Author: Jess

Categories
Daily Life

Using Campendium to Find Awesome Campsites & $50 Weekly Giveaway

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We get a lot of questions about how to find our awesome campsites – whether they are boondocking, dry camping, National Forest or even just plain old RV Parks. Last year, our answer would have been varied as we had a lot of different tools we use. Since our official launch from the house last June, however, there’s really only one place we turn to to figure out where to stay: Campendium.

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Campendium is the brain child of Brian & Leigh of Aluminarium whom we met for the first time in 2014 near Tucson, and then again in the Indian Bread Rocks in 2015 near Fort Bowie. Super awesome, welcoming, and helpful with just about any questions you might have, Brian & Leah are an amazing couple.

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Why do we love Campendium so much? Let me give you a list:

1. Comprehensive collection of ALL types of campsites. From RV Parks, National Parks, National Forest, BLM land, Casinos, and WalMart parking lots, Campendium lists them ALL. No more going back and forth from freecampsites.net to reserveamerica to instagram to figure out what’s available in a certain area. We just type in a city, national park, or even a specific campground name and we get results.

Although we LOVE to boondock, we also don’t love it 100% of the time. We like to vary where we stay, so having all the options in one place is really great.
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2. User Campground Reviews. Find out what real people think of  a campground. The user base (so far) is awesome. Great, honest reviews for campgrounds all over the country. Most reviews I’ve found to be a mix of the actual campground itself (location, site quality, noise level, ease of access) and things to do in the area.

3. Cell Phone Signal Reviews. This is HUGE for full timers like us. We can’t stay in places that don’t get Verizon signal because Sam has to work. Going off grid on “vacation” is something we do sparingly so knowing beforehand if we will have signal is a big deal for us. Often we won’t go to a particular campground if we can’t get signal but will find another site nearby  instead. There’s a super easy graph that indicates how good the signal is and what type.

4. Blog Posts. There are many full time travel bloggers that post comprehensive campground reviews on their blogs (I am not one of those- obviously). This is great as there is also a tab where user can submit their own blog posts and they’ll show up in a nice little list. When I want to find out more info on a campground, I’ll often turn to these.

5. Photos. Leigh and Brian (in particular) spend HOURS in an area taking photos of campgrounds. I love it when they visit an area because suddenly Campedium is flooded with campground photos. Anyone can submit pictures, however, and its always great to see what a campsite will look like before showing up!

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Campendium is definitely in its infant stages, but more users are joining by the day and I love seeing all the reviews and great places to camp! They have a list a mile long of improvements, ideas, and places to take this resource and I can’t wait to see how much better it gets over the next year or two!

$50 Weekly Giveaway-

For the next 9 weeks, Campendium is doing a weekly $50 giveaway! All you have to do to enter is submit one campsite review. Easy peasy! One review = one entry so get going! Check out their blog post on it here, and then head to Campendium.com to sign up for a FREE account and get going!

 

Categories
Fitness & Recipes

Grilled Barbeque Chicken Pizza

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I love pizza, and even better is GRILLED pizza. So delicious. There are a million different variations on toppings, but this Spinach, Chicken, Tomato, Bacon, BBQ sauce, Feta one just happens to be a favorite.

We have a Weber Q 1000 bought from Amazon (affiliate link) and we love it. The only thing we’d love MORE is to have bought the model with the thermometer. Unfortunately, that particular model also came with the side wing tables which we did NOT want so we figured that $30 was not worth the thermometer. Oh, it totally would have been. We have yet to buy a stand alone one, so mostly its just guess work as to how hot the grill is.

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The only trick with this recipe is working fast so your cheese has time to melt before the bottom of your pizza crust burns. Sam and I usually work together once he flips the crust and we have everything set out ready to go by the grill (notice how our truck is very NOT level):

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Our kids gobble this up, although Cara prefers the pieces with less tomato and spinach. You can use as much or as little BBQ sauce and cheese as you’d like – we tend to go less as its healthier and we have a bit of a dairy intolerance around here.

