15 Lessons from the Road

We continue to make our way up the west coast and have arrived in the beautiful state of Oregon. We spent the past three or so weeks exploring California and it's many wonders. This won't come as a surprise to most of you, but California is huge! Yes, it looks large on the map, but it's grandeur isn't really experienced until one drives through it. And we didn't even make it south of Big Sur, which means nearly half of the state is still unknown to us and the reliable Desy.

As much as we loved California, we weren't sad to say goodbye to the insanely high gas prices. It feels good to be under $4.00 again! Heck, under $4.30 was reason enough to celebrate, so we're really feeling spoiled now. AND, unbeknown to us, attendants pump gas for you in Oregon! Such luxury! It's state law here, actually. You can be fined up to $1,000 for pumping your own gas. We'd like to give a shout out to our friend Jamie O'Neill for passing along that helpful morsel of information! Otherwise, we might have tried to help ourselves to gas like a couple of criminals.

Anyway, as we find ourselves roughly halfway through the 4 month Epic Ronsman Roadtrip, we'd like to share a few things we've learned from life on the road. If any of you are considering the minivan life, here are a few tips, in no particular order:

1. Optimal cooler refrigeration techniques
We've finally found the perfect balance between freezing your eggs and letting them spoil. We thought lettuce was too high maintenance for a cooler, but not so! For one, we have a refrigeration cooler that plugs into the lighter jack in our trunk. We highly recommend this to anyone going on a long-term road trip. Ice lasts a lot longer with the help of the refrigeration. Also, if you can find an ice cube instead of a bag of loose ice, buy it! Think of the old ice box, before the days of fridges. 

2. Van cooling system
We've mentioned our friend Glenn, who has a blog about his minivan adventures. While reading Glenn's blog, thegroveguy.blogspot.com, Dave spotted the idea of buying screen material and using magnets to put it over the windows at night. This was an excellent idea and worked wonderfully, but our friend Lauren gave us another idea of putting the screen over the sunroof. This is a great option when it's a bit cooler outside and you don't want as much airflow or when stealth-camping in the city and you want to be super sneaky while letting in a little breeze.

3. Another minivan conversion option: the chaise lounge.
We discovered that when we prop up the trunk section of our bed, it creates a nice little chaise lounge seating option. We still love the couch option, but this is just too easy and comfy!

4. Redbox Movies
My former co-worker, Connie, gave me this idea when I told her about our trip. So simple, yet so brilliant! We can pick up a movie in any town with a Redbox and return it in another one the next day. As much as we are happy to unplug from media, this feels like a real treat from time to time.

5. Real Lawn Chair Luxury
We brought along these wonderful little stadium-style fold up chairs by ALPS brand. They are lightweight and don't take up much storage in the van. While these chairs are great, they just don't provide the same comfort of chairs that sit off of the ground. Dave figured out that we could hang lawn chairs off of the bike rack on the back of the van, so we splurged and found two chairs on clearance for $2.50 each!! Thank you, Target! Here's a picture of our ugly, wonderful lawn chairs.

6. Mountains and the Internet, or lack thereof
There isn't great phone reception in the mountains. Or Internet. Go figure! While this is completely fine, we just hadn't thought about the impact it would have on keeping up to date on our blog. Oh, well. Priorities, right?

7. More on Free Camping
One website: freecampsites.net. This site is amazing! While this website is pretty old school, it has incredibly helpful information! You simply put in your location, and it brings up a map of clickable campsite locations, both free and paid. People also rate the sites and provide feedback. We've found a lot of great places to stay on this website. Forest Rangers continue to be helpful as well, outlining places folks can camp for free or even pull over and sleep in a vehicle. Oregon is pretty great in this regard, as you can pull over at any turnout within national forest land and legally sleep in your vehicle.

8. Desirable stealth camping spots
Near parks, bathrooms and bodies of water. Enough said.

9. Cheap Souvenirs
A couple of our friends let us know about the "Ranger of the Lost Art" National Park postcard series. The cards are decorated with beautiful retro-style artwork. We plan to frame these postcards as both artwork and a photo journal of sorts. They are sold at most visitor centers within National Parks and cost less than $1! 

10. In-n-Out burger goodness & the not-so-secret menu
In-n-Out burgers are located on just about every block in California, and boy, do we love them! The menu is super simple, the fries are made from a potato right before your very eyes, and there is a secret-menu, which you can order from at no extra cost and get extra fixin's. Dave likes his In-n-Out burger "animal-style." Did we mention the food is super cheap?

11. Showering: Who needs it?
It can prove difficult to find shower facilities that are reasonably priced, so we've resorted to rinsing off in lakes and rivers. This has saved us a good chunk of change, and made us even less high-maintenance, which is all fine and dandy. However, after a few days without a water source nearby, we've come to understand why baptism occurs in water. We've ceremoniously cleansed ourselves in some of our country's clearest, bluest lakes and rivers and thank God for them. But showers, oh, showers! There is something simply wonderful about hot water and soap. Showers have become a surreal, spa-like experience for us. When a campsite nearby is cheap and has showers, we'll take it!

12. America the Beautiful Pass
For $80, you can buy this yearly pass and get into any National Park or Monument for free. Well worth the cost if you are touring multiple parks!

13. Bicycle savings
We deliberated whether to bring our bicycles along on the trip. When we were given a free bike rack for the back of the van, we decided to go for it. And, boy, oh boy, has this paid off! We've learned that you can bike into almost any state park for free, avoiding the entrance fee. We simply park on the road and cycle our way on in at no cost. It's also really handy to have bicycles in big cities where parking can cost an arm and a leg. Biking is also a great way to see the city. Yahoo for bicycles!

14. Wisconsin--where's that?
People seem to be so surprised when we tell them we are from Wisconsin. There also seems to be a hint of pity in their voices when they comment about our home state. Californians truly love their state and are happy to tell you all the wonderful things about it, but they don't have much to say about Wisconsin. Some people don't even seem to know where it is. If anything, people might remark about how cold it is, and we assure them it doesn't always snow in Wisconsin. We once heard a little boy exclaim "Wisconsin, Dad. Wisconsin!!" while pointing at our license plate, as if he couldn't believe people were actually from there. We feel so exotic.

15. Sleep, and lots of it.
Desy is so comfortable. Too comfortable, perhaps! We've found that we consistently sleep 9-10 hours a night when we sleep in the van. And, why not? What the body wants, the body gets. We are retired, after all. Or that's what we like to tell ourselves, at least.  It's going to be a rough transition back to the real world, but for now, we sleep.

That's it for our lessons from the road, for today. More pictures and tales of our adventures to come.
Love, d+m