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Yes, yes. I’ve named my 2015 Subaru Forester, Subae. She IS my Subae. Without her, Violet and I wouldn’t get to travel the country and see the sites. To show her how much I love her, my mother and I (mostly my mother) built a bed for the back of her! It’s designed to fit in the 2/3-size bigger seat when it’s folded down. It stays in the back of my car all of the time because I’m too lazy to take it out, but I’m also really proud of it.

We just took an old memory foam mattress topper and cut two pieces down to the size of the platform, so it’s a thick mattress with some massage table sheets and a couple of fleece blankets. It’s too hot with all of that for the summer, but I do plan on taking it out to southern Colorado at the beginning of next month.

Here are some pictures of it without the mattress and everything.

The slats are from Ikea and were cut down to fit inside the base. The front legs are longer to reach the ground of the back of the Subae, and the back legs are just tall enough to make it (mostly) level. It’s easy to take apart and put back together, so I can take it out to get to my spare tire. I can also lift the back part up and get to it if need be. It’s pretty comfy, and the head of it just sits under the sun roof, so I have a skylight! Violet also got a new bed, because she needed something nice, too. 🙂

Hers is an inflatable pad made by a company called K9 Sport Sack with Klymit technology. I trust it will hold up to her pretty well. We’ll see in a couple of weeks! Overall, I am super happy with our sleeping arrangement for our trips. I still need to figure out some storage solutions, but we’ve got most everything worked out. I got a new seat cover for the back of the car so it will keep the hair off as much as possible, and I bought a DC vacuum for the car, too. We’re going to make it a home!

Violet and I took our first working roadtrip this past week! I’ve really wanted to travel the states with her and see the scenery our country has to offer, and I have been encouraged to just do it rather than wait for the perfect time. I bought a laptop tray that connects to my steering wheel, so I’d have a place to set my computer for work, and I upgraded my Sprint plan to the Unlimited Premium, which gave me a 100gb hotspot for $20/month. That also includes Amazon Prime, so win-win for me. I already had Prime, so I don’t get any additional benefit, but that basically makes the hotspot like $8/month or something. Anyway, I do need service to use it and that was a challenge for me since I wanted to stay on public lands. Not a lot of coverage out there! But I made it work by first stopping in a Walmart parking lot and doing some work on Thursday morning, then stopping at a rest area to do some work on Friday morning, then at a Target parking lot to do some work that afternoon. I also did a conference call in my car, which went well considering one of the participants knew I was on the road and one did not. So, how did it go?

 

 

We started the drive up on Wednesday night and stayed at a rest stop a little past Lubbock for about 2 hours, then drove on to a picnic area past Amarillo for about 2 hours. We made it to Trinidad for a quick stop at a Walmart, then took a scenic route on US 64 through Taos (beautiful little town, but spectacular drive through the mountains!!) and on to the Tres Piedras Ranger Station. There I talked with a gentleman who gave me directions to the camping area for my first night – it was in a meadow and it was being used by a bunch of cattle. We made it work but had to spend a lot of time in the car because of the cows and because of the wind – super windy in this state right now! We ate cheese roll-ups in the wind, then went inside because the cows were getting super close; the next morning, I knew I had to get some work done and we weren’t staying at that spot again, so we packed up and headed back to the rest area next to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. I wanted to get pictures and knew I had service in that area as it was close to Taos, but the restrooms were locked so that was a bummer. I did walk to the bridge, saw some bighorn sheep (?) on the way, then almost had a panic attack when I took the first step onto the bridge. Turns out, I’m scared of bridges! The height wasn’t the scary part, I just kept expecting the bridge to fall out from underneath me. So, I made it to the center of the bridge, snapped some pictures, hopped over to the other side and snapped some more pictures, and then got off the bridge as quickly as possible. I did a little work at the rest area, then drove on to Santa Fe.

 

 

I wanted to get Violet some snacks because she wasn’t eating her food on the trip (she does this routinely, no biggie), so I looked up a PetSmart in Santa Fe and stopped in for a toy and some freeze-dried chicken bites. I couldn’t find an easy place to grab a bite to eat with her in the car, so I just pulled over to a Target across the street and ran in for a few snacks. We sat in the car and ate snacks while waiting for a conference call to start; after the call, I looked up a campsite on the iOverlander app and found one not too far away and tucked into a canyon. It had one other person at the site, but they were far away from where we parked. They weren’t even there much while we were out there. We set up camp, I just laid the mattress out without even blowing it up, and we ate dinner watching the sunset over the mountains. I did some paintings while the sun was setting, too! It was so lovely, and one of the many reasons I wanted to do this. Violet did great, with only a few barking incidences when people started filling up the parking area and walking by and such. I just put her in the car to settle down for a bit, then she was good again! I got a little work done that didn’t require an Internet connection, then we cleaned up for the night and got in bed. The next morning, after a couple of cups of Copper Cow Coffee, we drove about a mile down the road to a primitive toilet, then stopped in a (closed) Dairy Queen’s parking lot to get directions to Carlsbad.