Enjoy and let me know how it goes!

Yummy Pizza Dough

Makes 2 14″ pizzas (enough to feed our family of 5)
 
1 1/4 cups warm water
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups all-purpose flour *more if needed*
2 cups white wheat flour (if you’re doing regular wheat flour, do 1 1/2 cups instead and increase the all-purpose flour to 2 1/2 cups).

In a small bowl, mix together the sugar and warm water. Sprinkle the yeast on top and let sit for 10 minutes to activate. Add the remaining ingredients (flour 1/2 cup at a time just in case) and mix well. I always have to add in more flour (not less) so its not crazy sticky, but do whatever works for you.

Spray a bowl with cooking spray, scrape your dough into the bowl and cover.  Cover and let rise on the counter about 3-5 hours or until it has at least doubled in size (or you are impatient and just hungry and want to eat!). You can also refrigerate this for up to 3 days if you want to make it ahead of time, but I’m never that prepared.

To Make the Pizza You’ll Need:

Pizza dough
olive oil
BBQ Sauce (our favorite is Sweet Baby Rays)
1-2 Grilled & thinly sliced chicken breasts
3-4 slices of turkey bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 cup fresh baby spinach, roughly chopped
Cherry Tomatoes- halved
Feta Cheese

Get out all of your toppings and prep them beforehand, because once you start grilling its a mad dash to get it all on there. About 45 minutes before we want to eat, I’ll cook and crumble the bacon, chop the spinach, halve the tomatoes, and have Sam grill the chicken.

When all your ingredients are ready, get your BBQ turned up hot (it might already be warm from grilling the chicken) while you divide the dough in half and roll out on the counter. Try to get it as thin as you can, but ours usually ends up being on the thicker side and I kind of like it that. Plus, our counter just really isn’t that big. I usually transfer to a plate and send it outside with one of the kids to give to Sam who is stationed at the grill.

When the grill is hot, spread oil over one side with a basting brush and put the crust on the grill. Spread oil over the top side now and let it cook for about five minutes, or until it starts to look nice and toasty. Carefully flip it over.

Working quickly (so you don’t burn the pizza!), spread the barbecue sauce over the crust, then sprinkle the mozzarella cheese evenly over that. Add spinach, sliced chicken, bacon & tomatoes, and then top with the Feta cheese.

Close the lid of the grill and let it cook for about 4-6 minutes, until the bottom of the crust is crispy and the cheese is starting to bubble.

With grilling tongs, carefully slide the pizza onto a cutting board or cookie sheet (this usually takes two of us!). Let cool for about 5 minutes, then slice and serve.

Eat & enjoy!

Grilled Chicken BBQ Pizza is super easy and one of our favorites!

Categories
Biking Outdoor Gear

Gear Review: Which Bikes Are We Using on Our Adventures?

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During our first 6 months of travel we had grand plans for road riding. We both had really great (and expensive) road bikes as we had been riding centuries (Sam more than me) and were accustomed to training for and riding longer distances.  We dreamed that even on long driving days, one of us could get dropped off on a bike, ride 40 miles to where the other waited with the Airstream, and then even take a shower immediately! How amazing!

Has that really ever happened?

Not even close.

We realized pretty quickly that we just didn’t have time for long road rides. 20 miles? Probably. 40? Not a chance. We also learned that a high proportion of state parks and even National Parks have great off road trail systems. Turns out it was much easier to get in a mountain bike ride than a road ride.

I need to interject here with the fact that we are bike people. Nice bike people. We know many full time travelers that get a cheap beach bike for bopping around the campground & easy riding along the boardwalk. We are more serious than that. Despite the bikes living outside on top of our truck, we knew we’d want high performance replacements for our road bikes. I mountain biked quite a bit in college and was actually pretty excited to get back into it!

So what did we do? We switched up our bikes. We now have a pretty sweet mountain bike and a cyclocross. Sam and I are similar in height, so even though the fit isn’t perfect for both of us, we can share bikes and switch back and forth who is riding which one. Its definitely an advantage as we can carry less bikes with us!

