A two-part video to help you get your "Air Head Composting Toilet" installed easily and quickly.
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There are so many wonderful ladies out there exploring the world in their own various styles and methods. It's so exciting to read their stories, hear about their adventures and get a glimpse into the wonderful things they are doing while on the road. That is why it's so cool that Gale of She-Explores interviewed me about my journey.
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There are so many hiking options in Glacier National Park that it was really hard for us to decide where to go the day after we got back from our backpacking trip. Since we didn’t have the dogs with us, we wanted to make sure we took full advantage of it and chose a day hike that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to do.
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Our truck is a 1991 Ford F-250 that has been converted to run on waste vegetable oil (WVO). A WVO vehicle is also called a "grease car" and runs on used cooking oil from restaurants, which would otherwise be a waste product. We converted the truck because it has a smaller environmental impact than using a diesel or gasoline truck.
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Let's talk about the benefits of having a composting toilet in an RV (some of these benefits also apply to boats, cabins, tiny homes, or regular houses).
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Trying to go backpacking at a national park while living on the road with two dogs is hard to do. Restricting dogs to just paved roads and parking lots in national parks limits where we can go inside parks and for how long. We aren’t comfortable leaving Tybee and Tyki with a Craigslist dog-sitter or even at a kennel. So when our friend Barbara, who also lives in an RV full-time with her partner Mary, offered to watch the dogs for us so we could visit Glacier National Park, we took her up on it.
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Someone recently emailed us asking what we do with our dogs when we can't bring them with us biking, hiking, trips into town, etc. As I responded back to her and saw my answer get longer and longer, I realized this would be a good topic to write about. This post will cover where we keep our dogs when they have to left behind and how we keep them cool and safe.
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We’re staying outside Missoula, MT at Niff’s place (Barbara’s friend), parked on her 24 acres of land at the top of a mountain. Turns out that Garnet Ghost Town is pretty close by, only 19 miles from Niff’s (one way). Jerud and I decided that it would be a great way to spend the day on our bikes.
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Our previous involvement with non-profit organizations that do trail work has shown us first-hand how important and invaluable volunteers are. As we all know, trails don’t build themselves, and forest services have very limited funding and manpower to be able to maintain all the existing trails within their management realm. Volunteers are not only vital to trails being maintained and built, but they also add credibility and value to the non-profit organizations.
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It was a moonless night. The sky was cloudy and I could only see the patch of hazy stars that were directly above me. The horizon was almost pitch black, something rare, to have so little amount of light pollution. My eyes could barely pick out the dark outlines of the buttes and spires that during the daylight resemble seven sailors, a sitting hen, a battleship, and a castle.
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The Great Sand Dunes look so out of place sitting in the middle of the San Luis Valley with the snow covered Sangre de Cristo Mountains as its backdrop on the eastern side. On our drive from Salida to Crestone, Jerud pointed out the sand dunes to me; from afar you could see the land turn smooth at the foot of the mountains. I was very excited to see the Great Sand Dunes and knew it would be a unique experience. But I wasn’t prepared for how spellbound I would be by them.
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After walking out of Salida Mountain Sports and Absolute Bikes with maps and a list of trails to check out, Jerud and I felt eager, excited and overwhelmed. Salida has so many trails that it would take years to complete any large portion of them. I have to remind myself that it’s ok that we won’t be able to see and do all trails, and that we’re living on the road now which means coming back will be a lot easier than traveling in our previous lifestyle.
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Below is a list of things that have gone wrong during our first month on the road. This isn't a sob list. Rather it's to share with you that life on the road isn't perfect - there are days when we feel like all we do is fix things (and that's actually what we did). There's a large learning curve to living in an RV, and this list shows that we are newbies.
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On our last day in Salida, CO we had decided that because of the snow and muddy roads we had to leave town. Our 14-day stay limit was up at Salida East Recreation Area and our other boondocking options weren’t viable because of the road conditions. The plan was that we would head to Great Sand Dunes National Park the next day. Early the next morning Jerud got a text from his grandmother. Turned out his grandmother and grandfather were in Colorado Springs until the next day staying with his aunt and uncle. They hadn’t seen Jerud in a long time and wanted to see the RV, so we headed to Colorado Springs for the next two days.
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Before we arrived Salida, we said to each other, “We’ll only be here for three or so days before we head onto Durango.” Salida wasn’t even on our radar until Andrew insisted that we stop and check out the town. Andrew, Reid and Brant (two brothers he met) rode through and stopped in Salida during his Great Divide tour last summer. Him and Reid randomly decided to ride the Backbone Trail on S Mountain (Arkansas Mountain Trail System) to get into town from the Great Divide route. I remember him calling me to tell me about this incredible piece of singletrack that brought him into a cool town.
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In Denver we experienced what it would be like to live in a shopping center parking lot. Jay, our friend we went to visit, let us stay in the parking lot of his retail store while we were in town. It worked out really nicely because it was conveniently located to all the errands we had to run while in town. The spot Jay picked out for us was actually pretty nice - we were parked away from all the other cars and essentially had our own little section of the parking lot.
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We thought we would share the things we've learned in the past two weeks. Some you might say to yourself, "Duh!"
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The RV has been our home for a week now. We got to Kansas City last Sunday to visit our friend Chad and stayed in his driveway until Friday night. Our arrival was just in time to help him pack and move from one house to another.
We had his driveway to ourselves the first night there, but his storage pod was delivered to next morning so our RV had company the rest of the week.
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