[00:00:00] Joe: Welcome everybody to the Live Ultralight podcast, powered by Outdoor Vitals. This podcast is all about inspiring you to get Outdoors. Showing you how to lighten your pack and build your confidence. So you can start living your life full of Adventure. I am Joe and I'm here today with a friend of mine lalanya, gosh, who is the host of a little podcast called the schooly Diaries. And this is a bit unusual as
[00:00:24] Joe: far as episodes are concerned because we do we do dabble in travel. Here at Outdoor Vitals just a little bit. We have a we have a travel pack that's coming out. Soon that was kickstarted a few months ago called the Cody. Well And so I figured I would, I would broaden it a little bit more. There's a lot of overlap between people who are interested in backpacking and people who are interested
[00:00:49] Joe: in travel and especially this type of travel. It's almost like set of lightning. Your pack, you're actually lightening your entire life in order to do what lalania does. So This is going to be all about, what it's like to live in a school bus, renovated school bus and travel around the US. So Alanya, welcome to the show.
[00:01:14] Llalania: Thanks for having me. This is really exciting. Bus life
[00:01:17] Joe: hashtag bus. Life. I've known you for a while. And I knew, when you guys were doing this, you guys were like, renovating this the stuff and I was following along with the with the podcast that you guys were putting out. And I was so jealous. I was living, I was living in a crappy apartment in Los Angeles. and, I was I was broke and all I was thinking about was like, oh
[00:01:47] Joe: man, wouldn't it be great if I could just Get a van and go travel like be outside of where I am right now and be able to go all hiking and all this other stuff just by like driving to the location. Maybe I can. I remember I was thinking like ways of working remotely like maybe I could teach English online or something like that. So, so deeply jealous of it and I
[00:02:11] Joe: did eventually, of course, have an experience of being able to live in my car, for three months, which was a great experience. We won't delve too much into what I've I've done, but I was like upset with Van life and bus life. There's a lot of overlap and I was just watching tons of YouTube videos about how people were doing it or where people were going when they were out there. A
[00:02:36] Joe: very cool to me the lifestyle. So tell me. When did you come across? This stuff, this lifestyle.
[00:02:36] Llalania: Oh, it was a long time ago. I can't even
[00:02:47] Llalania: remember exactly. When I know I was kind of obsessed with the Tumbleweed tiny homes which are basically actual wooden homes built on travel trailers but they cost like 50,000 dollars probably 10 years ago. And then you have to buy a car to actually pull it. So it was just kind of a dream that I was never going to realize and then I saw a Blog by a college student who was an
[00:03:12] Llalania: architect major, and for his thesis, he built a school bus, it was Hank, bought a boss and he did it for 10,000 dollars. We can do this.
[00:03:23] Joe: Oh he build a house out of school bus.
[00:03:26] Llalania: Well, he built a school. He essentially, it blacked, a lot of the niceties, but he did travel the country in it, and it was very inspiring to see him do that. I'm like, well, we can do that.
[00:03:38] Joe: So how like, how long? From the German nation of this idea, to you guys actually purchasing a bus.
[00:03:47] Llalania: Several years, my husband ironically was not on board with it. It. I just kept bringing it up and bringing it up and bringing it up, and bringing it up some more, and eventually, As he normally does he just one day went? Yeah, let's go ahead and do this. What would it take to do this? How much would it cost to give me, you know, a budget and what you think? It's gonna
[00:04:09] Llalania: take and how long you think it's gonna take? And let's go ahead and do it and I got real excited
[00:04:14] Joe: and you guys are from New Hampshire, right?
[00:04:14] Llalania: Yes. Yeah, and you
[00:04:19] Llalania: face that in Hampshire and
[00:04:21] Joe: how long were you living in that house in New Hampshire?
[00:04:24] Llalania: Oh, that's a good question. Let's see, even traveling for two years 12 years.
[00:04:31] Joe: All right. So you spent a good amount of time and solid home?
[00:04:35] Llalania: Yeah. Yeah we were home. I've probably lived in that house longer than I've lived in any single location in my life.
[00:04:40] Joe: Was it? What? What do you more? What was it kind of that? Was it the Was it the traveling that excited you or was it the idea of like, simplifying your life, at least in terms of materials?
[00:04:58] Llalania: Oh travel 100% travel there. Like there's so much means I want
[00:05:03] Llalania: to see in the world. Yeah. And well it had everything I wanted. I love going and seeing new places I hate staying in hotel rooms or anywhere. Really. I can't sleep in a new place for a couple of days. so every time we go somewhere like when we went to Japan, one year, We were there for seven days and I think I couldn't sleep for four of those days. Very well. It
[00:05:26] Llalania: always ruins a vacation and then you got to find a place to the dog to stay. You've got to get somebody to take care of the cat for you. If it's during the winter you have somebody come and check on your pipes to make sure those haven't blown up. You know, there's all this other stuff that's involved. It's very expensive. But with a school bus, or any type of RV trailer van,
[00:05:44] Llalania: you have your whole house with you. So the cats here, the dog's here. And I'm comfortable in this space. I've never had a problem sleeping in this bedroom. You know, I very familiar with it. So we just take her whole house with us. And it's great.
