On The Road : Planning, Preparation & “Final” Projects

We arrived in La Pine on Saturday night and were welcomed into the open arms of The Cousins at their beautiful adventure basecamp. La Pine was a long day of driving from home, but an easy and soft landing for a first night on the road. Chelsea’s back had been firing up again, causing some pain, so sleeping inside on a large bed was a welcome start to the adventure.

We’d planned to launch from their house and start adventuring south with Jay and Morgan alongside us for the first few days. Jay had some great ideas for camp spots to explore and trails to drive, so we busted out the maps, digital and analog both, and got to planning a route down through central Oregon, California, and Nevada. He had planned our route southward to help us make miles - we were surrounded by opportunity for adventure, so why not choose the route that also helped us with our schedule?

We arrived late Saturday night, and Jay’s wife Morgan had a craft fair to attend as a vendor on Sunday, and then a day of real-person-work on Monday, so that bought us two days to get caught up and get things done. We spent one day at the craft fair wandering around Bend, looking at all the amenities that just aren’t offered in rural Idaho, and the next day finalizing our van preparations for the trip. I thought it would be best to do a fresh oil change, and I had a sneaking suspicion I could use new tires, so we ventured back out into the city to run some errands.

I wanted a professional opinion on my tires, so I called around to find a shop that had our size in stock in a decent A/T model and headed over for an inspection. At the local Les Schwab, the consensus was that our tires had great tread life, but were nearly seven years old, and the full size spare didn’t match the other four tires. The shop had four of the five tires I needed, so we went ahead and got Walter some new shoes, and then headed back to another Les Schwab to mount a fifth tire as a full size spare.

After installing the new rubber, we swung by the local auto parts store, curious to see if they had the correct oil and filter for our van. We use pretty standard oil, a 15w40 Rotella product, but the oil filter is often a special order, at least in McCall, as it usually cross-lists as a light tractor oil filter rather than an automotive part. I told myself that if the La Pine Napa had the part, then I would do the oil change, and as luck would have it I was laying in the rain making an oily mess of myself a mere 30 minutes later. Thankfully, Jay held an umbrella over me and kept Chelsea company as she created and installed some DIY blackout curtains for the cab of the van.

Mapping out adventure.

Spending a day in downtown Bend. Morgan’s booth held some amazing colorful macrame creations, which you can find here.

Enjoying corndog crumbles at the street fair.

Walter, getting new shoes.

Patiently watching and waiting.

Gracie gets way more comfortable than us!

New blackout curtains, a on-the-road DIY project.

Blackout curtains for the cab of the van,.

Didn’t have a filter wrench, so I tried to use my belt. That Idea failed immediately, so we went out and bought a proper wrench.

Mmmmmmhm, delicious new oil.

Dogs napping in blissful comfort with inspirational off road youtube playing in the background.

After two days of urbanity, we were hungry for the road and for adventure and for sleeping outside. We packed up the van with provisions, confirmed our route, and set off into the unknown, driving some roads we had driven before, and thankfully some that we hadn’t. The van was handling great with new rubber, Chelsea was really excited to drive, and I was happy to sit in the passenger seat, feeding her snacks and managing the stream of podcasts. We made miles easily and ended up in northern California for our first night of camping.

Our camping options were plentiful on the route that we drove, and The Cousins chose Plum Valley campground just outside Davis Creek, CA. It’s a big designated campground with casually defined sites, remarkably clean pit toilets, and a gurgling creek - pure perfection! We had a great night there, with the exception of some mild food poisoning endured by myself and courtesy of some questionable macaroni and egg salad. Whoops!

provisioning for the trip.

Introducing Jay to some new technology.

getting used to using the kitchen.

We are still very new to the van at this point, still figuring out our work flow at camp.

Driving to Plum Valley Campground.

An otherwise empty Plum Valley Campground.

Plum Valley Campground in the fading evening light.