I haven’t been posting as much as I want to lately. Not because I don’t have anything going on—actually, it’s pretty much the opposite. 😂 Life, work, projects, and everything in between have been keeping me busy. I’ll have an idea for a post, tell myself, “I’ll post that later,” and somehow later turns into next week. I’m still here, still working, still taking pictures, and still collecting plenty of things to share.
Utah has a way of making you feel like you landed on another planet. Red cliffs, red canyons, red dirt, giant sandstone walls, and strange rock formations seem to stretch in every direction. Around places like Moab and southern Utah, the scenery changes fast, but the color theme stays pretty consistent: red. Driving the van through this landscape is hard to beat. I can head down a dirt road, find a quiet spot surrounded by sandstone, set up camp, and still have everything I need onboard.
Working from the road does not always mean working from a campsite. Sometimes I just need a place to stop for a few hours, get the laptop out, connect Starlink, and get some work done. On this day, I found a picnic overlook. It had a place to park, a table, open sky, and a view that made it hard to believe I was there to work. That is pretty much the ideal combination.
I fold the chairs and shake the dust from the rug, pour the last of the coffee, and watch the morning crawl across the desert. No checkout time. No front desk. Just tire tracks fading where the wind has already begun to erase us. I pack out what I brought in, leave the fire ring cold, leave the stones where they were, leave nothing behind but a place in our memory.
There’s a special kind of confidence that comes from standing at a trailhead you know absolutely nothing about. No famous viewpoint. No “Top 10 Hikes You MUST Do Before You Die” article. No carefully rehearsed Instagram pose waiting at mile 4.2. Just a trail, a backpack, and the slightly concerning thought: “Well… I guess we go this way.” Welcome to hiking in unknown places. Forget the Bucket List Some of my favorite hikes aren’t the famous ones.
One of my favorite things about traveling is getting on a bicycle and riding somewhere I’ve never ridden before. There’s something different about seeing a new place from a bike. In the van, the scenery goes by quickly. Walking lets you see everything, but your range is limited. A bicycle seems to hit the sweet spot. You can cover a surprising amount of ground while still moving slowly enough to notice what’s around you.
A few months ago, I asked an important question. Is the hot dog the lunch version of oatmeal? After careful consideration, additional research, and the consumption of more hot dogs than was probably necessary to reach a scientifically valid conclusion, I still believe the answer is yes. But I may have underestimated the hot dog. In the original discussion, my argument was that oatmeal and hot dogs have something important in common: neither one is really about the base.
Where the deer and the antelope play… just apparently not long enough to get their picture taken. I saw antelope. You’ll have to trust me on that. By the time I thought, Hey, that would make a great picture for the blog, they had already decided they had better things to do than hang around waiting for some guy on a gravel bike to dig out a camera. So, no antelope pictures.
There’s a tendency with overlanding to always be thinking about what comes next. What trail are we taking? How many miles do we need to cover? Where are we camping tonight? Is there enough fuel? What’s around the next corner? But every once in a while, you find a place that makes all those questions seem a little less important. You park the van. And sit by the water. Nowhere Else to Be
There are plenty of easy breakfasts to make while overlanding. Eggs. Oatmeal. Breakfast burritos. Maybe something you can eat with one hand while packing up camp. But sometimes you find a campsite where you don’t want to pack up quite yet. That’s when you bake cinnamon rolls. On this trip, I decided to see how well I could bake a batch at camp using the Firebox Billy Pot Baking Kit. Instead of carrying a conventional camp oven, this setup turns a Billy Bush Pot into a compact dry-baking oven.
A few days ago, the view from my office window was a parking lot in Ohio. Today, it’s a mountain. And honestly, that’s exactly why I built a rolling office. There isn’t anything particularly glamorous about working from a parking lot. You make some coffee, open the laptop, fire up the second monitor, and get to work. Code doesn’t particularly care whether there’s a mountain outside the window or a row cars.
Good morning from Iowa. Last night wasn’t spent at a campground with a lake view. There was no fire crackling outside, no mountain silhouette in the distance, and definitely no resort waiting on the other side of the door. It was a rest stop. And you know what? Sometimes the best night could be at a rest stop in Iowa. There’s something oddly peaceful about pulling off the highway after a long day of driving.
Some offices have a view of the parking lot. Mine changes every few days. Today I’m writing this from my van, parked somewhere in Ohio on my way to Colorado. Outside the window is another snapshot of America passing by. In a few days, the flat fields will give way to mountains, and my office window will have an entirely different view. That’s one of my favorite things about working on the road.
Well… sort of. Before anyone gets too excited and starts looking for the secret homesteading loophole where vegetables, rice, spices, and olive oil magically appear without a trip to the grocery store, let me clarify: the power I used to cook dinner was free. The food itself? Absolutely not free. The grocery store remains stubbornly committed to charging me for things. But the energy that cooked the meal came from the sun.
There is something about camp cooking that makes me want to try things I would never bother doing at home. Maybe it is the challenge, or maybe it is just that everything feels a little more satisfying outside. Either way, on this trip, I decided to see if I could bake a cookie on my camping stove using a mini pizza stone and a mini grill hood. And somehow, it worked.
When people think about staying warm in vanlife, they usually picture diesel heaters, propane systems, electric blankets, or thick sleeping bags. But one of the most efficient and underrated ways to stay comfortable is much simpler: a heated foot mat. A heated foot mat works so well because it delivers low-wattage, direct heat exactly where your body feels it most. Instead of trying to warm all the air inside the van, it warms your feet directly.
There is something about a campfire that changes the whole mood of a campsite. Before the fire is lit, camp can feel practical. You are setting up chairs, unpacking food, finding a headlamp, and figuring out where you put the lighter. Then the fire catches. A little smoke curls upward. The flames start moving through the wood. The light warms your face. Suddenly, everything slows down. A campfire does not just provide heat.
There are certain foods that are less about the thing itself and more about what you put on top of it. Oatmeal is one of those foods. A hot dog is another. And the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that the hot dog might just be the lunch version of oatmeal. Stay with me here. Oatmeal, all by itself, is not exactly exciting. Plain oatmeal has the personality of wet cardboard.