[00:05:59] Joe: So, tell us about the whole process of renovating the, the bus. Where did you? Why a bus and not a van. I'm also curious about that.
[00:06:08] Llalania: A van isn't big enough for us. You know, if I work 20 and single, I might be able to do a van but I'm 40 and married.
[00:06:18] Joe: What about a Chevy Aveo.
[00:06:21] Llalania: Oh, I'm not quite sure how big that is very, very tiny. I
[00:06:26] Joe: had many smaller though. So I had a junior mattress. Luckily, I'm a short guy at a junior mattress. That was like diagonally laid in the back.
[00:06:33] Llalania: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. He just gonna do. Yeah.
[00:06:42] Llalania: but let me see the process is Fairly involved. Now, I was very particular. I did a lot of research very much, a research oriented person. I did not go into this blind. I was getting into well ahead of time. I was well aware no major surprise this. I was very picky about the engine transmission combination, I wanted and all of that, and I chose a bus because it gave us a very,
[00:07:08] Llalania: very strong, very robust platform. They're relatively cheap to acquire Even with the price increase, due to his popularity, it's still much cheaper than a comparable RV would be, and it's built 10 times stronger than an RV. 100%. These things are really, really, really robust. So that's why we chose that, you know, I had the space we wanted for the price we wanted and customization was a huge draw as well. I can
[00:07:34] Llalania: build this anywhere. I need to, you know, it's all up to the individual. Do you want more couch, space? Do you want more storage space? Do you want a big bedroom or small bedroom shower? No shower, you get to make your own choices. And usually with RVs, unless you got this thing and start over, you can't do that.
[00:07:51] Joe: Right?
[00:07:51] Llalania: Yeah, you'd have to cut the RV. And those those things are not, they aren't yeah, they're not robust at all famous
[00:08:01] Llalania: people. They're not well belt. Sorry to say it. There are a few The air streams, pretty good and old. Wanderlodge is really good but then a wander Lodge is built on a bus chesty. So there you go.
[00:08:14] Joe: Have you ever seen the movie Lost in America?
[00:08:17] Llalania: I don't think so.
[00:08:18] Joe: Okay, it's great movie. Great comedy from the 1980s were a couple, like, sells everything they have and, and quits their jobs and and takes like a movie,
[00:08:29] Joe: it's an RV across and of course, it doesn't go well. But Taking RV from La, they get started, they get second Vegas, something horrible happens. And then they, they have to deal with the consequences. It's really, really great movie.
[00:08:43] Llalania: Yeah, I've got those stories.
[00:08:45] Joe: So, tell us about yeah, the rent the renovation process. Like I've been through the bus. It's pretty spectacular.
[00:08:56] Llalania: Oh well, thank you. I don't consider this to be one of the high-end builds very much mid-range. but, Yeah, it's robust. It's simple. Simple and strong. The process. How long did so?
[00:09:11] Llalania: It took me six months of way. Too hard work. I overworked myself making this bus. Oh my God, I really should have worked on. I man, my knees are never gonna be the same.
[00:09:25] Llalania: We? Purchased the bus from a place in Virginia. We had somebody Source it for us a bus conversion company, did that for us because we didn't want a New Hampshire bus. That was salted to death. And it rear engines are very rare in New Hampshire, you don't see them very often. So we had them by the bus for us, they gutted it for us, which is like two months, right off the
[00:09:47] Llalania: bat. They did the rust debate on the floor for us. That means you tear the entire floor out down to the metal, because there will be rust under there. Almost inevitably every once in a while, you get lucky but you have to take it all the way down to the metal. Fix any holes that are in it. Seal the whole thing back up, and then you can put your installation flooring on
[00:10:08] Llalania: top of that. So we have them do that for us. And we had them build the frames for the walls because we have a bathroom, and we have a shower, and they're on separate sides of the bus. So there's a hallway in the middle, and we have them build a frames for those because I can't frame to save my life. I've tried, it's a disaster. After that, we drove down to North
[00:10:31] Llalania: Carolina where they had their workshop and then we took us four days to drive back. And from there, it was mostly playing. We took, I had already figured out a basic layout on graph paper. You know, I cut out little pieces so the furniture that I thought we would need and I placed it all out and we had a pretty solid layout to begin with. It's very simple, very basic. I didn't
[00:10:55] Llalania: get fancy with it. No El counter tops or anything like that. Just essential hallway, bedroom shower, kitchen desk, living room area. Very basic, very easy. Didn't change it a lot. When we had the flooring empty, when there's nothing in the boss, we actually took out some painters tape, and we laid down where we thought everything would be in the bus to get an idea of the sizing of things, how wide the
[00:11:22] Llalania: hallway needs to be, you know, things like that to figure out, what kind of space we're working with. And from there, it was just a lot of putting things together. Have to take it one day at a time. If you look at the entire project, it's very easy to get overwhelmed. So you kind of have to take it one day at a time. The very first thing you need to do though
[00:11:43] Llalania: is Seal up your roof. Because if you've got leaks in your roof, you've got leaks and everything and that was a nightmare. The roof was pretty solid but the windows. Oh my God, the windows so many weeks in the windows Reset. All the windows. I would take the hose and spray the windows up down sideways to try to figure out where any holes were. Yeah.