Here’s what we currently have:

Canondale 29er Mountain Bike

We love the Canondale brand, so we went to Infinite Cycles (a local Utah shop) to talk to the super helpful employees and figure out which bikes we wanted to get. The employee there suggested a 29er bike (meaning the tires are 29″ instead of the normal 26″) because it could keep up with the cyclocross better on pavement. Instead of buying new, we hunted around on Craigslist and the local KSL classifieds and found a barely used one that would work perfect for us! This was also has hydrolic disc brakes which we weren’t originally looking for, but have turned out to be a definite bonus!

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Canondale Cyclocross

We weren’t really aware of the awesomeness of the cyclocross until we started looking into it. There are some definitely frame differences between these and road bikes (something about lower bottom bracket, balance, etc.), but I couldn’t tell them all to you. The employee at Infinite assured us this would be a great fit for what we needed. We love that it still has the drop handles for when we want to do more serious road riding, but the the tires are thicker with more tread so it can handle gravel and even some dirt/sand without completely falling out from under us.

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Diamondback Outlook 24″ for Rachel

Rachel originally started out with the Canondale Street 20 and we switched up her bike when we got back to Utah (it involved a serious re-arrange of the back of the truck). I made the mistake of buying her a cheap, crappy, department store bike from the local classifieds (I blame it on the stress of selling everything we owned at the time) and then spent $100 trying to tune it up. We made it to Portland before we realized she now hated to bike. It wouldn’t shift easily, it was incredibly heavy, and coming off the amazing Canondale she was having a rough time. We hunted around some bike stores in Portland and found her this used Diamondback Outlook for about $100. We gave them the department store bike to turn into scrap metal.

It has gears in both front & back which gives her extra power on the downhill and an easier climbing experience and she’s been doing great!

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Canondale Street 20 for Andrew

Originally bought for Rachel back when we were road riding (she did a 25 mile ride with Sam at age 7), this bike has slicker tires and creates a more bent over body position when riding. It still does great off road, is light weight and Andrew totally rocks it. It has one chain ring in front, and then 5 gears in back to give him more power without overwhelming him. Rachel can still toast him with her 21 speed, but he does a good job keeping up.

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Bootscoot or Strider Bike for Cara

This little strider bike has made it through all 3 of our kids. When we bought it for Rachel at least 7 years ago, strider bikes were a new thing and have come a long way since then. Since this was still working , we never felt the need to upgrade but some of them now come with a foot rest (for encouraging kids to pick up their feet) and even a hand brake. Oh how Cara could use a hand brake! She’s taken so many spills on this just because she gets crazy fast and the tires start to wobble and then she goes head over heels! Good thing she’s a tough, little girl.

She started learning how to use this back in Virginia (Sept 2013) and although she started out slow and cautious, it didn’t take her long to be cruising along at high speed. The idea behind striders is to teach kids balance without having to worry about pedaling. Once they get the balancing down (the hardest part about riding a bike!) they can easily switch over to a regular bike without needing training wheels.

She’s definitely ready for an upgrade, and I have an exciting announcement to make in a couple of weeks for what she gets to ride next. I’m extremely excited, because I know she’s totally going to rock it!

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Ride-aLong Bike for Cara

I already wrote an entire post about our Ride-aLong and how its great for riding longer distances as a family. While the strider is great for campground riding (or even mountain biking! Have you seen our YouTube video? Cara was amazing!), there’s no way she’d keep up riding 10 miles on pavement. With the Ride-aLong we definitely have more options as a family. When we upgrade Cara to a larger bike, we’ll probably still keep this around until she’s in at least a 20″ bike and can keep up easier.

