It’s the end of week 1 and I’m still having fun! ha!
But I also wanted to set the stage of how I got here.
I’m going to do my best to show the good, the bad, and the ugly.
If you’re solely interested in the first week, skip the first few sections that look like an essay!
Living on the Road: Somehow, An Easy Decision
My girlfriend (GF) and I moved to California for her new job in September 2021 and we signed a 6 month lease. Sometime in January 2022, our apartment complex notified us of a 10% increase in rent after just 4 months of living there.
This apartment was already about 2.5x what we were paying in Salt Lake City, so to me, this seemed like a joke. Especially for someone who lived in the midwest for most of their life.
It was a purposely short lease and we signed it sight unseen. Although, we did make a trip to Cali and looked at several places and saw this one from the outside, we didn’t have many options in this small-ish city and on relatively short notice.
So, after the 10% increase letter with a bunch of sleezy wording to make you fearful of moving, I told GF “yeah, we both are not fond of Cali right now… how about I live on the road like I did a few times last year?” She was supportive of the idea and we talked through how to make it work.
But for real, this apartment complex used a fear tactic in their letter trying to persuade you the 10% increase is better than their estimated $6,000 to move apartments and did the calculation for you which used obnoxious dollar amounts and basically assumed you were moving from 2,000 miles away vs moving 1 mile down the road.
We both actually liked the place, but as a matter of principal, we declined to extend the lease.
The Mad Dash – Just to Get to The Starting Line
We knew we were not going to renew our lease in late January, but it wasn’t until sometime in mid-late February that I decided I would live on the road using my car, a tent, and friends as resources.
In early March, I rented a storage unit and moved all my e-commerce equipment and inventory to it. Then, I slowly moved my own personal belongings in and some of GF’s gear and other items so she could get a smaller place.
It seemed about every other day in March I made a trip to the storage unit.
GF and I wanted to maximize time together so even though her new lease overlapped a couple weeks, we didn’t move most of it until near the end of March. We even slept on camping pads the last couple nights and had camp chairs to hang out in!
At the same time, I had major car repairs done so I was without a car several times. I was researching and ordering gear I thought I needed, and maintaining the full-time job.
All that to say, it was simply a hectic March, especially the second half.
I had all these fancy checklists of all the items I needed to bring, broken out into categories, which bin it would go in, how it would be placed into my car, etc.
I plan a lot, and my execution can be quite poor sometimes haha.
Although, I do think that all the thought into the planning does help on packing day even if you don’t follow it step by step. It’s a confidence booster that you aren’t going to forget anything major.
So on March 31st, I turned in the keys of the apartment at 11am after doing final cleaning and trying to work at the kitchen counter, then I drove to the storage unit which was packed FULL with everything and quite unorganized.
I’d constantly have to take things out to get to things in the back. And I always wanted to lock it back up as I took the gear to my car since I couldn’t tell who was in the storage unit with me.
It took longer than I thought, maybe a couple hours, so like 25% of my packing was the “fuck it, maybe I’ll need this, this, that, this” and toss it into anything that has room.
To be clear, GF moved in with roommate and I didn’t want the first impression to be like “hey, what’s up!?”
So in my head, I had to pack up and get to camp that same day. And camp was a 3 hour drive away still.
If I could do it over again, I would have probably just “stealth” camped that first night and started packing the SUV the next morning.
However, I knew GF would never have allowed that to happen and I didn’t ant to make a first impression on a roommate that I’m just going to be lurking around haha.
After packing my car to its limit, it was time to hit the road.
As an FYI, I didn’t just bring basic camping stuff like in the past.
I brought e-commerce inventory and related items such as a label printer, packing paper, and cardboard boxes.
Then I also brought a mountain bike that takes up half of the back area with its related gear such as a pump, shoes, helmet, etc.
Then there was backpacking gear, some fishing gear, 2x 5 gallon water containers, 2 weeks of food, etc.
And then there was just my overpacking tendencies in general…
It’s the most I’ve ever packed into my Forester, ever, by a lot.
My Past Experience
I lived in Salt Lake City for about 3.5 years where most of my experience comes from. I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors, but it wasn’t until Utah where I discovered BLM land, car camping, backpacking, and all the fun activities.
There were times we were gone 3 out of 4 weekends on a regular basis. We’d go to the Wind River range, Sawtooths, Grand Teton, southern Utah, the Uintas, a few trips to Arizona. When we stayed in town, we’d hike the local Wasatch range or run around in the foothills.
