planning – Globitrotter

Our soon to be home – FJ Cruiser

Last week we put together our soon to be home for 4-5 months this summer. The car is serviced, washed and all eager to go.

This is the car and the boxes we custom made for it. It is a bit of a hassle to get them in place. They have some sharp edges and are fairly heavy which makes it a workout to mount.

The drawers we usually use for our cool box, food, water and cooking stuff. This is what they look like in place.

In the images below you can see the front box which is basically a storage box with 2 compartments. These are great to store backpacks, camping gear and other things you don’t need if you are on the road. The second image shows what it looks like when the extensions are in place and it is all ready for sleeping. It might look short but we do actually fit straight lying down. Good thing none of us is very tall, then we might have had to get a different car.

It looks very clean and roomy right now but wait until we put all our stuff in there. The boxes are full and there is lots of things also on top of the boxes. Usually during the day we just fold the mattresses once without completely deflating them in order to make it easier to make the beds at night. This takes up a lot of space during the day but is all worth it when you just want to go to sleep.

Could you imaging living like this for a year or so? 😉

Car upgrade

Last summer we build two large boxes that can be mounted in our car and used as storage and a sleeping platform. During our holidays in August we slept most nights in the car and it worked out great. Our car is a Toyota FJ Cruiser which is not the longest car ever so we have to push the front seats forward in order to fit while sleeping. After moving the seats we have to extend the sleeping area with an extra board that is stored in one of the boxes while driving the car.

Since this car will soon be our home for a bit more than 4 months we decided to upgrade. Instead of having a separate board we attached it with hinges on the box itself so that is easily folds out. The boards are supported by smaller pieces also attached with hinges on the side of the box.

It works very well and we are happy with the successful upgrade. Why did we not do this from the beginning?? Next step is to mount the boxes in the car again and go for a test trip. 🙂

More 14ers

The other day I took out my Colorado’s Fourteeners book and was going to decide if we should bring the book on the trip or send it home first. As I started to read I got an urge to go hiking. Last August we did 10 14ers in 10 days. It was hard but fun and well worth it. Then we did not have much time since we wanted to go to Utah as well during our 4 week vacation. This time around we can spend more time in Colorado and either do more of them or maybe not so many in just a few days.

We started to discuss which peaks to do this year and the more we looked in the book and talked about it the more we wanted to do. Probably we will do at least another 10 this year. I am hoping to do La Blanca, Mt Sneffels and Longs Peak (in Rocky Mountain National Park). The rest we will see as we go along. All depending on weather I guess. Since we are bringing climbing gear this time we might attempt to climb a peak or two. We both like multi pitch climbing and it would add some variation to the hiking. Maybe we will also do a favourite or two from last year. I wouldn’t mind doing Wetterhorn or Handies Peak.

Hiking the valley up to Handies is beautiful with all the pretty flowers.

Conclusion: we are bringing the book.

Enjoying research

I like to be prepared when I travel. I don’t like fixed plans but I do like knowing what the possibilities are before I get there. For this trip which will be very long and going through several countries I will not be able to read about everything before we go. I will have to do research on the way as well. Good thing though is that we have already been to most countries on the list and know more or less what we want to do. Then it is always exciting to see what really will happen once we are out there. Plans are made to be changed, no?

This time is the best time of year in Phoenix when it is warm but not too hot to be outside. I take advantage of this and enjoy the pool and a fixed place to stay before we are off on our year long camping trip. A better place to do some reading is hard to find.

Getting in shape

While planning for a year long hiking and climbing trip I felt the need to get in the best possible physical shape in the little time we have left before we go. Last year before our 4 week long tour of Colorado and Utah we completed 60 days of Insanity! (very insane interval training) and it turned out it was really worth it. We had no problems hiking 10 14ers (mountains higher than 14000 feet or 4250 m) in 10 days. Maybe we will not do that the first week of our trip but I do think we will benefit from being in shape from the very start.

So, I have worked out a great plan. This time it will be difficult to follow the Insanity schedule, which is 6 days a week, because we also have to do some climbing. Just adding that to Insanity would be too stressy and not very healthy since I am still working full time. Instead, the plan looks something like this:

Monday – indoor climbing

Tuesday – Insanity

Wednesday – indoor climbing

Thursday – Insanity

Friday – rest

Saturday – longer hike (at least half day) or Insanity

Sunday – indoor or outdoor climbing

I am not a professional but I think this could get us ready for what we want to do. Now comes just the problem of actually doing it. Work has a tendency of getting in the way sometimes but I am hoping for the best. At least I have now communicated my plan which makes it harder not to follow it. 🙂

Preparations for holiday

In two days we are finally off on our 4 week long vacation. Since we are at the moment residing in Arizona we thought it would be a good opportunity to see Colorado and Utah. I have been dreaming about going to the Rockies for many years. I actually bought a Lonely Planet Rocky Mountains in 1999 and now am finally going! Let’s hope also that the weather is on our side.

About a month ago we bought a car here since we noticed that we could not get to all the places we wanted to go without a high clearence 4 wheel drive. It was not difficult for us to agree on buying a used Toyota FJ Cruiser. We have been building some wooden storage boxes that also form a sleeping platform.

The plan is to camp out in the car and occasionally spend a night at a hotel. We will also try to make one or two multiday hikes and camp in the back country somewhere. In Colorado we would like to hike a few 14ers and in Utah there are a number of National Parks to see, like Arches, Canyonlands, Sion and Bryce. We will see how much the weather and time allows us to do. Somewhere in between all the mountains and National Parks we might visit Denver and do some city sightseeing.

This is me and the car at our camp site at Mogollon Rim a few weeks ago. We had a great view as we were just by the rim and we could watch the lightning in the valley below.