Having more expensive bikes does have its risks (getting stolen for one thing) but we also mostly keep them mounted to the truck with the Yakima system and so far haven’t had much trouble. The benefits and opportunities are definitely worth the risk, and we carry insurance. 🙂

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Categories
Oregon

Crabbing on the Oregon Coast at Kelly’s Brighton Marina

Crabbing on the Oregon Coast

One of our greatest adventures to date was our during our visit to the Oregon Coast fall of 2014. We had heard great things about Kelly’s Brighton Marina and drove down one afternoon to check it out. Unfortunately, it was raining, the tide was high, and the awesome employee suggested we come back the next morning and try then as we’d have much better luck. So grateful he didn’t let us crab from the dock right then, because we came back the next day and had an amazing time!

When We Visited: October 23, 2014

Where We Went: Kelly’s Brighton Marina, Rockaway Beach, Oregon

Where We Stayed: Nehalem Bay State Park – although you can camp at the Marina we chose to stay nearby at the state park and it was amazing. Great beach & sand dunes, plus an awesome playground. Doesn’t get much better than that!

Ages of Kids: 9, 7, 4

Tips: Prep your kids beforehand what the crabs will look/act like and bring your own set of leather gloves. Also be prepared to get wet!

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Although we met Kelly himself, one of the other employees got us set up in the boat. The $100 rental fee included the boat, life jackets, crab pots, and bait for an hour out on the water. The employee demonstrated how to toss the pots in, explained how long to let them sit, and then how to reel them in quickly so the crabs didn’t get scared and scurry away. The whole process was quick and painless and then we were off!

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Sam and I took alternating turns driving/steering the boat and tossing the crab pots. The kids even got into it and tossed a few crab pots as well. Despite rain in the forecast, the weather that day turned out absolutely beautiful for a late October day on the Oregon Coast. It was a little windy, and we were definitely glad for our rain jackets, but the sun even poked out a few times and warmed us up a little.

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One thing we would have done differently is prepare our kids for what would happen AFTER we pulled the crab pot up full of crabs. One look at the swarming little crabs with their clacking claws and both the girls freaked out and started screaming! Sam and I were so excited we had actually caught something that it didn’t occur to us to just throw the pot back overboard until the girls calmed down, so we had a few frantic moments of trying to get them to calm down while not capsizing the boat and keeping all the crabs contained in one place.

You can only keep MALE crabs of a certain size, so we used the handy measuring stick tied to our bucket to check their size. If they were close we tossed them in the bucket just in case we didn’t catch anything bigger. All the smalls ones just got tossed back overboard. Poor crabs. I wonder if they get lost? Our kids got pretty good and distinguishing male from female, and unfortunately the biggest crab we caught was a female! Here’s our catch in the bottom of the bucket:

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We were such newbies that we didn’t even realize it would help the crabs to put water IN the bucket so they could still breathe. Oops. They were destined for the pot anyway:

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Although we caught probably close to 100 crabs, we ended up with 3 good sized ones to keep, and the cool part about the marina is that they’ll cook them right there for you to eat! It took about 20 minutes to boil them and then Sam had the opportunity to help clean them, and prep for eating!

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Then we got to feast! Lots of napkins, paper plates and some garlic powder were pretty much all we needed. Cara tried a little, but she’s a less adventurous eater than my other kids, so she was done after a few bites. Rachel & Andrew (especially Andrew) gobbled up crab as fast as they could crack open the legs and eat! We ate two and took the third home to consume later. We also purchased some chips and soda from the Marina and made lunch out of it.

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If you are looking for a fun family adventure and are headed to the Oregon Coast anytime soon, we definitely recommend stopping by Kelly’s Brighton Marina. He’ll take great care of you and you’ll have a great time!

If you haven’t seen it, check our YouTube video about our experience for more details and up close look at crabbing with kids!

Categories
Homeschool

10 Picture Books That Will Prep Your Kids For the Sonoran Desert

IMG_3912It’s no secret I’m obsessed with cactus, and turns out that obsession extends to the whole of the Sonoran Desert. I love how all the animals & plants have special adaptations to survive, and despite the original hostile seeming environment, the Sonoran desert is actually green & beautiful! This year, we even timed our travels well enough to see some of the cactus bloom! Be still my beating heart.

