April 2nd is one week away. That’s when Coyote Hawk takes us on our epic journey South to Portal, AZ to visit good friends then East on Interstate 10 all the way to New Orleans, visiting friends and family along the way. From there we’ll head North to Cincinnati before jumping on Interstate 80 and heading back home, again, visiting friends and family along the way. Keep on the lookout as I will post on this blog our adventures and discoveries along the way.

Let’s begin with a camper tour:

In the above image, you see the driver’s side of the camper. The bench my feet are on as well as the one I’m sitting on provides us with a lot of storage. This is good as we’ll need to bring clothing for 85 degrees and humidity in south texas as well as potential late spring blizzards along I-80.

The counter has a two-burner stove, a sink, and a small counter space. The drawer on the left holds our utensils and the cabinet below that is for our pots, pans, and dishes. Below that are the batteries and the other cabinet doors are the water pump and fuses.

On this side is the refrigerator with stickers on it. Above that is a shallow space for personal items. To the right of that is our pantry. Below that is a double-door cabinet for ellen’s clothes and below that is a similar cabinet for our shoes. The bed pulls out over the table to make it King-Size. We have to push it back each morning to access the table.

We’ve now spent 12 nights in her. Ellen has been it her 16 nights as she took her camping while I was in Florida on a photo workshop.

We’ve had her off-grid at White Tank Mountain Park, Lake Pleasant Regional Park, and McDowell Mountain Regional Park, all in the Maricopa county park system in the Phoenix area. We fill up the 20-gallon fresh water tank, run the hot water heater that holds six gallons and get our electricity from our solar panels.

We hooked her up to shore power once, at Patagonia Lake State Park in Southern Arizona, over Christmas last year. We also experimented with city water, bypassing the 20-gallon tank. Both systems worked great. Sadly, though, we did not blow out the outdoor shower well enough and ended up with a leak in the brass faucet system. Four-Wheel Camper sent us a replacement and it was just installed.

The other item we recently fixed, with the help of our brilliant friend Rod Horn, was the after-market backup camera. Ours disappeared when we took off the tailgate. Rod machined a bracket that goes over the license plate and he was able to attach the backup camera to it.  Works like a charm.

Coyote Hawk will get her first oil change on March 30th. Other than that, we should be ready to roll on April 2nd. For this trip, we decided to leave behind bikes and paddleboards as we will be spending a lot of time with friends, family and in cities,  visiting museums. We have menus ready to go and will spend the day or two before we leave grocery shopping and packing any last-minute items. We have lists and lists of lists.

Our mail is taken care of, our neighbors are watching the place and watering our plants. We don’t have any pets. I think we’re set!

I’m not sure what this Epic Adventure Blog is going to look like exactly so be patient and let’s see how it turns out together, shall we?

Thanks for reading!