Living in the bed of a pickup for over three years

Since Dan and I started going on road trips in January of 2012, we have lived in our camper that sits on the bed of a pickup, our teardrop camper, or (for a few nights) in our tent for a total of 1096 days and nights!  This adds up to over three years in a little less than nine years.  Because of this we have been able to live and hike and explore some of the most remote areas of the United States.  This has all been on our beautiful public lands.....the open land that all of us in our country collectively own! 

Dan loves numbers and statistics.  Because of this we are very fortunate to have real data on what we have done during these three years on the road.  Here are those numbers:

HIKING

Number of hikes:  732
Miles hiking:  3,860

Miles elevation while hiking:  92.8

Average distance of a hike:  5.25 miles

 

CYCLING
Number of bike rides:  958

Miles cycling:  20,400

Average distance of a bike ride:  21.25 miles

We are truly amazed at how we just went out and did something almost every day that added up to these numbers.  All we were trying to do is to have fun, discover things, and experience life together.

In the summer of 2011 when we bought our first truck and camper (a 1970 Chinook camper and 1996 Ford 150) our intention and desire was to “go on a road trip." And we didn’t even know what our idea of a road trip was, except that we wanted to head out somewhere, camp and hike somewhere, stay as long as we wanted and then move on to.....somewhere.

Since that time our idea of a road trip or desert trip hasn’t changed, except that now we know that we want that “somewhere” to be in as remote an area that we can reach with our Turtle (the Ford 350 Dually truck and slide-in Lance camper) or our Rat and Quail (the Toyota 4runner pulling the TC Teardrop trailer).  The reason that we bought the Rat and Quail is that although they may not have all the amenities of the Turtle, the Rat pulling the Quail can climb much further than the Turtle into the rocky, steep, 4-wheel drive roads and the sandy or muddy desert roads.   

We have reached such remote areas to camp and hike that the only people we see are hunters who have lived in the area and hunted there since they were boys (and they all are men, never a woman).  But most of the time we are all alone with beauty and nature surrounding us.  And this is our idea of heaven on earth!

This past week we headed out to the grasslands of the Coconino National Forest with our Turtle to spend several days living in the bed of our pickup and to explore a new area.

Here we are in these beautiful grasslands high on the Mogollon Rim:

We eat VERY good food in the Turtle.  I have a tiny kitchen, but have everything I need, including a 3 burner stove, oven, sink, and a large refrigerator and freezer....just like home, but in miniature.  Every morning we eat a hearty breakfast before hiking.

Dan says he eats every meal in a 5-Star restaurant.  Here are his eggs, avocado, Canadian Bacon, and Beef Stroganoff.  

 See how happy he looks?

Here is Dan doing his early morning exercises while I am inside the Turtle doing my pushups:

As the sun rises we head off hiking to explore and map out this new area:

We found a super campsite for a future camping trip about two miles from where we are camping with the Turtle.  There is a lot more up these roads to explore, but our sweet spot for hiking is about five miles.  Also the road has sharp rocks and deep ruts and is too narrow for the truck/camper, so we will return another time with the Rat and Quail, and we’ll hike deeper into this high desert plateau.

Here is the view we will have from this future campsite.  We can hardly wait to return!  This photo also shows the very rocky terrain in these grasslands.

We are in cow country....sort of open range grazing, so we get to experience quaint gates and signs: “Please Close The Gate.”  Most of them have bullet holes in them.  We love these old, rusted signs.  

 

Also on this trip I am testing out my new hiking skirt.  I made it from some old worn out hiking pants of Dan’s (with the legs zipped off).  I have always envied Dan, with his hiking pants that have such a multitude of large pockets with zippers.  They just don’t make “girls” hiking pants or skirts with this array of useful pockets.

Here is what his hiking pants looked like before I turned them into a convenient cool skirt (note Dan’s model cars in the display case of our Activity Room):

We hiked off road/trail at times, but, as I mentioned, this land is VERY rocky and only good for cows, not for our old hiking legs.  But it was lovely with the fall colors!

We found the largest pinyon-juniper trees with bright blue berries that we have seen in any of the areas we have hiked.  Here is Dan standing near these beautiful pinyon-juniper trees (and Dan is 6’ tall)!  Usually they are more like bushes than trees.  They were all over the place. 

Every afternoon we relaxed and had our quiet, contented, zen time.  Of course, we worked on our hobbies together.

Dan began constructing and painting four different model cars.  He’ll put the bodies together and finish the more delicate parts and trim when we return home. 

Painting the undercarriage of one of the cars:

Trying to decipher the directions which happen to be written in French.  Many of the most interesting car models are European.  His high school French classes don't appear to have been too helpful.  Now he wishes he had paid more attention.

For example, the one below was a pre-war 1939 German car.  Only 6000 were ever produced, and after the war started the German army requisitioned all 6000 for officers.  

Here is a photo of the pre-war German convertible that Dan completed a week later:

 

 

I finished knitting a hat that matches the sweater with cute fox buttons that I knitted for Aryana during our last desert trip.

And I knitted the back, the left front, and started working on the right front of a colorful winter sweater for little Hannah.  Does this look relaxing or what?

Every afternoon while relaxing in the shade we got to enjoy a for real cowboy roundup!  If you look closely you can see, on the left, one of the cowboys herding his cows down out of the high country.  He had three exceptional working dogs helping to round up the cows.  

The cowboys on their horses with their dogs brought more mooing cows down through the trees every afternoon.  So, of course, one early morning we hiked up the horse and cow trail so we could say we hiked on the trail of a real cowboy roundup.

At the end of our hike I got the perfect picture of Dan as we returned to our little home in the middle of the grasslands!