Where I’ve Been

“I don’t know where I’m going, but I know just where I’ve been…” (Battle Born by Five Finger Death Punch)

“You lived in Minnesota? That must have been rough.”

Sure? I guess?

“Went to school in Iowa? Must’ve been boring.”

Actually, it was a hella great time.

“You were in California? Man, I’m sorry about that.”

Well, I’m not.

I hold a special place inside me for all the places I put roots, regardless of how temporary those roots were.

Anoka House

Minnesota, the winter tundra. It brought me a love of fishing, flannel, and forests. I fell in love with backpacking here on the Superior Hiking Trail. The strong German and Scandinavian heritage developed serious cravings for spatzle, Bavarian brews, and potica. When you grow up in Minnesota you learn that when the going gets tough, you buckle down and push on because when the snow keeps coming down, your snowblower has died, and you have to get to a twelve hour shift, you best get to shoveling because staying home doesn’t pay the bills.

Cyclones in their natural habitat

Iowa, the great cornfield. Iowa was all about the camaraderie. You may not know the stranger next to you at the bar, but they are wearing cardinal and gold and hate the Hawkeyes just as much as you so they may as well be kin, because they are. Yes, the small towns hold less things to do, but your favorite bar has your favorite bartender who knows your name, your favorite drink, and asks about your final because they heard it was a rough one. Don’t for one second believe Iowa food is bland, try a state fair pork chop on a stick, it will have you hearing angels singing. Mostly, Iowa encouraged me to dance to my own music. If everyone around you is line dancing to yet another country drab, go ahead, jump on the pool table and head bang to Disturbed in a plaid shirt and spike heels.

RPV patio

California, the one everyone has a strong opinion of. First thing that comes to mind is the flavors. My mouth waters with the thought of street tacos, fresh caught sushi, and west coast IPA’s. The almost-always-perfect weather led to the most outdoor exploration I’ve ever done within a calendar year. The most insane landscapes still leave me breathless. We met jawas in Joshua Tree, vandwellers in Yosemite, life long trail family in Sequoia. California was the people, some of the best, most kind people I have ever met. California taught me to not judge a book by its cover. The dumpy, divey bar has the best Philly cheesesteak you will ever taste. The clients dropping off their beloved pet for surgery are crying despite one wearing Costco and the other Chanel. They both hug you when you bring their pet out for discharge. 

First day of vanlife

As the great band (Five Finger Death Punch) says, “I may not know where I’m going, but I know just where I’ve been.”

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Short Essays From The Road

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The Beer That Started It All

I call Leinenkugel’s Honey Weiss the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of beers. It is perfect, anything done in the hopes of improving it actually diminishes it. There is no situation where I would turn down a Honey Weiss. If you think I wouldn’t turn down any beer, try drinking a coffee stout on a humid 90+ Minnesota summer day, lessons were learned.

I discovered Honey Weiss accidentally at Rock Night at Pickle Park in 2008, if that doesn’t age me, I don’t know what will. (Translation: I was 22 and ordered a bottle of beer at random while at a divey bar that hosted the local rock radio station for a rock-themed dance night, on a Tuesday no less) Skip a couple years ahead just after graduating from ISU, I found like-minded beer enthusiasts and started an annual trip to Leinie Lodge complete with brewery-hopping en route. Keep in mind, this was prior to craft brewing taking off so these were tiny breweries with maybe 4-6 beers on tap and only sold kegs or pints to locals because distribution was too expensive. A flight consists of all their beers on tap and costs $6-8 and we all ordered our own individual flights to consume. We asked each brewery for a personal tour and learned more about the art of brewing than any fancy tour at the big guys.

A bro’s 21st birthday, celebrated with the traditional brewery roadtrip

Leinie Lodge hosted a free tour with samples for free (they didn’t want to pay for a license and therefore couldn’t charge since they were “samples”). Times change, my friends. Craft brewing became fashionable, for better or worse. The market flooded, someone decided to sour a perfectly good product, and another dumbass decided to add fruit to beer.

The annual mecca trips continued, the flights increased in cost, Leinie’s started to charge, but the sweet nectar of Honey Weiss always reminded me why I fell in love with beer in the first place. And then some dude I met at a bar (of all places, shocking, I know) invited me to Colorado and to tour the Coors facility because according to him, “It’s great beer.”

