I turned forty yesterday. Cuarenta años. Supposed to be a big deal I suppose, but I’m not feeling much drama. I look in the mirror and can see that I look older these days—which would really suck I suppose if I were single and trying to date twenty-five year-olds, but … Read More
Swimming in Minnesota
We figure we’ll be here a few weeks, and things aren’t looking good for getting outdoors anytime soon, so we’ve been hunting for things to do indoors instead. Today we took Ouest for a swimming evaluation to determine which swim class she should be placed in. She was excited, telling … Read More
Cold and Ceilings
I’ve begun tearing apart the bus. Well, the ceiling panels are off and the old insulation is out. The insulation covered maybe half of the ceiling by this point in its life, and clearly wasn’t doing much good anyway. I pulled all the wiring that we would no longer be … Read More
1966 Dodge Travco Interior (Before)
We’ve spent the past few days just sort of cleaning up inside the Travco. It wasn’t that bad to begin with, but it obviously hadn’t gotten too much attention in the past few years. I also took off all the purple window tint, which made a humongous difference in the … Read More
Holiday Ramblings
We’ve been playing airplane lately. This includes packing up luggage and flying from one grandma’s house to another. Today Ouest added a new wrinkle to the game and included a stewardess. “Hey, juice lady. Juice lady?” she called out once the plane had reached cruising altitude. Because really the best … Read More
My Mazatlan
I’ve mentioned it many times, but it bares repeating, that Mazatlan has become one of our favorite spots in Mexico. The Old Town section is where it’s at, so if you go there on holiday make sure you get downtown and explore beyond Plaza Machado. I threw together a sort … Read More
Holy Christ…mas
Of all the things Ouest learned in school—good and bad—the meaning of this Santa Claus guy has to be the worst. But hey, I’m not going to be a total Scrooge, so now that she knows what’s up, the key is going to be mitigating the damage. We took the … Read More
Introducing the 1966 Dodge Travco
In the dark early hours a couple of days back I set off with Ali’s dad for the road trip south to pick up the bus. It was about 270 miles away—too far to travel with the kids, in the cold, in an old motorhome—outside of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We … Read More
I Guess We Are Minimalists
I’m not sure if we’ve ever called ourselves minimalists. It always feels as if we have more of everything than we could ever need—be it food, clothing, or toys. And yet this pile of boxes is everything we own. Well, that’s not entirely true, we do have a surfboard and … Read More
In the States Again
We said goodbye to Mazatlan, a city that we’ve really grown to love these past few months. Ouest had her last day of school which I had been a little worried about, but she seemed almost not to care. I think that probably has more to do with her not … Read More