[00:12:07] Llalania: All the leaks are they still leak but not on the outside. They leak where the gasket holds the window itself into the frame. And that's just old gaskets and I'm not going to replace them all. So you just patch them when appropriate and leave it be because these are all original windows. I did not replace any of the windows, we skinned two. So two were removed and covered over with metal so
[00:12:32] Llalania: that I could put it in the shower, I probably would have skin a couple more if I'd known they would never get used, but Hindsight, we weren't exactly sure where things were gonna go at the time. so, yeah, and from there, it's just a lot of a lot of woodwork A lot of woodwork I learned how to build cabinets. My mom taught me. So I put in everything in here is custom
[00:12:54] Llalania: builts. Custom cabinets with the drawers. the bed frame, you know, it's all custom stuff and a lot of it is Again, a lot of research and planning. A lot of trying to figure out. What are you going to use the bus for? What does your life look like? Do you like to read and play video games and go hiking every once in a while? Well then you're going to want to couch.
[00:13:17] Llalania: You're going to want to very comfortable inside somewhere where you can lay a lot you know. And Maybe somewhere to pack some stuff for hiking. See, a lot of people do very inspirational builds where they think, well, I'm going to go out. I'm going to do all the hiking and on the cook everything, and we're never going to stay in the house. We're just never gonna be in here, and they build
[00:13:39] Llalania: like, For a family of four, there's a love seat. sure, that's what you want to sell part of it. Build it to your life as is not the life, you hope you have. because, You know, anything from New Year's resolutions, you almost never get to the life. You really are aspiring to So, that's what we did. We have a big couch. We have a large desk that can double as kitchen, space
[00:14:08] Llalania: if needed. But we had to have a place where Siobhan could work, we had to have a place where the dog can sit, we had to have a place where we could lay on a rainy day where everybody was comfortable, you know. So we've got the couch and all four of us can fit on the couch. Another big thing was two forms of heat. Because you never know what's going to happen.
[00:14:26] Llalania: Always two forms of heat. Never rely on just a electrical never rely on. Just a diesel heater. Like something can break always have auxiliary forms of heat.
[00:14:38] Joe: What do you have
[00:14:39] Joe: anything else?
[00:14:39] Llalania: Oh we have wood stove. We have a diesel heater. We actually do have a heat pump so we have and we do have like an electrical space heater. So technically we have four.
[00:14:48] Joe: There you go. So you'll never be called.
[00:14:52] Llalania: Well. Yeah, yeah, we're never cold. California is a little weird though we couldn't use the wood stove in California. Any of the cities or towns? They will freak right out. If you use a wood stove, they just lose their minds about it. So it's pretty much just diesel heater. We use the diesel heater way more often than I thought we would I got it as an axillary form of heat, just in
[00:15:14] Llalania: case we needed it and we use it all the time. So much, so that I need to replace it and get a bigger gas tank.
[00:15:22] Joe: So I I do want to recommend your podcast again, the schooly Diaries. How do you spell school?
[00:15:22] Llalania: It's like, sko, l, i e, right?
[00:15:22] Joe: All right, the schooly Diaries where you can listen to like week by week as you guys were making the bus very in depth
[00:15:41] Joe: vary in depth. It's funny because like that was super in depth, but you guys, once he actually hit the road, we get like once a month. We get like a travel update.
[00:15:51] Llalania: Yeah, I literally have the recordings for the next one, and I really need to do it. I just haven't, I hate editing them. I hate it, I hate it, I hate. so, I hate editing. I don't know.
[00:16:06] Llalania: There's the editing and then there's uploading. So sometimes we don't always have internet. Yeah, so
[00:16:11] Joe: yeah, I have no idea right now.
[00:16:14] Joe: Well, tell us so I you started in New Hampshire. Where did you go from there?