I pulled on my Leinie shirt in preparation for the tour, to show my solidarity for the small guys only to find out on the Coors’ Family Wall (shows all the breweries they own) was the new acquisition of Leinenkugels. A decent chunk of my heart died that day. But I am nothing if not a trooper, and troop on, I did. Breweries are learning from their early mistakes, beer can be shockingly expensive and Honey Weiss remains the sweet nectar of the gods.

Yes, I paid for a touristy pic, sue me

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Short Essays From The Road

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Library Cards

I enjoy a good book. I was raised by a librarian and spent a significant time of my formative years in story time. When I say I enjoy a good book, I mean I read the ish outta books. Like packing a book per day when I go on vacation. Well, I did until Jake put a cap at four due to airline weight restrictions. I also burnt out my first kindle within a year. It was the pandemic, my friends, libraries wouldn’t lend out physical books or I never would’ve converted.

On a side note, my favorite library game is book roulette. You find a bunch of books that have a waiting list and then join the waiting list. I’m talking about 15-20 books. Then you get random calls/emails about your reserved book being available, but libraries don’t tell you which one in the message so it’s a complete surprise when you pick it up. 

My point being, reading is an integral part of my life. It is likely genetically ingrained in me. When we uprooted and moved to SoCal, I got not one but two new library cards. One from the city library system of Palos Verdes. The other from the county of Los Angeles, mostly due to their enormous size and availability of not so common books. I was very active in both systems.

I continued to use those systems as we entered and continued on our sabbatical year. You can imagine my surprise when I received an email from LA county that they were canceling my library card since I never picked up the physical card (I had to register for an e-card because covid and LA didn’t mix well). Yes, apparently cancelling library cards is a thing. The only way to avoid cancellation was to stop in at any branch and get a physical card…except we were in Wyoming.

In a complete panic I jumped on the Palos Verdes system and found my card was still valid, thank god. So I continued on my merry way of searching for more ebooks. Until I found out they had switched to Hoopla and no longer supplied kindle formats. OMG.

Naturally, I panicked. I felt it was reasonably warranted. I believe even Jake mildly panicked. I tried my best to scratch the itch with those cute free little libraries you see but I read too fast, and their locations are like roulette and the book options are even worse odds. Not to mention that accumulating books in the sub was less than ideal. At one point five were stored on the dashboard.

Once the panic settled, I came up with a gameplan. Suck it up and deal until South Dakota where I would get a library card in my new place of residence. So I had more quality time with Zeke (my xbox) while we moosied our way to Deadwood. I found the adorable historic library and walked in. The librarian took my license and stated that I can’t get a card in Deadwood since I was a residence of Spearfish (even though they are both in Lawrence County) and that I still wouldn’t qualify for a card since it was a mailbox and not a physical address. Come again.

I just want to read a damn book, is that so difficult. Apparently it is. So like an adult, I called my mom to bitch and complain. She added to my panic by stating that Minnesota counties have started checking your address to ensure you still live there to maintain your library card. So any hope I had of using my old Minnesota one was out the window. 

It is a sad, sad world we live in where you can’t get a book from the library. I don’t even need a physical book, just something to download to my kindle. I would read anything at this point, well maybe not Dan Brown, but the situation is looking rather dire. If society falls into anarchy or the apocalypse I now know why.

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Short Essays From The Road

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Revenge of the Cockamouse

First. If you have never heard of a cockamouse, youtube How I Met Your Mother cockamouse. You’re welcome.

Second. To truly understand this situation, you will need to know that I dealt with not one, but two seasons of the freeloading cockamouse in my Anoka house. It was mildly traumatizing.

Let’s jump in.

Jake and I spent a looong time trying to find a site to park for our third night in Washington. It was a learning curve, but we found a cute site along some river just outside Olympic National Park. It was also very sunny and very warm. Uncharacteristically sunny and unusually warm we were told by almost every local we talked to. The temp was stagnant in the mid-80’s and like I said the sun was in full force. It was a sweaty day, which led to a sweaty afternoon, and a sweaty evening. 

To give me some space for a D&D game inside the van, Jake popped the rooftop tent to chill and cool off. As the night approached, he called down that he was staying up there for the night as a breeze had picked up and was blowing well through the tent windows. I had no qualms and quickly sprawled with Leinie on the bed, not bothering with any blankets. Finding sleep has never been a problem on this trip and having ample room for the first night in a long time, I quickly fell asleep.