It wasn’t until last year where I bought a Canvas Tent with the idea of working from it so I could be outdoors more. Even then, I never spent more than about 10 days on the road.
It’s an entirely different experience because you have a lot more valuables with you (computers, expensive Jackery batteries and solar panels, hard drives, etc) so you need to be more aware of worst-case scenarios.
On most weekend trips, I still brought my work laptop incase we got stuck or a breakdown and had to work in a random town until it got fixed, but I would just toss it where the spare wheel is while we were out hiking or backpacking and never thought twice about theft.
The first few “tent living” trips I did, I definitely felt a little bit confined to my vehicle and tent more than I wanted. I knew camping neighbors, ATVs, and others could see my solar panels and other expensive looking gear.
As I get into this journey more, I’ll talk about the various things I have done ahead of time to help me in those areas. Other areas, such as doing backcountry laundry, showers, “non-digging a hole #2 solutions” and many other situations will be my first time using various products and trying to solve for these problems.
Enjoy!
The Journey Officially Begins
I arrived to the camping area late Thursday evening on March 31st. I had been here a few weeks ago with GF when we went to Yosemite National Park.
It was my first time at Yosemite National Park and with Tioga Pass closed and even some of the Yosemite Valley trails closed due to rock fall, we didn’t have a ton of options for our go-to decently challenging hikes.
Knowing that in advance, we took it easy that weekend and brought the Bears Outdoor blanket/thin tarp to hang out on after a short hike into the valley. Then we did one of the waterfall hikes and got some other good views by hiking up a bit higher.
Anyways, all that to say we only spent 1 full day there so I had reason to want to go back. GF was also patient and let me scope out some camping spots for this trip I’m on now. We found a couple good sites so I wasn’t starting this trip out completely blind.
Turns out, this time around, my primary pick was taken on arrival and I had to go to a spot I labeled “last resort” in my GaiaGPS app (it’s a game changer of an app by the way, download it and try It out).
“Last resort” camp was a little further off the main road, but it was a good gravel road so it wasn’t much of a concern.
The primary reason it was “Last Resort” was because the cell service was worse than the other spots.
However, I learned to like it a bit more after a few days when barely anyone drove by (except a tweaker over and over… more on that later).
Here’s an overview of spot. I’m working on how to upload videos efficiently and will get some of those up later.
The only thing I regret was setting up in the dark.
I was going to just sleep in the car, but my car was so full it was just as big of a pain to move everything out and then the bike would have just been sitting outside my car in a relatively unknown area.
It was only 8ish pm so I used my headlights, cleared out pine cones and rocks, and set up as fast as I could.
In hindsight, I should have just set up the backpacking tent so I could see the entire area in daylight the next morning.
I would have potentially avoided the one super annoying, but mostly tolerable, drawback of this site – the huge colony of tiny relentless ants next to the tree I set up next to.
It was nice getting there on a Thursday night because Friday I only had to work a little bit.
I decided to start out my first morning with an 8 mile bike ride around the forest roads near me. I brought my WiFi device and pulled it out quite frequently to see if I could find any better spots in terms of cell service and/or views.
The bike ride was quite harder than I wanted it to be, probably because I was at 4,100ft after being at sea level for 6 months. I also didn’t do much exercise for the past couple weeks leading up to this as I moved out of the old apartment.
On the ride, I found a few comparable sites, but nothing better than the current camp.
It was time to settle in!
Beautiful Weather and Bike Rides
I was fortunate to start the trip with warm-ish and sunny weather (I had a backup location in Los Padres National Forest where it’s typically warmer/sunn just in case Yosemite would have been rain the entire week).
On Saturday, I biked my longest bike ride ever. This is my first “real” bike that is built well. It was 23 miles around the forest roads. I was enjoying myself even without going to Yosemite as I felt like I should have been doing since I was so close.
Although I was “close” to Yosemite, it was about a 15-20 min drive to the entrance of the park, but then it’s still another meandering 30 minutes to the Valley floor where all the action is.
That first weekend I mostly just wanted to finish setting up and organize.
This first week also allowed me to finish cutting out some reflectix window coverings and finished setting up my curtains (more on those later).
Those are one of the ways I’m hoping to hide all the gear in my car while I’m hiking, getting groceries, and what not. It is also pretty useful in car camping situations anyway.
It’s Not Always Exciting – But You Can Make It More Exciting
One thing I knew going into this journey is to keep the expectations in check.
When you tell your friends you’re doing something like this, they just automatically assume you’re going to be doing rad shit all the time.