[00:16:21] Llalania: Oh goodness. So we started in February of 2020 right before covid hit. so, we started going down the East Coast Cheval had a customer in New York. We had to see there's actually an RV park. Right in just outside of New York City, where you can sit there and look right at the Statue of Liberty. It's right there, it's crazy. Had to drive through New Jersey, though, which was horrifying, that was
[00:16:48] Llalania: rough. When there, yeah. It was bad. I thought the bus terrible. So much anxiety. Went down mostly down the East Coast, we were planting to get to first of all, we were running from the cold because February we had gotten very lucky. Our winter was very mild And not a lot of snow which was great when you're converting, and then we were booking it as far south as we could get as
[00:17:17] Llalania: fast as we could go. And then covid, hit everything. Shut down. And we got stuck in, I think it was North Carolina. Just outside of Charlotte. And we were there for six weeks. And then we had to go home because Siobhan's father, got covid. So then it was May and we booked it all the way back up again. And then from there, we went to New York and saw the Finger Lakes
[00:17:41] Llalania: which are as beautiful as people tell you. I was not prepared for to be that pretty. We did Niagara Falls and we stayed there for a couple of weeks. And we went and we visited where Shalom was raised, which was Iowa. We went to Illinois where I had grown up. and, They followed the Mississippi down. We Thanksgiving on the coast in Biloxi Mississippi. And then we proceeded to make our way through
[00:18:10] Llalania: Louisiana. I had never been to Louisiana, we went to New Orleans. I got to see the Bayou, and all of that great food, by the way, great, the less you can understand the person talking the better, the food. Yes. And we could understand about 25%, or whatever. Everybody said. Well like this, what's going to be amazing and it was, you know, any French
[00:18:36] Llalania: Squaw. There we go. That's it. Don't get you far. And then we went to Texas. I had never been to Texas before my life. We stayed in Houston for a couple of months and then parted around Texas to Texas is huge. Put it around there for a while. Got caught in the ice storm. Yay. And then,
[00:18:58] Joe: luckily started the Heat.
[00:19:01] Llalania: Yeah, well then we had three. Yeah. Yeah that would stove and Diesel heater man. They kept us alive because electricity was so, yeah, that was rough. We felt really bad because we were in a better place than most Texans worth at that point.
[00:19:19] Joe: Yeah, just like anything down there.
[00:19:21] Llalania: We can burn stuff. Yeah, there are not prepared for that at all not to mention. You know, you usually the heat pumps that they have. A lot of them are older and they can't go that low. Even if they had heat. It's just it was rough. It was rough. And then we ended our Texas tour in Big Bend National Park, which is where we got our America, the Beautiful passes for that
[00:19:43] Llalania: year. Which are still good.
[00:19:46] Joe: What are those? What are those America, the Beautiful past. This one?
[00:19:50] Llalania: you pay eighty dollars and it is good for I think you're a car or a family essentially and those are good for a year to get you in any national park. Any you get some discounts on campgrounds? I think or know. I think it's just the entry fee but it gives you access to all National parks national forests, any national Recreation areas and lands, it gives you a path to you. Just
[00:20:17] Llalania: get in for free, you waive your little card and you're good to go. Which paid for itself because I think we've gone to like 12 national parks and monuments last year.
[00:20:25] Joe: Nice. I just I just talked to a guy on this show would have been I guess two weeks before this episode comes out it was a guy who's been to like, 40 something National Park.
[00:20:41] Llalania: Yeah, that's a lot.
[00:20:42] Joe: Yeah, I mean 12 is a lot. Like I've here, I
[00:20:47] Joe: think I'm very small.
[00:20:50] Llalania: yeah, we sent to some of the larger Parks, but we've all been told a lot of little things that we just didn't even know until we searched the area or like, oh like, This is over here. You want to go see it? Then there's a golden spike over here. Like, oh yeah. Yeah, let's go to the golden spike. Why not? You have the past
[00:21:09] Joe: I've never had that.
[00:21:12] Llalania: You'd go to everything. It was actually really cool. We get to see the trains leave and they came back in. It was really, it sounds just like the movies. It's just like the movie I
[00:21:22] Llalania: which is so cool.
[00:21:24] Joe: My parents don't live that far from it. I mean, relatively, it's not that far and I just will, I've never gone. I've never gone once it's like out of the way. It's kind of out there but
[00:21:35] Llalania: it really is but we were just kind of in the area. So we're like, why not? Yeah, why not.
[00:21:41] Llalania: And there's like Companies, that makes Rockets. For, I don't know if it's I think it's mostly the military and partially now. So a lot of them like military rockets and we just passed that we had no idea. It was there. We just went home a different way and there's just this big building and then a bunch of Rocket pieces out front. So, of course, we stopped there and walk to the stuff
[00:22:06] Llalania: and I was really cool, too. I mean, sometimes you just don't know what's out there. So you go out there, that's not far from the Golden Spike. That was really cool.
[00:22:12] Joe: There's the Hill Air Force Base. That's pretty cool. Cool. Area to go through,
[00:22:18] Llalania: might have been that, you know, I have no idea. I'd have to, I'd have to go back more
[00:22:22] Joe: than just rockets at the Hill Air Force Base like like a huge airplane museum. Basically.
[00:22:28] Llalania: Yeah, there was somewhere that had that was an Albuquerque. I think the nuclear Museum that they had their they had all kinds of weird stuff like carried nuclear weapons and things like that was really cool too.
[00:22:40] Joe: It's fun to live vicariously through you guys. As you guys clearly clearly go through. Like the what is that app? What is that website is atlas obscura? I think
[00:22:48] Llalania: oh we totally do Outlaws 100% like one of the first things we go to a new place. Is there anything for us and scary here? And we've been out with scarf and some of its cool. Some of its Really cool. Like I think there was a snake Museum. And oh gosh, somewhere in New Mexico. Can't remember now. But we went to a snake Museum there, and that was really cool. I was
[00:23:13] Llalania: super hyped up for that. Of course, we have a magnet for it because we have magnify for every time
[00:23:17] Joe: after Texas. Where did you go?
