Painted Desert & Petrified Forest

We spent a day at the Painted desert & petrified forest. It was a nice park with a few hiking trails that are pretty easy. We camped for the night just outside of the Petrified Forest Park at a Rock, Gem & Mineral shop that has free camping. The staff was nice and the prices were good, plus clean restrooms! They also offer hook ups for $10 or free with purchase over $20. I found the spot at a great website: freecampsites.net which is run by a really cool couple we met in Quartzesite.

Unfortunately this is all we saw of the Meteor Crater. The place charges $15 a person and we didn't really want to invest that much into it....

Petroglyphs near the Painted Desert

Painted Desert

Agate Bridge

Petrified Wood~ So pretty!

Route 66

Our free camp site

Jerome & Sedona Arizona

After leaving Phoenix we decided to go North and see Jerome & Sedona Arizona. We took a pretty little mountain pass called 89A that took us right through the "ghost town" of Jerome. What use to be a huge copper mining town is now a little arts district it seems... with a lot of abandoned and old/weird buildings littering the hills. 89A took us to Sedona where we drove around and learned about the town's "vortexes". Apparently a Vortex is a high concentration of Earth Energy. Vortex or not- Sedona is a beautiful town.

Quartzesite, Arizona

We spent 5 days on some BLM land in Quartzesite Arizona for the annual Vantramps Rubber tramp Rendezvous. The town is nothing but RVs with an occasional permanent structure every few miles or so... This time of year is the town's busiest~ the RV tent show and a rock and gem show. We met a lot of really cool Van dwellers and got to learn new things like Gold Prospecting! Apparently where we were camped near the Dome Mountain off I-10 is a great spot for finding gold and other precious stones after it rains. We found some nice looking rocks~ not sure if they are worth anything but I plan to polish them up and learn to wrap and make some necklaces. We spent the weekend in Phoenix and now we are off to Sedona, Prescott Area and over to Albuquerque again after that to visit our friends...

Buses By the Bridge 15- Lake Havasu AZ

Buses by the Bridge was a blast! We met a lot of new friends and got to hang out with our friends Peter and Slavio who we met in Albuquerque. Slavio camped out in his newly bought Squareback~ a VW station wagon that I would like to have some time. At Bus shows all VWs are welcome!

Glitter Bus

Peter's Bus & Slavio's Squareback

Walter~ the Largest VW Bus was there. He is awesome! Made from a fire truck and lots of work from an extra talented group of people. There are a ton of speakers synced up to lights all around him, and makes him the ultimate party bus!

Sleepy Puppy

sunsets in havasu$50k Bus

Tiki Bus Interior

After BBB we went down to Quartzesite Arizona...

Las Vegas & Lake Mead

I haven't had a good internet connection for a few weeks cause I have been out in the desert and whatnot, but I am going to try and update everything with the quickness. We left LA and headed for Las Veags. We spent a little but of time walking the strip and parked near the strip in a neighborhood close to a Bug. We hoped VW Love would work~ which it did. Its hard to find a good place to park in Vegas for hours to walk around, at least not near the strip. So we camped for the most part out at Lake Mead. We had to pay a $5 entrance fee which was "good for 5 days" however there was no gate, so I believe that at nights you can enter the park and camp for free. The spots posted stated 7 day camping limits but we never saw any rangers off the parkway around Lake Mead. There were a lot of coyotes out there and a pack of four walked close past the Bus when we were in it. But they didn't bother us, we could usually only hear them in the distance. It's a good place to camp for now, but the lake is evaporating. After hanging out at Lake Mead we met up with a new VW friend on The Samba named Eric who we followed down to Lake Havasu for Buses By the Bridge 15!...

Circus Circus

Lake Mead

Our Camp spot

Some Paintings I made and sold at BBB

The Old Strip at 4:30am

Home for the Holidays

Happy Holidays to everybody! We flew back from LA to the Carolinas for the holidays and I've been too busy visiting friends and family to post. We fly back to LA for our "return trip" Wednesday. In the near future we hope to visit San Francisco, Las Vegas and the Joshua Tree forest before heading East. I am really looking forward to Buses by the Bridge at Lake Havasu AZ January 14th. Our friend Peter (with the keg Bus in NM) and his cousin from Phoenix will be meeting us there. I also get to meet some other VW friends I've been speaking with on the VW Camper Family site.
Head East??? You may be asking yourself... And Yes that is correct, we are planning on settling back down in "The Bible Belt" not only to be closer to our families but Trey was offered a job that he really shouldn't pass up. So we will be taking the next month and a half to make our way back to the Carolinas. Trey and I both agree it will be nice to have a bathroom!! Not that I won't miss getting out of the warm(ish) Bus in the pitch black night of the cool desert to do my business... We will be missing adventure but we figure that we will still have our Bus~ so we can take SHORTER adventures later on.
I am also looking forward to working on another project.
I have been thinking about Buses (go figure!) and other uses for a Bus with out an engine. In Alabama we passed a Bus graveyard where there had to be more than 25 Buses! "A Bus is only worth how good its engine is" says most VW fellows. I've been wondering... what can one do with a dead Bus? Peter put a kegerator in his Tiki Bus! What about a hot tub Bus? With a Bus anything appears to be possible...
So I am going to attempt a "Green house Bus." I want a garden, but since we will be renting I don't want to put a lot of money, time and effort into a garden I will leave behind. I bought a book on Green Houses and I've been thinking (can you smell the wood burning?) about buying a Bus shell and turning it into a "food machine." What do you think? I think it can be done!

Downtown Greenville SC

Exposed Roots

I also noticed that my "readers" list has gone up a ton!! Thanks for reading my blog everyone and I hope it inspires you to do something new, fun and different! Happy New Year!