Clandestine Travels

first few flew bye

Take It Easy

Lounging on one of two queen sized beds, eating a salad of mixed greens, vegetable medley, and shitake sesame dressing, allowing myself to settle in only long enough to write this update, this is me.....right.....now. We made it to the Extended Stay in Sierra Vista, Arizona, just north of Bisbee, where we had originally wanted to stay. Due to a cheaper price, we settled on Sierra Vista, got to cut those corners when you can. We arrived a little after 9pm, local time, which was 8pm in California, but since Arizona doesn't honor Day Light Savings, half the year Arizona is an hour ahead of California. The drive today took a little more than 8 hours, with two stops for peeing and streching. The first day we stopped a lot, and we only went from Oakland to Redlands. I think we got our rhythm down a bit more. Tomorrow will be the real test, as we are waking up at 6am with the goal of crossing the border by 8am. This is to ensure we arrive to our beach town destination by nightfall as we don't want to drive in the dark.

Our first night was spent in Redlands with our good friend Joe and his siblings, and it was wonderful. To arrive to a warm house, fireplace all aglow, with a homecooked meal waiting for us, was just unbeatable. What a way to start our journey, to reconnect with a friend, play games, and be treated so kindly, we couldn't have asked for anything more. Our second night finds in us a less welcoming environment, but we are all happy to have plenty of outlets to charge all our devices, large beds to sleep in, and the chance to do a little reorganizing and packing before we venture into the unknown of Mexico.

For those of you interested, we are crossing over at Douglas/Agua Prieta, in case you want to check current conditions at the border tomorrow morning. After that, we are cruising down to Guaymas, or at least that is what we're shooting for. Hopefully, we will find a nice place to stay there and we can maybe have a day or two to relax a bit after a few long car days. It would be nice to swim in the ocean a bit and let the dogs have a car free day. We'll see how the town suits our needs.

I'll leave you with the prominent song from the trip so far. What else would you expect from a road trip but: The Eagles.

Sleep When You Die

The days are longer now, with nothing to do but wait. I am reminiscent of our last attempt of leaving the country via RV through Mexico and the waiting game that we played last time. I should be grateful that this wait should be done by Saturday morning, whereas last time, we waited for 5 weeks in New Mexico for a title to our RV that never came, only to find that when we crossed the border, we didn't need it anyways! Funny how screwy life is sometimes, or rather how silly you can feel when you make a plan. That being said, here is our plan for the next few days.

We will leave Saturday morning. Guess that's what happens. I wanted to leave this past Monday, December 10th and now it will be Saturday, December 15th. Ce la vie! Our first port of call will be the LA area for up to three visits. Hopefully we can link up with my sister and her husband who live in Irvine, Jahsiah's friend Nik, who is in Hollywood, and our friend Joe, out in Redlands. We're going to try to make it work to see them all, which shouldn't be too hard as we are hoping to leave at 9am at the latest on Saturday morning, which puts us in LA around 3pm that afternoon. Then after one last night in California, we will head East, to the Extended Stay America in Sierra Vista Arizona. Not the nicest digs, but the nicest that our modest budget will afford for a cohort of 3 people and 2 dogs. After our luxuorious night in Sierra Vista, we will drop South to the Border!!!!!!

Copper Canyon, Mexico

Crossing the border at the Douglas/Aguas Prieta, our first Mexican destination will be the beach town of Guaymas, along the Gulf of California. New waters for all 5 travelers. The drive from Douglas to Guaymas is about 6 hours, according to Google maps, so we will be crossing the border at 8am, at the latest, to ensure we arrive before dusk to Guaymas. From there, we have two objectives. The first is to make a journey inland to Copper Canyon, a canyon system in the Sierra Madre that overall is larger and at parts, deeper than the Grand Canyon. Other than this little stint, we will mostly be hugging the coast, so this will be our chance to see some non-beach terrain. Our second objective is reach Zihuatanejo to meet up with my sister and company, who will be celebrating her 30th birthday. Time is getting short with this objective happening, but I remain hopeful. The reason I had wanted to leave on December 10th was to ensure plenty of travel time to join up with my family. The reality is that we have been delayed a full week. I'm not sure how it will play out, but I won't let myself get down, not now.

I have already warned Jahsiah and Timmy that I will be a bit of a tyrant on the first few days of our trip, making sure we stick to early morning departures and early evening arrivals. We have the short days of winter working against us in terms of driving time and I want to make sure that the lackadaisical beach time is complimented by the ardent departing of the United States. I will be the annoying one waking people up at 6am on Monday morning. But really, what's a little early wake up when you have an adventure to take? My thoughts are: You can sleep when you die.

So that's the new GP. GP stands for Game Plan, in case you didn't know. Keep your fingers crossed that we get our good car news tomorrow, Friday, morning. That will be the deciding factor. We need positive thoughts now, in a big way.