[00:23:21] Llalania: Texas. Yeah, that was New Mexico. I had never been to Roswell, so we went to Roswell. And I stayed there for two weeks. I think because your mom had to go see his mom. And there's not really much out there in Roswell, not really worth the week. The Museum's kind of cool. And then it's just an entire week
[00:23:40] Llalania: flat desert with lots of dairy.
[00:23:42] Joe: See now usually Roswell and I think people in RVs. I immediately think there's a huge amount of people at RVs.
[00:23:48] Llalania: I mean there are a few.
[00:23:51] Joe: Yeah. Oh that's a yeah.
[00:23:55] Llalania: It's yeah well you don't know until you go you know it's something. It's a place that we both wanted to go. The museum is really cool. I highly recommend going to the museum that's really interesting. but the town says like, so I would stay too long. Albuquerque is really lovely. So, we did go to Albuquerque. And then we went to Gosh, I remember now. Arizona, we went to Arizona, saw the Petrified
[00:24:20] Llalania: Forest and then we stayed in Flagstaff like two weeks. I think which is beautiful in the summer. Hit White Sands saw Cloudcroft, which is like this little town way up on a mountain. And when it was like 90 degrees at the bottom of the mountain, it was like 65 in Cloudcroft. It was great. Nice, awesome.
[00:24:39] Llalania: So good to be up there. So hot And then we came up your way and we were in Salt Lake City. For two months. A long time
[00:24:51] Llalania: and we went. Yeah. Well We were here for running that game for you guys.
[00:24:56] Joe: Yeah, that's right. Thank you guys. That was a lot of fun. Um, yeah. We played
[00:25:00] Llalania: a lot of fun,
[00:25:01] Joe: but it's like like a custom. RPG or Dungeons & Dragons. Sort of a thing for those at home that are very confused. Sorry,
[00:25:11] Joe: yeah. Well Elena's husband. Sorry, I did the wrong a on that name. That's we
[00:25:20] Joe: call you a different nickname off the show, but Your husband set up this campaign. That was all. It was like Fallout themed and it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. I I've never played an RPG campaign that long before have gone. Like really?
[00:25:20] Llalania: Yeah,
[00:25:40] Joe: I've got like, Three. I guess I've done them on podcast. I've done a couple sessions and that's that's about it. They're always fun for me. But I never have been able to, like, have like a solid group that like keeps on going.
[00:25:53] Llalania: Yeah, it's a big commitment. It's kind of the big complaint everybody in the Table RPG group has is trying to get a bunch of adults together to play those games. Like it was so easy when we were in high school. You know?
[00:26:05] Joe: Yeah, I'm kind of man. I never played it in high school. I had I guess I had like friends of friends who played it. I always looked at them like they were the super nerds. Like I wasn't one
[00:26:17] Llalania: That's like yeah but Henry Cavill likes him too. Oh yeah, it got there for
[00:26:22] Llalania: the mainstream, which is awesome.
[00:26:23] Joe: Yeah, there you go.
[00:26:26] Llalania: I never really cared if it's cool or not. I Like It.
[00:26:29] Joe: Where did you? Where have you gone since then? I know you guys went to California.
[00:26:34] Llalania: We went to. Yellowstone. So I never been there. We spent a week. At Stone, it was not long enough. I definitely want to go back to Yellow. Yeah, we were all there during like the fires. So a lot of the smoke was in the area so when we went to the Grand Chiefs, it was more like the grand smoked ones. Oh no,
[00:26:55] Llalania: we were actually there, I think, two weeks before Gabby petito I believe. So that was always interesting. And then we went through Oregon. And then up through Washington, so I saw Spokane and then we stopped in Seattle. Which wow. It rains. A lot in Seattle. Holy moly. That's
[00:27:19] Joe: what they tell me. Oh,
[00:27:22] Llalania: apparently, it's from like set September until May is the rainy season. It's like, oh goodness. That's a long rainy season. And then we basically just went down the coast, we went down the Oregon coast, which is absolutely beautiful. I mean if you haven't been to the Oregon coast, do you need to go
[00:27:39] Joe: up into Washington or Oregon and Coast, really beautiful.
[00:27:44] Joe: Did you go down the PCT in California? Did you go through the middle of California?
[00:27:50] Llalania: We mostly stayed to the coastal area, we did not take Route 1.
[00:27:54] Joe: Oh that's what he that's the pacific restaurant. Pacific Coast Highway PCH
[00:28:01] Llalania: yeah, yeah the he's just called root 1. We did not because she almost a little too concerned about one being small. You know, and having less stuff. So it didn't go.
[00:28:14] Joe: I don't know, I'm sure it's set up for travelers. I'm pretty sure it is.