In fact, you don’t always have more free time than you would at home. Everything takes longer out here, you’re a little less efficient at work, and once it gets dark, it can get very cold so you don’t want to do as much besides get in the sleeping bag and chill.
Yes, you will be outside more. But no, you will not always be doing something awesome and exciting outdoors.
Any time I want to go somewhere, it takes a bit of time to pack up all the valuables back into the car in a clean enough way to not have it all tip over or fall on every turn.
You’re also typically in the middle of national forest that doesn’t always have “nice” trails. The area I’m in was burnt and barren for the most part. One direction was Yosemite and one was small random towns.
There aren’t typically going to be “4 or 5 Star AllTrails.com hikes” near you especially this time of year when roads are still snowed in.
That’s also why I loved having my mountain bike with me.
It allowed me to explore more and actually get out of the burnt forest by riding 5+ miles. And being on a bike gives me a different wild feeling with its own sense of freedom and adrenaline rush at times.
On previous trips, I just walked and ran, and this would have been a miserable spot for that.
As someone that can’t really stay still long enough to read a good book or just “relax” in the traditional sense, the bike has been awesome.
So, when you’re planning your own types of trips, take that into account. The days can feel long at times so bringing a hobby or two with you is a great way to enjoy it more even if your views aren’t spectacular.
Hetch Hetchy: the Northwestern Part of Yosemite National Park
On Sunday, I decided to check out Hetch Hetchy because it was closer to me than the Valley and the pictures looked pretty cool.
I did a hike/run of Wapama Falls and a little beyond. It was just over 6 miles and the waterfall was pretty impressive.
It was a warm day, so the cold mist from the waterfall was a welcomed gift.
You can look up more about Hetch Hetchy, but it’s basically a dammed up reservoir used as a primary water source for San Francisco. Gravity essentially takes the water 167 miles across California.
It’s also controversial.
Coming from Salt Lake City, I’m used to reservoirs. However, they are typically used primarily by the nearby communities.
I’m not really sure how to feel about Hetch Hetchy. My natural thought is that it feels fake.. because it is. It just looked odd for some reason.
I had never heard about until this visit. It reminds me of Lake Powell. It just looks unnatural.
In one way, you get it, people need reliable water sources. In another way, it’s just another example of us manipulating nature in a huge way. It could have essentially been a mini-Yosemite valley.
Instead, it’s a water supply to a bunch of people that probably haven’t even seen where their water comes from and take it for granted.
Overall, I even feel weird sharing pictures of it. It is still indeed pretty in a sense because it’s mountains, water, etc. But it’s also tainted in my eyes.
I also feel like I’m contradicting my own thoughts because I didn’t really feel that way about the reservoirs like Red Pine and White Pine sitting in the Wasatch that are used for Salt Lake City.
Maybe because their proximity, maybe because I hiked to them a lot and you have more of an appreciation for it.
I’m also not smart enough to know what the other solutions are at this point.
Can you ever have it go back to its original form without essentially depriving hundreds of thousands of people of water? Do they have to all move to somewhere that isn’t so dry? Has technology advanced where there are other options?
I’m sure there were there were better options back when it was built because now you have all these people relying on it which makes it even harder to figure out I’m assuming. Either way, that was just a ramble of my loose thoughts on it without having done too much research.
Staying Warm: Fingerless Merino Wool Gloves Are Awesome
Each morning was pretty cold this week, sometimes in the high 30s to low 40s.
The merino wool fingerless gloves I bought last year were worn each morning and helped to work earlier in the morning than I could have without them.
I did snag them on a few things while going about my morning routine and it pulled out some of the wool.
Since they are merino wool, they are a lot more fragile than other types of glove options, but they are also super warm.
My finger tips stayed warm since the rest of my hand was warm from the gloves.
It was also nice to have the Mr. Buddy Heater along for the ride. I use it inside the tent and always bring a carbon monoxide detector with me just as a backup.
The carbon monoxide detector has never had a reading, but you never know. I also only run it when I’m awake (I think that’s an obvious thing to do… but just saying).
Overall Feelings
It was a good first week. I was more active than I’ve been in a while. I thought I’d be more sore from the longer rides, and I was, but as you get moving around and making food, the body just seemed to forget about it all.
The weather was good, no rain or snow during the entire first week.
All in all, I just wanted to get something up about the first week. I intended on doing daily entries, but I found I’d rather take short notes, reflect, and then write about it.
I left out a few items that I might add once I edit some video, but hopefully this shows you some insight into working on the road and the stress that may lead into it!