Only to wake up to something falling on the roof? Or maybe it was nothing. I had just started to doze back off when I heard something up front (van front was facing the road around the campground). Who in the damn hell is driving at this time?! I didn’t see any headlights, but I was uneasy. The noise of gravel? Dragging? Crinkle-ish? I mean the road is gravel, but I should see something right?!

I grab my phone at check the time. 2am, yep, way too late/early to be a nuisance when someone is trying to sleep. Never interrupt my sleep, it’s beast mode and I am not responsible for anything that happens to you.

I use my phone light to try and see through the windshield but nothing. Leinie is sitting up, alert. Hmmm. I turn off the light and wait. Yep, the noise again. I quickly turn the light on and see nothing. 

I am the first to admit, I am not a brave individual. Fight or flight, more like freeze and scream. But I gathered what adult unmentionables I could and took a few slow breaths. Off goes the light. There’s the noise. I wait a breath, two breaths. Whatever it is, it is definitely in the van. Shit. One more deep, shaky breath. Ok, focus Sandra. Use your brain. I slowly turn the brightness up on my screen while it is facing the bed to mask the light and listen to try and hone in on the terrifying noise that is….omg, in my kitchen?!  I flipped the phone and made eye contact with…the effing freeloading cockamouse. 

I’d like to say that I busted out a crazy, badass move and sucker punched the S.O.B. through the door. But I am a bad liar. I screamed, like the chicken shit I am. 

Then I called Jake. Yes, called him on the phone. He answered promptly and I told him we had a cockamouse. Why didn’t I just yell or talk at the roof-top tent? I panicked okay? It happens. Anywho, his logical response to my panic was “What do you want me to do?” Come down here and wage battle, obv. He did.

In fact, he saw the cockamouse himself and said something along the lines of “he is huge”. Very helpful, thanks. He armed himself with one of our trash bags (grocery produce bag) and our soup ladle. We spent the entire night unable to sleep and started to doze off around 6am. 

Armed with a plastic bag and soup ladle

We drove to the nearest mercantile and got two toilet seat traps. I am not kidding, they resemble toilets.

Toilet of death

Then we went for a hike. To allow the cockamouse to meet their flushable doom. Well, they were having none of that and we came back, twice, to empty traps. We weren’t discouraged. We went to the nearest Walmart to diversify our traps. We found our next campsite and then it was war. 

The traps were set and not even a 15 minutes to us turning off the lights did we hear one of the newer traps go off. Jake jumped to action and found him caught in the trap and quickly resolved that problem. We left the remaining traps in place until morning since you know what they say about one mouse. Well, morning came and we must’ve grab the one solitary cockamouse in existence. The traps were put into storage in the case of the re-revenge of the freeloading cockamouse.

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Short Essays From The Road

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Stuff

Recently I was posed a question by a friend who is moving to a different country; “How hard was it to move out?”

Short answer: easy and hard, super helpful, I know.

Long answer went something like this:

When we left Minnesota, I owned a house and house-worth of stuff. That’s a lot of stuff. It took a good two months to purge, pack, and purge again. Not to mention that the house needed to be put on the market and sold. Leaving California, we had significantly less stuff and (un)thankfully no house to put on the market. Despite less stuff, we needed to purge to what we could fit in the van or put into storage with family or friends. 

Purging stuff is hard, physically, mentally, and emotionally. The physical aspect is obvious. A sofa can be very heavy. Bedroom sets need to fit back through narrow hallways and doorframes. To save our relationship, I had our friend help Jake move furniture to our RPV apartment. When leaving the apartment, had those interested in our furniture come to help Jake take it out. Don’t look at me like that, I am good at a lot of things in life, but upper body strength is not one.

The mental aspect is like a game of chess. Do we need a car camping tent and a backpacking tent? We use both regularly and will likely continue to use both once we settle after vagabonding. Is it worth keeping the coleman for the future…spoiler, we didn’t. How much do you sell it for or do you donate it just to be done? Our mattress hit really hard in the this area. We bought it at the Memorial Day sale 2022. Yes, we had our mattress for maybe 9 months and it was a glorious mattress. It decidedly would not fit in the van. So we sold it, for a fraction of what we paid for it because we couldn’t take it with or store it, and that hurt.