[00:28:18] Llalania: Yeah, I would imagine it would be but He's? I wouldn't say anxious is the right word, but it's close. He's a very. Thoroughly concerned person when it comes to possible, catastrophes and disasters. Like I built the bus to be able to Boondock in it right off the bat. And we did not bother boondocking for any length of time outside of like a day or two here, like, you know, a Walmart a
[00:28:48] Llalania: rest, stop a truck, stop Harvest toast, or something for a couple days, we didn't even bother to do that until this year. Is the first time we actually went boondocking for like hey let's go out for a week. We can do about a week on the water we have and then we have to go in and find a dump station and refill. but we can do a solid week two, if we have to
[00:29:08] Joe: Well if you ever
[00:29:08] Llalania: it never done that,
[00:29:09] Joe: I have not traveled, the PCH thoroughly, but what I used to do when I lived in La, I just used to if I ever had time and like enough gas money, and whatever to get to get over and drive to the PCH, I would just drive up there and like maybe go to the beach and we're going to hike or something like that. I'd go just, you know, I'd go past Malibu
[00:29:33] Joe: and just keep on going because your next, all these like in LA, you gotta pay for parking at the beaches. But once you get out of, once you get out of LA County, like, it's all free, like parking and state beaches, and it's just beautiful, and the mountains are next to it. And it is just like, it's
[00:29:50] Joe: amazing. It's a beautiful area, like, at least what I've seen, I've heard it just like, it's amazing the whole way. That's all I've heard about the PCA. So,
[00:29:57] Llalania: yeah, we were on parts of it here and there and it is beautiful. Like when you can stay really close to the coast, it's beautiful. We did hit Preston city, which was lovely. That had some really, really beautiful views. I mean just the whole Coast Is Beautiful. The sand gets softer. The farther, north you go, I will set up
[00:30:17] Joe: the farther north, really?
[00:30:18] Llalania: Yeah, Manzanita. Which is not that far from Portland as the crow flies. and, That was very soft sand. I went Barefoot there all the time. People looked at me like I was insane. I think it was November or something. October November I was running around Barefoot and they were just like, I'm like, I'm from New Hampshire. The water is always this cold. It's fine. It's like, I don't care. I'm just like
[00:30:47] Llalania: So yeah, the dog loved it too. Oh, all dogs. Love beaches. All dogs. Love beaches. Beautiful beach there. We stayed there for like two weeks. That will the worst leaks in the entire bus, but man, it was the beach. Every day, every time it stopped raining, we run to the beach It was really gorgeous there. So yeah, we basically just followed the ocean all the way down to San Francisco. So that's
[00:31:14] Llalania: the farthest South. I think we got on that side was San Francisco, which we had to park while outside of San Francisco. That's another place where he almost cannot park. It was really busy. Satan Pleasanton. It was beautiful. And then we got Pleasanton was Christmas. So we were in place in and San Francisco for Christmas. and then we basically had It back towards the desert, sort of we went to Bakersfield after
[00:31:43] Llalania: that. Because we needed a PM on the bus and Bakersfield was boring, I would not recommend it,
[00:31:48] Joe: I've been to Bakersfield a couple times.
[00:31:51] Llalania: It's a tiny little piece of the Midwest, it's just a little flat Farmland.
[00:31:56] Joe: It's the most. It's of the major cities in California. I think it's the most normal.
[00:32:02] Llalania: Oh, it's very normal. Yeah, so yeah. Just
[00:32:07] Llalania: Covid stuff was happening and man people in Bakersfield did not care.
[00:32:11] Joe: Yeah, yeah, done with it. I, of course, I, I'm here in Utah and there's a whole lot of a, whole lot of, let's say, California judgment. But I mean, every time I go over there, it's like it's just an California is quite normal outside of the two, major major. Yes,
[00:32:30] Joe: And I don't know. I love that state
[00:32:33] Llalania: for a couple years. I was beautiful state. Shame. The people running it,
[00:32:39] Joe: I'm not. Well, can't get it to that on this on this show.
[00:32:43] Llalania: They're good people. It's, it's just and the gas is so expensive. Oh my gosh.
[00:32:50] Joe: Yeah, yes, the yes. Is Right 50. Just crossing the border.
[00:32:56] Llalania: About fell out of my chair. Oh my God. But
[00:32:59] Joe: gotta go to the archives to see it. Gotta go to the Archos, you gotta use debit go to the Archos, they're cheaper. I
[00:33:09] Llalania: mean not not enough.
[00:33:11] Joe: Yeah. No. Not when you immediately crossed into Nevada and Arizona and you're like what happened? Why is it cheaper over here?
[00:33:18] Llalania: Oh, I feel like I've just I've gained money just crossing the border.
[00:33:24] Joe: It's true. It's true. But yeah. Anyway, so you've got and now you're you're back here.
[00:33:33] Llalania: Yeah, we went through Bakersfield, we did Joshua Tree which was
[00:33:38] Llalania: so fun for reasons. I had no idea. It's still wrong, man, it's cool.
[00:33:44] Llalania: So much bouldering. We did so much bouldering. It's
[00:33:46] Joe: cool. I have like some of my favorite photos I've ever taken. I've been in Joshua Tree. It's like it's impossible. Not to think like a good photo Joshua tree, right?