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao Tzu

Slow Down Everyone, You're Moving too Fast

The past few days have brought some unsettling blows to our expected departure date of what was hoped to be this past Monday, December 10th, 2012. As it were, we are still in Oakland today, Wednesday, December 12th, and will most likely be here for another two days.

On Saturday night, we were at our good friend's house, having a little going away get together of sorts. Nothing crazy, just about a dozen friends, eating food and spending some time together before we go our separate ways for a while. Our friends live up in the hills of Oakland, not the super rich hills, but the hills nonetheless. I, Liz, decided to call it an early night, as Sunday was going to be a busy day, and I like to stay on point when getting ready for a trip. Around 1:00am, I declared it my bedtime, offered rides to anyone who needed or wanted one as I was the driver for the night, said goodbye to loved ones, expecting to be leaving in two days time, and walked out the front door. What did I discover? My car was gone. Stolen. And, it's not even really my car. You see, I had been car sitting for our friend while she is out of state. I've had the car since April, and never has a problem occurred, so you can see my aggravation that literally just as we are trying to leave the country, we now have this to deal with. What's more, is that since I am not the registered owner of the vehicle, it was a less than pleasant experience reporting the car stolen to Oakland Police Department. OPD can't report a car stolen by anyone other then registered owner, and the registered owner needs to be present to file the report. So at 4:30am, after waiting three and half hours for an officer to respond to the call, I was told there was nothing he could do, and that my best bet was to do what the dispatcher had told me at 1:00am, which was to have my friend get something in writing notarized, saying that I had her permission to drive the car. I had to take this notarized document to OPD on Sunday to file the report.

So, after a lot of tears, frustration, a lack of sleep, and a set back in travel preparations, not to mention a missed birthday party for a one year old, we found ourselves a little shaky Monday morning to get back on track to leave. There were still things to do! And a lot of them. So we began plugging along again, packing up every last thing, storing all the remaining important pieces of our lives, one more night with more friends and family, the dogs trip to the vet for Good Health Certificates, and then......more car trouble. Our Yukon had an engine light come on with the error code of cylinder 5 misfiring. Oh great.

What does it all mean? Is there a greater message in the events or are they random? When things go wrong, the first impulse is to find the underlying sign, the reason things are unfolding in this manner. But maybe there is no greater meaning, maybe it's all just chaos theory, like Jeff Goldblum so eloquently describes in Jurassic Park. We did our best to stay positive, to realize that if we couldn't handle some bumps in the road now, in the comfort of this place we've come to call home, how would we fair with difficulties on the road, of which there will be many. We forged ahead.

Silver lining: We took the car down to my good mechanic Stan, at 5th Street Garage, perhaps the most kind and honest mechanic the world has ever known. He hooked the car up to his little electric gadget that reads the computer chip in the car and surmised that the flaw is in the error code, not the cylinder itself. He reset it, told us to drive if for a day or two, bring it back and as long as the light hasn't come back on, we should be good to go. No charge for this service and mostly, peace of mind. So, we have two days to kill, even though we are ready to go and my thoughts are this, we've been moving too fast. OPD has an 80% recovery rate of stolen cars, so the good news is if we stay around for a few more days, I might get a phone call saying the car has been found, which is great for everyone involved. Also, some important mail has yet to arrive and while I can leave without it, I would rather be here for it. That being said, a few more days isn't the worst thing ever, just a reminder that things happen at their own speed, and you can't control the timing of everything. And if I can't learn that here and now, I'm doomed in Central America, where time has it's own agenda and won't care what I think or feel about it.

The theme song for today? Inaudible Melodies by Jack Johnson. This was a very important song for me in my early college years and I think it's fitting that it has been stuck in my head all morning, reminding me that this is not a race, this is life, and it's meant to be enjoyed, highs and lows, good times and bad. Relish in all of it, because as my good friend Benny so aptly put it once, "It's not always gonna be like this". The reason all of this is happening, is to make us slow down, take a breath, and leave here leisurely, completely ready, not rushed and panicked, hoping we remembered to do everything we wanted to. We have more time, and this is never really a bad thing, just a chance to make better use of the time you have been given.

Baby Steps....One at a Time....

Well, Liz here, November 12th, filling you in on a few things. We launched our Kickstarter 12 days ago and we have made some great progress! In the first 5 days, we reached 20% of our goal, which was so exciting! Things have slowed down a bit, I think elections really drained everyone's energy and that was one thing with timing we were worried about. But, with that mid-month paycheck just around the corner, I'm confident we are going to get another nice bump and I have no doubt that our awesome network of people will help us reach our goal!

Other developments with getting ready to leave involve the purchasing of our phone. I am the world's biggest sell out, since if you know me, I've preached nothing but hate speech about smart phones, and iPhones, in particular. While I didn't get an iPhone, I did get a smart phone. Trust me, I'm having all kinds of self-loathing and guilt from this purchase. It is necessary though in one regard, we want to stay in touch with people and the cheapest and easiest way to do so throughout Central America was to get a phone through a non-contract provider, so that we won't have a monthly bill or roaming fees like with AT&T or Verison, but when there is Wifi access, we will be able to Skype with folks! So, I bit the bullet and bought a smart phone. Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do in life, so that you can do things that you do want to do. Balance. Or whatever.