Emotionally? Why is this even a thing? I kept clothing because they held fond memories, not that they would ever be fashionable or fit again. I had an entire tote in storage of printed t-shirts from high school and college, you know the type I speak of when you belonged to a club or sports team. I opened it and had to immediately close it and told my mom to donate the lot. I hadn’t seen those clothes in years and hadn’t thought of them in about as many but it was too difficult to actually bring them to the goodwill myself. I know this isn’t just a me thing, Jake had a difficult time purging coffee mugs.

So yes, it was difficult to purge stuff. It took several cycles before we could fully move into the van. Even now we are occasionally purging. But having less stuff has made me feel lighter. I have only two totes of important keepstakes (diplomas, heirlooms, etc) and three boxes of books (the result of three purges, we all have our weaknesses) in storage and what I keep in the van. Every once in a while, I miss my super amazing mattress, but when we settle again I’m buying another one. I will never embrace true minimalism, I love my blankets too much and outdoor activities are just easier when you have the additional gear and not using backcountry gear for everything. I have learned that I also don’t see a future with stuff for the sake of stuff either.

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Short Essays From The Road

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Ass Over Teakettle

If you’ve never had the pleasure of meeting me, or maybe you have and this is new information. Allow me to share a few tidbits about myself.

First, my parents almost named me Grace. Depending on your outlook, that was either very smart on their part, or very unfortunate for myself.

Second, I spent a good chunk of my childhood on a bike. Our family had an annual biking vacation. While the bikes I rode would make Jake shudder (most came from walmart), I was able to do the normal kid tricks. Look ma, no hands! 

Now that we have those facts out of the way, let’s begin.

Fresh outta college, obstacle races were the thing to do. Tough mudder, zombie 5k, I even once ran through a corn maze. So when the Urban Assault Challenge came to the Twin Cities, naturally I signed up. The gist of the this challenge was a duo would bike ride 20-some miles through the metropolitan area and periodically stop to complete challenges. Big wheel relay, egg & spoon while biking, that sort of thing. As all obstacle races, at the end you were rewarded with beer. 

Now, I’m pretty sure whether we’ve met or not, you know I would do a lot for a beer.

Not even two miles into this challenge, my front tire hit a good ol’ minnesota pothole. You know the kind, could eat a civic and not even suffer indigestion. So my tire hits the pothole, on a downhill of all times and I get bucked right over my handlebars. I did an admirable impression of stone skipping on water, but with my arm and chest on the asphalt. Ten out of ten would not recommend.

I didn’t touch a bike for almost 10 years after that. Jake convinced me after we started dating to rent a city bike in order to brewery hop in Phoenix. I didn’t die as I had expected and have hesitantly biked when beer has been on the line a few times since.

Skip to present and we were sitting in a quirky pink coffee shop in the middle of Idaho when I randomly asked Jake if he had an interest in bikepacking the Mesabi Trail later that summer in Minnesota. While he didn’t fall out of his chair, he did ask me to repeat what I had said, twice. 

Why, you ask? I liked the idea of doing as much of the Minnesota portion of the North Country Trail as I could milk outta our time while we were in the area. This year I have also been pushing my comfort zone, doing more technical peak bagging (still don’t enjoy them) and thought a nice flat, paved trail would be Sandra-friendly. 

Jake was giddy with excitement. We did the greenbelt in Boise with me on his very nice (read: expensive) mountain bike in order to “get used to a real bike” in preparation for the future trip. I was gaining confidence and was getting rather excited for the experience.

Halfway through our stay in Bend, I suggested we bike the river trail through town to brewery-hop per usual. Again, Jake had me on the nice bike while he handled Leinie on the beach cruiser. We had just enjoyed our first beer stop at the turn around point and were en route to a happy hour at the next brewery. We were cruising down the one downhill portion of the entire trail and I felt my hat start to fly off my head.

So I tapped the break. Yes, the rear tire break, I did grow up biking. Regardless, the next thing I know is I am flying ass over tea kettle and felt my face bounce off the asphalt. 

