Life Out There

Over the past several weeks... maybe the realization had been setting in gradually. From the insurance company, to towing companies, mobile mechanics, countless repair shops and even specialty repair shops like semi repair and even a couple of folks that claimed a focus on RV engine repair. It was also interesting to learn that many shops out there that claim to specialize in RV repair... actually...

Four weeks parked alongside this park in Salt Lake City. Seems like yesterday a cloud of smoke rolled out of Vacilando’s exhaust and we coasted gently into this exact spot. At the time it felt mechanical. An event. An inconvenience. After that walk to the convenience store... we’d get to business... Pop the hood. Make some calls. Handle it. Get it done... figure out the plan.... But Now? It’s star...

We left Saratoga Springs convinced the worst was behind us. The quick trek to Salt Lake City was short... One last stretch before we could relax... explore... learn. And at first... it was working... felt like we’d settled back into our groove... Billie and I. Before leaving Saratoga Springs... I’d spent some time online looking for an RV park in Salt Lake City... odd how few RV parks there are in...

It’s Day 804. It’s also July 18th 2021. Well.... we almost made it... Back to that beautiful Saturday morning... Cruisin up the freeway... windows cracked... enjoying the scenery along 1-15 north with Salt Lake City in our sites. It was all so ... familiar.... Vacilando moving us forward... just like he had all over the country.... and then... he didn’t. And everything changed… Connect with the po...

Movin again... and it feels good. It feels familiar. That sense of wonder… exhilaration even... that comes over me when the road opens up in front of us... with few signs of civilization. If ya strip out the power lines ticking by alongside us... and those reflective centerlines rolling up underneath... and then out behind us.... any other traces of civilization are rare. And that’s when it’s the...

It's been weeks... The loss fades... and Time Marches on... As anyone that knows me will tell you... music... and song... have always been a big part of my life. No matter the mood... the situation... No matter where I find myself in life... I can fall into music... The first three notes of a song can take you back... to help stiffen your resolve... to remind you... That life is... good. I think i...

Spring on the western slope doesn’t arrive with much fanfare...it doesn’t announce itself in a flurry of blooms and bursts of color... It just… loosens. The air gets softer. The mornings lighten a little earlier. The cold starts stepping back, one degree at a time. By April, we’d settled into a rhythm with Rangely. I knew which mornings belonged to the wind. I knew when the snowplows would rumble...

January in Rangely has a way of resetting you. Maybe it’s the cold. Maybe it’s the quiet. Maybe it’s the feeling that the rest of the world is spinning out somewhere far away while this little town just keeps doing...Rangely. I was still trying to make sense of everything that had happened over the past year… and then January 6th happened. The Capitol. The chaos. The insurrection... The shock that...

This wasn’t part of the plan. It wasn’t supposed to happen. Or was it? A few times in each generation… we get up… turn on the news… and everything changes. I have lived through one of these moments in history. September 11, 2001. Today would be my second. What have we become? And how did one man drag a nation this far? Connect with the podcast on our website… ⁠LifeOutThere.me⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

We awoke to a 20 degree morning in Meeker... so things had actually warmed a bit since our arrival the night before. We took our time this morning...pulling out of Meeker mid day. Just 50 miles separated us from Rangely.... but with nothing but quarantine to greet us there... there was no hurry. We stopped along the way to check out the December scenery on the Western Slope. We’d pull into Rangely...

Man... almost hard to believe we made it... over 450 miles from Burlington... to Meeker...i n the midst of a Colorado winter... and in one day! And when I say winter, I mean full-on, snow-everywhere, a 9-degree morning, no-question-about-it winter. The further we drove...it became more and more clear that winter had more than set in here.... but with a break in the weather.... felt like we had to...

Our next stop would be less “discovery”… and more “port in the storm.” We’d come rolling in from Kansas on I-70… weather reports blaring… and honestly, we didn’t even need those. The road itself was saying it. Whispering… then shouting… find shelter. Find warmth. Find a place to stop this big metal box before Mother Nature really decides to test our commitment to the road. By the time we hit Burli...

