I was happy to wake up to not a breath of wind. All was calm in the City of Rocks. The sun was warm too, setting itself up right behind the van, which heated me perfectly as I made breakfast. After I ate, I did some Pilates in the face of the sun, enjoying the…

The wind had not died down by morning. When the camp host came over to say hi while I was having breakfast, he warned me that it would be even windier today than it had been yesterday. Wow. Playing it safe, I took the bike off the roof so I wouldn’t have to worry about…

The “Pop! Pop-pop-pop!” could still be heard when morning came. Oil processing is obviously a 24/7 business. While I was waking up, a guy drove around the carpark very slowly in his white Mercedes sedan. Strange, because I’d seen him last night and waved to him, he was an older guy. I kept my curtains…

The sunrise behind the mountains I’d driven out of was beautiful and the sun immediately felt warm. I was glad that the cold nights weren’t a sure thing. I did a good half hour of pilates/stretching to ease my aching back and slightly tight legs, it did me good. I manouevered carefully out of camp,…

It was bloody cold in the morning! In denial, I donned shorts, sure it would soon heat up. I was up with the sun which is a pretty early start these days, but I was happy to get going. I saw the same ranger at the entrance station and I wished her a curt good…

I was out of Cracker Barrel as quick as possible and on to the nearby highway. I stopped at the first picnic area after catching up on some news through the BBC podcast. I’ve been out of it for weeks. Apparently the North Korean leader’s half brother was killed with a chemical weapon. Nice, thanks…

When I woke, the sun was making colours in the sky, but it was still backstage. I opened the door to my van and lay in bed, watching the day come to me. Having a bit of seclusion, I had a shower at the back of the van before breakfast. I left camp just before…

I didn’t feel any better in the morning, still down on myself for what had happened last night. I did the bathroom thing. I did the breakfast thing. I got down on my knees and had a good look under all four corners of the Astro, making sure everything looked ok and felt tight. Thankfully,…

Thanks to the time difference I was up at bloody 5am or something stupid, so I hung out in Walmart like a cool kid, did some shopping to kill some time then finally drove over to the post office. Thanks to my experience with various American institutions, I was apprehensive, assuming only the worst as…

The fly net helped, but the buggers still pecked away at my feet. They must know that your feet are the body parts at the furthest swatting distance. I had some bites the size of quarters and they itched bad. Apart from that, I’d been pretty comfortable, happy to be out in the forest after…