Yes, again! And there wasn’t even a crack in the path to explain how I managed to do it. Jake and Leinie come running back. I am bleeding from both hands, a wrist and face. My faithful patagonia sweater saved my arm skin. Both legs felt sucker punched. I looked absolutely delightful as tears and snot mixed with the gash on my face. Stay back fellas, I’m taken.

I hobbled to a public restroom to wash as much blood away as I could and wrapped the worst cut on my right hand in toilet paper in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. Jake and Leinie led my hobbling ass to a local tavern where I soothed my aches with three Hamms tall boys. Yes, three, I think I earned it.

The van was too far away to walk, so I gathered what was left of my shaking nerves and mounted the very mean bike again (the cruiser's seat was too high for me, and we had no tools to fix it) and rode to another brewery. I drank another two beers while Jake finished the last few miles to bring the van to me.

And just to ensure my pride was completely shattered, fate decided that I should slip trying to get out of the van and I fell and twisted my bad ankle to boot not even two hours later. Jake is currently researching helmets while I nurse road rash, a swollen ankle and a heavily bruised ego.

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Short Essays From The Road

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The Pit Toilet

I did the complicated footwork of the traditional potty dance across the parking lot as I made the way to the pit toilet. A short while later I exited the small brown building relieved and satisfied. It had been one of the cleaner pit toilets on the trip and now I was ready to face the day.

Over the past months, I have squatted over many, many types of thrones. The most rustic are typically a bit of dirt hopefully enclosed by some private bushes but sometimes in the wide open with only one side of the submarine to break sightline from other campers. A step up, the good ol’ pit toilet comes in many degrees of cleanliness, odors, and supplies. I have quickly gained the habit of bringing toilet paper with me when pit toilets are in my future.

Flush toilets are much more varied, but the plumbing is something we jump at whenever possible. Rest stops are bottom shelf, travel centers catering to CDL drivers are mid-range and those blessed casinos are the top shelf. Anytime I can find a sink, you will see me with my hoodie pouch full with facewash, toothpaste and a hairbrush. 

This isn’t to say hygiene is forgotten with more rustic facilities. A spray bottle of soap followed by hand sanitizer does the job. And it’s not like I never brush my hair, I just usually don’t see the end result. I’ve definitely gone the more natural route of make-up, as in, absolutely none. My morning routine is rather quick; face wash, sunscreen, hair in a braid/bun, hat on, smell clothes before putting on. I call it nature-chic.

We typically don’t stink. A shower every 2-3 days is usual. They vary from the gym showers which are surprisingly inconsistent in quality to travel centers (top notch) to at worst a park sink, shudder. Even Leinie gets a monthly bath, usually after rolling in something suspect. 

All in all, compared to backcountry backpacking where you are digging a cathole every morning and embracing the stench of a week without a shower, this has been rather clutch as the kids say.

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Short Essays From The Road

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The Vagabond Identity

Where are you all from?

We get that question daily. For a while we would stumble over our answer. How to you explain that you were born and grew up in Minnesota, went to school in Iowa, have residency in South Dakota even though you never lived there and the most recent place you lived that didn’t have wheels was LA. To make it harder you don’t feel super tied to any of those places. I’m not Minnesotan, not Iowegian, sure ain’t South Dakotan, and will never consider myself Californian.

Home is currently the van. Yes, home. When texting on the trail I’ll tell Jake that Leinie and I are on our way home, meaning the van, not any set location. Home is where my immediate family is, my partner and my dog. For a time, that was Anoka. For several years, RPV. Now, it’s a yellow Econoline with a mattress and xbox. But when posed the question, do I point to the van?

It makes me curious why the question is such a constant. Does everyone camping get the question? Is it reserved for vehicle-dwellers? Or is it our strong accents that we will apparently never shake that give our non-local status away. I dropped the pop for soda, but can’t seem to shake a good “ope” when necessary, if you’re curious. But if that’s the case, when you hear a strong southern or Boston accent, do you ask the question?

Ultimately, I don’t believe anyone who has asked us this has anything but good, curious intention and just trying to make conversation. We will likely continue to stumble over our answer and at times Jake will say one thing and I another. At times one of us may say something about originating from Minnesota. Depending on the city or person, we may feel necessary to leave our stint in California unspoken. Other times I feel rebellious and just state South Dakota despite none of our license plates stating such.

Where are you all from?

Lots of places, but currently here.

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Short Essays From The Road

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