[00:33:54] Joe: Because the environment is so bizarre. Um, really cool spot.
[00:34:02] Llalania: It's really cool. I would highly recommend going there with Wolves. Gloves. What
[00:34:06] Llalania: did you man? Those Bouldering lots of rock climbing. We climbed all, but like anything we could climb, we were all over. It was like an adult Jungle Gym. It was so much fun.
[00:34:16] Joe: That's a good way to describe. Yeah,
[00:34:18] Joe: good show and Joshua
[00:34:20] Llalania: Tree. We realized that Coachella was a real place. Oh,
[00:34:23] Llalania: we had no idea. I, Yeah.
[00:34:31] Llalania: Well, you just don't know. They're all these things that we didn't realize were real places until we traveled to like, oh my gosh, coachella's a real place because, you know, we looked at it like Lollapalooza. Like, it's just a name. Somebody gave us Festival. I heard was named after real place.
[00:34:44] Joe: I heard about Joshua tree for years. One of the things about Joshua tree is like, that's a place where, like, a lot of people do put up, like, tiny homes and stuff because it's like, One of the most like d Ray. As far as like home building one of the most deregulated areas of California liked by a lot like way more weigh less regulations that there is like here. Like I can't
[00:35:02] Joe: just go out and build the tiny home of the desert leave it. But apparently near Joshua Tree not in Joshua Tree but near Joshua tree. Oh yeah,
[00:35:09] Joe: you do that and like something like rock stars have like these crazy homes out there and stuff like that. You gotta get through on a dirt road and that's really interesting. It's like I utter chaos out there. Yeah,
[00:35:22] Joe: but your hippies great. Great area for hippies, is the job, the surrounding area of Joshua Tree
[00:35:29] Llalania: Yeah, it warms my libertarian soul.
[00:35:34] Joe: I yeah, I love that area so much. I want to go back to it like right now, like I
[00:35:41] Llalania: Yeah, I have a real weak spot for just the Mojave Desert in general. Probably because of Fallout. Frankly, you know what? To know how many times I said, you know, how many times like voted fall?
[00:35:54] Joe: Here's the thing that I was surprised by to my entire life. I was wondering about like, why is this the Great Basin Desert? Why is that the Mojave Desert? Oh, Colorado Plateau. I don't know if that's the dad but whatever it is. Yeah.
[00:36:10] Joe: Um, what I, it was that Joshua tree that a red one of the plaques and what it said was was that it's just the, it's just the Flora and Fauna that differentiate the deserts, and I was like, what? That's it. So, it really just, what girls, there is just one big desert, like, what scientist or geographer decided, these were different deserts, like, it's just one big desert and yet,
[00:36:33] Llalania: and the same question because, you know, we went through Big Ben, which was my first like real desert, you know, I never really been put desert before I bet the Colorado briefly, but didn't count. and I'm like, seeing all of these. I learned a lot of the different plants. I'm finding that in the desert. It's a lot easier to recognize plant life. I think because it just has less than life. and
[00:36:57] Llalania: they're easier to differentiate the very slight differences because well, I mean, what are they called? There's chaleya and there's like, 10 different kinds of choya, but they're all show you to start with. So it's very easy to differentiate them. So I was seeing like things that I had seen in Big Bend but I was seeing it in Joshua Tree in the Mojave, you know, and the Sonoran Desert and I'm like What's
[00:37:23] Llalania: the difference? And yeah, the exact same thing like I couldn't figure it out until black and Josh was like oh that's the difference. That's a terrible difference. That was a good idea.
[00:37:34] Joe: Just call it like the Great West us deserters of the same. It's just a big dry area. Huge, yeah.
[00:37:41] Llalania: Well, they're like four main deserts and even in those they have like sub groupings of deserts
[00:37:46] Joe: like, oh my God. Why? I thought it was cool. I just learned something like that. Should have been totally obvious by entire life when I was. Yeah. Oh,
[00:37:56] Joe: of course. That's why. This is the Mojave Desert. It's not because of, like precipitation
[00:38:00] Llalania: just to a trace. Okay.
[00:38:02] Joe: Yeah. There you go
[00:38:04] Llalania: almost entirely because of the Joshua trees
[00:38:06] Joe: and that's in that area with the crazy like Cactus field.
[00:38:10] Llalania: Yeah. That's the tree has the choice. The Big Choice, you feel.
[00:38:15] Joe: Yeah, that was awesome. Great pictures.
[00:38:17] Llalania: I think that was the teddy bear Trulia.
[00:38:20] Joe: Great. Great pictures there. I also found a when I went there where there was a, there was a desert tortoise crossing the road. Oh,
[00:38:28] Joe: that was that was one of the highlights of my entire life. I think it's actually seeing a desert tortoise. in the wildish, I know there's a road going through it, but it's crossing the road and then like just like standing next to the tortoise as it was crossing the road so that people wouldn't run it over. That was. That's cool. It's cool seeing that tortoise just like Chilling.