Through all our travels & adventures we discovered some great children’s picture books that helped all the information we were learning sink in so I thought I’d share with you guys some of our favorites! I’d like to report that I seriously research in advance the locations we travel too and come up with a list of books suitable for each region, but I don’t. This time around we were in the region long enough and just plain got lucky (and I really do love National Park Visitor Centers. That helps too!).

Ready? Here goes!

Desert Night, Desert Day by Anthony D. Fredericks & Kenneth J. Spengler – This is my absolute favorite, so maybe it is cheating that I put it first? I absolutely love the illustrations, and my kids love to search for the quail on each page, plus look for the clues as to which animal is next. Simple, elegant, and an easy read before bedtime read.

The Seed and the Giant Saguaro by Jennifer Ward & Mike K. Ranger – With repetitive, building verse, this book follows the life cycle of the Saguaro bloom from being picked up by a pack rat to soaking it’s seeds in the ground to grow into a new cacuts. Super cute, short, and an easy read!

Kissing Coyotes by Marcia Vaughan  Kenneth J. Spengler – We found this one at a local library after I asked the librarian to look up other books illustrated by Kenneth J. Spengler. Jack Rabbit is a bit of a braggart and tells the other animals of the desert that he can kiss the coyotes and get away without being eaten! A bit of a longer read, but Cara and I read it together at the laundromat one afternoon and she begged me to read it again.

How Jackrabbit Got His Very Long Ears by Heather Irbinskas & Kenneth J. Spengler – We saw this one at multiple National Park visitor centers and were elated to find it at the Grand County Library in Moab to check it out and really read it. Jackrabbit is a bit of a scoundrel and although he’s helping the Great Spirit lead desert animals to their new homes he’s not a very good listener. Another one illustrated by Kenneth Spengler, so its absolutely beautiful.

Josefina Javelina: A Hairy Tale by Susan Lowell and Bruce W. MacPherson – All Josefina wants is to be a ballerina in a big city, so she packs up to live with her cousin Angelina while auditioning for a role. Hilarious story, beautiful illustrations and my kids were all rooting for her to triumph over the evil Mr. Coyote. 

10 Favorite Books About the Sonoran Desert

Why Oh Why Are Deserts Dry? by Tish Rabe: We picked this one up back in the Mojave Desert, and have enjoyed it over and over for months. In true Cat and the Hat rhyming style, the book details the main deserts across the world (including Antarctica!) and is both educational and fun. Cara constantly tells me about the “watery place in the middle of the desert” aka an Oasis.

Life in the Slow Lane; A Desert Tortoise Tale by Conrad J. Storad & Nathaniel P. Jensen – Maybe because we are living life a bit in the slow lane, this book really tugged on my heart strings. We picked it up at the Visitor Center at Joshua Tree National Park. “Oh – It’s life in the slow lane The slow life for me! The tortoise’s way Is the best way to be!” Slow and simple I couldn’t agree more, although I’ll pass on eating the Prickly Pear!

Way Out in the Desert by T. J. Marsh – We saw the same literary pattern in one of our Halloween books last fall, but that didn’t make it any less enjoyable. We have this one as a boardbook in the car, and Cara is constantly asking Rachel or Andrew to read it to her. My favorite animal? Definitely the javelinas snoozing by the palo verde tree.

A Campfire For Cowboy Billy by Wendy K. Ulmer & Kenneth J. Spengler – A cute little boy pretends he’s a cowboy in a big city. He rides through the canyons (tall buildings), enters the Badlands (Central Park), and avoids the bandits (other kids on bikes). While not based in the desert, you can’t help but admire his imagination.

There Was a Coyote Who Swallowed a Flea by Jennifer Ward & Steve Gray – Cara keeps begging me to read this one over and over! It’s pretty long and based after the Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly, so very repetitive but also fun. I’m still impressed the coyote swallowed the cactus to go with the chile, to season the bird, to catch the snake…..