Santa Fe & A Glimpse Into "Van Life"

The chilly weather in northern Texas should have served as a warning. Santa Fe was much colder.


After walking around downtown Santa Fe, we drove about 15 miles up into the Pecos Wilderness Area which is part of the Santa Fe National Forest. Ad you can see there was a lot of snow on the ground.




The main trail was packed down pretty hard but if you ventured a foot to the right or left you might sink down to your thigh.


The trail topped out at over 11,000 feet.




Rebecca claims that this is the first snow angel that she has ever made but I don't believe it.

A good friend who is traveling and living out of his vehicle as well has been asking me to post some "Van Life" photos. Here is a typical day for those who live in the Big Green Ho, aka Peppy.

We wake up between 7:30-8am to Pirate smacking her lips together because she is hungry and thirsty. If you don't feed this dog by 9am then it is guaranteed that she will throw up. She sleeps at our feet on her bed but often wonders into the front seats to look around. When she hops back into bed she always pulls the curtains off to the side and lets in the early morning light.


Rebecca likes to park next to a patch of grass or "lawn" as she calls it. First thing to do after crawling out of bed into the cold is to feed the dog and let her go to the bathroom. Her food is stashed under the console between the front seats, but her meds and gear go behind the front seats in the tub with the blue lid.


Next, we start to roll up our curtains using shoelaces I had at the bottom of my closet. They are mostly pink and bright yellow.




After the curtains we make the bed. One sheet and two blankets. We also have sleeping bags handy if it gets really cold but we have only needed them once. It stays pretty warm once those curtains are rolled down.


Now that the bed is made and the sweater is on, Pirate goes back in the van to relax while we eat.


On the passenger side of the van behind the seats are the Food Tub and the Misc. Tub. The latter holds dishes, tupperware, yoga mats, a hammock, and extra water bottles among other things.


Breakfast is usually cereal and fruit. We buy the 3 pack of rice milk and we split one to use in our cereal. Since rice milk does not have to been refrigerated until opened this works out perfectly. We have a small cooler with ice packs but we usually eat leftovers the next day.


Now we are ready to play.... or drive to our next destination.


On this particular day we were driving from Rifle, CO to Arches NP which is about a 6 hour drive. We stopped for lunch on the side of the road. We had PB&J and a left over salad from the night before.




Most nights that we sleep in the van we wake up to a Walmart parking lot and the sound of big RVs. Some mornings however, we wake up to the sun rising over something like this.