 

 

The drive to Carlsbad was slow going; I felt like we would never get to our destination, which was the Lincoln National Forest. I knew we wanted to stop at the ranger station, but they closed early for the day as they were not there when we arrived at 3PM. No matter, my iOverlander app got me to a camp spot in the “forest” and it was BEAUTIFUL! There were no other campsites directly around us and we were far enough off the road that you had to be looking for car to see us. There was a fire pit already built, but we didn’t use it. It was still too windy for all that. We sat outside and watched the sunset for a bit, then it got windy enough that I wanted to sit in the car to paint. I painted the sunset over the mountains, then we ate dinner and got ready for bed. I watched the sunset and the moonrise from the back of the Subie with Violet laying right next to me – it was literally what dreams are made of.

 

 

The whole experience was wonderful, but I’ve figured out a few things I am going to need to change. First, we need a better sleeping situation. I have an SUV mattress that only works if you don’t move around a lot, and when the weather is bad, we need a place to spread out, so the mattress may not work for us in the long run. I want to build a platform that goes across the trunk and the 2/3 seat side (where it would be laying down.) That would give us space to spread out. I’m also going to take a tent with us next time, so we have a “storage shed” while we sleep. The only thing that will stay in the car is the food and stuff we need for nighttime. I need a sun shelter so Violet can stay outside some during the day, and I need to get a few things for shading the car during the day, too. I also want to get a camp table – I picked up a $10 Ozark Trail chair on my way out of town, and now I need somewhere to set my food and camp stove, another thing I need to pick up. We need to get our morning and bedtime routines down, and we need to both get used to being outside at night! So, more lights are going to be necessary! Otherwise, we are definitely going to enjoy this style of living. We had so much fun and came home happy and tired. 😊

Over the weekend, my mother and I took our dogs out to the Lone Star Hiking Trail in east Texas – we actually did a part of the LSHT and a part of Little Lake Creek Loop (which is the “& more”.) I’ve been out on this trail a couple of times, and even got lost in this same area once before. Really, I was misplaced and naive about the amount of knowledge required to undertake a backpacking trip in a national forest. Since then, I’ve taken a navigation course and started using Gaia GPS to track  my routes. We even got misplaced at the beginning this time but were able to meet up with the trail pretty quickly thanks to our GPS app! All that said, this was still a learning experience for me.

First, it was wet and muddy and cold. The temps were in the mid-40s on Saturday, so we starting in long-sleeved shirts + fleece jackets. We wore those the entire day; we got drizzled on a little, but no serious rain. The challenge, though, was that over 50% of our trail was ankle-deep mud and water. My boots and socks were soaked through within 30 minutes of starting on Saturday morning, and they still aren’t dry on Tuesday. I’m not sure that I’ll EVER get all of the mud out of my boots! This also meant that it was a challenge to find dry places to sleep – we did find a decent area to camp, though it was surrounded by briars (I have some 3 dozen briar cuts on my legs and hands, plus they got my fancy sleeping quilt in one spot) and anywhere we tread for very long became muddy, so we couldn’t enter the tents very often for fear of sinking a few inches, and my tent would barely stay standing because the dirt was so loose. Even with all of this, though, it was a really fun trip.

This was my first backpacking trip with a campfire. Normally I’m in state parks where it isn’t allowed, but as long as there isn’t a burn ban, we’re okay out here. And as wet as it was, it was a pretty pitiful fire. We kept it going for a few hours and it gave us time to chat and wind down with the pups. I made broccoli, rice, and beef in my Keith Titanium Multifunctional Cooker – it turned out amazing, and it was great to have a hot dinner after a cold hike and before a cold night. We ended up in our tents by 6:30PM, as it was getting dark and we were exhausted and cold. I fell asleep within 30 minutes and slept like a rock until about 9:30 when some guys came down a logging road with their headlamps on. Violet did pretty well in the tent until about 4:45 in the morning when a stake came loose and the tent started collapsing on her side. Note to self: get some bigger stakes for loose soil.

The dogs has so much fun – Jack, my mom’s boxer, has never been backpacking or slept in a tent, so this was an entirely new experience for him. Violet has never been in a national forest (we’ve only done easy state parks so far), so this was the most wild place she was going to experience with me. She’s a delicate flower when it comes to her feet, but she stomped through the mud and water like it was her birthday. She rolled around in the leaves and dug holes in the leaves and dirt. They barked at strangers and growled at other dogs, but they overall did really great when it came to people passing us on the trail. Violet’s the worst about it, of course! The best part is how great they did on the scary parts – we had a couple of 6 to 8-feet deep ravines that had water in the bottom. They were steep, with minimal in the way of hand and footholds. But Violet must be part mountain goat because she climbs right down, scopes out the terrain, and heads straight up, giving me a little extra pull to claw my way up the other side. I was so freakin’ proud of her. Honestly, she amazes me every time I take her outdoors. We need to do it more, and that is one of my intentions for the year. We made it 6 miles on Saturday, then had an easy 1 mile hike out on Sunday. It was still wet and muddy, with us passing through some swampy areas and another deep ravine (this one had steps!)

The whole trip was such a blast. Mom and I will do this again, though I think we’re going to shoot for a less rainy season. I will take Violet out again at the latest in April, earliest in March. And we’re investing in a pair of waterproof boots after this venture! I love my Xero Shoes Daylite Hikers, but I would have killed for a pair of boots to keep my feet reasonably dry. Lessons learned!