[00:38:52] Llalania: Yeah. Just I had a Hate the closest stuff. Come to Desert wildlife. It was very exciting. Was the coyote that almost crossed the road in front of the bus. I think it was a young coyote, I almost said it. It looks so surprised to see me there and I'm like you're crossing a highway here, my friend. So that was really exciting.
[00:39:15] Joe: I've seen a coyote once in my life and it was in it was like just above Salt Lake City. There's like a, there's the Bonneville trail that crosses into Salt Lake City and
[00:39:26] Joe: there's like an like I did like a eight mile section that went from like North Salt Lake into Salt Lake but went over the mountain, basically, and that thing scared the crap out of me. It like came out of the bushes and like ran past me and I I was terrified and then I had also seen all these signs up there saying like beware of bears and stuff like that had no
[00:39:48] Joe: idea that they are just above the Salt Lake. Just above Salt Lake was so Wildlife, heavy, but as the only time, I've heard Coyote's a lot. I've never, I've never seen one and it was just one too, and I know they're in packs so that I was like, looking around like Is today. Yeah, I if I'm not in a group if I'm just hiking alone I become like a I just become
[00:40:14] Joe: a baby up in the mountains when I see.
[00:40:16] Llalania: I mean, you know, they're big but just love to eat
[00:40:20] Joe: and then I start just making lots of noise because that's what you told to do. You know, annoy him. Oh, go away. Basically. Yeah, so
[00:40:33] Joe: if you could give me like a top, What are your top three places that you've been to?
[00:40:42] Llalania: Finger Lakes. Big band. Yellowstone. Solitude definitely. Yeah.
[00:40:51] Joe: Um, and for anybody out there like what what do you have to be ready for to live this lifestyle? Like who would you recommend it to and who would you recommend it not to Would you not recommend it to?
[00:41:08] Llalania: In order to enjoy this lifestyle, you have to be able to live with less. You have to be very flexible and changing your plans and having a little money in the bank isn't going to hurt either. Because things go wrong. They cost money. They're expensive. About. New Jersey when we were there, we ran out of diesel. That's when I found out that the gas gauge on the bus, does not work which
[00:41:37] Llalania: I should have known because that's happened was like half of the cars I've owned.
[00:41:41] Joe: I've got a curse
[00:41:42] Llalania: and that costs us about a thousand dollars. Not to fix. It was the toe getting it towed to a place. That could fix it. Getting it fixed was like 100 bucks. Have the guy reprime thing because a gasket on the gas filter was bad. But the toe was like, 800 dollars. so,
[00:42:03] Llalania: this cost money, it's really expensive. Honestly, I would recommend it to anybody. One of the biggest things I hear out here is. Oh, wow, man, you're living the dream and Trauma. Here's the same thing every time people ask him about it when he's on, you know, meetings and stuff like oh where are you guys now? Oh man, I wish I could do that. You can do it. You just have to decide
[00:42:26] Llalania: to do it. And do the work. And it's it's kind of scary because you're On your ungluing, yourself from the life. You've always lived. It's kind of a big leap but I think anybody who does a little bit of research knows that they're getting into can do this. Live. This lifestyle. We stay in RV parks, most of the time. And that costs about the same as our mortgage and if we want
[00:42:53] Llalania: to save money we can Boondock and it costs so much less. The technology is there to make this easy. You've got hot spots, you've got solar panels, we've got lithium batteries. we've got, you know, Rechargeable everything. Now, you know, lights and walkie-talkies, and iPads and phones. Everything has a battery now, it's the easiest time ever to live. This lifestyle, you just have to get out of your comfort zone and do it.
[00:43:25] Llalania: You just do. And and that's that's the hardest part is just realizing something that helps revolve again because he gets really worried about Possibility of disaster. Is he asked himself? There were crazy. People back in the 1800s, Crossing this country with like a couple of horses. And they would make it you know these people that would do this stuff especially early car trips that people would take back when the car was
[00:43:53] Llalania: very very young in the teams. People do these crazy things like driving across Russia driving across the US when they weren't even a Rhodes. Made it, they did it. You know, if they could make it, we can make it. Easy world. That has everything we could possibly need. Not that far away with the very civilized world, most of the US is set up for travel. You just take basic precautions and you
[00:44:17] Llalania: can do it, you know, if this is a dream do it, there's never been a better time. It's actually post covid with remote work being so available to a lot of people and there's no better time to do this. And it's 100% worth it.
[00:44:34] Joe: Well, there you go, guys. Thank you so much for coming on to the show. Please feel free to send us your comments. Questions about backpacking or travel cool outdoor stories or ideas for future episode topics. If we think it'll bring value to our audience, we'll read it on the show and you send those by commenting on our live, ultralife podcast YouTube channel, or you can, or you can send us an email
[00:44:58] Joe: at live ultralife. Podcast at gmail.com, guys. Remember to send in your iTunes reviews, we'll read those on the show. And please subscribe on. ITunes, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts and go check out the schooly Diaries. And once again, thank you for for coming on the show.
