on a few hikes and to a couple restaurants (a treat!). And we were unexpectedly invited to a park ranger’s birthday party – an enlightening event. Yair and I were the only non-rangers in attendance which meant that we were surrounded by a variety of highly passionate biology-oriented types. We spent more than an hour talking about owls. It was amazing. I also learned a little about what it’s like to work as a ranger: that many of them are on seasonal contracts with no benefits and no guarantee of continuing employment. This means that rangers are likely to move often and are therefore mostly young adults. The pay isn’t fantastic either. But everyone that was there loved their job and was excited to talk about their various passions: from cougars to rocks.

Did you know that owls rip the heads off their prey before eating them… WHOLE?

The drive from Canyonlands to Capitol Reef was the most dynamic of my life. After some of the flattest, most deserted land I’ve ever seen, cliffs of all kinds began to surround us. In one area, the cliffs became deteriorated to the extent that they looked more like huge mounds of concrete. Amazingly, some of the steepest of these had tire tracks all over them from adrenaline-addicted off-roaders.

Pulling into a canyon we began to see the river and an oasis of trees and grass that led us into Capitol Reef National Park. There is history here – mysterious petroglyphs and some ancient tools tell us that Native Americans lived in this valley long ago. And from the late 1800’s until 1969, when the area was made a national park, a group of about ten Mormon families lived here making up a town called Fruita (for the orchards they planted). The orchards are still here, filling the lower areas with pear, apple, peach, plum, and apricot. Deer and turkey roam the fields while robins nest in the trees. We can hear the sound of the river from our campsite and can climb rocky trails up out of the valley and onto the desert ridges for postcard-worthy views.

Since our arrival we haven’t done much hiking. We’ve relaxed into the tranquility and expect to stay awhile. We’ve even talked about coming back to work as camp-hosts. The only problem we’ve had here is a complete lack of connectivity and we are currently planning an afternoon trip into the nearest city for some internet and phone time.

I’ve also been struggling with my lack of routine and am starting to think about making some daily and weekly assignments for myself. Though the freedom to be spontaneous is very nice, sometimes I feel like I’m aimlessly floating around. But maybe that’s a feeling to embrace and explore?

Our latest residence has been at the only campground in the Island In The Sky district of Canyonlands National Park. We’ve been here for six days and will be leaving tomorrow morning to head into Capitol Reef National Park, which, Yair tells me, has a flowing river and orchards as well as drinking water and other hook-ups for our RV.

Our time in Cayonlands has been spectacular. This place is built of nested canyons and desert that hosts ancient junipers, ravens, small cacti, shockingly delicate-looking flowers, swallows who dive down the dramatic cliffs, and a bizarre collection of tiny organisms that grow together over hundreds of years to form an easily overlooked yet ecologically vital black crust over the red sand.

The main attractions in this immense park are the overlooks where you can walk out onto protected ledges and look down a 1,000 foot sheer drop into a vast network of canyons which contain, after another 1,000 foot drop, a second set of maze-like canyons and the rivers that carved them. Three separate mountain ranges surround the park, making the multitiered vastness even more complex and breathtaking. At nearly any place in the park you can look up or down or across and see a geological wonder.

We were incredibly lucky to have been here during a freak three day rainstorm which brought spectacular lightning shows at night, a refreshing mist and cloud cover during the day, and snow on the far-off mountain tops. And we took advantage of the cooler days to venture out on longer hikes. Together we biked twelve miles to a two mile hike to see a mysterious crater that is called a dome. I went on a solo two and a half mile run (or attempted run – the higher altitude begs me to break often). And Yair went on an afternoon adventure including hitchhiking, hippies, and juggling – lots and lots of juggling.

We’ve also seen some more Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings and climbed a couple buttes which offered more fantastic views as well as the only cellular service we’ve been able to find – enabling some windy phone calls and a quick Facebook post to let people know we are indeed still alive.

After all this activity we are both feeling relaxed, a bit sore, and happily slow. The only plan for the rest of the day is to check out the night sky at the overlook near our campsite. This will be our first and last clear night here and, being one of the most remote places in the United States, the sky should be crowded with stars.

I feel so grateful to have had the opportunity to see this unique, baroque, colossal masterpiece of geology. I’m also thrilled to be moving to a place with flowing water. Refreshing, clean, dust-removing water!

Yair and I spent two nights at the Kings Bottom campground just outside of Moab – just long enough to explore the canyon and have Yair’s friend David over for a campfire. When we headed out we went straight into the trendy part of Moab for groceries, water, and some internet-cafe time. I also ducked into a local health foods store for a few types of loose-leaf tea which I’ll use to begin to educate Yair on the art. To begin, I have jasmine, gunpowder, cloud, and earl grey.

After stocking up we headed out of town to some free camping off of Willow Springs Road on Utah State Trust Land. We have a fire pit, a rock ledge, and a view of snow-covered mountains. It is wonderfully quiet, except…

There are dune-buggies or ATVs everywhere. Almost everyone out here is riding all day on the loud toy-like machines. It looks like fun but I can’t help but categorize these people as a different type of camper. Rather than visiting with and walking through this natural environment, they ride over it. These are the conquerors of nature. And, as we learned last night, these are the people with the good fireworks.

This place is free and wonderful and filled with geocaches to find (and dinosaur footprints!) so we’ve decided to take some time here. A welcome break from what was becoming a regular change of location. We’re taking long afternoons to read and explore and nap. It’s nice to be nowhere.