Our next set of discoveries would come a few hundred miles up the road from Platte City… in a place called Hays, Kansas. Once again, we found ourselves driving into an endless horizon. This one belonged to the Kansas prairie. The scenery around us in constant change — fall… to winter… then back again — but somehow, the faint scent of harvest still lingered in the air. We pushed west, leaving behin...

The drive into Platte City from St. Joseph is a slow one... a short one... just 30 miles or so. The rolling hills of northwest Missouri stretched out in front of us, the landscape framed by tall trees and farmland. It’s late fall, or maybe early winter, depending on how you want to look at it. The temperature fluctuates from one day to the next, and the golden hues of autumn are barely holding on....

A twist of fate landed us in a quaint Nebraska village named Western. It’s small-town America at its finest. We pulled into town with the singular objective of finding a spot to plug in so we could ride out an incoming cold front that threatened to bring a few inches of snow with it. Little did I know we would not leave Western for nearly 2 months! Full transcript available on Substack and YouTube...

Made the 98 miles drive from Craig Missouri to Lincoln Nebraska in good time. We found a subdued Lincoln... the pandemic takes a much larger toll on larger cities than it has in the small towns we've spent the last several months in. We spent 3 days in Lincoln... working and learning about this part of Nebraska and beyond. A typical midwestern cold snap chased us out of Lincoln a little ahead of s...

Our last night in Honey Creek saw Thunder storms moving in. And one of those late night light shows that make you wanna just watch. Things seemed to be clearing up as we headed out the following day. Our zig-zagging around the heartland would take a turn south when I spotted a sign stating that we were some 60 miles from... and yep....another…Craig. This one in Missouri, some 60 miles from the Iow...

In true Vacilando fashion… todays drive would involve some backtracking. Around 40 miles from Tekamah Nebraska...across that Missouri River and back into Iowa. The road twisted through the Loess Hills of Iowa, a landscape so unique it exists in only a few places on Earth. I couldn't wait to learn more about this truly unique find. I was also looking forward to a couple of weeks of working on a fam...

The drive from Craig to Tekamah... short. Just 9 miles. But the two-lane Highway 75 stretching between the two wastes no time retelling the story of this part of the country. It cuts through fields that seem to roll on endlessly... this time of year, a patchwork of light green, gold, and brown. Cornfields standing tall but dry. Soybeans crisping under the autumn sun. Farmhouses sit back from the r...

Yep… We found another Craig! This time, just 20 miles from our time spent in Decatur Nebraska. A couple of hours spent along side the deserted streets of Nebraska’s version of Craig. Another small town in America. Another town with a story of it’s own. Connect with the podcast on our website… ⁠LifeOutThere.me⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Let us know what you think! We love...

A dog, a cat, and their human chuck the mainstream and hit the road in a 30-year-old RV. Exploring America...one small town at a time. Another day… Another 100 miles… and we found ourselves crossing over into Nebraska. First up, Decatur. Another perfect example of small town America… and all that comes with it. Another small town… another story. 9 days spent along the banks of the Missouri River w...

A dog, a cat, and their human chuck the mainstream and hit the road in a 30-year-old RV. Exploring America...one small town at a time. Slowing things down. Taking our time. We pulled out of Akron Midday heading off towards Iowa's Great Lakes. A place I'd only just learned about a couple days ago from a fellow camper here in Akron. Spirit Lake would, as expected, teach us so much more about history...

A dog, a cat, and their human chuck the mainstream and hit the road in a 30-year-old RV. Exploring America...one small town at a time. Here we are—Akron, Iowa. Just a little town on the Big Sioux… but for me, it became a place to breathe, to think, and to realize this journey isn’t just about miles. It’s about what you discover when you slow down. Connect with the podcast on our website… ⁠LifeOutT...

A dog, a cat, and their human chuck the mainstream and hit the road in a 30-year-old RV. Exploring America...one small town at a time. An afternoon of trekking across Iowa would land us first in a cool little town called Le Mars. Then another few miles up the road it would happen again… A road sign, a water tower, even a high tech feed truck… all bearing my name… Craig! Enjoyed learning a little m...

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