Also, we are pretty sure our two friends, Kat and Kelly, will be taking over mine and Jahsiah's apartment and inheriting most of our furniture and belongings. This news is very exciting as this way we don't have to worry about what to do with our stuff, we save time on donation runs and avoid the stress of completely moving out, and we know that this awesome spot we have inhabited for three years will stay in the family! We put a lot of energy into our vegetable garden, built a fence, turned the empty dirt plot that did exist into a nice hang out space with lots of food to eat and I would have hated to see it all fall into disarray. I'm happy to think that whatever the future holds, I can come back and visit this space to see it continue to transform. Too many wonderful cooking nights have taken place here, so the fact that I don't have to completely say goodbye warms my heart! Thank you Kat and Kelly!

Jahsiah and Timmy have been continuing to work construction with our friend Brandon, getting jobs done, making sure to tie up lose ends and leave things in a state of completion. I have been training my replacement at the Altarena Playhouse. Elaine is the new Box Office Manager and I couldn't be happier to have her taking over. All three of us are getting really excited about our approaching departure date. It looks like we are just about at the one month mark, December 10th is the date that pops up in my mind as when we will be ready!

We still have a lot of things to do to be ready to go. We also still have our wish list of items that are either needed, or desired, for the trip. Here is a combination list because my mind is too cluttered and stimulated from coffee to separate them out:

• Make curtains for the Yuka Frida (This is the name of our Yukon now). At points, one of us will be sleeping in the Yuka Frida, with the dogs. If you have ever slept in your car, you will know you sleep much better if you can hang curtains so that others are not so aware of the fact that you are sleeping in your car.
• Create screens for the windows of the Yuka Frida. For the purpose of the dogs being the car at night, or people, we need screens to allow cool air in but keep bugs out. I am having trouble invisioning how to attach these, crafty friends, any thoughts?
•  Get new tires. Our tires are in good shape but for the conditions we are likely to encounter, we need something brand new and tough. This is a big wish list item.
• Get a Platypus Water Filter, or some other type of filtration system. I hate buying plastic water bottles all throughout Central America as recycle programs are not readily available. We had a Platypus before and it was amazing!  I would love to have another, but they cost about $100, so come on Kickstarter!
• More SD cards. We have the cameras, although we are also looking into getting a GoPro, because they seem pretty bad ass. Either way, we want to have plenty of ways to record and document.
• Tie up lose ends. This is board, I realize, but it includes things like handling mail, informing banks of whereabouts, compiling an address book so that we can send mail along the way, all those little tasks of organizing life. This is my strong suit, but of course I won't do it till about three days prior to us leaving. I work well under pressure.

So, we are taking baby steps at getting ready. I suppose it is the calm before the storm. With good bye dinners and parties coming up, family visits and drinks with friends before we leave, time is flying by! It has been so much fun already, making our Kickstarter, sharing the news, researching places to stop, I'm already having a great time and we haven't even left yet!

Stay tuned for more updates as we prepare, and remember to bookmark this page so you can read our posts from the road!

The Gatos Out of the Bolsa!

Jahsiah, Timmy, Liz Costa Rica 2009

Well ladies and gentlemen, the time has come for the formal announcement: Liz, Jahsiah and Timmy are leaving in December to drive to Costa Rica. For some of you, this comes as old news. You've heard me or Jahsiah or both of us talking about this for years and you're thinking "Finally, they're going to stop talking about it and just do it!" For others, you may be shocked to find out that no, Costa Rica is not an island, yes, you can drive to it, and yes we are planning on doing just that.

We'll be leaving in December. We don't have an exact date yet but somehow, that's just the time it ended up being. I'll be finishing my job at the theater, ending my 3rd season with The Altarena Playhouse in November. Jahsiah will be finishing up with some construction work that he has been involved with. We are taking the dogs, which may seem crazy, but there is no way I would go without them, not after six years of being roommates and friends. We will be driving down in our 1999 GMC Yukon, packed to the brim with what we think we will need along the way.

This website will serve as our outlet to communicate with our friends and family along the way. Bookmark it, share it on Facebook or Twitter, put it on your smartphone (I'm not sure how that works since I don't have one), but find a way to keep this site handy so that we can stay connected. We plan on keeping it as up to date as possible, taking into consideration wifi accessibility along the way.

We will be camping and staying in hostels. We are eager and excited to link up with any contacts you might have along the way. Part of this journey is to create a network of family and friends throughout the U.S. and Central America. This journey is also about better understanding ourselves, creating art, and experiencing the land, and the culture.


Please feel free to give advice and travel tips. Ask us any questions you might have about what exactly we're doing and where we are going. And please, check out our Kickstarter Page and share it with anyone you know who would like to support us.

"The world is a book, those who do not travel, read only a page." --St. Augustine